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Technology evolves from raw to complex to simple. From the fist to the hand axe to the hammer. From carts to the Model T to Tesla. From switchboard-operated phones to digital phones to smartphones. From SMS to Facebook to Messenger. From the crude to the cooked to Sushi.

A dozen things that drive my writing, research, thinking & actions

The legendary composer on the creative process, importance of deadlines, problem with software in arts and what is art actually for?

AI has its use cases, but it can’t solve a perennial mystery—yet

Though we talk about “the individual vs the collective,” as if that dichotomy is an eternal truth about the world, there exist groups that encourage divergence and healthy individuation.

A plagiarism

Let me introduce you to WordStar 4.0, a popular word processor from the early 80s. WordStar 4.0 As old as it seems, George R.R. Martin used it to write “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Why …

11/25/2023 10:58:48 PM

When he opened the seminar that prompted these essays, Fred Turner said that Silicon Valley built more than semiconductors or search engines or smart phones or sharing platforms. Indeed, he suggest…

Freya India explains how algorithms act as conveyor belts, transporting girls to dark and extreme places

The latest book from the author of At The Existentialist Café surveys seven hundred years of humanist thought.

The billionaire investor sees the apocalypse coming. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your tolerance for excitement.

One answer, and 5 tricks to help

You can’t give general advice. If I do, millions of creators are going to see this and then they’re going to do it and I’m going to fuck them over.

Let's do more of those

“You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly… Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”

“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”

Hemingway, Didion, Baldwin, Fitzgerald, Sontag, Vonnegut, Bradbury, Morrison, Orwell, Le Guin, Woolf, and other titans of literature.

How do we solve hard problems? A deep dive into one of the most influential theories of how people figure out difficult things.

Here are the people who have most greatly influenced my thoughts on learning.

Can you learn more efficiently by making things harder for yourself? These three strategies let you learn faster (even if it feels slower).

I get this question a lot. From Tim Stoddart’s personal newsletter: "I love newsletters. They are great businesses, I enjoy writing them, and they are lucrative. However, I’m still unsure about the format. I have two options… Do you prefer the lighthearted and more entertaining style of the

One of the unsung disasters of contemporary academic life is the death of the physical library. There are so many disasters in current year academia, I doubt as anyone else grouses much about this,…

Look for single decisions that remove hundreds or thousands of other decisions.

Put On Your Art Eyes Talking to the comedian Mike Birbiglia, the visual artist Wendy MacNaughton said that the job of the artist is just to "put on art eyes.” “Most of the best drawing in the world,” MacNaughton said, “has nothing to with making a quote-on-quote good drawing. It has to do with seeing

Sheehan Quirke went from working at McDonald's with 0 followers to over 1.5 million Twitter followers in 18 months.

A series of instincts, thousands of tiny adjustments, hundreds of drafts … What is the mysterious process writers go through to get an idea on to the page?

I have two exemplary pieces of 21st-century writing that I want to share with you. Neither is hot off the CMSes; they've both aged just a li