Nehaveigur

  • Free Energy

    The 1990s were the golden age of free energy: Technologies that, through new or underappreciated physics, generated abundant and clean electricity. It wasn’t about boring…

  • The Soviet Space Shuttle

    The Soviet Union had its own space shuttle program called Buran. It looked and operated similarly to the U.S. Space Shuttle. One Buran shuttle was…

  • Rejecting Authenticity

    It doesn’t matter much if it’s authentic. What matters is if it’s good. Good and inauthentic is better than bad and authentic. This is true…

  • McDonald’s Innocence

    McDonald’s, according to journalist Chris Arnade, often is the only place for the very poor to meet and relax. It’s open to all in a…

  • Relax About the Population Collapse

    There’s widespread agreement that a declining population is equivalent to declining fortunes, be it for cities, for countries or for the whole world. That fertility…

  • The Things We Don’t Have to Do

    It’s the things we don’t have to do that make live worth living: Art, humor, play. Fleeting grace. Beauty. When that fight to save humanity…

  • Living

    Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing…

  • Helmets

    The idea behind the helmet law is to preserve a brain whose judgement is so poor it does not even try to stop the cracking…

  • Three Days by the Lake

    For three days, I went to a small lake in the Sierras. There was a dirt track that went in for 30 minutes. The lake…

  • Personality Transplants

    A spooky phenomenon: People who receive heart transplants sometimes change in a way that makes them resemble the donor. In some cases, they seem to…

  • Cruelty

    There’s some cruelty inherent in fishing and hunting. I’m not opposed to either and fish myself, but I think it’d be dishonest not acknowledge that…

  • Human Footprint

    Here is an interactive world map that quantifies the human footprint based on population density, infrastructure and other metrics. The truly wild places are in…

  • Consider the Fish

    Fishing is a bit cruel but also makes me feel closer to nature. Jon Ontario talks about this conundrum here. It’s the same tension David…

  • Preparation Charter Houses

    The two most interesting ideas on what could replace college I’ve come across are charter houses and The Preparation. Charter houses, proposed by Slime Mold…

  • Where the Mountains are Nameless

    There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And…

  • The US Democracy Threat Index

    Metaculus has introduced a US Democracy Threat Index. Here is their description: [It] combines 39 concrete forecast questions into a single metric tracking institutional resilience.…

  • Font Indifference

    What convinced some typesetters that it’s okay to add a paragraph on the font they chose for a book on the last page? Why not…

  • Marxism

    Radical: My reading of Marx. Reactionary: Your reading of Marx. Revisionist: Their reading of Marx. Realistic: None of us have actually ever read Marx Eric…

  • The Smile Brace

    One of my ancestors was a medical doctor who was responsible for accompanying the corpse of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to his final resting place after…

  • Life on Mars

    In 1996, Bill Clinton announced that we had found signs pointing to life on Mars. A meteorite called Allan Hills 84001, originating from Mars, contained…

  • Shakespeare

    There are things we like the idea of, but if we’re honest, we don’t want to do them. Contributing to a tight-knit community, going to…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • What Do You Want?

    Philosophy Bear is asking a simple but interesting question here.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Moana

    My kids don’t care what I’m reading. Sometimes, when they have run out of other things to do, they leaf through my current book, only…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Kon-Tiki

    In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl led an expedition to cross the Pacific on a raft built from balsa wood in the style of the ancient Incas.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Money

    All for individuals and annual. U.S. GDP per capita: $82,769 Median income (individuals in full-time employment): $62,088 Top 10% income threshold: $150,000 Top 1% income…

  • Bull Riding

    Good writing by Chandler Fritz. Will be looking out for more by him.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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:…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Trash Panda

    Someone took the term trash panda too literally when they designed this.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • Meadows

    This is a mountain meadow in Lower Austria. Comparable meadows in the Sierra Nevada have fewer wildflowers and fewer insects, both in terms of absolute…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • San Franciscos

    Past visions of San Francisco‘s future, collected by Arthur Chandler.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • Colloquial States of America

    I like maps, but I like this one especially. Here is something else that’s similarly juvenile and great.

  • 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…