Mushroom Cloud Over Manhattan: What Would Happen in the First Few Hours of Nuclear War
On the horror of a nuclear war, in logistical and terrifying detail
Masood Najar, the man behind Najar's
On the purveyor of the single best street food place in Oxford, and his hopes and dreams
There Are People Who Can See and Others Who Cannot Even Look
On a 19th-century Parisian photographer known as Nadar, and the illustrious persons he captured and brought to life
AI 2027
On two views of AI progress in the near-term future, as takeoff or slowdown. Both give some future shock.
Epistemic Learned Helplessness
On the value of epistemic learned helplessness, which is the idea that if you know both correct and incorrect arguments in some field will be equally convincing to you, you shouldn't trust any arguments at all!
Eleanor cross
On the twelve crosses erected by King Edward I, in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, along her funeral procession from the East Midlands to Westminster Abbey.
The Colors Of Her Coat
On the sheer divinity of ultramarine blue if you've never seen it before, and whether beauty jades us
Romantic Friends
On the sheer variety of romantic relationships, and how our friends determine almost everything about them
There Is Faith in Humor
On the vitality of humour and sorrow, in the vein of what Pullman has been talking about all these years
If the Reagan Airport crash was “waiting to happen,” why didn’t anyone stop it?
On organisational blindness and the problems with crisis prediction
Collections: Why Celebrimbor Fell but Boromir Conquered: the Moral Universe of Tolkien
On the similarities and differences between Celebrimbor and Boromir, in intent and action
Collections: How Gandalf Proved Mightiest: Spiritual Power in Tolkien
On Gandalf as the ultimate power in Middle-Earth, having conquered the Unseen world, which is mightier than the Seen
Rules for restaurant dining: the FT experts’ annotated guide
On semi-ironic rules and etiquette, all with a pinch of salt
Hockett's design features
On those features in language which might make it meaningful, or at least unique to humanity
The Truth about Atlantis
On where the myth of Atlantis came from, and a close reading of Plato's stories
The Difficulty In Dating Good Men
On dating, and the difficulty of finding people who actually ask you questions
What Can We Learn about Engineering and Innovation from Half a Century of the Game of Life Cellular Automaton?—Stephen Wolfram Writings
On cellular automata and complexity
We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It
On the scale and importance of the systems that surround us, and enable us to live far beyond what was possible a thousand, a hundred, fifty years ago
The value of technological progress
On the sheer enormity of what technological progress has provided for us, in myriad overlooked ways
Fans Are Better Than Tech at Organizing Information Online
On the perfection (and possible un-scalability) of AO3 tagging system
The Business Community Is Extraordinarily Stupid
On the stupidity of the US business committee in choosing Trump, who represents all things bad for business
I feel guilty for having an emotional affair. How do I continue in my long-term relationship?
On extra-marital attraction, and how to properly and sensibly deal with it. Surprisingly insightful.
Tokyo drift: what happens when a city stops being the future?
On guest workers, temporary residents, and tourists in Tokyo
Exercise: Planmaking, Surprise Anticipation, and 'Baba is You'
On the fallacy of thinking you can plan for stuff, through a video game
I Used to Teach Students. Now I Catch ChatGPT Cheats
On the problems with using AI as a student
This thing will fail
On the core of the postwar consensus, and technology as the cause of its demise
An explanation of evil in an organized world
On an explanation of the problem of evil: God cares more about fundamental particles than humans
Anora's American Dream
On Anora as an exploration of an American fairytale and its consequences, along with notions of femininity, and making the best of a bad deal. Really good.
Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the Roots of Frank Herbert's Dune
On the similarities between Lawrence of Arabia, and Paul Atreides, and where the inspirations came from
Gentleness and the artificial Other
On approaching AI with gentleness and curiosity, as an instance of an alien mind
How to feel bad and be wrong
On the attribute substitution heuristic, and methods for avoiding it, including admission of ignorance, and a philosophised and examined life
Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand?
On our slow loss of the skill of handwriting, and what it gave us
Why AI Progress Is Increasingly Invisible
On AI's progress as increasingly specialised and therefore not visible to laypeople
Never Forgive Them
On enshittification, poor UIs, the contempt of Big Tech, and the poison of the modern digital ecosystem
Lady Day
On the intersection of legal and folk dates, Christianity, the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the British financial year
Having a Kid Is Already Fucking Me Up and He Hasn't Even Been Born Yet
On knowing you'll be a completely diffeent peson
Jobs: In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work. You won't like their secret.
On sales and telemarketing, and what makes you memorable and/or despicable
Pity the middle-sized nations of the world
On the difficulty of being too big to be nimble but too small to have influence
Salt Spray
On the history of British naval power and its reflection of the national psychology
Reduced to a Lego Block
On the novel Mammoth, by Eva Baltasar, with a wonderful summary and a brilliant analysis, even if you haven't read it
The contest for the crown of cringe
On the embarrassment of the Windsors in 2024, culminating in the Prince Andrew spy scandal
From the archive: A trip on the new underground
On the opening of the new electrified City and South London Railway line
What's the biggest financial mistake you've ever made?
On reporters' financial mistakes over their careers. Illuminating!
This Christmas, humanity needs the audacity of hope
On the hope provided by the nativity story, and its resonance across the world in 2024
Occasional Paper: Four Hidden Species of Portuguese man-o'-war
On the Portugese Man-O'-War as a colonial organism
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
In the shadow of the state (2)
On how technology interacts with the state and influences societal trajectories, in comparison between the West and China
Manufacturing is a war now
On the necessity of manufacturing in war and the Chinese dominance of it
Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House
On the history and evolution of modern architecture from socialist roots against Beaux-Arts bourgeoisie
Were all slave societies brutal?
On the qualities of different slave-owning societies and how their treatment of slaves depended significantly on the type of work they had to do; e.g. labour-intensive crop farming led to worse slave treatment
A tale of two machines: Democrats need to stop shrinking the tent
On the trouble with Democrates
CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years
On what the CIA's actually been getting up to all this time
#196: What else is there?
On community cohesion and getting out of the house in difficult times
Why I Will Always Be Angry About Software Engineering
On software engineering as full of people who don't enjoy it, and who create little value, especially because of a lack of accountability
The Silurian Hypothesis: It was the Cephalopods
On the hypothesis of an ancient pre-human civilisation, and cephalopods as the most likely beings to have a rudimentary one
How gophers brought Mount St. Helens back to life in one day
On the impact of releasing gophers onto Mt St Helens for a single day after the eruption, and how the effects can still be seen today
Cheap ornament and status games
On the decline of ornamentation as due to artists' changing tastes, rather than those of the rich
IMG_0416
On the old iPhone 'send to Youtube' function, and the sheer variety of videos available
Francis Fukuyama: what Trump unleashed means for America
On the precise nature of the goals of Trump's second term, and what checks remain
Chi-Fi Tuning
On how Chinese audio tuning was strongly influenced by poverty and a lack of good hi-fi to be screeching and sharp.
Gwern Branwen
On a fascinating discussion with Gwern about his life, AI, and intelligence
On Millennial Snot
On the distinctively millennial tone of much online and political discourse. A bit excessive and extreme, but some funny and interesting points
Why Does Anyone Care About the Nobel Prize?
On the deeply impressive branding exercise of the Nobel, and the factors that came together for it to happen
How to write a book that 'transcends' commercial fiction
On the quality of many books as drawing from commercial, 'retail' fiction, subverting the elements that make them enjoyable, and being presented as literary
Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity
On the rapid rise of Christianity from 40-400AD, and potential reasons for it, including community sense, the characterisation of god, and increased rights for women
Character Amnesia in China
On forgetting Chinese characters as a growing problem in a digital world
Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks
On a physics-based limitation to brute-force solvers
What Makes Women Clean
On differing reactions to a dirty house, and the socialisation of women to clean
Why GOV.UK's Exit this Page component doesn't use the Escape key / Blog / beeps
On gov.uk's thoughtfulness in yet another area: providing a quick exit from their site for vulnerable people
On Being An Altruistic Parent
On everyday morality in parenthood, and the prioritisation of your own kids
Why do you love me?
