Links For May-ish
I’ve been wanting to do a links post for a while, but I could never figure out how I could shoehorn my own problems into it until my sister sent me an amusing article in Harper’s (I’ll get to it) which reminded me I do have a reading problem. I call it the French Foreign Legion-Daylight Savings Time (FFL-DST) Problem. From time to time, people send me great articles like this one about the French Foreign Legion. I would never have looked twice at that story because it sounds vaguely dry and historical and the name is descriptive enough for me to assume I already know it’s some boring French diplomatic agency, but it turned out to be fascinating and bizarre. I learned something about the world and was thoroughly entertained.
Whenever I finish an article like that, I check out more from the same publication, and I’m always disappointed. Of course in some ways it’s inevitable. Friends share articles they’ve finished that they think I’ll like. I have to guess what’s good based on titles. If they send the very best ones the others will surely fall short. Still I manage to disappoint myself by exclusively reading “Daylight Savings Time” articles. DST articles are published twice a year, express 1 of 5 possible sentiments, and contain nothing that has changed since last time you switched the clocks. They’re not exactly clickbait, but I can’t help myself from reading them.
That’s the problem. I’m always saving bad articles for myself to read. It’s exacerbated by my unwillingness to give up on an article I’ve saved (using Instapaper). I tend to enjoy long articles more, but I often read the shortest ones first, so it takes me a while to get to the good ones.
Below, I’ve listed a snapshot of the articles I’ve saved (as of ~May 8). My plan was to skim the first paragraphs and try to get better at separating the wheat from the chaff. My new problem is that I’ve read many of them while drafting this post. Naturally, I already have my suspicions about what I like (longform, novel, unorthodox). As a bonus, if I do a good enough job explaining what I like, maybe more people will send me articles.
They’re mostly in chronological order by date saved (newer first) except where I’ve grouped by author or topic.
Ok, I also have to confess to cheating. I saved these articles after coming up with the post idea. I give myself a pass because I usually do have a Lakeman article saved. I had read many of his posts ages ago, but my FFL friend turned me onto his “Notes on {country I have no desire to visit}” series. They’re long descriptions of his travels, focusing heavily on cultural differences and history. I’ve read Notes on Tunisia, Mali, and Trinidad and Tobago.
I also saw that his latest post is about Infinite Jest. He says it’s more of a summary than review, but I’ll probably still read it because I like Infinite Jest, it’s been a while since I read it, and I probably won’t ever read the whole thing again. It was also a good reminder to subscribe to his RSS feed.
It’s a holy grail to find a good blogger with range who has a long backlog. I saved these ones specifically because they seemed more grounded in fact, but I do like their opinion writing too. “So Much Blood” is a good example of a short post that’s still interesting.
You know how people say, “Well I wouldn’t want to be famous, but I would want to be respected in my field”? There are a lot of people who lead great lives, do interesting things, and only make it in the news when they die. It may be morbid, but I also like the view of life through an obituary. It’s a good reminder of just how differently people can live. Taken together, they give a broad view on the world.
I say all this before having read this one but there are a lot that intrigue me. I got the idea years ago from someone praising Ann Wroe, the obituary writer for the Economist, so naturally I went and saved one from a different publication.
I stumbled across this guy’s high level math introduction, Napkin, when I was looking for textbooks to read, but now that I’ve browsed his blog, I’m certain we have mutual friends. I’ve already poked around a fair bit, and I mostly saved these as reminders to come back. I am a sucker for both advice and writing about writing, but I still enjoy them more than most DST articles, especially when they come from someone with an unusual angle.
This was linked on Henrik Karlsson’s recent piece on Hacker Mindset. I could have done without reading that (I’m about sick of people talking about Agency), but I do like good Minecraft content. This was ok. It was actually Minecraft-flavored arbitrage. I can see how fun and exciting it was for alice and co, but I feel like it would have been incredibly frustrating for everyone else. Now that I think about it, it’s a great example of agency: hacking a video game is cool. Taking advantage of people trying to have a good time is rude and disrespectful.
When I linked to the XXIIVV webring in my last post, I realized that I’d found that through one of its members and never properly explored the subdomain. Again, this is more or a reminder to come back and surf these sites.
It’s rare for me to save Mastroianni’s posts because they’re biweekly and short. He’s hit or miss for me (as is anyone posting consistently). It feels like he’s used up his best ideas, but I like his humor enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
suckerpinch is one of the few YouTube channels that I will drop everything to watch when a new video comes out. His latest one was about HTTPS on his blog which reminded me to check it out (and all its subdomains). I ended up at this amusing text file of courtroom bloopers. Certainly more to explore here.
Classic Daylight Savings piece. Is a trend that I’m rooting for finally happening? Social media on the decline? Yes please. Having skimmed it, it’s all the obvious reasons. Passive consumption is eating social media, and people feel bad about using screens for everything.
The article my sister sent me was this Sam Kriss piece about Agency in San Francisco (more FFL because it’s about the culture of people who call themselves “highly agentic” more than an exhortation to “just do things”), and I wanted to make sure I read more because he’s a good writer. I swear I got it from his helpful guide to his writing or his most popular posts, but now I don’t see it in either, so maybe it’s because it’s about Rene Girard who I don’t know anything about.
I got this from a Slime Mold Time Mold links post. Sounds fun. I just haven’t gotten to it yet.
Hedy Lamarr is one of those names that has a nice rhythm to it and pops into my head every so often. I had to confirm that she really was an actress/inventor, and the rest of her page looked interesting enough to save for later.
Every so often I find myself accidentally reading about psychoanalysis. This was a clear and concise introduction to many concepts, but it also makes me think the nonsense is part of the fun.
Answer: out of view of adults. This has some cool anthropological examples of kids’ play, but it is ultimately kind of about “kids these days” (and “adults these days”).
Mildly interesting. Mainly I like the unorthodoxy. I was browsing this blog because the writer participated in Inkhaven, a blogging retreat.
I’m about halfway through, and I think I’ll skim the rest. I tend to like The Guardian’s longform reporting, but I don’t care for this subject as much.
I don’t recall where I saw this, but I saved it because I’ve been thinking about writing about debugging. They do take a different angle than I would, but I like that they have examples from beyond software.
There’s nothing more Daylight Savings Time than AI these days. No one knows what they’re talking about, but everyone has opinions on it, and I feel compelled to read them all. I’ve already deleted the first two, but I will read about Claude Mythos because at least it’s about a newly released model (even though it’s old news now).
I enjoyed the first part of the bread series before I realized how long it was. It’s still saved because I will come back to it. Instead I decided to read the one-off one which was fine.
My old job would send out blog post digests sometimes. These represent the whole list that I saved before I left. These are for learning more than pure entertainment. I totally will read them all eventually.
Overall I’m really happy I did this. I don’t think it has dramatically changed anything overnight. If anything, it’s a good reminder to myself that I read this stuff because I like to, and to think more about what I actually do like, so the next links post will be full of maximally cool articles.