Category: Miscellany

Om Malik nails it. the internet, as we have known it, has evolved from a quaint, quirky place to a social utopia, and then to an algorithmic reality. In this reality, the primary task of these platforms is not about idealism or even entertainment — it is about extracting as much revenue as possible from… Continue reading Social Internet Is Dead. Get Over It.

“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put… Continue reading The Glass Is Already Broken

It’s an admirable list, but I like the conclusion best at the end of the post. I’ll leave you with the one rule that captures all the rules. It comes from Epictetus: “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” Don’t talk about it, be about it. The whole point of Stoicism is what you do. It’s… Continue reading 50 (Short) Rules For Life From The Stoics

A wonderful personal essay By Jiayang Fan in the New Yorker. (There’s an audio version, too.) I found myself thinking at times that this is really a prose poem, then a lyrical narrative. Regardless of classification, if there is one, it is sad, poetic, lyrical and beautiful. Once upon a time there lived a woman… Continue reading A Mother’s Exchange for Her Daughter’s Future

A great video (and transcript) about time and, one of my favorite subjects, entropy. Entropy is how messy, how disorganized, how random a system is. When things are nice and neat and tidy, they are low entropy. When they’re all messy and all over the place, they’re high entropy. And there’s a natural tendency of… Continue reading How the Big Bang gave us time

Probably only amusing if you have an Apple Watch or other fitness tracker that sets physical goals, but I think these illustrations by Basic Apple Guy are pretty brilliant. If you like the sample below, check out part 1 and part 2 on the Basic Apple Guy website.

This struck a chord with me. Part of the very reason this blog exists at all is because I have a constant list of things I’d like to read and feeling unproductive that I postpone attending to so many of them. this means treating your “to read” pile like a river (a stream that flows… Continue reading Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket

A moving animated short film by Martin Smatana I discovered on Colossal. They are both made out of layers, which symbolize their age. The boy has many of these layers… he has all his life before him. But grandfather, on the other hand, has already lost most of his layers, and he has only few… Continue reading The Kite

Another fascinating article by Benedict Evans. “What is MrBeast and his hundred million subscribers in this – is he a star, a show, a showrunner or a network? ‘Yes’.” Benedict Evans MrBeast is pretty fascinating. The Lex Fridman Podcast had a great interview with him as well: MrBeast: Future of YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.… Continue reading Netflix, Shein and MrBeast

“Kan,” she said. “Laohu.” She put her hands down on the table and let go. A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees. I reached out… Continue reading Paper Menagerie