On what people love us for, and whether that's the same as what we want to be loved for
Literacy is good or bad, perhaps
On the prevalent idea that reading is in decline, and what exactly that means
The real data wall is billions of years of evolution
On evolution and (epi)genetic information as a serious bit of optimisation that it will be hard to replicate via structures in neural networks
Sticky humans in a post-AGI world
On a human desire for interaction with another human (as a social creature) as a constraint on the embedding of AI into everything
Sometimes the Great Books can be boring
On Great Books and that they often have dry passages; and how we grow out of books
Life on the Grid (part 2)
On the importance of undiscovered frontiers, their modern paucity, and what the next ones might be
REVIEW: Science in Traditional China, by Joseph Needham
On China as a historical global force, and why it lost the crown to Europe in the 1800s, with conjectures about the effects of different philosophies of the world
REVIEW: The Real North Korea, by Andrei Lankov
On North Korean history, the building of the authoritarian state and why it survives, and where it might go next
REVIEW: Math from Three to Seven, by Alexander Zvonkin
On pedagody of the youth, and young kids as alien intelligences
FT readers and journalists share their favourite Lunch with the FT
On some of the best lunches over the years
Let's have a proper conversation about assisted dying
On euthanasia, with personal experience and warnings
Super-producer Jack Antonoff: ‘Don't make anything you wouldn't die for'
On Antonoff's collaborations and work
Why GB News is angrier than ever
On the current state of GB News as faltering, angry, and inchoate
The rise of frozen democracies is bad news
On weaker democracies as fragmented, frozen, and insinctively authoritarian
The inside story of the secret backchannel between the US and China
On the secret de-escalation negotiations between the US and China
Premodern Women Had Birth Control
On birth control and abortions in the ancient world and middle ages
How to Build a 50,000 Ton Forging Press
On American military aircraft design, forging presses, and the nature of manufacturing at scale
Beauty as the Original Solution to the Alignment Problem
On viewing beauty as an evolutionary answer to a complex evaluation problem, and applications to AI
The secular American university is worth keeping
On secularism, universities, and the source of self-worth
Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI
On human responses to AI, moving goalposts, and intelligence
Sorry Ted Chiang, humans aren't very original either
On creativity and the definition of art, contra Chiang
Your Book Review: Nine Lives
On a real-life jihadist double agent, and the plots he prevented
Your Book Review: The Complete Rhyming Dictionary and Poet's Craft Book (1936 Edition)
On the history of English poetry, from rhyming to free verse
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #71: The Ghost Ship That Didn't Carry Us
On having kids, difficult choices, and alternate lives
Matt Yglesias Considered As The Nietzschean Superman
On so-called master and slave morality
Throwing out things the kids have outgrown should be easy, right?
On nostalgia and kids' ephemera once it's been outgrown
Is There A Right To An Abortion?
On life, bodily autonomy, and the tricky question of the era
Pocket Histories of Interstellar Societies
On little capsules explaining sci-fi societies, and the CIA World Factbook
The Murdering Woodsman
On a linguistic shortcoming in describing pain, and the barriers it builds between us
We're not going to run out of new anatomy anytime soon
On the sheer amount and complexity of anatomy in every body
In Praise of Reference Books
On the joy of reference books and encyclopaedias to young childern
John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism
On the replacement of Marxism with liberalism
Your Book Review: Autobiography Of Yukichi Fukuzawa
On the hundred-year-old man who's been everywhere of Japan
Kamala Harris, Usha Vance, and the twice-born thrice-selected Indian American elite
On different generations of Indian Americans and the influence of the caste system
Space Exploration and the Transformation of Time
On the stretchiness of time and how important it is that we develop systems to account for variable rates across the Solar System
Cultural Stasis Produces Fewer Cheesy Relics like Rocky IV
On the production of au courant and immediately dated art as a sign of a healthy fast-paced culture
Just Silmaril Things
On the requirements of different modes of writing, and the difference between epics and novels
The friendliest social network you've never heard of
The friendliest social network you've never heard of
The Katsuification of Britain
On the origin of katsu curry and its dominance in modern British cuisine
Change blindness
On excessive focus on ephemeral trends and a blind spot to longer-term comparison. Specifically, on the rapidly shifting goalposts of AI capabilities
Run Deep: I Put a Toaster in the Dishwasher
On the problem of received ignorance and how to overcome it
Whither Tartaria?
On the apparent decline in architecture and conspiracy theories explaining it
Your Book Review: Two Arms and a Head
On paraplegia, and what would make your life not worth living. Infohazard and very very good.
The Bullroarer: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
On the bullroarer as omnipresent in primitive culture, and whether it was invented multiple times, or just once, and spread
Elites are mostly lazily well-intentioned
On luxury beliefs as those held by people who are insulated from the negative consequences of those beliefs
Good ideas don't need bayonets
On the idea that truth simply makes things better, and tends to win out in the long run
Why do people believe true things?
On the explanatory inversion of ignorance and poverty being the default, and truth, wealth, knowledge, and cooperation, as exceptionally fragile, improbable, and invaluable achievements
The Great Organism Theory of Evolution
On the theory of a single organism altering the trajectory of a species; I don't think it's true, but it's a nice idea
The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet
On the microbes that inhabit the crust, and life entwined with and creating the planet
Essay Club: A Defence of Heraldry by G. K. Chesterton
On "A Defence of Heraldry", and disenchantment with the world
A Defence of Heraldry
On heraldry and institutional pride as a key and missing component in democracy compared to monarchy or feudalism
No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley
On the difference between popular art and paradigm-shifting art
Culture Study Meets 'America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders'
On the nature of cheerleaders as powerful but constricted, objectified, and passive
Four Ages of the Olympic Ideal
On the Olympics through the ages, and a hopeful vision for the future
Your Trouble Asking Women Out Isn't Because Of Feminism, Asking People Out Is Just Scary
On modern pathologisation of the human condition, and how things are just sometimes hard
Is Abortion a "Losing Issue" for Republicans?
On public perceptions of abortion and how they are not represented among major parties
The Gods Must Be Crazy broke box-office records worldwide. The story behind it is even crazier.
On the creation of the movie, its humour, and its more problematic aspects, decades after it was made and released
Yes, we still have to work
On the idea of UBI and how it elides the reality that labour is still necessary to live
I Gave Myself a Month to Make One New Friend: What Happened
On making new friendships as an adult: a very funny piece about a very sad problem
On going off my antidepressants
On...depression? Meaningful and impenetrable at the same time.
YouGov polling: How accurate are online surveys vs. phone surveys?
On the difficulty of modern polling
Impossible Creatures, by Katherine Rundell
On Rundell's fiction and the qualities of her prose
Why haven't biologists cured cancer?
On the sheer difficulty of the recursively complex nondeterministic systems we call life
Maybe you need to have more fun
On fun, and spaces in which we are allowed to enjoy ourselves
A Brief History of "Sexual Objectification"
A Pratchettian take on objectification as treating people as things, not people
people hate children
On the persistent phenomenon that people tend to hate kids, for no other reason than they bear all the characteristics of kids
Rock beats scissors
On the consumer trend away from sharp spiky objects to smooth rounded ones, and what it says about customer psychology
Sherlock and House are to blame for the cult of Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk
On the asshole genius trope in fiction, and reflections of it in real life
Non-Parents Give Crappy Parenting Advice
On Chesterton's Fence regarding children, and how difficult it is to give good parenting advice
#184: Coming home
On perhaps the most valuable part about travel being the new perspective it gives you on your home
I did retail theft at an Apple Store
On the fictional emails on retail Macs, and the people who wrote them
Moral Luck
On moral luck, counterfactuals, and the question of what we can change or hold constant in counterfactuals
Tiktok LLM
On linguistics modified by algorithms and the percolation of tiktok speech into real life
Is 'The Boys' Secretly the Best Show on TV?
On the superhero deconstruction, authoritarianism, and the hard work of making the world a bit better
All my beautiful AI children
On grief tech, miscarriage, and AI generated baby faces
How Google is killing independent sites like ours
On SEO optimisation and the pollution of Search
Seeing Like A Network
On culture and communication as a network, and the effects of density on robustness, resilience, and diversity
Ideological Abuse, Busyness, and the Importance of Rest
On the importance of rest in letting ideas stew and new ones emerge
The Internet's Final Frontier: Remote Amazon Tribes
On what internet access has done to remote Amazonian tribes
What Apple's AI Tells Us: Experimental Models
On Apple's AI models and the debate between large generalists and small specialists
Engineering for Slow Internet
On broadband speeds in the Antarctic, and the sheer wilful blindness of tech developers to anyone who doesn't have the latest tech or the fastest broadband
On Transhumanism And Eugenics
On transhuman philosophy, and against the equation with eugenics
why BDSM can be surprisingly useful in linguistics
An ignobel-style experiment on pain exclamations in BDSM
Tokyo is the new Paris
On Tokyo's rise - a lovely piece of writing, but deeply America-centric: often, he's just describing a functioning metro system or a city centre that isn't a series of motorways.
