".... Millions of readers are addicted to daily doses of serially produced fiction in which protagonists engage in pseudo-Daoist practices of self-cultivation designed to transform themselves into all-powerful beings." open.substack.com/pub/andrewle...

My Mamdani Martini.

Just heard my favorite New Order song in a Chevy commercial. Really captured the moment.

How could KPop Demon Hunters NOT push its way into a newsletter narrative inspired by magic-wielding Sichuanese female knight errants? I’m just ashamed it’s taken me so long. andrewleonard.substack.com/p/when-fanta...

The triumph of Silicon Valley. Purposeful flooding the info sphere with inaccuracy and inappropriateness. One of stupidest goddam things humanity has ever done.

Pro tip: if you eat a potent edible half an hour before dogs go crazy barking at tsunami sirens you are likely to a: be confused and b: at peace with your unavoidable fate

My dad and grandfather bought Tom Lehrer vinyl back in the day and my mom says he was a great teacher of statistics when she was at MIT. At an impressionable age he introduced me to the concept of sarcasm. What a fantastic talent!

My series on Leibniz and the Book of Changes took me to some unexpected places, including the Hohenzollerns, Taiwanese semiconductors, the Tower of Babel... but I really did not expect that it would end with my love for my youngest daughter. open.substack.com/pub/andrewle...

A gold wire on this transistor is broken. Re-do it. ¬ After magnifying it 30 times ¬ under the microscope, do the 80 times magnification No merest blemish No tiny dent open.substack.com/pub/andrewle...

How, above all, was it possible that so many … revealed such an astounding lack of discrimination and of plain common sense by giving aid to screeching gang of fraudulent political gamblers? open.substack.com/pub/andrewle...

Blowing my mind every other paragraph

your feed has been blessed by the MAJAPAHIT MONEY PIG medieval.ox.ac.uk/2023/11/06/w...

I wanted to know why Frederick "The Great Elector" William started collecting Chinese manuscripts in the 17th century, so I started digging into Donald Lach's dissertation, "Contributions of China to German Civilization, 1648-1740." Now I cannot stop thinking about this portrait of the Elector:

When I quit Twitter the thing I was most unprepared for was how suddenly I was blind to what was happening in Taiwan. No news source could replace the sense of connection generated by the people I followed. But today is a new day. I feel like a missing limb has been restored.

As for me, of late I have been distracting myself from news about the present-day world with a dizzying journey into 17th century Chinese-Europe interconnections, featuring Gottfried Leibniz as a main character. andrewleonard.substack.com/p/the-univer...

A little more than 18 months ago I started an account here, but things were moving a little slow and there was absolutely no China/Taiwan-related conversation. Today I logged in for the first time in well over a year and I am stunned to see hundreds of followers. So let's see what's going on!

The San Francisco I believe in.

My back yard redwoods on a sunny California afternoon.

My resistance to signing up for Threads is weakening with every new report about how horrible it is. I feel an irresistible urge to rubberneck at the catastrophe. Worst kind of FOMO.

“She Who Became The Sun” a historical fantasy by Shelley Parker-Chan that reimagines the life of the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty as if he was a woman, is absolutely rocking my world. So good.

Even when I am reading for the purpose of mindless distraction, a cleaver-wielding virtuoso waits for me at the end of the path with important life-lessons to impart. https://andrewleonard.substack.com/p/the-cleaver-and-xinjiang

the whole "rate limit exceeded" for a product people are dying to abandon once and for all is like a philip k. dick story with a happy ending. REALLY REALLY WEIRD.

Might have to frame these stamps and never use them.

This is rather startling news! https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/23/world/russia-ukraine-news?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur#russia-prigozhin-putin-war-ukraine

gamechanger for me: anybody looking for a FREE automated transcription service should check out MacWhisper. I just used it on a 45 minute audio file and it was 95 percent perfect. Main drawback: processor intensive, my laptop's fan was running hard the whole time.

The prince [and] his entire family was also able to ascend to Heaven, and the animals on his property all became immortals.It is said that this was because there was some leftover elixir that the dogs and roosters ate.Those who are fond of the Way and study immortality all believe that this is true.

Be like water, adaptable and impossible to catch. But be seltzer water, because spritzes to the face are always funny.

Spotted in a back yard Berkeley garden.

Somehow both uplifting and depressing

Don’t have a pet to post pictures so I will have to make do with my plants.

Did not expect the callback to ancient Greece in a back issue of Current Problems in Cardiology: "According to the Greek philosopher Plato, 'lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.'”

For at least twenty years I've tried hard to get myself to exercise more. Then last week I got a freelance assignment on exercise motivation and in one morning of literature review learned more about exercise psychology than in the last two decades combined. There's a lesson in here somewhere.

Fresh in my inbox: a pitch for "Better than ChatGPT: Personalised bedtime stories for kids". I hate this idea so so much.

I've mostly given up reporting on technology, partly out of boredom, partly out of disgust. I'd much rather write about soybeans and immortality elixirs. But when editors come at me with questions about our AI overlords, its hard to resist: https://meridian.mercury.com/smart-computers-smarter-humans

Somewhere in the 1993-1994 realm I joined The Well and was immediately addicted to the weird new world of conversations held online. Thirty years later, joining a new community feels more like a chore than an adventure. But I remind myself: the goal is to get as far away from Elon Musk as possible!