Plein air in San Francisco
Hi friends, It's another watercolor painting episode. I hope you find it as soothing as I find painting watercolors. Plein air in San Francisco: Hills and...
The consolations of philosophy
Hi friends, There's a book by the poet Adrienne Rich called Tonight No Poetry Will Serve. Maybe it's the tendency to utter quips like that that caused Plato...
Turn the Great Highway into a great park
Hi friends, This election day, San Franciscans will be voting for a number of local measures in addtion to the big national elections. Prop K is one of them...
Cosmic horror but make it funny
Hi friends, In this week's post I write about the kind of stories I like to read most, and wonder if--as I seem to be running out of them--if this is a sign...
Blow your cooldowns
Hi friends, I accidentaly wrote about World of Warcraft. And then I accidentally forgot to sent you an email to tell you I wrote about it, until today. Blow...
CAT FAQs
Frequently asked questions about my cat
Her job is cat
Hi friends, I wrote a performance review for my cat. As a senior cat, she had a pretty high bar to meet in her first 90 days, and I wanted to make it clear...
Why does the mall feel so bad?
Hi friends, I have questions, but not a lot of answers, I'm afraid. Join me for a meander in anti-nostaligia. Why does the mall feel so bad? Or, travels in...
Plein air in New England
Hi friends, This week, I want to share some watercolor paintings from the road. Plein air in New England I've been on a trip to New England and tried to do a...
Fancy Friday bread and cheese
Hi friends, Do you have meals that you always eat on certain days of the week? I do, and wrote about one of them. Fancy Friday bread and cheese Every Friday,...
What counts as reading?
Hi friends, I wrote about reading, and the way turning reading into achievement or virtue leads to strange ideas about fake and real reading. It's a beef...
Unscheduled maintenance
Hi friends, I had to relearn the lesson: Schedule time for maintenance or the machine will schedule it for you applies to our bodies. But this isn’t really a...
North Lake raccoons
Hi friends, I saw a bunch of raccoons and I have photos! They are pretty cute if I say so myself so check out this weeks post for your daily dose of bold...
Seeking the Big Otter
Hi friends, I wrote about why it can be hard to know what you want and to ask for it, both on the internet and in person. Yes, this is a post about desire....
Women's weightlifting at the Paris Olympics
Hi friends, Have you been watching the Olympics? I've been watching a lot. My household got a month's subscription to a streaming service just so we could...
Self expression in painting
Hi friends, Last week I wrote about self-expression in poetry, and this week, I wrote about it in painting. Among other things, I wrote about how painting...
Self expression in poetry
Hi friends, Somehow, I've never written about my personal philosophy of creative expression before. I started thinking about it because of watercolors, but...
The internet of cat slop
Hi friends, I wrote a new blog post which, while inspired by my cat, is actually about what's wrong with the internet. The internet of cat slop I got a cat...
A cat enters the scene
Hi friends, I've been thinking about two things all week: my new cat and work. So of course I wrote about the cat. A cat enters the scene We adopted a cat...
Kombucha experiment
Hi friends, I made some kombucha. No, you don't have to drink it. In fact, it's not ready to drink yet but brewing it made feel like a mad scientist and I...
Photos of the 2024 SF Succulent Expo
Hi friends, Do you like photos of succulents? What about photos of really weird succulents? Then you might enjoy my recap of the San Francisco Succulent...
Tea and cake in Bridgerton
Hi friends, I like to doodle while I watch TV. Usually it's just random shapes. But sometimes a phrase, or a visual theme pops out and becomes the subject of...
Sigmoid curve
Hi friends, Believe it or not, I published this late last night but I haven't got around to sending out this email until this (Friday) evening. I wrote about...
Watercolor interlude
Hi friends, I've been playing around with watercolors for the last month. Yes, it's another picture episode! Watercolor interlude Watercolor is a great...