This one weird trick could fix the British economy
On the PAF, a critical dataset holding back new ideas
The Good Hang Texting Taxonomy (Pt 1)
On a taxonomy of texting in different ways and situations
Development notes from xkcd's "Machine"
On xkcd's April Fool's this year, and how it was made
Faking William Morris, Generative Forgery, and the Erosion of Art History
On AI-generated prints and the ouroboros
What's It Like Being At a Gangbang? With Lucy Belmont
On Aella's birthday gangbang, which actually sounds like a lovely party lol
How to Craft a Eulogy When All You Want to Do Is Crawl in a Hole
On eulogies and how to write them
The accidental tyranny of user interfaces
On one of the things I hate most: badly-designed, infantilising, contemptuous UI (cf. Apple)
Making a living as a book author is as rare as being a billionaire
On how rare it is to be a successful writer
My Recent Divorce, and/or Dior Homme Intense
On a divorce and a perfume as mirror images
Don't sacrifice the wrong thing
On what is worth sacrificing for the things you find important
Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does
On systems around us, and what it means for a system to be working correctly
This is the best thing the Tories did in office
On gov.uk and why it has turned out to be a spectacular success
Sublimated Femininity
On Regan's inner conflicts with her perception of femininity and what she wants from her life
Interpersonal Entanglement
On the complexity of interpersonal relationships, and how they might be modified in a utopia
Strong Links vs Weak Links
On strong- and weak-link thinking, and its applicability in different scenarios
So you've built the best tablet, Apple. Show us why it matters
On Apple's tone-deaf iPad Pro ad, from a tech-positive standpoint
Nairobi to New York and back: the loneliness of the internationally educated elite
On students from poorer countries who attend elite universities, and the liminal spaces they inhabit as neither one or fully the other
#703: Link rot, glue pizza and cool girl shit
On the movie Her, and AI as a tool vs AI as a reminder of our mortality
Can You Read a Book in a Quarter of an Hour?
On Blinkist, book summarisation, and what we lose through brief notes
Friends' as the ideal community
On social integration, communes vs isolation vs neighbourhoods, and the lessons of Friends
Blurred Lines: Trans and Intersex Inclusion in Women's Sports
On the reasons we have gender-segregated sport, and the question of to what extent we should subdivide categories and classes in which we can label someone as the 'best' (specifically about trans and intersex people)
The Meaning of Suffering
On chronic pain and finding meaning in suffering. I disagree, of course, that existence should imply suffering, but very well written nonetheless
Fighting me and other survey results
On dynomight's survey results with some interesting correlations
Profile: The Far Out Initiative
On the problem of suffering and how we're just rationalising it as somehow "essential to the human experience"
Things I Learned By Spending Five Thousand Years In An Alternate Universe
On transferable skills from TTRPGs
The next ten billion years
On two alternative visions for the next ten billion years
The Next Ten Billion Years
On what the next ten billion could look like - hauntingly done
Against Tulip Subsidies
On the problem of universities which cost too much and jobs which don't require degrees; or, degree inflation
How to get 7th graders to smoke
On how difficult it is to change people, vs how competent we all think we are at it
A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?
On Lucy Letby and the potential massive miscarriage of justice when she was sentenced for life. May be blocked in the UK, use 1ft.io.
Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It
On fandom as created by the consumers, rather than the original creators. Not many new opinions, but collected in a nice way.
Sexism, Cheating, and Nightclubs: Inside the Dark Heart of Chess
On the culture of online chess
I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked
On the quality of China's booming EV manufacturers, and the innovation compared with relentless financialisation in the American and European markets
ttpd is not the mcu bffr
On criticism of Taylor Swift's music as often fundamentally misguided
#179: Beyond routines
On the common reverence of routines and how their lack of friction deprives our lives of colour and variety
The business of wallets
On wallets of all kinds, and how companies offering such products make money
The Watchmaker Analogy Argues, at Most, for Polytheism
On the watchmaker argument deriving the wrong conclusion: it's not that the universe was designed, but that the watch evolved
The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV
On modern-TV as slick and well-produced, but ultimately toothless and forgettable
Why Normal Music Reviews No Longer Make Sense for Taylor Swift
On Taylor Swift as less of an artist and more of a franchise director like Bob Iger, to the extent that any critiques of her music focusing on the music and not on the fans is incomplete
Vico's Singularity
On the complexity of man-made systems, our incorrect intuition that we should be able to understand what we create, and the mappings between AI and gods and demons of the past as expressions of parts of the human psyche
Viva la Library!
On the value of libraries as bulwarks of long-term memory and high-quality information. Sometimes a little trite and unsubtle in its railing against the digital world, and zero consideration of accessibility for disabled people or those of lower socioeconomic background, and in particular the classic boomer malady of being unable to concentrate, but interesting bits on how we can still ask librarians for help, and the value of deeper research
Heat Death of the Internet
On the slow deterioration of the internet, as told through a series of darkly comedic vignettes
The Beautiful Dissociation of the Japanese Language
On quirks of the Japanese language that enrich it, including furigana as modifiers
Europeans have more time, Americans more money. Which is better?
On European time vs American money
The lesson of Biden's transformational first term
On the true markers of statecraft and Biden's sheer volume of output
The central object of your disgust over these past several weeks has not been external.
On hatereads and symptoms of just getting older
Local-first software
On local, fast, and private software, and analysis of current capabilities
Why You've Never Been In A Plane Crash
On aerospace blame culture, and the sheer safety it promotes
The biggest little guy
On the novel discovery of a centimetre-wide bacterium, and serendipity in modern science
Television: one of the most audacious pranks in history was hidden in a hit TV show for years.
On the subversive art hidden in the soap opera Melrose Place
Good things don't scale
On how the best things don't scale up to many people or large areas, and how we should go ahead and do such things anyway at the start of any project
How to Hide the Manhattan Project
On how the Manhattan project was hidden from the Congressional budgetary committee at the time, and whether it's possible to do that today
The Grimke Sisters and Sexism
On the sheer time and effort taken up by childbirth, and the effect on womens' careers in the past
Female neediness is real, but it's not a tragedy
On the conflict between female emancipation and the loss of security
Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet's unlikely defender
On Cloudflare's ethos and aims, and how it underpins so much vital infrastructure
Reaching MLE (machine learning enlightenment)
On ML as the ecosystem around it more than dealing with data, and how what we think of as the job is often really a very small part of it
The Fediverse of Things
On the potential of the fediverse as a true Internet of Things, and as an engine for local engagement
Radicalizing the Romanceless
On how we treat the sad and lonely as villains and deny their suffering
An Uncommonly Cited Reason to Colonize the Stars
On colonisation as both a biological and memetic evolutionary tool. A little basic but well-written
Yes, But Can You Really Explain the Difference Between Morals and Ethics?
On minor but key nuances of similar words
adventures with the homeless people outside my house
On people outside aella's house and her brief time with them
The Humane AI Pin is lost in translation
On familial language barriers, and the sheer potential (and limits) of automated translation
Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins
On the nature of proprietary vs open-source software, and its role as key infrastructure
Untitled
On Scott Alexander's thoughts on feminism, gender, and nerd culture. I don't agree with a lot of it, but he raises good points
Frankenpixie Dream Girl: On Yorgos Lanthimos's "Poor Things"
On 'Poor Things as an attempt at a bildungsroman and transition to adulthood, but which fails at genuine perversion, loss of innocence, and exploration of the darker parts of the human psyche
What if government worked like Wikipedia?
