As part of his captivating Hidden Heroes series, Steven Johnson publishes an account of the mother of all demos. More than 50 years ago, Douglas Engelbart gave the “mother of all demos” that transformed software forever. The computer world has been catching up with his vision ever since. More here
Open Culture shared a “jaw-dropping visualization of John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ solo.” Indeed, it is stunning, beautiful and valuable. A visualization like this makes music much more accessible. Quoting Open Culture: Coltrane’s complexity is daunting for the most accomplished musicians. How much more so for non-musicians? It can seem like “you need a doctorate of music to go anywhere near his recordings,” Nicholson writes. But “nothing could be further from the truth....
Bret Devereaux has long been my go-to source for all things ancient and military history. One thing I somehow missed reading from his incredibly resourceful website is the This Isn’t Sparta series. He recently published a three-year-anniversary series retrospective which promptly surfaced on my RSS feed, giving me a chance to catch up over the holidays. The whole thing is a very long read, with some installments more engaging than others but overall very enjoyable, eye-opening, and information dense....
Adelphi1 prints in book form two unpublished speeches by Milan Kundera, one from 1967 and the other from 1983, in which the great Czech writer reflects on the fate of the small nations in central Europe and the cultural drift of (western) Europe as a whole. As we read along, thanks to Kundera’s acumen and depth of analysis, we find many surprising ante-litteram references to today’s critical situation (Russian-Ukrainian war)....
As a Shirley Jackson fan, I couldn’t pass on this new collection of unpublished short stories. A good chunk of these was unheard of for thirty years until someone unearthed some cardboard boxes in a Vermont barn and then sent them to her heirs. Unlike The Lottery, where all tales followed a distinct theme, Just an Ordinary Day has little to unite the stories. Several genres are represented: classic family stories, supernatural, horror, and unsettling accounts of day-to-day life in the fifties all make up the list....
Suppose you are looking for a juicy and thought-provoking read on Italy’s twentieth-century crucial moments. In that case, I heartily recommend Italica by Giacomo Papi, a significant collection of short stories by prominent Italian writers of the period including the likes of Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante, Beppe Fenoglio, Natalia Ginzburg, and Giorgio Scerbanenco. A short essay introduces each tale. I thoughtfully appreciated these introductions, sometimes even more so than the story itself, as they are quintessential to comprehending the tale’s historical background....
I am happy and humbled to have been awarded the Microsoft MVP Award for the seventh consecutive year. July 1, the award assignation day, always comes with curiosity and a bit of trepidation. Being a member of the MVP community has been a very positive experience for me, especially in the years before COVID, when the MVP Summit, the main MVP event, was held in person in Seattle at the Microsoft HQ....
Last week, I got a mail from PyPI, the Python package index. They informed me that one of my open source projects had been designated as ‘critical,’ and I was therefore required to enable two-factor authentication. If I didn’t oblige, I would soon lose the ability to add new releases or modify the project. The project in question was Cerberus. The ‘critical’ designation happens when a project has been in the top 1% of downloads over the prior six months....
Last year I hiked the Translagorai route while accompanying my nephew and his friend on their first hiking and wild camping experience. To go full circle, I soloed the Alta Via del Granito last weekend, which covers the parts of the Lagorai mountain range not included in the Translagorai. The AVG is supposed to be a three days effort, with overnights to be spent in managed huts (“Rifugio”), but I wanted to make it in two days while camping in the wilderness....
W.G. Sebald is widely considered among the best modern German authors, so I approached this book with curiosity and high expectations. The Rings of Saturn records the author’s walking tour along the East Coast of England. As W.G. Sebald resides in the intellectual world, his tour naturally brings up literary, cultural or historical reminiscences. An astute Goodreads reviewer noted that Britain’s decline’s eccentric and grotesque aspects are this work’s central theme....