Category: Post
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While the past midlife crisis model focused on breaking down confining bonds, chipping away at that adult façade to return to the fountain of youth, Xers are still in full construction mode. “I’ve made a list – it’s the ‘do-better’ list,” Leslie Mann’s character tells her husband in Judd Apatow’s flawed but occasionally insightful “This…
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“People want a fair deal from someone they like.” When questioned about his actions to get people to like him, he simply says, “I tell them that I like them.” — Read on fs.blog/joe-girard/
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You have to identify with this past of yours, and you have to find some way to make it make you stronger. If college was a quicksand pit of despair then you have to accept that and find some way to be empowered by it. Read more here.
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the U.S. is in the middle of a great shift — in the 19th and 20th centuries, high class in America was defined as “anything French”, while in the 21st century it’s defined as “anything Japanese”. Apparently the Japanese don’t realize it yet? More here.
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NASA’s been clear that it doesn’t intend to replace the space station. Instead, the agency wants to shift from landlord to tenant, purchasing space station services from private players rather than running a facility of its own. It’s betting the private space industry can help drive down costs and accelerate innovation. — Read on singularityhub.com/2025/12/26/the-era-of-private-space-stations-launches-in-2026/
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the way we think about the world—made of separate, clearly labeled “things” that you can depend on to “be themselves”—is an illusion. The universe is governed by physical laws that are all about movement, forces, warping, and never about peacefully existing in a room — Read on planktonvalhalla.com/20251204-purpose-from-first-principles/
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What do you notice about this reconstruction? That’s right, it looks awful. In the eyes of modern viewers, at least, the addition of this matte, heavily saturated color has turned a really good work of art into a really bad one. — Read on worksinprogress.co/issue/were-classical-statues-painted-horribly/
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The head tax is bad tax policy dressed up as soak-the-rich populism. It’s the kind of thing that sounds good in a City Council speech, but creates real harm for the workers it’s supposed to help. If we want to find more revenues to close our budget gap, we have better options5, and we should…
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Imagine you could interview thousands of educated individuals from 1913—readers of newspapers, novels, and political treatises—about their views on peace, progress, gender roles, or empire. Not just survey them with preset questions, but engage in open-ended dialogue, probe their assumptions, and explore the boundaries of thought in that moment. This is what time-locked language models…
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Oddly, today’s sweet plum pudding hails from a meatier dish. As Maggie Black writes in History Today, the dish that eventually evolved into plum pudding originally contained preserved, sweetened meat “pyes” and boiled “pottage” (that is, vegetables) and was enjoyed in Britain as early as Roman times. — Read on www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-figgy-pudding-180957600/
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This morning, I woke up in a supremely comfortable bed, knowing there would be no deadly predators or pests to eat or infect me. With cheap soaps and pristine, hot water, I became cleaner in five minutes than was possible for any human—no matter how wealthy—in the past. With a flick of a switch, I…
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It was the opinion of the Symbolists, and Bocklin in particular that the purpose of art was to reveal through the use of a language no longer logical, but from “other” reality that hides behind that immediately perceptible with careful use of “symbols.” From Arnold Bocklin, 60 Paintings
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“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement.” — Read on www.rogerebert.com/features/bright-walldark-room-august-2014-well-jump-and-well-see-by-chad-perman
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On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. But this is supposed to be okay, because they…
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10. The data center buildout reaches 3.5% of US GDP in 2026. The scale of investment mirrors the historical expansion of the railroads. The only factor that slows overall building is perceived risk within the credit market, particularly in the private credit market. The massive growth in that asset class suddenly shows strains of increasing…
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Despite Neal’s reputation as a frenetic hipster, “I just realized that there weren’t that many trips,” Carolyn said. “It sounds as though they were doing this all the time. Half of them were coming home again — people don’t realize that Jack was going home and Neal was coming home. There weren’t that many anyhow…Jack…
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One-bedroom units in the building average $3,500— except two of them, subject to the city’s rent-stabilization laws, which hold rents below $900 per month. As a result, both units have been allowed to fall into disrepair, because the cost of restoring them to habitability is greater than what they’d generate in rent. Read more
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Pliny the Elder, who in his Natural History, completed in 77 AD, commented that the Empire’s legionaries had not yet extended knowledge of the island of Britain beyond the neighbourhood of the Caledonian Forest — Read on www.linkedin.com/pulse/mythical-great-wood-caledon-part-1-origins-richard-oram-khkge
Basement Whatever 