Nehaveigur

  • Portrait of a Mammoth

  • The Major System

    Anyone with sufficient motivation can remember almost anything. There is an ancient technique to remember hundreds of random numbers in a short amount of time…

  • Party Crashing

    My friend and his wive lived on a cemetery, where they rented a small apartment attached to the groundkeeper’s house. The location was ideally suited…

  • Travel Hesitancy

    Whenever I have to catch an early flight and get up at 4 am, I wonder, why I’m doing this to myself? Why don’t I…

  • Humility

    Here are some good quotes on humility: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less C. S. Lewis You might not…

  • You Can’t See Them

    This is a recent text by editing director of Alta Journal, Blaise Zerega: The summit at Heavenly Resort in Lake Tahoe is 10,067 feet up. Standing there…

  • The Definition of Coherence

    I have previously written about coherence without defining it. In a recent conversation between Jim Rutt and guest Kristian Rönn they talk about Rönn’s book…

  • Moon Diagrams

    Bartosz Ciechanowski has created a wonderful page explaining a lot of what there is to know about the moon using animated diagrams. Also look at…

  • California: Great for Trees

    Why does California have the tallest, biggest and oldest trees? Coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are the tallest trees on Earth, reaching 116 meters. Their range…

  • Wikimedia Commons

    Wikimedia Commons is a great resource for finding photos and diagrams on any subset. The Picture of the Year winners highlight the quality of what’s…

  • Sick

    “I cannot go to school today!” Said little Peggy Ann McKay “I have the measles and the mumps A gash, a rash, and purple bumps…

  • XKCD

    I’ve been following the web comic xkcd for almost two decades now. It’s usually good and sometimes brilliant. Here’s last Friday’s:

  • Niven’s Laws: Really just aphorisms, but good ones

    There are several laws, or maybe aphorisms, that science fiction writer Larry Niven has come up with. Wikipedia has a good list, and here are…

  • Resist Summary

    This is from Simon Sarris’ blog, The Map is Mostly Water: It is an interesting feature of stories and fiction that they resist summary. You…

  • Life Without Stars

    In a recent blog post, Julian Gough argues not only that planets without stars (“Stanets”) may harbor life, but that most of the life in…

  • Intentions for 2025

  • Thresholds

    From L. M. Sacasas’ blog, The Convivial Society, in which he asks if and when technology is beneficial to the individual. One way view this…

  • Give Chance a Chance

    Heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes kill many of us and are highly heritable, yet identical twins rarely die of the same cause, even though…

  • Storms of Steel

    This is a World War I memoir by German soldier Ernst Jünger. It describes his experiences fighting in one battle after the next while seeing…

  • Money or All This

    We’re spending the days between Christmas and New Year at a ranch house on the Eastern slope of Mt Shasta. There are no neighbors apart…

  • Snow Star

  • Steak: There are lots of things that taste better

    This morning, I had Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk and I liked it better than any of the four steaks (two mignons, one sirloin, one…

  • Santa and the Reindeer

    “This is the hour,” said Santa Claus, “The bell rings merrily.” Then on his back he slung his pack, And into his sleigh climbed he.…

  • Silent Night

    This time of the year, everywhere you go, you hear Christmas songs. Some of them have been around for a long time. Silent Night was…

  • Things to Argue About Over the Holidays

    Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics by Dynomight. Also see part II and part III.

  • Geocaching

    Geocaching isn’t as popular as it used to be. Google Trends shows that interest peaked in 2011 and has been at 25% of the peak…

  • Malmö

    Crossing the Öresund Bridge that connects Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden, I knew a new part of my life was about to start.…

  • Ecstatic Truth

    The French novelist Andre Gide once wrote: “I alter facts in such a way that they resemble truth more than reality.” […] After I short…

  • Every Man for Himself and God Against All

    I have never seen a movie by Werner Herzog’s but after reading his memoir I will have to. Here are some of his insights: We…

  • The Uniform of Individualism

    The has been too little personal involvement, and too much involvement in organizations which were insisting that other organizations should do what was right ……

  • The Art of Interesting

    As a guest on the Jim Rutt Show, philosopher Lorraine Besser recently talked about her book The Art of Interesting. One concept she mentioned has…

  • Stigma

    Common sense dictates that there’s an optimum level of introspection, and it’s possible that many of us do too much soul-searching. A related idea is…

  • Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography

    Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is full of insights about human nature. Of the many quotable passages, this one foreshadows what Richard Feynman wrote 200 years later…

  • Scaling up the Pioneer Plaques

    The Voyager Golden Records and the Pioneer plaques will remain legible for billions of years. Where they travel, they’re protected from the destructive powers of…

  • Sprouts

    Sprouts is a two-player game that only requires pen and paper. A number of nodes (“Sprouts”), but at least two, are drawn. The players take…

  • Men Don’t Read

    “Women readers now account for about 80 percent of fiction sales,” writes David Morris in the New York Times. Why is that? Most new books…

  • The Wall: I didn’t like Marlen Haushofer’s take on the genre

    What would I do if I were isolated on an island or on an uninhabited planet? is something I sometimes think about. A lot of…

  • Why So Ugly?