On government as a collaborative editing exercise like Wikipedia
Occasionally Scheduled Reminder That You Live on One of Several Celestial Bodies Dancing Together
On the glitch of an eclipse
What just happened, what is happening next
On increasing AI capabilities beyond their inventors' imaginings
Doing Business In Japan
On life and business in Japan, and an examination of key cultural differences
The Great Teen Babysitter Shortage
On the decline of young babysitters and how the job develops maturity
I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup
On a redefinition of the outgroup as those near to us with marginal differences, and how a lot of self-criticisim is just thinly-veiled outgroup-bashing, c.f. white people criticising White people, or Men are pigs, but not you, specifically
Polygamy, Human Sacrifices, and Steel: Why the Aztecs Were Awesome
On the Spanish conquest of mesoamerica. Incredibly well-researched and nuanced, with a particularly good depiction of the sheer power imbalance caused by steel vs obsidian
The False Promise of Understanding Yourself
On the idea that to live a good life, one must understand themselves fully
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit
On a man who lived in the American wilderness for 27 years, stealing everything he needed and speaking to no one
Almost everyone I've met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on
On focussing on a lot fewer things in order to live a more productive life
xz, tarred
On a multi-year attempt to backdoor Linux, and how it was foiled at the last minute
How the Alt Right won
On the fascinating trajectory of the American alt-right and how they successfully shifted the Overton window in a decade
The unstoppable power of 'Harry Pottourism'
On the still-booming rise of UK tourism focused on Harry Potter
Science Fiction and the Death of the Sun
On how scientific theories of the lifespan of the sun influenced sci-fi
Time to examine the anatomy of the British Library ransomware nightmare
On the cyber attack of the British Library
April Fools: The Music One
On the sheer lack of singing in our society, and what perfection of playback has done
On Internet Mental Health Culture
On the nature of mental health advice on social media, its aims and failures
What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain?
On the terrible effects of austerity, negligence, and sheer stupidity
The Case for Marrying an Older Man
On an age gap relationship, a Republican view of a woman's potential, and a life of ease with no striving. Fascinating, if uncomfortable.
Why internet slang is a riddle for bosses
On evolving workplace norms, and keeping up with a culture that moves too fast for you
America will not retreat from the world
On the difference between unilateralism and totalitarianism, and America's new role after the policeman
Why hasn't populism done more economic harm?
On the problem of measuring a country's worth and performance through solely economics
It's only a matter of time before disinformation leads to disaster
On the history of fakes and forgeries, and how they have affected public perception
How Britain's political elite broke the development bargain
On the public no longer standing for Tory corruption and greed
American Fiction' and real-life publishing's attitude to race
On the role race plays in our presentation to the world, particularly with how it affects perceptions of our art
What if we've been wrong about Helen of Troy all along?
On the nature of Helen of Troy, and similar women through history
The limits of wealth, calling time on the super-rich
On the role of the wealthy in society, and the broken compact
The puzzling afterlife of Britain's last executioner
On the role of capital punishment in the UK, and the unlikely cult of the last executioner
Can a friendship app cure loneliness?
On modern-day loneliness, the fall of dating apps, and how to connect
Why encountering a beached whale profoundly changes so many people
On whale beachings and encounters with the Romantic sublime
The fight for Germany's 'memory culture'
On Germany's culture of memory and guilt over WW2, and its role in modern society
The life-ruining power of routines
On falling into ruts, even when you don't mean to, and how to get out of them
You can have justice or peace. But you can hardly ever have both
On the hard choice between retribution and peace
In defence of showing off
On the difference between showing off and bragging, and the value of having someone there to watch
Donald Trump's betrayal of Ukraine
On the US's aid to Ukraine and Trump is betraying them even while he's not in office
The era of the unfixable problem
On politicians facing voters who dislike all solutions, and the hard problems
What crypto (still) gets wrong
On the Bankman-Fried sentencing, and the problems festering at the heart of crypto and bitcoin
Is there a way out of the Israeli-Palestinian trap?
On the history of Palestine and Israel, from Yuval Noah Harari
Laufey review, Icelandic singer who has made teenagers mad about jazz
On the rise of Laufey and the jazz resurgence
Big Gods and the Origin of Human Cooperation
On religion as a moralising force, and whether complex societies or major religions developed first
Iris Murdoch on the Morality of Attention, and the Hostile Mother-in-Law
On moral attention as the process of not letting our own biases cloud our perception of other people
Why Did Supersonic Airliners Fail?
On the failure of supersonic commercial aircraft up to the present
The end of (online) history
On the thesis of the 21st century as the mob, and the antithesis as the sovereign individual
'no storage:' the curse of the endless camera roll
On why we photograph what we do, and what we find precious
The Class Politics of Instagram Face
On how cosmetic procedures are reflective of class hierarchies and status symbols
All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro
On the current state of VR, and its potential
From TED To PERNOCTATED, Scrabble's Best Player Knows No Limits
On perhaps the single most dominant player of any game ever
The Bitter Lesson
On the idea we have that human-inspired methods for AI are better, and how we react when we discover the truth, that scaling and computational power are far better in the long term
Starting over: Rebooting the OS stack for fun and profit
On how the modern OS is influenced by legacy requirements, and a way to modernise it
From 'Lolita' To Dakota Johnson's Book Club: A Brief Look At Beauty's Relationship To Literature
On how beauty culture influences the aestheticisation of reading and books
Cream is thicker than blood: the rise and fall of the Devon split
On dairy in prewar England, and how that influenced the popularity of the Devon split
The Hayao Miyazaki Sequences That Changed Animators' Lives
On those scenes in Ghibli movies which inspired professional animators
LLMs have special intelligence, not general, and that's plenty.
On LLMs as being widely-read, and intelligent in a different sense to how our tests expect
All these normal people, packed into a human lasagne': my glamour-free night at the Oscars
On the Oscars as seen from the non-celebrity sections
Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age
On a vibes shift in tech from modernism to postmodernism, and recently metamodernism
The 29th, and Other Calendar Quirks
On the lovely (and sticky) imperfections in our calendars
Freedom of Sex
On kids as strawmen for trans people, and our basis for respecting their wishes
The Really Big One
On the Cascadia faultline and the likelihood of a magnitude 9 quake in our lifetimes
Behind F1's Velvet Curtain
On the world of money and engineering behind F1 - the article was taken down soon after posting
A Conspiracy To Kill IE6
On how a few YouTube engineers conspired to kill off the old Internet Explorer 6
The "baseline" scene was actually written by Ryan Gosling
On the brilliance of Blade Runner 2049 and it's baseline scene
The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger
On being scammed and what it does to you
in defense of san francisco
On San Francisco, but also on city culture and our relationship with it
Cocktail party ideas
On mistaking what you know about a field for everything that field contains
Wherever you get your podcasts is a radical statement
On podcasts as a brilliant example of the free and open web
Help Me Hera: What does romantic love feel like?
On abusive relationships, and what love feels like from the inside
These Common Words Are the Result of a Hilarious Misunderstanding
On metanalysis forming new words with misunderstood divisions, like helico-pter
You Don't Hate Polyamory, You Hate People Who Write Books
On the problem that all books are written by the sort of people who write books
The unbearable whiteness of Neptune
On the recent discovery that Neptune is pale - I don't agree with the science stripping away meaning, but well-written
Taylor Swift and the Good Girl Trap
On Taylor and white feminism - not sure I agree with some of it, but really interesting
Killing the ants
On what information we need about the lives of insects to change how we treat them
66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023
On some news stories that are huge cause for optimism
My McLuhan lecture on enshittification
On how everything becomes terrible, but increasing antitrust regulation and awareness of regulatory capture are causes for optimism
Censorship: How Does It Work?
On the mechanics of Chinese censorship and its relevance in an internet-enabled era
Masculinity Revisited
On masculinity as a societal or evolutionary phenomenon, and possible maladaption to the modern world
How We Turned the Tide in the Roach Wars
On cockroaches being all but eradicated in cities, and how this is so normalised
Why Britain Can't Quit the Monarchy
On the British monarchy as powerless, neutral, and therefore enduring
The Republican Party is Doomed
On the lack of republicans in institutions, and the ineffectiveness of governing solely from the top and bottom
Against Learning From Dramatic Events
On random major events being a lot less meaningful than we think
The Slop School of Internet Success and other lies about cyberspace
On content creation and how we reward things we like
The Lazy Tyranny of the Wait Calculation
On that perennial problem: is it better to wait for technology to improve?
what should the beginning of a relationship feel like?
