Ten shelves · 50 essays
The Reading Room
I.
Tech
How ISO Works
Inspired by Om I’ve been getting back into my DSLR photography. I learned a lot about how ISO settings work from this de…
Do You Still Read Books?
Reading List 07/25/26
Claude Opus 5: The System Card
II.
Culture
Trenchant but sententious, John Berger could sound like Platonov one moment, the next like Alain de Botton
Trenchant but sententious, John Berger could sound like Platonov one moment, the next like Alain de Botton
Increasingly “ancient history” is not just Greco-Roman, but leads through such locales as Kerala, Tillya Tepe, and Guangzhou
Durkheim called it "collective effervescence." The rest of us call it getting gussied up to drink, dance, and have fun
No, we are not post-literate. The reading panic is merely the result of histrionic op-eds that misdiagnose the erosion of literary culture
Nose hairs tweezed just so, and set with Krazy Glue. Gently dappled liver spots. Their art is increasingly rare, but a few morticians are hanging on
III.
Life
How to Live a Miraculous Life
Suppose we agree that we are here to love anyway — to love even though the work is almost unbearably difficult, even tho…
How Two Souls Can Interact with One Another: Simone de Beauvoir on Love and Friendship
How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James
Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming Yourself Across the Sweep of Life
Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and Ms. Boodle: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Advice on Writing to a Young Woman Aspiring to Be an Author
IV.
Design
In Memoriam, Encountering World War I, and Thinkable Horrors
A delayed education on the trenches and scales of suffering
One Developer, Two Dozen Agents, Zero Alignment
Gas Town’s Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale
January 2026
Use the saw, fear the saw
V.
Economics
The Rug Belt Atlas and Quiz
I have an amateur interest in Oriental rugs but my eye is untrained. Thus, for fun and learning I created with Fable a R…
Against Oligarchy, Part II: Wealth Taxes
Why is the Canadian Dollar so Weak?
What will more intelligence actually do for us?
The demand for human enhancement technologies
VI.
Finance
Top clicks this week on Abnormal Returns
Thanks for checking in with us this weekend. Here are the most clicked on items on Abnormal Returns for the week ended..…
10 Sunday Reads
Saturday links: serious randomized trials
MiB: Lori Heinel, Global Chief Investment Officer at State Street Investment Management
10 Weekend Reads
VII.
History
After Prophecy
Preserving Value and Order Under Divine Concealment, a Religious Phenomenology of Modern Life and Politics
Interpreting the Odyssey
East meets West
The Lachrymose Self-Conception of Liberal Society
Saudi Arabia’s Challenge to the Abraham Accords
VIII.
Philosophy
The Trial of Bentham's Bulldog
And am I a deranged pathological liar?
Suggested Readings
Debating Cold Button Issues About Anthropics
Amsterdam Insect Protest
Calm down about the OpenAI x Hugging Face incident
IX.
Psychology
Black Markets, Christopher Nolan, Summer of Love
Links and recommendations + the best sleep upgrade I've ever had
The Resonance Premium
Zohran Mamdani Doesn't Know What Working Class Means
My P-Hacking Felt Like Truth
Blog Jamboree 2026: The Winners
X.
Science
Quantum Mechanics Explained FROM SCRATCH
A comprehensive lecture by Tim Maudlin
Emily Adlam & David Wallace: The Quantum Interpretation That Divides Physicists
The Standard Model Lagrangian Explained
The Quantum Interpretation That Divides Physicists
The eldritch things famous rationalists believed, doubted, and took seriously
Life · Feature
The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in time and in space, and there is a limit to how much reality we can bear — evolution gave us consciousness so that we may sieve the salient from the in...
From the Stacks
Browse the full archive → Five rediscoveries from the back issues, rotated by the day
Read slowly. There is no hurry.