Generic High Fantasy
I was watching the second season of Arcane recently and realized it’s canonizing new “defaults” for the (high) fantasy genre. If you think of the most...
A Cancer on Liberalism
Fascism is eternal. In surveys of the twentieth century, fascism and communism are often presented as twin ideologies — two alternatives to liberalism that...
The Art of Gathering
Mission Bay's new Bayfront Park is now open! Apropos of nothing, here are event or icebreaker ideas I want to pursue: Write all the attendees’ names on cards...
Internet Archive’s Down, Post Links
It’s been a while since I’ve done an old-fashioned linkblog. Here’s some links I’ve liked recently. YouTube recommendations continue to be an excellent...
Hyperkey Second City Scar Tissue
Hello frens, It sure has been a while, hasn’t it? This issue will be more of a grab bag than usual. It turns out the Guggenheim looks a lot like the SFPL...
Cocktail Codex
Recently I hosted a cocktail party. Most of my friends assumed I intended to host a fun night, but actually I just wanted to practice making cocktails, which...
Revenge of the Nerds
I was talking to a friend recently about Star Wars and pointed out that “nerd culture” disappeared over the course of the 2010s, or more specifically went so...
Alien Values
I recently rewatched Alien for the first time since I was in high school. Alien is a still a masterpiece after almost four decades. The production design is...
Typology of Horror
I was recently trying to explain to someone why I feel the horror novel House of Leaves is particularly unique. It’s not just because of its metafictional...
Stop Eating Breakfast
Stop eating breakfast! I hold to few folk mental models, but this is a hill I will, if not die on, then at least be mildly wounded on. A couple years ago, I...
Canine Cognition of Conveyances
Do dogs understand elevators? I wonder this every time the elevator doors close on Rooibos and I, trapping us in a metal box that will hopefully deposit us...
Perplexed with Perplexity
Hello frens, I no longer feel comfortable using Perplexity. You may remember I was trialing it a few months ago. In many ways, it’s an impressive product,...
The Sixth Five-Year Plan
Hello frens, I recently put in my two weeks’ notice. When I joined Asana in the summer of 2019 as a fresh-faced new grad, my plan was to stay for four or...
Not Literally Truckloads, But You Know What I Mean (rwblog S6E24)
"The Harvesters", Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 I’m training for the San Francisco Marathon (my first marathon; come join!) and I decided it was about time...
Perhaps The LLM Juice Isn’t Worth The Electrical Squeeze (rwblog S6E23)
This will be an unusually content-lite post. I’m moving, among other things, so it’s been a long week. LLM LLM LLM So this week noted cryptic skeptic Molly...
Wait! This Sounds Familiar (rwblog S6E22)
Balatro and Deliberate Practice So lately I, like everybody else, have been playing Balatro. (You may remember that I recommended it a month ago). Balatro is...
Meeting A Stranger In New York Without Communicating (rwblog S6E21)
Here’s a Spy x Family themed KFC in Suzhou. The interior was entirely Spy x Family themed, too. Schelling Points as Human Capital Recently I revisited one of...
Accessible, Understandable Answers in a Broad Domain of Interest (rwblog S6E20)
Hello frens! I hope you are doing well during these rainy San Francisco days, or whatever the weather is like where you are. The Magician from the Rider-...
The Old Cyberpunk Vision of a World of Neoliberal Corporations Run Amok (rwblog S6E19)
Today I am going to ramble about a topic near-and-dear to my heart: we live in a state-based society! This is occasioned by reading Rebecca Solnit’s1 “In the...
28 Pieces of Advice for 28 (rwblog S6E18)
I recently turned 28. I started a silly tradition of forcing my friends to give n pieces of advice for their nth birthday, so, in that spirit, here’s 28...
My Year of Rest and Relaxation (rwblog S6E17)
I did too much last year and I got bit! So this year I am going to learn to appreciate being alone again. Coming out of the pandemic, I was suddenly an...
Yes Yes I Know It’s Passé (rwblog S6E16)
Hello, it is time for my yearly top 5 lists. I have noticed a lot of other people do these sorts of year-in-review articles recently, so hopefully you are...
When I Hit Cmd-Z One Too Many Times (rwblog S6E15)
Miyazaki and Allowing Artists To Make Bad Art Earlier this year, Austin Kleon linked to an old BBC interview where an art critic argued that “artists must be...
Good Enough To Call It A Zine, Right? (rwblog S6E14)
Hello! I’ve been pretty busy since the last issue, so this is going to be more of a life update newsletter. If that’s boring come back in two weeks please 🙂...
React and Try Something Different (rwblog S6E13)
A REPL for Writing A possibly-productive metaphor between software engineering and writing: is there a benefit to a faster “REPL loop” in fiction writing? To...
A Giant Continuous Blob of Semantic Functions (rwblog S6E12)
I have had a bad few weeks, I will not pretend otherwise. In lieu of original thoughts, here are some interesting links I’ve found lately. Robin Sloan...
