In the 19th century, the linear idea of time became dominant- with deep implications for our experience of the world: "The Shape of Time" @aeon.co (Plus- Montesquieu) Wondering at the widening gyre: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/18/t...

Emerging AI technologies are entangling with our crisis in democracy: "AI and Democracy: Mapping the Intersections" @carnegieendowment.org (Plus- "You're Gonna Miss Me") Fumbling with our franchise: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/17/f...

The Anthropocene: problems so vast, our distance from them so great. How do we manage "derangement of scale"? "By All Measures" @longreads.com (Plus- Don Quixote) Taking the long view: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/16/t...

Global poverty has plummeted over the last decades. But progress has stalled: "The end of progress against extreme poverty?" @maxroser.bsky.social @ourworldindata.org (Plus- Kenneth V. Thimann) Shoulders to the wheel: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/15/w...

How close can we get to "nothing"? The mystery of zero-point energy: "In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything" @georgemusser.com @quantamagazine.bsky.social (Plus- Kurt Gödel) Noodling on nought: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/14/i...

Beautiful art "hidden" in 18th century books: "Fore-Edge Book Paintings from the Boston Public Library" @publicdomainrev.bsky.social (Plus- Michael Bond) Fan the folio: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/13/t...

How does AI "understand" and represent reality? "Distinct AI Models Seem To Converge On How They Encode Reality" @quantamagazine.bsky.social (Plus- HAL 9000) Interrogating ideas and Ideas: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/12/t...

Built for these harrowing times: a "make everything OK" button on the web. @boingboing.net (Plus- snow in LA) Click and click again: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/11/e...

"China's Rare Earths Chokehold: A Primer"- why it matters, what might unfold @chinatalk.skystack.xyz, with @profgalloway.com (Plus- tea in India) Pondering paucity: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/10/t...

What happens to government when everything is content? "Life Under a Clicktatorship" @donmoyn.bsky.social (more from @cooperlund.online, @taylorlorenz.bsky.social, & @molly.wiki) (Plus- static electricity) Recommitting to real life: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/09/d...

A provocative argument that philosophers must grapple with the meaning of thermodynamics: "Reality is evil" @dmdalton.bsky.social @aeon.co (Plus- Stephen Hawking) Wrestling with reality: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/08/r...

On the impact of a pioneering cable network: "MTV: A Farewell to the Channel That Changed Our World" @thatericalper.com (Plus- Bowie's "Changes") Recollecting rock: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/07/i...

Baroque music’s glorious revolution: "The Famous Mr. Hendel" @laphamsquarterly.bsky.social (Plus- Giuseppe Sammartini) Conjuring creativity from chaos: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/06/h...

China, the U.S., and the World: Dan Wang's "2025 Letter" (Plus- The Cultural Revolution) Grappling with geoeconomics and geopolitics: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/05/m...

Peering into the future with Behance founder @scottbelsky.bsky.social and others: "12 Outlooks for the Future: 2026+" (Plus- Carnegie Science) Contemplating what's coming: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/04/i...

Marshall McLuhan's "Laws of (New) Media"- what they are and how to apply them. (Plus- The Amy Fisher story blankets the networks) Engaging with the emergent: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/03/e...

Aging is tough; Catherine Hiller offers a guide: "How to Be Old" @oldstermag.bsky.social (Plus- National Buffet Day) Musing on maturity: roughlydaily.com/2026/01/02/m...

A bumper crop of soon-to-be-freely-available works: "Public Domain Day 2026 Is Coming: Here’s What to Know," from @copyrightlately.bsky.social (Plus- Winter Holidays with @jstordaily.bsky.social, Radiohead, and The Kinks) Makin' a list: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/20/t...

A case study in how our vocabulary (and our sense of duty) evolved: "How debt shaped the way we speak" @colingorrie.bsky.social (Plus- Rose Marie Reid) Acknowledging our antecedents: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/19/l...

A (poignant and provocative) taxonomy of plastic bread clips: HORG- Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group (Plus- Harold Varmus) Contemplate classification: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/18/t...

A glorious collection of obscure- but fascinating- knowledge: Freakpages (Plus- Lord Kelvin) Explore: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/17/c...

A half-ruined former vacation town on the edge of the Salton Sea hosts a postapocalyptic experiment in radical living: "The Last Resort" @thebeliever.net (Plus- Eugène Dubois) Dancing with destiny: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/16/y...

Two of the best 2025 "year-end" lists, from Tom Whitwell and @dkthomp.bsky.social (Plus- Dusty Springfield vs.Apartheid) Read 'em and reap: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/15/c...

How the NFL (re)made the sports world in its image: "Whose league is it anyway?" @maitreyiaa.bsky.social @defector.com (Plus- Nicaea and The Gipper) Pondering plutocrats: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/14/t...

(Re-)framing-- and (re-)focusing our response to climate change: "The Electrotech Revolution- the shape of things to come" @ember-energy.org (Plus- Franz Aepinus) Plug in: roughlydaily.com/2025/12/13/t...

