Kevin Wammer’s review of the Boox Palma. I am so tempted. (The phone form factor is a better fit for one-handed reading, which is mostly what I do.) So tempted.
Piano Music Bros. on the evolution of Mozart’s music, from age five to age thirty-five. Fun to see. (Though I also think the adulation of geniuses isn’t super healthy for all of us normies, so here’s your grain of salt with this.)
Henrik Karlsson on reading serious literature to his kids. “It is about figuring out a rich reading experience that both parties are excited about. Books that pull you in and open a space for deep conversation.” I think I want to try this.
Hillel Wayne on syntax highlighting being a waste of an information channel. Super interesting idea. To his point at the end about highlighting conflicts, I think being able to easily rotate through highlighting modes might help. And to generalize that idea a little more, toggleable analysis overlays seem like they could be useful in several other contexts too, like writing fiction or making digital art.
C. J. Chilvers (not to be confused with C. J. Chivers) on why he went back to buying CDs. Food for thought. I’m intrigued by his statement that “physical media is making a comeback, including innovations in the hardware that plays physical media” — curious what those innovations are. (I should add that I don’t stream music very often. Most of the time I listen to music I bought years ago in iTunes Music on my laptop or phone.)
Garry Ing on a view source web, an essay in the
The HTML Review. The hover effect on desktop is interesting albeit a tad distracting. I like the idea of surfacing page source more, though ideally not in an obscuring way.
New York Burning, by Jill Lepore (2005), about several fires set in New York City in 1741 and the accusations and trials that followed. (Sound similar to Salem? Yes, yes it does.) A bit slow going at times, but overall interesting and worth it. The first appendix, about the database Lepore built, was particularly interesting. Also, I didn’t know that the name of Fly Market came from the Dutch vly, “valley” after getting squished.
Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, by Katherine Rundell (2019). A lovely little book, and what an amazing title and cover. Rundell also wrote Super-Infinite, the John Donne biography I recently read.
Fiction
The Comedy of Errors, by William Shakespeare (1632, play). Read it for book group. A bit too silly for me (to be honest, I still don’t know whether I like Shakespeare or not), but there was some fun wordplay.
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty (2023, fantasy). A bit earthy, but otherwise really liked it. Loved the medieval Indian Ocean setting, and the older protagonist. Looking forward to the sequels. (And at some point I need to go back and finish Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy.)
In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire (2019, fantasy). Wayward Children book 4. As always, I loved the dark fairy tale feeling, with strong, heady undercurrents of danger and bittersweetness. The voice feels perfect for these types of tales. Also, I’d completely forgotten about the Mushroom Planet books! I loved those as a kid.
Colin Fraser on generative AI being a hammer and nobody really knows yet what is and isn’t a nail. Good essay, worth the read. Seems to me like there are lots of tasks where what you want is determinative logic rather than probabilistic guessing. (Which I think is at least partly why I don’t have much interest in doing AI engineering — I like building determinative things where I can understand how it works. And yes, state machines are totally my jam.)
Ohm, a JavaScript library for building parsers. Looks interesting.
Lovely to hear “Amazing Grace” during general conference. Here’s hoping it’s in the new hymnbook so we hear more of it in sacrament meetings.
I recently got a Keychron K3 Pro mechanical keyboard for work. Love it. Didn’t think I would — I’ve been devoted to standard Apple keyboards for a while — but it’s a clickety-clackety delight. (On a related note, before that I had tried a Logitech Pebble keyboard and liked it well enough, but the need for AAA batteries turned out to be a dealbreaker.)
I’ve found my level of interest in making art is often tied to how much interest other people show in the art I’ve made. Which is probably natural, but not ideal. Hoping to decouple the two.
I’ve stopped including explanations with my religious art pieces. (Going forward, it’ll just be the title and the scripture reference.) Haven’t decided yet if I’ll go back and remove them from the existing art pages.
A week or two ago we went through a drivethrough. “Your total is $9.41,” the cashier said. I looked at the clock. It was 9:41 pm. I took an inordinate amount of delight in this. (I will not try to make it happen again, tempting though that is.)
I think I spend too much time optimizing for potential post-apocalyptic conditions.
In the last couple months I’ve found myself accidentally repeating mannerisms my dad used to have, more frequently than before. It’s a bit uncanny.
iOS keyboard entry has gotten so buggy for me (at least in PWAs) that I find myself not wanting to write anything long on my phone. This wasn’t always the case.
The metal nub on my Apple Watch band has been wearing away the finish on my laptop and my desk. Oops.
Sometimes I’ve thought that when I’m making things, pain (physical or mental) means I’m doing something wrong. But I think that idea is wrong. Some pain is acceptable, especially because it’s (usually) transitory — time washes it away and all that’s left is the thing I made. (For me, this is mostly in context of my back and neck pain.)
My mind boggles at how much we’ve been able to figure out about stars and planets and atoms and subatomic particles given how little you can see with the naked eye.