Unsusceptibility to the Illusion is Inherent (rwblog S6E11)
Hello friends. It has been a rough couple weeks for me personally, not to mention, well, the world as a whole. Hopefully you are all staying safe, sane, and...
If You Show Still Frames In Sequence Fast Enough (rwblog S6E10)
Last month I introduced a 500-word cap. I’ll keep the cap and try to make this newsletter biweekly. Let’s go! Communities of Practice Recently I’ve been...
Once The Canadians In The Audience Recover From Their Shock… (rwblog S6E9)
New experiment: to keep this newsletter fairly lightweight — easy to write, easy to read — I’m going to try capping it at about 500 words. So here goes!...
There’s Probably a Metaphor for Business Leadership or Scientific Research in Here (rwblog S6E8)
Currently listening to: The Loveliest Time, Carly Rae Jepsen1 Aight this is a short one — buckle up. Calendrical and Cartographic Thinking It’s a well-known...
A Very Confusing System Built Out Of Logical Components (rwblog S6E7)
Currently listening to: Endless Summer, Fennesz Hello from a very windy, and not particularly summery, San Francisco. Was it always this windy in San...
As Promised, A Very Dumb Frog (rwblog S6E6)
Currently listening to: Orbvm Terrarvm, The Orb1 This issue is an old-school linkblog. Not a whole lot of thoughts on my end, just a lot of web bricolage....
Did you know stone fruit like peaches and plums are coming into season this month? (rwblog S6E5)
Currently listening to: 10,000 gecs, 100 gecs I recently realized that instead of trying to actually think of topics, I can just look at all the Obsidian...
Eh, It Wasn’t Worth Celebrating Anyway (rwblog S6E4)
So, I completely missed March, did I? Oh well, nobody really needed March anyway — certainly, Julius Caesar won’t miss it. I’m writing to you here, from the...
In Which I Wax Nostalgic for My Lost Youth (rwblog S6E3)
Let’s get right in to the meaty content! “photo of a shrine to guanyin at dawn”, Stable Diffusion1 In Which I Wax Nostalgic for My Lost Youth Hello from the...
A Cobbled-Together Frankenstein of Fragments (rwblog S6E2)
Hello all and welcome back to rwblog. This time I’m revealing my top 10 books and top 5 films of 2022. I was intending to write longer essays for each of...
You Might Not Think You Need A Milk Frother... (rwblog S6E1)
Welcome Hello, one and all! Welcome to season 6 of rwblog, formerly known as Applied Dilletantery! Why a new season? I want to bring this newsletter back to...
Monthly Changelog (Sep 2022)
Hello friendos! General Site Updates I’ve added a bookmarks page to collect a few of my favorite talks, articles, etc. I cleaned up the site taxonomy a bit...
Monthly Changelog (Aug 2022)
Hey all, here's what's new on rwblickhan.org this month! General Site Updates I cleaned up the site taxonomy a bit. It's now (mostly) cleanly separated...
Analyzing and Synthesizing Thinking Styles
I recommend reading this article on my website! Lately, I’ve been thinking about two thinking styles, which we could call analyzing and synthesizing....
Command Line Tools I Like (2022)
This is another fairly technical post, and in particular presupposes some enthusiasm for the command line. If that isn’t you, feel free to skip this one!...
How I Built It: rwblickhan.org (2022)
Hey folks! This is a fairly technical newsletter about how I built the latest iteration of my personal website. If that doesn’t interest you, feel free to...
rwblog: Tools for 2022
Hey folks, in the spirit of “what’s in your bag,” I wanted to do a quick (and by quick I apparently mean 2,600+ word) overview of the tools I use every day...
52 Books of 2021
Hello all, and welcome back to a new year and a new season of rwblog, née Applied Dilettantery. As a housekeeping note, I’ll no longer be keeping to a...
Hop On Your Boat With A Shovel (AD S4E9)
I had a nice offsprint — I started Moss Roberts’ very long translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms — but tomorrow it’s back to writing. I wasn’t totally...
Nestled in a Remote Mountain Valley That Receives High Snowfall During the Winter (AD S4E8)
Writing update: I hit 22k words, but I’m feeling a bit burnt out, so I’ve decided to adopt a concept of “writing sprints” — I’ll take the next week off to...
All Writing’d Out (AD S4E7)
16,776 words out of 50,000, or about a third of the way done! “Guanyin (Avalokiteshvara) Standing before Flaming Aureole and Holding a Water Bottle”, Eastern...
A Cool Natural Stream That Turns On and Off Throughout the Day (AD S4E6)
Short missive tonight because it is my self-appointed NAprilWriMo. The count stands at 6,716 / 50,000. That means there won’t be much more than a few links I...
Patiently Waiting To Get Our Vaccines (AD S4E5)
I finally got around to finishing that outline! So, now I just need to write like crazy for the next month… With that said, these newsletters will probably...
Picking and Choosing Elements of Western Culture to Adopt (AD S4E4)
So I didn’t end up taking that outline more seriously and as a result didn’t finish it in time for April — I wish I could say “April Fools”, but I’m...