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Travel Tools
This is a small bag I keep in my car’s glove compartment. I’ve used the tools and repair materials it contains often enough that I…
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Terminal Lucidity
People experiencing terminal lucidity have typically suffered from dementia for a long time. Often they are gone so far they can’t talk or recognize their…
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Easily Amused
I used to have laughing fits that lasted for several minutes. I want just that I couldn’t stop laughing, but I couldn’t even remain upright.…
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The Jerk Funnel
James Steinberg has come up with an interesting concept: There are behaviors and processes that unintentionally result in being surrounded by assholes. Unfortunately, he has…
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Edible Plants in the Sierra Nevada
While backpacking, I frequently wonder if I could eat the berries I encounter. I know I can eat the blackberries but I’m unsure about everything…
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Questions about Philanthropy
Americans, on the whole, are generous when it comes to charitable giving, especially compared with Europeans. Part of the reason may be that there’s less…
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Your Photos Have Already Been Taken
Taking photos on vacation is pointless. For any tourist attraction, you’ll find pictures that are better than you’ll ever be able to take yourself online. Any…
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By Myself
I’m lucky to have friends I can talk to about weighty concepts such as grace without feeling silly. It takes a few beers to get…
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Effective Mess
Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized Terry Pratchett A few weeks ago, I shared a pointer to a podcast about the internal…
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Give Me My Task and Let Me Do It Right
Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave, where is thy victory? Oh Life, you are a shining path And hope springs eternal Just over…
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Shrunken Heads
This is from Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl and his friend Herman Watzinger talk with Jorge, a Peruvian acquaintance, over dinner. I laid my fork carefully…
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Personnel as Policy
Despite all the research done on management best practices, all the articles and reports and books that have been written, despite all the experience accumulated…
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People Are Better Than Dogs
Two days ago, I was in my neighborhood bar run by the American Legion. There was live music and general good cheer. People like to…
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More on Assembly Theory
I recently posted on Assembly Theory. I’ve read up on it some more since then and found this review of the theory by philosopher Johannes…
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Amber Inclusions
Seeing a perfectly preserved insect that flew around some long-gone forest tens of millions years ago right in front of your eyes, right now in…
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In Tech America, AI Fact-Check You
This happens to scientists fairly often: You remember some finding you came across a few weeks ago. You don’t remember where you read it, but…
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A Beautiful Epoch
Movies and musicals are often set during the Belle Epoque, probably because the dresses and houses are so pretty. Even science fiction is sometimes set…
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Assembly Theory
In April, Sara Imari Walker gave a talk (video, essay) at the Long Now Foundation. It was about Assembly theory, developed by chemist Lee Cronin…
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Outdoor Books
This is a good list of nature, travel and adventure books compiled by Ken Ilgunas. His personal preferences align more with my own than the…
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Hitchhiking
After hiking through the desert for a week, I was standing on the American side of the Mexican border. I was dusty, tired, needed a…
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Country Club Work
I am lucky: I can treat work like a country club. I can go there when I like to. It’s a ten minute drive. I…
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Two Notes
Two notes, one passive aggressive, the other one just aggressive. The passive aggressive I found on a vandalized hiking and mountain biking trail in Tahoe…
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We Are Meant To Be Many Things
Singular focus is not a human trait. It is a machine trait. Human life is fragmented on purpose. We are meant to be many things:…
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Fractured Entanglement
The most interesting perspectives on AI can be encountered on the Jim Rutt Show, which I have previously referenced with regards to AI risk. In…
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Building Communities
We’re far from having imagined all the different ways in which society may evolve. One recurring complaint about America is its atomization. Have we taken…
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Electric Network Frequency Analysis
Given an audio or video file, it’s possible to determine where and when it was recorded based on the electrical power grid’s hum in the…
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Animal Trick
The animal trick by magician Seth Raphael is mind-blowing, and what’s more, you can try it yourself here. If you have 5 minutes, do yourself…
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Not People
With ChatGPT-5 just having come out, Adam Mastroianni has posted a timely reminder on Experimental History: Trying to understand LLMs by using the rules of…
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The Last Picture Show
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurthy is set in a small Texas town in the 1950s. McMurthy didn’t idolize the time or the place,…
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Scientists are Weird
Derek Lowe on his blog, In the Pipeline, on the scientific worldview: [It] is not a mindset that most people naturally find comfortable. Or comforting.…