    Given that we’re wealthier and technologically more capable than we were 100 years ago, why is our architecture not only the same everywhere but also…

  • Optimum Introspection

    I have a deep aversion to too much introspection, to navel-gazing. I’d rather die than go to an analyst, because it’s my view that something…

  • Boring News

    I like my news like I like my visits to the doctor: Unemotional and infrequent. I’ve recently written about one way to achieve this. Packy…

  • The Giant’s House

    This novel by Elizabeth McCracken is a story about freaks and how on the inside they’re like the rest of us. It has many good…

  • Brixton

    Emerging from Brixton tube station for the first time and stepping out into the street, I entered a world I hadn’t experienced before. It was…

  • Metaculus

    Metaculus aggregates forecasts on a large number of questions. Because participants don’t make any money for making accurate predictions and instead only gain in reputations,…

  • Purple Urchins

    These are purple sea urchins in a tide pool on the Mendocino coast.

  • Those I Admire

    Here are some of the people I admire: Richard Feynman, Shel Silverstein, Jim Harrison, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Venki Ramakrishnan, Jack London, Stewart Brand, Max Perutz, Benjamin…

  • Mushrooms Making Waves

    I believe this is turkey tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor). The water in the background is Bon Tempe Lake in Marin county, California.

  • Point of View

    Thanksgiving dinner’s sad and thankless Christmas dinner’s dark and blue When you stop and try to see it From the turkey’s point of view. Sunday…

  • The Original

    For three years, while working towards my PhD, I shared an office with eight to ten other students and postdocs. The office with its gray…

  • We’re Not Free

    While we’re theoretically free, there is some empirical evidence that we’re not in practice. I don’t know if the optimistic or the pessimistic view of…

  • Possible Societies

    Yesterday’s post was an extensive quote from another blog arguing that we’re free to choose what society looks like in the long term. When we…

  • We’re Free

    Consider the category of spandrel. A spandrel is something that results from the process of evolution, but itself carries no evolutionary benefit, and may even…

  • The Mind is Flat

    Our subconscious minds do the real thinking, and once they reach a conclusion, the conscious part of our mind is notified. At least that’s what…

  • Lottery Instead of Elections

    Sortition, which also goes by Demarchy, is a system of governance in which leaders are chosen by lottery instead of elections. Here are some pointers…

  • Reality-Memory-History

    An attempt at visual expression. Perception-Memory-History would’ve been a better title.

  • May You Live in Interesting Times: How big a deal are the changes we’re experiencing?

    The phrase “may you live in interesting times” is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue “may you come to the attention…

  • The Inner Ring

    The so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and…

  • This is Water

    From a commencement address given by David Foster Wallace: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what…

  • The Eight Mountains

    What was my father longing for? He, who never managed to stop working. He barely made it to the mountains for a few weeks in…

  • Where Is It Like to Be an Octopus?

    Octopuses are the only smart invertebrate animals. Their brains are quite different from that of vertebrates like us: Rather than being centralised and profoundly integrated,…

  • Headless Mike

    Chicken who keep running around after their heads have been cut off are a common story told by people who have grown up on farms,…

  • The Value of Doubt

    The government of the United States was developed under the idea that nobody knew how to make a government, or how to govern. The result…

  • Skin Stealer

    This evening I unzipped my skin And carefully unscrewed my head, Exactly as I always do When I prepare myself for bed. And while I…

  • On Not Going Home

    This essay by James Wood expresses something that I’ve been feeling myself for some time now. I left Austria when I was 18, and I’ve…

  • Total Recall

    Around the time the iPhone came out 17 years ago, Charles Stross wrote an article in which he imagined a future in which all of…

  • Shel Silverstein

    Writing for both young kids and for Playboy, Shel Silverstein has one of the most interesting biographies I’ve come across. He also wrote the Johnny…

  • Minimizing Engagement

    In recent years, I’ve tried to limit my news consumption. I’d rather spend my time and attention on things where I can make a difference.…

  • Other Minds

    My five-year-old daughter said that spiders are insects and I was almost sure that they weren’t until she showed me a worksheet her kindergarten teacher…

