Society, trends, and the human experience.
One thing I didn’t get a chance to work into my post about the unexpected memory bomb triggered by my spice drawer was the tight, deep connection between smell and memory. I first learned about this relationship in college when I read A Natural History of the…
Here’s the Barbara Everett quote about “texts” which I could not find when I wrote my recent piece about literary criticism. From her review of Carpenter’s Auden biography in the LRB. My thanks to Sean Keilen for sending it to me. (Sean has a new book about Sh…
What Books Do You Find Hard to Complete?
We Must Create the Shit Machine. “I asked everyone I know at the BIG TECH HUMAN CENTIPEDE ROUNDTABLE, and we all agreed that UNCONTROLLABLE SHIT-RAIN IS USEFUL AND GREAT, and that EVERYONE WANTS IT.”
To teach students how to think, shut down the Wi-Fi, scramble the cell signal, and send them to weeklong retreats in the deep, dark woods
Jonathan Swift envisioned a large wooden contraption that would allow anyone to write brilliantly, sans “genius or study.” Sound familiar?
Stephen Hawking, brilliant and extraordinary, was spoken of with reverence and affection. Those who knew him have a dimmer view
Dwight Macdonald was famous for writing with a sneer. His criticism now reads less like erudition than compulsive, gleeful bullying
Watched vertically on a phone, the Chinese “micro-drama” — under two minutes — may be the defining art form of our era
Prophets of literary doom keep writing books about the death of reading. The genre refutes the thesis
Would an influential jeremiad against American literature’s devotion to emotional immaturity change writerly habits? Alas, no
Is all the hate for Rachel Cusk’s latest novel merely a misunderstanding of its genre, and the terms the book sets out for itself?
Nature rightly insists that we must learn from the tragedy of Jason Arday. Unfortunately the journal has learned the wrong lessons
The Atomphilosoph. In technologically driven catastrophes, Günther Anders saw cosmic arrogance — and also the need for a new moral code
Today's links How an AI moratorium can save AI bosses: If you can't impose switching costs, just eliminate the competition. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Flash Worms; This Film is Not Yet Rated; Libdem copyright sabotage; Religion…
The frontier Anthropic & OpenAI models are only ~4 months ahead of open models — at 5x the price. “Most organizations should ideally be using open models as the default for the majority of their work, according to [a report] from Mozilla…”
Yet more models
Last week ended with three mysterious figures, waiting for Case to get back to his hotel room.
AGI theology, Mormonism and Pre-Commodification
Well, in Emmy wins at least. And Netflix too!
Last year in Ireland, a bouncy castle infested with a “hypervirulent, multidrug-resistant pathogen” infected almost 50 children. Reality: always weirder than the weirdest sci-fi.
Why Mark Carney knew what an ancient philosopher did not.
An update from our Protocol Fiction SIG takes us under the hood of the emerging genre
Naomi Klein: “Extreme wealth has a deranging effect. It turns you into a supremacist.” Klein’s new book, End Times Fascism, written with Astra Taylor, is out today.
You can now get your copy of End Times Fascism – And the Fight For the Living World
Father Country I Do Love You sounds like a doozy of a new exhibition from photographer Taryn Simon. The project focuses on the life and work of an unnamed, retired FBI agent. From the NY Times: She Spent Years on a Giant Project About One Man. The Result Is Mo…
The Tube Computer was recently constructed from hundreds of 1950s vacuum tubes sourced from Eastern Europe. “The Tube Computer has a pleasant homely aroma from the hundreds of double triodes, all quietly burning off their dust.” It heats the room too.
What Thomas Jefferson knew.
For the 93rd year in a row or something like that I didn’t check the math, Tycho has released his sunrise set from Burning Man. I am not a Burning Man person but I always enjoy this set. See also a playlist of every 2026 Burning Man set on Soundcloud, currentl…
In the winter of 1988, Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay while visiting his in-laws in Las Vegas. He's been fending off critics ever since