Brain Pickings

For programming and tech topics: Dan Luu's Blog https://danluu.com/ Drew DeVault's Blog https://drewdevault.com/ For a broader scope: Derek Sivers' Blog https://sivers.org/blog If you love books, Maria Popova's Blog https://www.brainpickings.org/

https://www.brainpickings.org/ - Great website dealing with literary works and thoughts of humanities greatest minds.

Thanks for the links, I enjoy discovering sites with interesting content. They probably wouldn't be classed as unknown/obscure, but I always seem to find something interesting on Brain Pickings and Colossal, worth a look if they're new to you: https://www.brainpickings.org/ http://www.thisiscolossal.com/

A WordPress curated newsletter you can find at http://wpmail.me It's sent once a week and you should find at least one or two good articles that are worth reading. Then there is https://www.brainpickings.org where the author reads a bunch of books and sends out a newsletter with a resume of each book. I personally don't think there's anything like this out there!

This is from the "Brain Pickings weekly" curated newsletter - http://www.brainpickings.org/ (see the "hat tip" in that post). The topics featured in that newsletter would appeal to HNers I think and I recommend it.

one of my favorites in http://brainpickings.org

> I don't think her statement, that she uses Amazon data to find other books her readers enjoy, is an admission of immoral conduct. She said a quarter of the books she recommends are from information she gained from Amazon. Visiting the website for myself now: http://www.brainpickings.org/ I think it's clear that she's deliberately and forcefully fishing for clicks on Amazon affiliate link hits. I mean, just take a look at the number of large images (every one of them being affiliate links), one after another, encompassing probably 6-page'fuls at times (and I'm on a 1080p res.). I'm a person who's usually very well aware of what is an affiliate link or not... and yet I found myself strongly wanting to click the images. I don't buy it for a single second that Popova is not exactly aware of what she is doing. Her repeated requests for donations (after every post, in which she stresses that this is a site that doesn't have advertisements) leave no room for doubt -- I strongly believe she is disrespecting the user in a very fundamental way by misleading them like this and playing them on.

Berry's a good well for deep-speaking thought. The essay from which it comes is pretty great too -- I don't think it's online in whole form but there are pieces discussed here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/18/wendell-berry-poetry-marriage…

Agree. Articles like this are good fun (another favourite of mine is How to Write Unmaintainable Code [0]), but misleading titles are still poor form. For good general advice on productive criticism, I recommend How to Criticize with Kindness, by the philosopher Daniel Dennett. [1] [0] https://github.com/Droogans/unmaintainable-code [1] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules…

Review of the book his second wife Anna wrote about their marriage (spoilers?): https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/15/anna-dostoyevsky-reminiscence… This part seems to be a direct contradiction of the Guardian intro: > [...] It was these mutual attitudes which enabled both of us to live in the fourteen years of our married life in the greatest happiness possible for human beings on earth. vs the Guardian: > His marriages were disastrous [...]

Not necessarily for discussion type, but Brain Pickings [1] has gotten me to read books I wouldn’t have read otherwise. [1] https://www.brainpickings.org/

I just read this. It's good, but Cleese's talk on Creativity has his best thoughts on the subject (linked elsewhere in this HN thread). However, if you're not up for investing in the video (though you really should), there are two nice articles that summarize, one from Quartz and one from Brainpickings. I regularly share these with my engineering colleagues when they feel like they are in a creative rut. "The perfect conditions for creativity, according to Monty Python’s John Cleese": https://qz.com/919351/the-perfect-conditions-for-creativity-according-… "John Cleese on the Five Factors to Make Your Life More Creative": https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-199…

> Name one famous historical figure who had power of some sort who didn't do anything "jerk-like". That’s a straw man. Everyone is a jerk sometimes. There have been great people who changed the world without a predominantly jerky reputation. I don’t find much evidence Einstein was considered one, for example. His letter to Marie Curie is a good read. https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04/19/einstein-curie-letter/

There's a neat chart on this page that shows how various well-known writers over time balanced sleep with writing, and it widely varies: some worked very early while others almost never slept or only worked overnight: https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-times-literary… There's also this: https://www.fastcompany.com/3031754/the-sleep-schedules-of-27-of-histo…

I got the quote from this brainpickings article: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/01/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-li… ...which uses: https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Penguin-Great-Ideas/dp/014303632…

