Tagged “essay”
218 pages · most loved first · page 6 of 10
Spatial Software
An essay on software where users navigate a shared 2D or 3D space, from games to virtual worlds, offering a framework fo…
Star Wars: Episodes I, II, III and THX 1138
A philosopher's long, erudite defense of the Star Wars prequels against their critics, digging into politics, myth and t…
Stoicism's Appeal to the Rich and Powerful
Historian Ada Palmer's essay on why Stoic philosophy has long attracted emperors and elites, and what that says about ho…
Stop Calling Shuggie Bain Bleak
An essay in Litro Magazine arguing that Douglas Stuart's Booker Prize-winning debut novel Shuggie Bain should not be dis…
Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things
Novelist Catherynne M. Valente looks back on three decades of online communities, from LiveJournal to Twitter, and why e…
Structured Procrastination
John Perry's classic 1995 essay on getting things done by always having something more important to avoid, plus more ess…
Surviving Burnout
A thoughtful 2015 essay arguing that burnout comes from caring about outcomes you cannot control, with practical advice…
The Age of Average
An essay with side-by-side image grids showing how cars, cafes, buildings, and logos have all drifted toward the same bl…
The Anxiety of the Perfect Loaf
An essay on the illusion of culinary precision, arguing that recipes give false certainty and that good cooking comes fr…
The best $4 ever spent
A warm personal essay about what actually delights small children, built around a cheap toy that beat every expensive gi…
The Case Against Computers in Math Education
Neal Koblitz's classic essay arguing that computers and calculators can shortchange mathematical understanding in the cl…
The Case Against Gameplay Loops
A game-design essay arguing that the industry's obsession with gameplay loops flattens what makes games memorable, drawi…
The Case for Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales
An essay arguing that unsanitized fairy tales are the best way for children to learn that the world holds evil, violence…
The Dark Night of Mathematics
A reflective essay asking what mathematicians are really doing, tracing the unease behind foundations, proof and meaning…
The Death of the Postmodern Novel
A literary essay arguing that the postmodern novel has run its course and following the rise of autofiction, the blend o…
The Gradient and What It Means (Pt. 2)
An essay on why some oral traditions preserve knowledge with stunning accuracy while others are no better than guessing,…
The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?
Robin Hanson's 1998 essay that coined the Great Filter, arguing that the silent, empty sky implies some brutal hurdle li…
The High Cost of Saying No
An essay on why cities struggle to build housing, contrasting Atlanta's growth with San Francisco's fights over everythi…
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Art & Design
The hotel bathroom puzzle
Alec Nevala-Lee revisits a famous design puzzle from Henry Petroski about hotel bathrooms and uses it to explore why eve…
The Importance of Being Idle
An essay revisiting Paul Lafargue's classic case for laziness and what it still says about modern work, leisure and the…
The Internet Is Already Over
A literary, darkly funny essay by Sam Kriss on what the internet turned into, mixing memes, theology and cultural critic…
The Last Quiet Thing
A beautifully designed scroll essay built around a twelve-dollar Casio watch, asking what happened when our possessions…
The last time my family was replaced by technology
A personal essay about the author's great-great-grandfather, a village farrier in rural France, and what the arrival of…
The Lost Art of Research as Leisure
An essay asking where the amateur researchers have gone, and how curiosity-driven study as a hobby can be revived, with…
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