On relationship styles and those initial butterflies
The Perfect Webpage
On how Google's search dominance incentivises extensive SEO making all sites look the same
Neuroscience is pre-paradigmatic. Consciousness is why
On the hard problem and why it shows neuroscience is in need of a paradigm shift
The Surprising Animals Who Say Their Own Names
On onomatopoeaic animals - or, real-life Pokemon
Singing The Blues
On depression and other illnesses as collateral damage of incorrect homeostasis
AI and Lossy Bottlenecks
On how AI could remove the supply bottleneck and allow for complexity and customisation at scale
In The Long Run, We're All Dad
On bringing kids into the world, in an oddly touching and rationalist way
Payroll providers, Power, Respect
On the legacy importance of payroll providers and how they make money
Discovery is the original sin of the modern age
On the problem of being drowned by content, and the importance of discoveries via recommendation
Central banks are wrong to abandon key guardrails
On the importance of institutions and regulations as preventative measures against human fallibility
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
On the potential for the fediverse as bringing the noosphere (my words)
America's cultural supremacy and geopolitical weakness
On the US as the UK in the late 19th, as a huge cultural exporter but with waning power
How I got from Gatwick to Rome, on an invalid passport
On a trouble-ridden vacation, by Rob Shrimsley
The Rise of the Accidentally Permissive Parent
On the phenomenon of gentle parenting and the consequences of being too permissive
The Economics of Time Travel
On the cost-benefit analysis hypothetical time travellers would complete - flawed but interesting
There are no statistics in the Kingdom of God
On an obsession with statistics as the bane of social sciences
Tinx Talks Burning Love And Becoming The Internet's Confidant
On a romantic gesture gone awry
God Help Us, Let's Try To Understand AI Monosemanticity
On neural networks simulating larger neural networks
Glyn Ford's DPRK in photos
On North Korea's people, as presented in photos not normally seen in the news
Ice Cream, Alone and with Others
On a few times the author had some ice cream around the world
Luxury fashion prices have gone too far
On clothing as a status symbol, and the increasing casualness leaving price as the only differentiator
Let's Go Community Shopping
On different styles of living arrangements, to foster community
Osama bin Laden's TikTok popularity is based on childish notions of evil
On evil as passionate and well-argued, and a twisted form of the good
A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft
On hand-coding as something archaic, in the age of AI assistance
Genomics Has Revealed An Age Undreamed Of
On what genomics reveals about our history and our future
A Brief History of Political Movements Led By Little Kids
On why kids have not been, historically speaking, the best at leading large political movements
You Only Like the Beginning of Things
On beginnings as utopias, through the lens of Swift & Kelce
A Stupid Self-Compassion Life Hack
On how to be compassionate with yourself, using blorbo from my shows
AI as Sparkly Magic
On the prevalence of sparkly iconography when referring to AI, vs the old brain-with-wires images
Nerd culture is murdering intellectuals
On the cultural domination of nerd culture
Against open sourcing Automatized Knowledge Interpolators
On AI as latent knowledge spaces, analogous to fission bombs
Matthew Perry's Radical Honesty About His Addiction Battle Helped Us All
On Matthew Perry's work helping others battle addiction
Lucy in the Sky of Large Language Models
On how AI will change music generation and the structure of bands, albums, and songs
Matthew Perry, the best Friend I never knew
On Matthew Perry's life and death, and his sheer talent as Chandler
Reality has a surprising amount of detail
On the depth of reality, and how to get out of ruts
Don't flatter the west's enemies as an 'axis
On the relative unity of the west as compared to its enemies
What Is Up With China's Real Estate Market?
On China's real estate bubble, and, as always, a look at its psychology, economy, and culture
On the Tyranny of Slush Piles
On the problem of finding good art when we're inundated with it
Cities and Ambition
On the messages various cities give out, and the benefits of agglomeration
Painting the whole beetle: an adventure in learning to learn
On learning new things as an adult
Non-Linear Fully Two-Dimensional Writing System Design
On 2D writing systems and their surprising requirements
Japan's toddler superstar: the baby bringing hope to a ghost village
On Japan's ageing population and its effects on a small village right next to Tokyo
Dividing the world into heroes and villains does us little good
On people being capable of being multifaceted
Sarah de Lagarde fell on to the Tube tracks. Nobody helped. Why?
On a devastating Tube accident and the wider state of the TfL
No effort' dinner parties are a delusion
On the British pastime of hosting nonchalant dinner parties
Winners don't do irony
On the role of earnestness in the psychology of an individual or a country
It is a miracle that students aren't rioting at beleaguered universities
On the state of British Universities
A malaise can be worse than a crisis
On how sometimes things need to get worse to make people see they could be better
Could you pass a test on Asia?
On the average person's ignorance about the basics of Asian culture and history
There is not a school-shaped solution to every social problem
On the expectation on schools to fix all social issues, particularly gender-related ones
The Protagonist Is Never in Control
On trauma and childhood abuse, and who gets to control a life
Mark Steel: 'I have cancer and it feels like there's a leopard in my house'
On a comedian's cancer diagnosis
Who had the most kids in history? Or, humanity's near-extinction and why it matters for us all.
On evolutionary bottlenecks in humanity's history
Half A Million Kinksters Can't Be Wrong
On the design, planning, and execution of Aella's kink survey
A 20th-century society on a Ringworld
On how science and technology would evolve on a ringworld
Britain is Europe's haven from the hard right
On the UK's political landscape and its current inoculation against the far right
A non-magical explanation of Jeffrey Epstein
On conspiracy theories, keeping secrets, and Jeffrey Epstein
Revolutionary Road: Delusions of Exceptionalism
On the perils of excessive exceptionalism, and the benefits of just a little bit
Fire and Fury and the First Amendment: How Trump Tried to Censor His Critics
On the publishing of Fire and Fury
Against the Death Penalty
On the ethics of the death penalty and the limits of state intervention
Digression 3: CORROSION - Rust Never Sleeps
On the constant and relentless fight against rust
Tim Dowling: the kids have all left home, but we still can't get rid of them
On life after your kids leave for good
Aging White Men, Like Everyone, Are Aware of the Discursive Reality in Which They Live
On avoiding the appearance of being old, by those who are most painfully aware of it
Separating the Art from the Artist
On how and whether a work of art should be separated from the morality or views of the artist
Hasan Minhaj Told the Stories We Wanted Him to Tell
On Minhaj making up stories, and identity comedy
Mitt Romney, Rory Stewart and the tragedy of politics
On no reward in politics for the right decisions
My "Life in the UK" Test and a Great British Travel Guide
On the peculiarities of life in the UK
Making architecture easy
On architecture as a public art, and the distinction between easy and difficult art
Let's build a fleet and change the world
On science houses and the strong link problem
It's Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
On the horrific lack of privacy or transparency in all car brands
How much for a good night's sleep?
On ridiculously expensive mattresses, and what actually matters when sleeping - really funny
The moral case for cities
On why cities work when they shouldn't; a case against relentless batterings
The joy of the flop
On a one-star movie review as a signifier of something interestingly subversive
How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars
On legalese as a key fleeting application of LLMs, before it becomes so ubiquitous it fails to mean anything significant
Anxiety and the Path of Least Resistance
On how psychological problems may have purely physical causes and solutions
Did You Even Know This Movie Exists?
On the increasing barrenness of the midrange movie landscape
The Rise and Fall of Online Culture Wars
On the three trends that dominated 21st century discourse: atheism, feminism, and racism
Evolution of the Hip Hop Hunk
On the evolution of hip-hop sex symbols in the late 20th century
The Curse of Reading and Forgetting
On forgetting the books you've read, and how they still shape your character
Treasuring the Books No One Else Seems to Love
On the delights and ensorcellments of books no-one else has read (perhaps a little twee but v good)
Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books
On libraries and bookshelves
Star Trek and Socialism
On the utopianism or doomerism of Star Trek, and its influence on politics
The UK is becoming a pragmatic country again
On the drama of the past few years as an inoculation for the UK
Children are holding a mirror up to us': why are England's kids refusing to go to school?