Visiting H Mart in San Francisco
Hi friends, I went on an adveture to H Mart in San Francisco, and I wrote a review. A review of H Mart in San Francisco: Visiting the Korean mega-grocery at...
Origins of A to Z bread
Hi friends, I went down a research rabbit hole to find out where the A to Z bread recipe originates. I've been making it for years and years and you've...
The paradox of the handoff document
Hi friends, Why is writing a handoff document so hard? I found some ideas in Dave Snowden's 2002 paper about knowledge management that help explain it. The...
What's so upsetting about the iPad ad?
Hi friends, This week's post is on a somewhat timely topic, the weird iPad commercial that everyone hated. It was not enough for me to just go "yuck," I had...
Walpurgisnacht raccoon
Hi friends, I wrote about an animal encounter I had this week. This is not one of my fictional stories that starts out sounding real like the one about the...
Snufkin, wholesome anarchist role model
Hi friends, I wrote a review of the new Snufkin video game. I focus more on the philosophy than the game play, so even if you never intened to play the game,...
Birds being cute
Hi friends, Do you like pictures of birds being cute? Then you will probalby like my latest blog post which is mostly exactly that. Even if you only sort of...
Solar eclipse in Hill Country
Staring at the face of God for three and a half minutes
Talking about it and doing it
Liberté (2019) by Albert Serra
My pocket computer reads me books
Hi friends, I made an amazing discovery! I figured out how to use assistive text-to-speech to have my iPhone read books out loud to me. Let me tell you about...
Repression and blasphemy in The Devils
Hi friends, The sex in art series continues. This week, I wrote about Ken Russell's The Devils. Sexual repression leads to blasphemy in The Devils: Sex in...
The joie de vivre of Poor Things
Sex in art needs no excuses, part 2
Sex in art needs no excuses
Hi friends, I wrote a polemic (which is a fancy way of saying the part of an argument where you say your opinion without putting much effort into convincing...
The Left Hand of Dog
Hi friends, This week, I reviewed a book I just finished and enjoyed . Review: The Left Hand of Dog by Si Clarke Our hero, or point of view character anyway,...
Train won't stop
Hi friends, Happy blogoversary to rinsemiddlebliss! In this post I reflect on a year of regular writing and posting, and share my favorite posts of the last...
Inflatable rock
Hi friends, Living in San Francisco, it's hard not to be affected by the spirit of moon-shot technological invention. This week, I'm open-sourcing the draft...
How to have a happy birthday
Take a page from The Satanic Bible
Ask about your pay scale
Hi friends, This week's blog post touches upon a seasonal topic: getting your annual review and learning if you're going to get a raise. It's also kind of a...
Hawkstravaganza
Hi friends, I hope you like photos of hawks looking alternatively majestic and goofy. Because that's what I have for you this week. Hawkstravaganza: Three...
Undocumented killer feature
Hi friends, Inspired by recent news, I wrote about missing information in airplane manuals and their consequences. Undocumented killer feature: Weirdly...
Book scraper yak shave
Hi friends, I wrote about how trying to get all of my book reviews and notes out of Goodreads turned into a weird programming side quest. "Yak shaving" is...
The pleasure of the in-between days
Hi friends, I wrote a blog post about my favorite holiday of the year, the in-between days from Christmas to New Year, the intercalary interstitial...
Good morning, Boston
Hi friends, I wrote a new blog post that you might enjoy. Good morning, Boston, and New England, generally This is going to be one of those stream of...
Text-to-speech is not just screen readers
Hi friends, I wrote a blog post about how I read books using text-to-speech. Text-to-speech is not just screen readers: How and why I use synthetic voices to...
Worship the sun
Hi friends, The days are short and the nights are long*. Even in California, December makes the earth's axial tilt felt, and I long for the brief hours of...
The science fiction to German philosophy pipeline
Hi friends, I wrote about some books I've been reading, and the books they led me to read as a result. Some excerpts from The Unique and Its Property by Max...