  • Yearning From Above

    I’m on a plane. This morning, I woke up in a Sheraton hotel room and this afternoon I’ll be in a corporate office with a…

  • The Night is Darkening Round Me

    The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot, cannot go. The giant…

  • What My Father Did Wrong

    On my desk, I have a picture of my father together with a four year old girl. They both look at the camera. She’s not…

  • The Jewess of Toledo: A fine historical about trying to do the right thing

    Lion Feuchtwanger published this historical novel in 1955. It’s set in Spain during the second half of the 12th century, which is what we typically…

  • 1492

    If you had to pick one year that changed Spain, it’d have to be 1492. The year started with the Fall of Granada. On January…

  • Tree House

    A tree house, a free house, A secret you and me house, A high up in the leafy branches Cozy as can be house. A…

  • Spend it Wisely

    Last week, my wife and I packed our kids into the car and drove four hours to a cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Early…

  • Railguns

    In Jules Verne’s 1865 science fiction novel From the Earth to the Moon, three men travel to the moon aboard a projectile launched from a…

  • This is Just to Say

    I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet…

  • When to Stop Looking

    Imagine you want to hire someone. In a meeting room, there are eight candidates waiting to be interviewed. You can only interview one of them…

  • Phantom Time and World Ice

    Of the many, many conspiracy theories out there, here are two less known ones that I quite enjoy for their entertainment value: In 1991, Heribert…

  • Smut in Arabian Nights: It’s only slightly raunchy

    There’s something erotic about Arabian Nights, but like a belly dancer, it’s mostly teasing. Mostly but not entirely: The English translation of 1001 Nights by…

  • Early Bird

    Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird And catch the worm for your breakfast plate. If you’re a bird, be an early early…

  • Not Transferable

    As a scientist, a common lament I hear from my colleagues is that there aren’t enough scientists in politics. Although there are some who’ve made…

  • The Value of an Education

    Of my mother’s many siblings, there’s one I’m close with. When I was at high school, he gave me a summer job at his business,…

  • Never Kissed At All

    Strephon kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Strephon’s kiss was lost…

  • The Overstory

    The Overstory by Richard Powers is different from any novel I’ve ever read. It’s experimental in the sense that it is composed of multiple tangled…

  • Vengeance and Vindication

    Here’s a good paragraph by Philosopher Bear: People imagine that they want vengeance, when really what they want is vindication. In many cases, I think,…

  • Fermi Calculations: Getting order-of-magnitude estimates

    Many years ago and on a different continent, I used to work for a management consulting firm with offices in all of the world’s major…

  • Outdoor Books

    I don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like out of doors and try to make up for it by reading. Here are…

  • Shallow Mysteries

    Books like Gödel, Escher, Bach give you goosebumps because they hint at something grand, but they can also be frustrating. This review articulates this more…

  • Ice Cream for Lunch: You should try it

    In this post, I’ll try to convince you that having ice cream for lunch is a good idea. In the 1999 movie Ghost Dog, there’s…

  • Free Trade: An old and good idea

    Those who proclaim that Darwin’s theory of evolution is wrong can safely be ignored. They’re not motivated by a dispassionate longing for truth but by…

  • Arsenic for Longevity: A health fad from 19th century Austria

    People have been using dangerous and ineffective supplements supposedly increasing lifespan for a long time. Here’s an example from 19th century Austria.In an essay first…

  • Alien Artifacts

    As a kid, before I knew better, I liked to read Erich von Däniken. In Chariots of the Gods, he explained that the pyramids were…

  • Wild Nights!

    Wild nights – Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile – the winds – To a Heart in port…

  • Alien Oceans

    2030 is going to be a big year for those curious about life in the solar system. The Europa Clipper spacecraft that just launched is…

  • Simpler Than We Thought

    Human existence may be simpler than we thought. There is no predestination, no unfathomed mystery of life. Demons and gods do not vie for our…

  • Wikibibliography

    I wish there were a website that curated the best resources to learn about any topic. For example, if I want to learn about the…

  • Wanted: Time

    So much universe, and so little time Terry Pratchett Here are three observations that’d I’d love to spend a few weeks to investigate further, spending…

  • Drinking, Smoking and Drugs

    Here’s writer Hunter S. Thompson’s daily routine, as reported by E. Jean Carroll. It’s likely made up, but of course the truth is a poor…

  • Against Epigenetics

    In the 1960s, biologist James McConnell conditioned worms to respond to light flashes, then ground them up and fed them to other worms. He reported…

  • Arabian Nights: Orientalist Illustrations

    Here are some beautiful illustrations by Franz Xaver Simm from my old (late 1800s) German edition of 1001 Nights.