Currently reading: Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary by David Hume 📚
Finished reading: The Virginian by Owen Wister. Not a good book, but a fascinating one – and massively influential. 📚
The Art of Computational Narrative - by Samuel Arbesman:
Perhaps there are specific features of computer programs that might be (a tiny bit) like prose. For example, just as literary texts have specific properties and rhythms, it could be useful to compare programming languages based on their literary properties. Is there a rhythm to a Python program, or something written in Lisp? And what are the nuances behind keyword choices within each programming language? For despite the limitations on syntax and vocabulary that each language contains, the resulting code may have a particular expressive power.
The corruption of California - UnHerd:
You, tender reader, might be scandalised by the ways of California’s DMV, but such a response is a hangover from another era. Under conditions of bureaucratic dysfunction typical of a party-state, corruption isn’t a problem, it is the solution. These new populations have found ways to get things done. Bribery is more efficient (and far less crazy-making) than clinging to first-world expectations in a world that has changed.
This is a genuinely and deeply fascinating essay by Matt Crawford. I think it describes a small but significant chunk of America’s future.
Currently reading: The Virginian by Owen Wister 📚
Finished reading: Resisting the Bonhoeffer Brand by Charles Marsh. A fascinating brief book (really a long essay). Will post on it soon. 📚
Angus is a “sable” Sheltie, which is to say he’s tan with white trim – but his tail is mostly black. There’s no black anywhere else on him. This lends him a slightly comical appearance, I think, as though someone pranked him by inking his tail.
This brings me to the most embarrassing reason I stayed on social media for so long: ego. I genuinely believed that my posts, tweets, likes, and retweets and the blue check mark on my account actually meant something, that all the followers I’d amassed proved that I was worthy and important. I also embraced the delusion that social media was vital to my personal and professional success as a writer and activist. Without it, I was sure I’d miss out on parties, protests, and publishing contracts. Yet an honest accounting forced me to admit that my ability to party, protest, and publish has been far more enfeebled than enabled by social media. In short, I haven’t built my career on posts, tweets, and feeds. I’ve built it on books, essays, and speeches. And I haven’t built my strongest communities on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’ve built them on porches, around firepits, and under the stars.