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Eccentrics
The body shop where I was picking up my car is on the wrong side of the highway. The neighborhood is nondescript in the worst…
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The Million Yen Melon
A friend returning from a trip to Japan told me about his experience with the fruit equivalent of Wagyu beef: the Yubari melon, grown on…
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Air or Earth
A gentle reminder that, now more than ever, flying is our punishment for daring to defy gravity. Nein Quarterly (Eric Jarosinski) Air travel is the…
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Spinning Sun-Powered Space Catapult
For years now, I’ve been following what’s happening in the field of interstellar travel. Not closely, but close enough to know what kinds of technology…
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Star Bowl Spinning Overhead
Writing by starlight Can’t see the words Fill a page Nothing there Waterfall distant sound Tree against stars Milky Way Juniper Jupiter white rock Wind…
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All That Is Earth Has Once Been Sky
Among the hills a meteorite Lies huge; and moss has overgrown, And wind and rain with touches light Made soft, the contours of the stone.…
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Eating Sushi With a Fork
Imagine being so narrow-minded that you would outright reject eating sushi with a fork instead of the customary chopsticks, without even having tried it. Because…
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The Moon Landing as Signaling
Signaling, as in virtue signaling, has a bad reputation. This essay by Malmesbury on Telescopic Turnip makes the point that signaling can also involve great…
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America!
Chanting USA! USA! is warranted when it comes to air conditioning. Not saying it isn’t warranted for other things too, but AC is an obvious…
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Open Day and Night
O goddess-born of great Anchises’ line, The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to…
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The Penguin Lessons
There’s a brand of British comedy that consists of a character humiliating themselves in amusing ways over and over. The original British version of Ricky…
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Knives
Since I was a kid, I’ve liked knives. Maybe it’s some primordial instinct that attracts me to those simple tools. Some of the earliest known…
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Napping Outside
One of my favorite things when I’m out backpacking or canoeing is to take an afternoon nap under a tree somewhere. Karl Heinrich Waggerl wrote…
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Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom
You have to give it the old communists: They knew how to create a good slogan. Some of them are still in use today, and…
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Everybody Sees That I Am Old But You
Seventeen years ago you said Something that sounded like Good-bye; And everybody thinks that you are dead, But I. So I, as I grow stiff…
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CrossFit
Many of us spend more time on exercise than on sex, yet there’s not a single movie about exercise. As a contrast, consider sports and…
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Signs and Spirits
I used to take a bus past a church sign on 19th avenue in San Francisco every day. The message changed every day. This was…
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Provincial China
This summer, I returned to a city in Heilongjiang province that I had already visited around ten years ago. It is full of crumbling heavy…
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Rushed Endings
At high school, we had to write at least one long essay every week. I remember one assignment in particular: Write a well-structured adventure story.…
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Avoiding Organic
What matters more, what you eat, or the quality of that food? What’s healthier, low-grade boiled GMO vegetables from Food ‘n’ Stuff or a bag…
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Small Gifts for Small Kids
Small kids travelling in Europe get gifts all the time. This started on Austrian Airlines, flying from California to Vienna. Our three daughters, aged 3,…
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A Critique of Marginal Revolution
I’ve been reading and benefitting from the blog Marginal Revolution for more than a decade. It continues to be one of the most interesting aggregator…
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The Decorated Buck
My brother’s cabin is deep in a narrow, forested valley in Lower Austria, not far from where I was born. The gravel road leading up…
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I Like the European Union
There’s much I owe to the European Union. Without it, my life up to now would’ve been very different and I’d likely have less to…
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Drafts
According to a pervasive belief in the German-speaking world, it’s essential to avoid drafts. They cause all kinds of diseases, including muscle stiffness and colds.…
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Mandated Style
The city of Santa Fe mandates that downtown buildings adhere to a specific style, Pueblo Revival. I’m in favor of making it easier to build…
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Austria 2000-2025
This summer I spent the most time in Austria since I left more than two decades ago. I’ve written about my impressions before. In this…
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Dairy Products
Milk products are a constant source of confusion when traveling. Too many times have I been asked what Quark is without having an adequate answer.…
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Visual Thinking
This is one of the books that influenced me as a kid but that I had forgotten about since. I only re-discovered it because I…
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Pictures of the Atelier
During my current stay in Austria, I’m spending a few days in a vacation home in the South of the country. It’s the same house…
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It’s Priced In
Someone recently pointed me to this old rant on Reddit. I don’t think it’s accurate, but it sure is entertaining.
