Recently updated blogs

Streaming is a great way to listen to classical music. You have to ignore essentially all algorithmic recommendation features, which are generally oriented around tracks and playlists, but this isn't a terrible general policy anyway. Find the music you want to hear, and listen to it. If there are tools that help you find stuff, that's great. If there are tools that are supposed to help you find stuff, but …

Ah, Xcode Previews. The absolute best, worst thing Apple has ever shipped for developers. When it works, which for me is around 90% of the time, it’s absolutely essential to my workflow. Other times? It crashes, spins, indexes and loads for an eternity — and I end up sitting there and waiting for it to work again out of nothing else but pure, unadulterated spite. And, as I launch my …

Pnårp discovered a novel way to keep the voluminous amount of trash blowing about his front yard under control.

Online readingFirst, novelist Thea Lim on the many harms of algorithmic systems and the stultifying context their corporate owners want us all to be stuck in, where “every notification ping holds the possibility we have merit”:If there’s an off-duty pursuit you love—giving tarot readings, polishing beach rocks—it’s a great compliment to say: “You should do that for money.” Join the passion economy, give the market final say on the value …

Florrie Butterfield has cherished her independence all her life, so losing a leg in her mid-80s was devastating. Forced to leave the cottage she loved, she found a residential community in Oxfordshire that accepted people in wheelchairs, Babbington Hall. But just as Florrie has settled in, things start to go wrong. When the story begins, she is mourning Arthur Potts, a friend who fell out a window and died four …

The Session goes through periods of getting spammed with automated sign-ups. I’m not sure why. It’s not like they do anything with the accounts. They’re just created and then they sit there (until I delete them). In the past I’ve dealt with them in an ad-hoc way. If the sign-ups were all coming from the same IP addresses, I could block them. If the sign-ups showed some pattern in the …

I recently learnt the sad news that Walter Neumann just passed away. Although I don’t think I have seen him in person for over 25 years, Walter was a pretty significant influence in my mathematical life. Here are some of … Continue reading →

In How and why to write letters to voters I discussed Vote Forward, my favorite way for those of us who aren’t in swing states to reach out to voters in swing states. The site works really well for adopting batches of voters, and downloading packets of form letters. As I close in on 1000 letters, though, I’m finding it isn’t great for tracking progress at scale. Here’s how my …

A24’s trailer for Jane (WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR) Schoenbrun’s I SAW THE TV GLOW had me all prepared for an IT FOLLOWS-esque suburban curse flick crammed into a Candle Cove repressed memory nineties nostalgia taco shell. While there certainly are sharp slivers of horror spiking this poetic, fluorescent fish aquarium-toned ode to outsiders and their dependence on media for a social life, it’s more of a coming …

Last week, I hesitantly soft-launched a new paid section on my email blog. That same day, six people signed up to become paid subscribers to my blog, and I almost fell out of my chair. This morning, I woke up to two more paid subscribers(!!!). I'm simultaneously ecstatic and terrified that people are supporting my blog financially, and I hope I don't disappoint you! I put so much thought, effort, …

Just prior to the pandemic I bought a new car. During the process of dealing with reams of forms—and the classic “Give me a minute and let me see what I can do for you by talking to my boss”—at some point or ten I had to provide my email address. (You sometimes hear people say, “I thought we were promised flying cars by now.” I’ll be considerably more realistic …

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: “What does an artist do, mostly? She tweaks that which she’s already done. There are those moments when we sit before a blank page, but mostly we’re adjusting what’s already there. The writer revises, the painter touches up, the director edits, the musician overdubs.” I’m filing this one away for future reference when I’m feeling less-productive. Even if the day’s …

As the distressingly knowledgeable 20th century history-savvy gang here inhabits what appears to be a permanent state of worry, tension and fear these days, we note that autumn shall soon end and winter will be upon us soon. The month of September is ending shortly, so today, we pay tribute to "Fall."We'll start celebrating the season change with a Warner Bros. cartoon, the first but not the last on the …

Unless you’ve recently become a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson, it’s unlikely you’ll be thinking about reading The Wild Shore. It was Robinson’s first published book back in 1984. The Wild Shore was impressive enough to be the first volume in Terry Carr’s third series of Ace Science Fiction Specials. But still, why would you choose to read a 1984 paperback original in 2024? I can’t claim it’s become a …