Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: culture

  • The Dao De Jing

    by Laozi, about 2,500 years ago. New translation by Ken Liu.

    Do by not doing, and there is nothing that cannot be done.

    The text is short, and contains enigmatic phrases that have been interpreted over the millennia. Ken Liu writes mostly science fiction, and very well at that. Over the pandemic he found himself unable to write and looked back. His will to write returned but he held off to finish a new translation with notes, along with stories from contemporaries to fill out the understanding.

    It’s helping me too. Thanks to Kottke for the recommendation.

  • Calque. This I did not know

    Calque vs loanword. Cool blog. These two are very similar but subtly different. Flea Market and Skyscraper are examples.

  • Remember Enron? Corruption and oil spills? It’s gone nuclear

    You can now buy a nuclear reactor for your home. From America’s favorite company. What could go wrong? From Slashdot.

    Spoiler, this is a SATIRE. It’s a fun fake. Had you going, though, right?

  • Attention Grabbing by Mr. Beast

    Mr. Beast of YouTube fame is expanding his empire with a new game show. This is a review of the show, complete with a short history of how Mr. Beast got there. A good lesson for where are attention is being guided. Take back control, folks.

  • Hot Stuff Checked

    Kottke points us to a new video (20 minutes) about hot sauces and the YouTube channel ….

    Besides talking about food, this is a good exploration into critical thinking.

    Bonus, this channel HowTown is going to be on my regular rotation of shows that are replacing my addiction (and dirty little secret) to reality TV with TV about Reality (I just made that up. A quick list of shows I check regularly: Cleo Abram with optimistic science, Dami Lee on architecture, Greens