Links #145

Henry Begler on reading Age of Innocence. Enjoyed this review, though you may want to read the book first if you care about spoilers. Found the part at the end anthropologically interesting, starting with: “I realized something else reading The Age of Innocence. When I was younger, I never really understood why people spent their time reading stuffy bourgeois realist novels about love and marriage.” (I don’t know that I fully agree with his conclusion but did find it worth mulling over, as it looks like my taste in fiction is moving towards those kinds of books.)

Rebecca Toh on living by a compass, including a Robert Caro quote. I’m still trying to figure out which things I do because I must and which things I do because I’ve done them in the past. (By things I mean art, design, writing, programming, etc. This also has to do with my neverending tension between doing lots of different things and focusing on just one thing.) Also: Toh’s last paragraph, the one about words, particularly struck me since that’s the lens through which I’ve thought about reading and writing lately.

Naz Hamid’s Letter Club. “Not physical letters, but digital letters that arrive with traditional mail’s rhythm. It’s a private group newsletter that everyone contributes to and receives. It’s intentionally slow, purposeful, and deeply gratifying — a low-stress, high-signal way to stay connected that creates meaningful moments in a social world dominated by drive-by likes and fleeting attention.” I like this idea.

Alan Jacobs on chatbots in education. Yep.

How Buttondown uses your content to power generative AI. Ha. Bravo.

Jason Fried on knives and battleships (via Jim Nielsen). “There’s nothing at all wrong with honing in, developing your craft, making variations of things you’re good at, and getting better each time. Nothing small about it. Nothing unfulfilling about it.” Loved this.