Writing History by Messing Around As far as we know, writing has been invented four times in human history. The big four are Sumerian cuneiform,… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (4): Innovation at Play; or, A Loaded Pun
Technology often advances at the margins, where new problems challenge people to adapt old tools or to make new ones. (See also Hybrids (2): combinations… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (3): Marginal Revolutions
Writing as Infant Technology … the thing about new technologies… is that it takes several generations for us to decide what they’re good for. They’re… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (2): Half-baked Beginnings
We often think of writing (and reading) as primarily a matter of culture and education, which obscures its position as one of humanity’s most transformative… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (1): Transforming Fire; Slow Burn
In reality, what more agreeable entertainment to the mind, than to be transported into the remotest ages of the world, and to observe human society,… Read More »Children in Understanding: David Hume on Reading (history)
If on a winter’s night a whippet I want to share a quote with you that I think about a lot. It’s from a book… Read More »McKinley Valentine (and Italo Calvino) on how reading changes the past
DriverlessCrocodile on Oliver Burkeman Warning: “Recovering perfectionist” Oliver Burkeman is about to be everyone’s new favourite (anti) guru. With apologies (to you and him) for… Read More »Reading: Oliver Burkeman on information overload, big rocks and the British Library
This is a great take on the benefits of reading clusters of books on a common theme. I like the way it takes the idea… Read More »Slava Akhmechet on reading in clusters
Steve Levitt: Something odd happens to me when I read Gladwell’s books and when I read [David Epstein’s] Range. The stories are so fascinating and… Read More »Steve Levitt on the user experience of reading David Epstein and Malcolm Gladwell
A friend shared this fantastic resource about [statistical] Causal Inference, about which I know very little. This book (and website) looks like a great place… Read More »Reading list – Scott Cunningham’s Causal Inference: The Mixtape