Day 17: Intense
Microposts
Interesting guest column by Reg Whitaker in Wesley Wark’s National Security and Intelligence Newsletter
The leading physicists mobilized in the Manhattan Project were on the one hand applying intelligence in the sense of the same pure quest for knowledge that had driven the discoveries of scientists from Galileo to Einstein. On the other hand as a military scheme, the Manhattan Project was an intelligence problem in the sense of secrets that had to be protected from enemy eyes, or indeed from any eyes, friendly or unfriendly, from outside the charmed circle of the initiated and security-cleared.
🏃♂️ Today’s run was an endurance run with a progressive fast finish. I tried breathing through my nose for the first hour to keep things slow.
Powered by Billy Talent and Beastie Boys
📺 I enjoyed Foundation Season 2. A good part of that enjoyment requires letting go of the original books and embracing this reinterpretation
Saturday, September 16, 2023 →
Finished reading: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler has so many fascinating ideas about consciousness, intelligence, and language embedded in a good story about a community of octopuses. I really enjoyed this one📚
Saturday, September 16, 2023 →
Day 16: Oof!
Day 15: Red
Thursday, September 14, 2023 →
Day 14: Statue
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 →
Day 13: Glowing
Day 12: Panic
Day 11: Retrospect
Day 10: Cycle
Finished reading: Earthseed by Octavia E. Butler is a powerful story that is surprisingly optimistic for a dystopia 📚
Day 9: Language
Day 8: Yonder
Day 7: Panorama
Almost BBQ’d a mouse! Spotted it just as I was turning on the burner.
Wednesday, September 6, 2023 →
Day 6: Well
Day 5: Forest
Day 4: Orange
Day 3: Precious
Day 2: Buildup
Not a great start to Season 2 of Invasion. The ease with which Mitsuki easily dispatches a half dozen invaders doesn’t suggest much jeapordy.
I really liked the initial mystery and slow build of the first half of Season 1. So, will stick with Season 2 for now 📺
Day 1: Abstract
Finished reading: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is a great story about an outsider being thrust into power and the decisions they need to make without compromising their ideals 📚
The only perk of returning home from a cottage vacation is that I got to watch the season finale of Strange New Worlds. Great show! 🖖
Last night of vacation
I’ve been making an effort to listen to the Moments in Waking Up when the randomly timed notifications come in. This one resonated with me today: “We too have problems that cannot be solved by more thinking”
Finished reading: I really enjoyed Hands of Time by Rebecca Struthers. Although notionally about mechanical watches, there’s also interesting ideas about time, building things by hand, and focusing on what really matters.
The book also resurrected an internal debate about the Apple Watch vs mechanical watches. For now, I’m going to take this as inspiration to reconsider my watch faces 📚
Finished reading: Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson finishes the remarkable trilogy. Robinson’s meticulous detail (though occasionally overwhelming) really brings Mars to life, along with compelling characters and ideas. Although I sympathize with the “reds”, I think the series ended appropriately 📚