One particular source for me has been the reading lists of great writers and thinkers (Eg: Tolstoy[0], Gandhi[1] and many more kept extensive reading lists). Generally I think it is a good idea to delve into classics because time is a good judge. [0] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/30/leo-tolstoy-reading-list/ [1] http://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/eduresources/bks_read_by_g.htm

"PFS" sounds a lot like the MERGE operation of minimalist (natural language) syntax, which Chomsky has similarly linked to behavioural modernity. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/06/20/noam-chomsky-the-science-lang… (not too much info here, but the best I can find at the moment)

It's a bit more general-readership, but I find Kevin Kelley's Recomendo [1] newsletter useful. It's lightweight and doesn't require much time to read. Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings [2] newsletter is arts/literature oriented, well produced, and full of insights - but often quite long. [1] http://recomendo.com/ [2] https://www.brainpickings.org/

Self-Refinement Through the Wisdom of the Ages: New Year’s Resolutions from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds - https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/05/resolutions/

Off-topic, but I love Stephen King's comments [1] regarding adverbs. [1] https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/

I don't think so because suicide is or may be contagious. "...numerous social science studies indicate that one of the best predictors of committing suicide is knowing suicide." When I was suicidal, I wondered if my suicide could influence someone else I love to bite the bullet when they had a moment of weakness, and whether if I could live with that. I considered metaphorically putting a gun to my head was the same as putting a gun to another's psychologically. Honestly because I have had two suicide attempts... Even though I didn't succeed, I know I hurt the people I love very much. I feel that every loss and death is like a tiny bomb in a social network, it stresses families and communities, and can even severely damage people. https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/18/stay-suicide-hecht/

We read this to our kids from early on, they understand - there are even more lesser known Seuss books ... His 'adult' "The 7 Lady Godivas' with, shock! nudity .... https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/03/02/dr-seuss-seven-lady-godivas/ And my favourite - 'The Kings Stilts': https://www.amazon.com/Kings-Stilts-Classic-Seuss/dp/0394800826/

Here's a relevant article that might be a good read for you: https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/11/theodor-adorno-work-pleasure-…

Tangential, but worth sharing for HN crowd, I think. Psychologist Jung and physicist Pauli worked very closely together to explore the unity of mind and matter. Some of their theories are, frankly, difficult to grasp and so intuitively unfathomable they're easy (for me) to just dismiss. But when you consider that Pauli could conceive the idea of the neutrino, impress Einstein with a critique of general relativity, etc., then maybe he's just onto something. The collection of letters referenced below is really wonderful. https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/03/09/atom-and-archetype-pauli-jung…

You can't charge that for a digital version though. This is one of the very problems. The perception would be that they are simply competing with every other free blog out there filled with content. I have only heard of one person who made it work with a reasonable margin and that is Maria Popovo from http://www.Brainpickings.org but she is an anomaly.

Hubris born of success (overconfidence, arrogance) is "stage 1" in How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins: https://charlierose.com/videos/12443 Humility (know you don't know, always be asking questions), a focus on the greater good (is it about you or something greater than you?), and having a "growth mindset" are part of the antidote: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/

It's not a constructive critique. If the intent is not to further the conversation by improving it and moving it forward, there's no constructive purpose in making it. Further comments by 'geon make this clear: there's no sincere attempt to understand or charitably grant that the interlocutor might be have a reasonable argument, even if it's one you might not agree with. Edit to add: Rapoport's rules are really helpful, particularly when discussing contentious topics. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules… This is too far off-topic now, and at best we're talking past each other, so I'll take any answer off the air.

From the "patron saint of reason and common sense" I can recommend Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" from superb The Demon-Haunted World: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sa…

Ed Catmull, Pixar cofounder and inventor of the Z-buffer, has a great take on mistakes and failure in his book Creativity, Inc. Here's a pretty decent summary: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/05/02/creativity-inc-ed-catmull-boo… Essentially, we're going to fail. It happens. Might as well get it out of the way. Secondly, failure averse cultures don't actually prevent failures, and they have a tendency to squash innovation.

https://www.brainpickings.org/ The title truly says "A meaningful inventory of Life". I get lost in the labryinths in that blog covering science, philosophy, literature & art.