On the mental effects of lockdown on kids in the UK
No app, no entry: How the digital world is failing the non tech-savvy
On the saturation of technology in everyday life, rendering operation without it impossible
A smorgasbord of unlikability': the authors helping 'sad girl lit' grow up
On the phenomenon of sad girl lit, and reactions against it
Here's Why Automaticity Is Real Actually
On the existence and relevance of cognitive biases, and how they're completely expected and all have names anyway
The Blurb Problem Keeps Getting Worse
On why there are blurbs plastered on every book jacket, and the state of the publishing industry
The birth rate weirdos have a point (about this one specific thing)
On declining birth rates in well-off countries, and the Scandanavian solution
One year in a struggling British state school
On the state of state schools after lockdown and inflation
Why We Fight
On the brutality and necessity of sparring, as mental fortitude against a mentally ill husband
I'm so sorry for psychology's loss, whatever it is
On science as a strong-link problem, and how toppling a few major figures does not much, really
The truth about emotional intelligence
On the conflation of EQ and empathy, and who really has each
Jancis Robinson knows you find wine confusing. This guide is going to help
On wine and wines, from the basics to expert knowledge
Ancient Chinese Agricultural Technology Edition!
On Chinese agriculture - I'm not sure how accurate it is, but a novel perspective!
Can There Be a Theory of the Email Job?
On the phenomenon of the white-collar email job, and its benefits to those working it
Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation
On slide shows, pre- and post- PowerPoint
#159: Falling in love is overrated
On navigating adult friendships when one party is a new parent
Joy Ride Movie Review
On Chinese culture as depicted in the movie - as always, deeply interesting
The World Is Going Blind. Taiwan Offers a Warning, and a Cure
On rising myopia rates and how being outdoors fixes things
Resentment makes the world go round
On the cacophony of Brics, and their central commonality as resentment
Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)
On Apple's software prisons as the antithesis of a free and open internet
The big idea: should we colonise other planets?
On colonising other planets in fantasy versus reality
The Great Purpling
On LED streelights turning purple and the interconnectedness of global technology
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant
On how meaninglessness expands to fit our time
Gravitational Waves Prediction: The Follow-Up
On the nature of self-sacrifice, the collective scientific endeavour, and how we are the only things alive to have sensed a gravitational wave
Who's Afraid of Lorne Michaels?
On the role of and culture at the single most influential comedy show of all time
a spacebar for the web
On how vital the space is for written script, and how we need something similar for the web
When a neighbours' spat becomes a human rights dispute
On grand charters and international law in everyday life
In Defense Of Describable Dating Preferences
On dating docs and knowing what you want
The Doc Web
On Google Docs as the original individual publishing, and the sheer variety of things expressed this way
Oppenheimer: Ho-hum Politics, Exciting Physics
On the physics of Oppenheimer, and focussing on the wrong thing
Shamir Secret Sharing
On a PayPal codebase bug that almost took the company down in its early years
One Week in America: Initial Impressions
On returning to America after leaving for a while; not relatable, but gorgeously written
This isn't fun!', when holiday dreams turn to nightmares
On the worst holiday experiences of FT columnists - darkly funny and largely about kids
A Social Protocols OS
On creating and disseminating packaged social structures and protocols for different requirements online
What Barbenheimer teaches us about the pointlessness of rivalry
On the mportance of identifying your true rivals and opportunities for cooperation
Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?
On the parallels between catching scientific and gaming fraud, and how the former can learn from the latter
Personal Best
On professional coaching as critically underutilised outside of sports and music
The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project
On the sheer number of genius Hungarian Jewish scientists in the 20th century, and why
How Flash games shaped the video game industry
On the remarkable influence and staying power of Flash
The YouTube Revolution in Knowledge Transfer
On YouTube's key role in facilitating tacit knowledge transfer
Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure
On Stephen Wolfram's setup
Rule Thinkers In, Not Out
On science as a strong-link problem, and how we should accept the zany while looking for the genius
The Danger of Invisible Government Deeds
On the value of public services, and the invisibility of a working system
An inquiry into Macron Derangement Syndrome
On the dissonance between Macron's appearance and his policies
Who Are the Japanese in Oppenheimer?
On Oppenheimer and the role and narrative of the Japanese in the war and the rest of the century
Some Thoughts On Frugality In Effective Altruism
On how we can donate when we need money to live
The internet's "town square" is dead
On the imminent decentralisation of the internet
The Thread Vibes Are Off
On the cultures of various social media, and where Threads fits in
Why Match School And Student Rank?
On the pros and cons of matching education rank to the student
A "secure" system can be the most dangerous of all
On operational security and the cruelty of benefits fraud detection
Your Book Review: The Educated Mind
On modern schools and the entire enterprise of education
Holy Moly Do We Ever Over-Value College
On the value (or lack thereof) of Ivy colleges to American society
Why is UK journalism short on long-reads?
On the differences between British and American markets for long-form journalism
Contra The Social Model Of Disability
On various models how how disabilities interact with society
The Psychological Depths of Rock-Paper-Scissors
On why rock, paper, scissors is rarely the psychological loop it seems to be
Oppenheimer' is a great film about the wrong man
On the role of Harry Truman in the mid-20th century
Denazification, truth and reconciliation, and the story of Germany's story
On denazification in Germany, and how businesses avoided their due repercussions
Western Colonialism and Its Consequences for China
On Chinese cultural psychology and the impact of a century of colonialism
I Used A Phone Like Most People In The World And It Was Awful
On the low-budget phones which hundreds of millions of people use
Floors: The Next Dimension in Safety and Wayfinding
On floor signage in global transport networks
Chinese History for White People - Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasty
On the first three dynasties of China
Your Book Review: The Laws of Trading
On trading, rationality, and real-world applications
You'd Be Happier Living Closer to Friends. Why Don't You?
On living near your friends, and why we don't
High-tech pastoral as the new aesthetic
On the role of technology in our lives
Hayao Miyazaki's How Do You Live is a beautiful relic, and the end of an era
On Miyazaki's oeuvre and his place in a modernising animation industry
The indie publishing mavericks shaking up the UK books world
On publishing houses and how they take risks (or not)
The long defeat of the French language
On the history of French and the rise of English as a lingua franca
Elemental Is a Tearful Metaphor for Pixar's Decline
On Pixar's waning greatness, the peak of its powers, and its present creative rut
The myth of autocratic competence takes another hit
On autocrats' failures and the resilience of democracy
Mattel, Malibu Stacy, and the Dialectics of the Barbie Polemic
On Barbie, feminism, and relentless consumerism
The Case Against Travel
On what we expect to gain from travel, and how we are the same after we return
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
On the tax-avoidance practices of the ultra-rich
America's lavish red carpet for Modi
On America's cosying-up to India and the geopolitical motivations
The discreet US campaign to defend Brazil's election
On American pro-democracy campaigning in Brazilian elections
Stop trying to rationalise western populism
On the hollow personality-cult basis of Western populism
I'd never stuck with therapy. Then I tried psychoanalysis
On psychotherapy for someone who did not think it worked
The big question of how small chips can get
On modern-day chip manufacturing, and the dominance of ASML
Don't blame us for AI's threat to humanity, we're just the technologists
On the blatant hypocrisy of AI's leaders, in calling for themselves to be restrained
Confessions of a food award judge
On being a food award judge and the intricacy of this hidden world
Trump, Johnson and the real problem with populism
On how we cannot expect populism to self-destruct, and other lessons from the 20th century
There is no moral high ground for Reddit as it seeks to capitalise on user data
On Reddit's decision to monetise it's API
Why organisations should sweat the small stuff
On the importance of seemingly-insignificant details
Young life: I don't have to be resilient
On recovering from trauma, and how it frames your life
I still think it's very unlikely we're observing alien aircraft
On observations of alien spacecraft and Bayesian inferences
I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing
On the place for physical encyclopedias in the modern world
What elite American universities can learn from Oxbridge
On Oxbridge's strides in equality and diversity, and what the Ivy League should learn
Culture and Law: How Han Succeeded Where Rome Fell
On the fundamental endurance of the Chinese Kingdom and State, while Rome fell
I re-read my teenage diaries hoping for a dose of nostalgia; instead I was horrified
On the diaries of a teen girl, and the brutality and delight of childhood
Complexity is Good, Actually
On the necessity of complexity and nuance in our relationships
The repulsive crust
On the maddening complexity of the human psyche, and art which puports to explain it. I'm not sure I agree, but an interesting idea nonetheless
Your Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning
On Frankl, concentration camps, suffering, and finding meaning
Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag
On English as a lingua franca and the peculiar Denglisch of Berlin
Beauty Culture is Hustle Culture
On Korean beauty culture and the pressure women especially are under to conform
First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS
On the revolutionary advancements of Apple's VisionOS and AR headset
Windows XP's adventures in the afterlife shows copyright's copywrongs
On software copyright law and the communities of developers around old projects
Luxury goods: Europe's joke on the world
On the desire for European luxury, and the far reach of soft power
Voices On Addiction: Speaking Ill of the Dead
On a relationship with a mother, and her death
Don't blame the west if the global south goes its own way
On the relationship between the global south and the west
Observations From Paris
On urban Paris as an incredible work of art and architecture
Your Book Review: Why Machines Will Never Rule the World
On the brain as an irreducibly complex object, and the implications for AGI
The architecture of the Elizabeth Line
On the megaproject of the Elizabeth Line and its outstanding success
Inequality University
On how Ivy League universities perpetuate massive inequality, and where funds could be better distributed
Goodbye to "Goodbye to All That"
On moving to suburbia from New York, the romanticisation of big cities, and spreading out a little
Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang: 'The machines we have now are not conscious'
On sci-fi and AI, with Ted Chiang!
