Titled Posts Archive

Titled posts tend to be longer and less ephemeral than my untitled micro-posts, so here's where you can find them all.

For all my posts, both long and short, see the full archive.

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1. Goods as Gifts and Limitarianism 24 April 2024 2:09 PM

   About a year ago, I started keeping a digital Commonplace Book: a place to collect quotes from and links to online articles that moved me for some reason. Most of what I've collected, I've found, tends to be about ethics and morality, ways of thinking and...

2. Thinking About Book Donations 08 April 2024 11:24 AM

   I've been thinking about donating some books, to get my overflowing bookshelves under control. I've already been doing that on a small scale, a couple of books at a time, to the Little Librarybox down the street from me, but now I'm thinking about larger...

3. "Why does stage fright make me want to pee?" 08 March 2024 11:14 AM

   I had a dance performance last night, and, like everyone in the company, I went through my same old performance ritual: watch the clock carefully, and fifteen minutes before going on, dash to the bathroom to pee. And, as with every performance, right...

4. More Stupid LLM Tricks 29 February 2024 8:15 PM

   I know I've posted about stupid LLM tricks before, but somehow it never ceases to astonish me. We recently rewatched Gary Gulman's comedy routine about how the U.S. states got their two-letter abbreviations (it's hilarious): Alabama? AL. Well crap, that...

5. Fun With Search Engines 14 January 2024 9:45 AM

   I keep seeing these articles everywhere now about how Google results are getting SO MUCH worse. So terrible! So many splogs! I stopped using Google as my primary search engine a long time ago, in favor of DuckDuckGo -- more because I don't like Google's...

6. Do Justly, Now 12 May 2023 2:05 PM

   Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. Commonly attributed to The Talmud. Attributed here to Annesley...

7. Against Cruel Book Reviews 06 January 2023 9:30 AM

   📚 The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2022. There’s something about the joy people take in reading vicious book reviews like these that sits wrong with me. Oh, I know that two of the books on this list are probably vile works, written by vile people. And...

8. Things I've Learned from Reading Ghost Stories 27 December 2022 9:02 AM

   If the rent or sale price seems too good to be true - it is. Don’t blow old whistles. Found an ancient artifact? And it’s got a Latin inscription? Don’t read it out loud! Ditto for old books. Just put it back where you found it. Seriously. Beware of...

9. On Content 18 December 2022 10:21 AM

   I've been thinking about the evolution of the word "content" as it relates to creative endeavors. "Content" used to be a quality of a creative work, especially a piece of writing: "this article has no content" means that it's...

10. Back to the Dilemnaverse 28 November 2022 4:50 PM

    Earlier today, my husband, who knows he can't spell, asked me how to spell "dilemma." I spelled it to him out loud, the way I have always spelled the word: d-i-l-e-m-N-a. And I reflexively added, "Google it, to make sure." "Here...

11. Social Media Party 23 November 2022 10:46 AM

    Last night, I invented a new dish, a fusion of Mexican arroz amarillo and South Asian kichidi that I dubbed “Mexican Kichidi.” It was delicious, and while cooking it I had excited plans to photograph my culinary creation and post my new brainchild. But...