Headlines

New Ambient Album From Marconi Union

Marconi Union, which you might remember for creating the most relaxing song in the world , has released a new album: Multiforms: Ambient Transmissions, Vol. 3 . You can watch the visual album on YouTube or stream it from a variety of sources . This went straight into my

Name of the Father

"A wiseguy's son steps out of his father's shadow—and into the boxing ring. But the legacy of organized crime isn't so easy to leave behind."

What is this rock?

Not natural, not quite unnatural, the strange new rocks of the Anthropocene stretch the boundaries of geology - by John MacDonald Read on Aeon

The relentless math of the long tail

There are more than a million podcasts. The good news is that it’s easy to start one. The top 1% of all podcasts account for 99% of all downloads. That means that if your goal is reach, the long tail isn’t going to help much. The short head, even in a medium as wide open […]

Telescope Ranchers

Rockwood, Texas is home to a unique business, Starfront Observatories . Owner/operator Bray Falls hosts hundreds of other people’s telescopes in perfect conditions — ultra-dark skies (Class 1 on the Bortle scale ), clear weather, and fast internet — so astrophotographers from

How to Live Fully: The Samurai Guide to Dying Every Day

The great paradox of human life is that our mortality is the fulcrum of our search for meaning — the yearning to make this brief lungful of life matter amid the breathless void of space and time — and yet we spend our lives obviating the fact that we are mortal. If we are lucky

On Inherent AI Risk: “Extinction-Level Capitalism”

Matthew Butterick is a lawyer, programmer, writer, and designer. He’s written a long, interesting piece about the inherent risks of AI called Extinction-Level Capitalism . It is well-worth a read; I’ve excerpted several passages here but urge you read the whole thing . In