The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape
On a false rape conviction, and two lives fundamentally altered by it
Polly Toynbee: what my privileged start in life taught me about the British class system
On inherited privilege and Oxford in the 60s
The feeling when your passion is also your job
On finding your vocation, specialising, and thriving
An Illustrated Guide to Mouth Gestures and Their Meanings Around the World
On gestures from around the world
Citizens' juries can help fix democracy
On the benefits of involving citizens directly in democracy
Community gardens: 'We all come here to heal'
On the benefits of community gardens for those most hit by inflation and the pandemic
The Paradox of Assimilation
On assimilation in Western and non-western immigrant culture
grievance games
On the cascade from suffering and past trauma to bitterness and bigotry
Why are teenagers obsessed with pretty coquette picnics, and why are so many adults copying them?
On girlish picnics and the freedom of the youth. It had the opposite effect to that intended; made me feel vaguely disgusted with the whole idea, but interesting
How art forgot the arriviste
On how media's upper-class domination relates to the lack of depiction of ambition and self-betterment
The algorithms of justice involve unpalatable trade-offs
On how our desire for algorithmic justice is at loggerheads with need for nuance and mercy
India will never be America's ally
On the perpetual misunderstanding of India's long-term goals, allegiances, and ideology
Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli: 'We should have the freedom to choose how we die'
On Dignitas and the modern ethics of assisted death
The west's handling of the pandemic beat its own expectations
On our management of the pandemic and how oddly successful it was
Don't show off, don't lecture: how to negotiate with someone more powerful
On negotiating in 2023's G7 summit, with lessons from the past
We need to talk about picnics
On our relentless and ultimately misguided romanticisation of picnics
Britain is not America, and the right shouldn't forget it
On the stark differences between UK and US conservatism
This Ancient Language Has the Only Grammar Based Entirely on the Human Body
On the unique, dying language and culture of the Andaman Islands
How Markets Crowd Out Morals
On the corrupting effect of market commodification on altruism and community values
AI, the God of the Gaps, and Our Quintessential Humanity
On what it means to be human when AI can do so many things
Your Book Review: Cities And The Wealth Of Nations/The Question Of Separatism
On cities as fundamental economic units, separatism, and the nature of nations. Book review, very very interesting
Roger Federer as Religious Experience
On Roger Federer's artistry and power, if a bit outdated
How to Survive a Car Crash in 10 Easy Steps
On life after a traumatic brain injury, and the process of healing
I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a cop
On the difference between teaching and evaluating
Girl Genius
On young female artists, intergenerational connection, and never really growing up
What's Homelessness Really Like?
On the stories of the homeless; an interactive progression of 30 people
The real special relationship
On the UK and France being bickering siblings, another gem by Janan Ganesh
By meddling with justice, UK politicians are undermining it
On the UK government meddling in justice and the reprehensible outcomes
The melting magic of the perfect cheese toastie and how to make one
On the cheese toastie, written in the most transcendent way
America's Bad Bet on India
On the west's incorrect perception of India and what it might lead to
My year on the streets with the Met police
On a year as a special constable, and insights into modern British policing
Dead to Rights
On the execution of a death row prisoner in Alabama, and the torture he suffered
On the trail of the Dark Avenger: the most dangerous virus writer in the world
On Bulgaria's virus culture and one particular creator known as the Dark Avenger
We need to examine the beliefs of today's tech luminaries
On correlated tech bro beliefs and how they obscure current and pressing problems
In cosmology, all our errors lean the same way. The implications are... interesting
On consistent errors and an evolving universe
13 lessons from a climate change diplomat with months left to live
On a climate policy advisor, and key insights from his work
Why the fuck are you going to the King's coronation?
On the monarchy and morbid curiosity
The Diary of a Ukrainian Filmmaker-Turned-Soldier
On being a soldier in Ukraine, and modern warfare
True Threats And American Cultural Gulfs
On the legal approach to threatening statements, and the so-called 'reasonable person
Quantum computing could break the internet. This is how
On quantum computing, brilliantly illustrated and explained
Suella Braverman, Rwanda and when medieval-style 'ordeals' become government policy
On UK bureaucracy and how much of an ordeal it is
The Dao of Using Your Smartphone
On our relationships with phones, and the rituals associated with them
Your Personality Has To Be Load-Bearing
On the distinction between what you like, and who you are
London's late-night ice-cream parlours represent the city at its best
On London's ice cream parlours as late-night hangs
The Penumbra of Mortality
On storytelling, and the shadows cast by love, maths, and death
Make Something Wonderful
On Steve Jobs' views on aesthetics, design, and experience
Gods, Monsters, and Totoros: Exploring Miyazaki's Fantasy World
On Studio Ghibli's constructed mythology
Open Questions
On a few open questions in various feels which it feels like we should know the answers to already,
Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down
On AI catastrophe and why we have to stop
The appreciation of rocks
On stacking rocks and conscious awareness - the first part is the good part
1960: The Year The Singularity Was Cancelled
On superexponential growth and Malthusian/industrial societies
I spent years studying death, but it didn't prepare me for grief': archaeologist Sarah Tarlow on losing her husband
On long illness, and grief
The internet wants to be fragmented
On the decline of centralised spaces and the rise of fragmentation
Ideas aren't getting harder to find and anyone who tells you otherwise is a coward and I will fight them
On the common refrain that all the low-hanging fruit is gone
Science is a strong-link problem
On which bits of science are important, and which ones aren't
Stephen Hawking's final theorem turns time and causality inside out
On the problem of fine-tuning
We can't let companies get away with making consumers sick
On how sectors make us sick for profit
It would pay for us all to be more honest about family advantage
On what our families give us, and class privilege
Total distrust': rise of the Russian informers
On informants in modern Russia, and civil society tearing itself apart
An Unstandardized, Decentralized Carnival Fire: How Rare Books Are Catalogued
On the jargon in rare book collecting
11 Reasons Not to Become Famous (or 'A Few Lessons Learned Since 2007 )
On the upsides and downsides of fame
The Brooklyn Subway Shooting Does Not Confirm Your Priors
On twisting events to suit your narrative
The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are
On middle age, and how old you feel
#139: The biggest celeb in New York right now
On the owl that escaped from the New York Zoo
Some things to learn from the British East India Company's growth and demise
On the EIC and organisation
Bubble Explainer Article: Housefire Beliefs
On different kinds of beliefs in religion
It's that moment of mastery when something difficult gives way': Adam Gopnik on the pleasure of learning a new skill
On mastery and learning skills
It's very weird to have a skull full of poison
On what having depression feels like
We don't trade with ants
On why we would trade with ants, and what that means for AI
I tried the Replika AI companion and can see why users are falling hard. The app raises serious ethical questions.
On relationships with chatbots
Roald Dahl and the giant problem with intellectual property
On how IP should be dealt with by descendants
The Tale of the Shaman: Science, Magic, and Super Placebo (v2)
On the overlap between shamanism and the placebo effect
Roald Dahl Can Never Be Made Nice
On what made Roald Dahl good, and why he has been edited
The problem with the argument for reparations
On how and which countries make up for their past misdeeds
We need to talk about voice privilege
On how the timbre of a voice is as important as the sight of one's gaze
Remote work is the best thing to happen to families in decades
On the benefits of remote working
Congratulations! You just won millions of dollars in the lottery!