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San Franciscos
Past visions of San Francisco‘s future, collected by Arthur Chandler.
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Gabonionta
The Natural History Museum in Vienna has an exhibit on the Gabonionta, also known as Francevillian biota. They were multicellular organisms that appeared 2.1 billion…
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Revenge of the Tipping Point
Malcom Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point is thought-provoking without being a great book. This isn’t easy to pull off, but Gladwell did it. I…
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Musical Innuendo
I like old showtunes because they’re joyful and uncomplicated. At least on the surface. After listening to them a few times, I pick up on…
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Walking Vienna
Change is the only constant, but it can take a long time. This summer, I’m spending a month in Vienna. I went to high school…
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Network Television
[Larry] Gross and several of his colleagues once did a fascinating bit of research to demonstrate what television of that era was capable of. He…
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Doubting Twin Studies
As a statistical geneticist, I used to think that the heritability estimates from twin studies are broadly correct. They suggest that variance in traits like…
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A Bold Choice
Pandemic 2020 is the name of a cafe I encountered recently while walking around Vienna. I wasn’t brave enough to enter, which I now regret,…
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A Joke Explained
If, in order to understand a piece of art, I first have to study the artist’s intention, it’s like a joke that has to be…
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Colloquial States of America
I like maps, but I like this one especially. Here is something else that’s similarly juvenile and great.
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Anthroposophy
There are more than 1,000 Waldorf schools worldwide, and more than 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens. As a kid, I went to one of them and didn’t…
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The 1,000 Year House
There is a series of blog posts by Brian Potter on how one would build a house that would last for one thousand years. It’s…
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An African Abroad
A recently published review of a travelogue first published in 1963 was intriguing enough for me to order and read it. An African Abroad was…
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People Don’t Read
Women read more than men, but that’s an incomplete observation, Oy argues here. Nobody reads contemporary literary fiction any more. People still read plenty of…
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Showtunes
Here are some showtunes I keep returning to with hardly any bad conscience:
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Universe Rating
Cleanliness Ambience Family friendliness Ease of assembly Cruelty Customer service Binary stars Unfathomable intricacy
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A Canny Eye
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is full of small facts and anecdotes that Dillard encountered in her extensive reading. Here is one that I enjoyed: This…
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Unfathomable Intricacy
Creation is so much more complex than it needs to be. The universe doesn’t just appear to be fine-tuned to support life but fine-tuned to…
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I have known about Annie Dillard for some time but I have never before read anything she has written. In retrospect, that was a mistake.…
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Ted Muller
Personal websites, updated and added to over many years, tend to be more interesting than social media profiles. Klaus Dierks’ website is an example, and…
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Rattlesnake Creeks
My neighbor told me about a swimming hole that nobody knows about. “It’s on Rattlesnake Creek,” he said. Armed with this information, I went to…
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Joseph Höger
I have inherited a number of 19th century paintings and watercolors from my father. I don’t think they’re worth much, but they’re pretty and they…
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America, Dark and Bright
Looking at the United States from the outside, it can seem that the country is all about its politics and its media. And it’s true,…
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Talking of Children and AI
We talk about our children and AI the same way. We say, “Did you notice what they can do now?” and “Can you believe that…
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Computational Irreducibility
Simple rules can lead to complex outcomes. If those outcomes aren’t predictable in any other way than executing the rules, this is called computational irreducibility.…
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Bigger Brains
To a first approximation, bigger brains = more neurons = smarter. Dig deeper, and it turns out to be more complicated than that. Honeybees have…
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