On what happens to lottery-winners. About halfway down on a sus wesbite but really good.
The origins of patriarchy
On the origins of patriarchical societies. I disagree with a lot of it, but it's got some interesting points.
Michael, Dwight and Andy: the Three Aesthetics of the Creative Class
On the three types of middle-class
A Limited Interest Article on Employer Value Prop and Hiring
On hiring practices and where startups go wrong
The Magical Number Seven, Plus Or Minus Two
On mental information capacity but more importantly has the best start of any academic paper I've read
The radical idea that people aren't stupid
On the common fallacy that the average person is stupid
The Nick Bostrom Scandal Differentiates Effective Altruism From Rationalism
On the differences between EA-ists and Rationalists
Being single has a lot going for it, but £10k a year seems too high a price for the privilege
On the cost of being single
From stardust to an empty tank: one-of-a-kind leader Jacinda Ardern knew her time was up
On New Zealand's Prime Minister
300 nuclear missiles are heading your way. You must respond. What now?
On training for nuclear response
C.S. Lewis's Greatest Fiction Was Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight
On C. S. Lewis's Turkish Delight as a mirror of erised
Stable Diffusion Frivolous
On a lawsuit filed against StableDiffusion, and why it is riddled with factual errors
Is TikTok killing off the pop music bridge?
On the modern-day decline of the bridge in pop music
Can Just Stop Oil make the case for protest?
On the similarities between Just Stop Oil and the Suffragettes
Lucy Kellaway's lessons on life from moving to the North East
On a shift in Kellaway's perspective on life
Lessons from Vienna: a housing success story 100 years in the making
On Vienna's housing - the best advertisement for living there I've read
Things could be better
On how people persistently think of how things could be better
Underrated reasons to be thankful
On some really cool and interesting reasons to be thankful
How the humanities lost their prestige
On the science/humanities divide, and politicisation of both
Struck by the power of the simple invention
On invention and innovation which has been overlooked
The legal rule that computers are presumed to be operating correctly has unforeseen and unjust consequences
On an outdated law and the miscarriages of justice it causes
Why the business world is so bad at politics
On the problems of doing one with the mindset of the other
The cultural memory of the UK': unearthing the hidden treasures of the BBC archive
On the project to digitise and make accessible decades of BBC material
William Shatner: My Trip to Space Filled Me With 'Overwhelming Sadness
On the overview effect, an unexpected take
The Power of the Dog. Cabal (2003-2013)
On Neil Gaiman's dog, by Neil Gaiman. A really lovely piece.
The Diminishing Returns of Calendar Culture
On time zones and the obsession with calendars
Why Tories and Republicans can't do populism properly
On the missing qualities of American and British populism
What Is 'Curio Fiction ? Finding a Name for a Fantastical Subgenre
Defining a new subgenre of fiction
On Being Rich-ish: Lessons I learned becoming suddenly middle-class
On, basically, lifestyle inflation
Roman Dodecahedrons Part I
A brilliant set of articles on the purpose of the Roman Dodecahedron
A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics
On a new calculational paradigm which could have huge implications for spacetime and quantum philosophy
Has streaming made it harder to discover new music?
On the downsides of streaming and modern music discover
Truss learns the hard way that Britain isn't America
On how seeing the UK as the US has caused so many problems
If you don't make it beautiful, it's for sure doomed: putting the Vault in GitHub's Arctic Code Vault
The Svalbard Seed Vault but for code
Why the Rings of Power Show Is Not Good (Part #7934)
The third (and final) article on the rings of power
Proto-Platypus Species Generative Modeling: Search for the Ancestors of Nature's Most Diverse Creature
Quite simply the best academic article I have ever read
Queen's farewell makes Britain proud again, just for one day
A nuanced take on the Queen's funeral
The Rings Of Power' Has Inexplicably Terrible Writing
On the rings of power, again, but also Tolkien!
Rings of Power: Jeff Bezos's Billion Dollar Anti-Tolkien Fan Fiction
On how the rings of power is utter trash
DNA seen through the eyes of a coder (or, If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail)
On the similarities between DNA and code
GPS, Galileo & More: How do they work & what happened during the big outage?
On navigation system technicalities
A forgotten product: The glass that was almost indestructable
On planned obsolescence and glass
Seismometer noise includes signals from South Atlantic storms, 'footquakes' from soccer matches
On what seismometers can pick up
The Strange Saga of Kowloon Walled City
On the saga of Kowloon Walled City, wonderfully poetic
Are you really in a race? The Cautionary Tales of Szilzard and Ellsberg
On the dangers of assuming you're in a race
Post-Pandemic Mystery at Heathrow
On how the pandemic encouraged insects to block pitot tubes in aircraft
The crane who fell in love with a human
Starts off weird and becomes wonderfully profound
I Am The Horrible Goose That Lives In The Town
From the perspective of the goose in untitled goose game
For 20 Years the Nuclear Launch Code at US Minuteman Silos Was 00000000
On nuclear launch safety in the cold war
Fuel poverty is creating a left-out generation that will never recover from the scars
An incredibly scathing article, furious at the incompetence of Tory leadership
Fidelity Angst
On the search for Hi-Fi audio. Purpling prose but occasionally good insights
Becky Chambers' Books Give Us Permission to Be Human
The best article I've read on why Becky Chambers is amazing
I feel inadequate around my girlfriend's wealthy, high-achieving family
It helped! A really good article examining class divides and healing them
Harry Styles can get away with wearing a skirt. But can I?
On men wearing skirts, and it's so right
Reuniting a Pilot and a Lost Drone Is Some Spy-Level Stuff
On how someone reunited someone with their lost drone after a long search
Scenes from an Open Marriage
An account of an open marriage. Like nothing I've ever experienced or even thought about - unfathomable, like looking through a telescope at an island obscured by cloud, with only glimpses of mountains and canyons beyond, but well-written and thought-provoking
She Spent a Decade Writing Fake Russian History. Wikipedia Just Noticed.
On how a lady invented an entire complex history of millions of words on Chinese Wikipedia before it was discovered
The Competitive Book Sorters Who Spread Knowledge Around New York
On a competition on New York Library's conveyor belts
This Australian Bartender Found an ATM Glitch and Blew $1.6 Million
Article on a guy who found an ATM hack, withdrew $1.6m and turned himself in
A Catastrophic Loss of Faith in America
Really interesting take on modern perceptions of the US and their historical background
Investigation: How TikTok's Algorithm Figures Out Your Deepest Desires
Great video on TikTok's algorithm but a bit long (ironically)
Severance, Severance, and the Dissociative Demands of Office Labor
On our relationship with work
Almost Everything in 'Dr. Strangelove' Was True
Terrifying article on nuclear safety in the US and the Soviet Union
AI Governance: Opportunity and Theory of Impact
Incredibly in-depth but a bit boring
Mechanical Watch
On the internal workings of mechanical watches - the rest of the website is also brilliant
For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland's Official Maps
Charming article on Swiss cartographers' whimsy
Y2K Aftermath: Crisis Averted Final Committee Report
Report by the US government on the Y2K bug and its aftermath
Learning to predict the cosmological structure formation
Paper on neural networks and universe evolution
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto
An open letter from Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein on nuclear weapons
The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends"
Behind paywall but very funny read
Introducing Pathways: A next-generation AI architecture
Technical read on AI architecture by Google
The influence of duration, arm crossing style, gender, and emotional closeness on hugging behaviour
Journal article on hugging
How is Ukraine using western weapons to exploit Russian weaknesses?
Terrifyingly precise military analysis and strategy
The secret life of fungi is weirder and wilder than you can imagine
Lovely article not like the FT's usual fare
Please, enough with the dead butterflies!
Very specific article on the placing of butterflies' wings
Christmas card addressed to 'England' reaches right person
How the Post Office detectives routed a letter
The Perils and Pleasures of Bartending in Antarctica
A look at the psychology of staying in Antarctica over the winter
17 of the Trickiest Ways Restaurants Get You to Spend More (and How to Avoid Them)
Interesting look at practical psychology and manipulation
Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales
Very dense but interesting analysis of the spread of folk tales