On the prospect of "conscious" computing: "The New AI Consciousness Paper" @astralcodexten.com.web.brid.gy (with cameos from @nealstephenson.bsky.social and @eschwitz.bsky.social) (Plus- Claude Lévi-Strauss) Thinking about thinking: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/28/e...

What's become of "the foodie" and what it would mean to take taste serously again: "Who Was the Foodie?" @aliciadkennedy.bsky.social @yalereview.bsky.social (Plus- the first [official] Thanksgiving) Contemplating comestibles: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/26/f...

What Las Vegas can tell us about ourselves: "Mourning and Melancholia in Las Vegas" @hedgehogreview.bsky.social @lukewinkie.bsky.social @slate.com (Plus- The Aladdin) Checking the odds: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/25/l...

What biology can teach us about the body politic: "The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist" @nilsgilman.bsky.social (Plus- The Origin of the Species) Incorporating the interconnected: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/24/n...

On different religions as "alternative technologies of the divine" Kwame Anthony Appiah via @ayjay.bsky.social (Plus- My Sweet Lord) The ecumenical embrace: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/23/a...

Arthur Goldhammer on this moment, in which (for many of us, anyway) even as we strive to stave off despair, hope is hard to find: "Perseverance in Despair" (Plus- Max Headroom intrudes) Keep on: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/22/i...

The Periodic Table of the Elements, in Pictures and Words (Plus- Hieronymous Theodor Richter) Tangle with taxonomy: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/21/e... #culture #elements #hieronymoustheodorrichter #history #indium #periodictable #periodictableofelements #richter #science #technology

Sam Altman says the one-person billion-dollar company is coming. @evrat.bsky.social tried to build one. "All of My Employees Are AI Agents, and So Are My Executives" @wired.com via @caitlindewey.bsky.social (Plus- Lysenko) Analyzing autonomy: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/20/t...

An early 20th-century movement in France that prefigured much of what we now celebrate in speculative fiction: "Merveilleux-scientifique" @aeon.co (Plus- magic lanterns) Speculate: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/19/e...

Is AI birthing a new art form, a new medium? "From Cinema To The Noematograph" @kyliu99.bsky.social @nilsgilman.bsky.social @futurologypod.bsky.social (Plus- Ben Hur) Stressing the subjective: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/18/t...

Climate is too complex to model accurately. Instead, we must use uncertainty to our advantage: "The model of catastrophe" @aeon.co (Plus- Möbius) Preferencing plausibility (over predictability): roughlydaily.com/2025/11/17/i...

"Choosing the Word of the Year is No Easy Feat"- the history of who and how, @stefanfatsis.bsky.social @literaryhub.bsky.social (Plus- “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”) Understanding usage: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/16/w...

When old ways are best, hay baling edition: "Why Don’t You Beaverslide?" @katiehillwriter.bsky.social (Plus- Country Life) TotH to tradition: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/15/m...

When language fails: "What Is The Ozma Problem, And Why Does It Matter?" (Plus- the "Light Gate") Exploring explanation: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/14/s...

The end of civilization? A sobering assessment of "The dawn of the post-literate society" from @j-amesmarriott.bsky.social (Plus- George Grenville) Buckle up: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/13/w...

On inequality in income and wealth: "Homoploutia: Top Labor and Capital Incomes in the United States, 1950–2020" @stone-lis.bsky.social (Plus- the exploding whale incident) Evaluating equity: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/12/a...

A beautiful new way to enjoy (and learn from) a classic: John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" Pondering perspective: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/11/s...

The striking changes underway in the financial sector: “What Wall Street’s obsession with ‘capital solutions’ tells us,” from @semafor.com (Plus- International Accounting Day) Back to basics: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/10/r...

On the challenge of keeping our language-- our words and our use of them-- up to the task of wrestling with our present and our future: Robin Sloan and Quentin Hardy (Plus- Louie, Louie) Pondering pondering: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/09/w...

On the foundation for modern geometry and physics: "What Is a Manifold?" @quantamagazine.bsky.social (plus- John Wallis) Getting down with geometry: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/08/i...

The stunning interiors of rare musical instruments @charlesbrooks.bsky.social @boingboing.net (Plus- Sax and Sousa) Cherishing craftsmanship: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/06/i...

On the conditions of liberty: "What is civil society, and why should we care?" @himself.bsky.social (with @noahpinion.blog.web.brid.gy) (Plus- Guy Fawkes) In praise of plurality: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/05/n...

For scientists of yore anything—from mermaids to alchemy—was on the table: "How the Occult Gave Birth to Science" @dalequark.bsky.social @nautil.us (Plus- Rasmus Bartholin) Thinking about transmutation: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/04/a...

On Silicon Valley's search for Lebensraum in the Lone Star State: "The Texan Ideology" @thebaffler.com (Plus- Stephen F. Austin) Mess with Texas: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/03/i...

"Kind of like the film world’s one intellectual"- the remarkable Walter Murch: "Every Blink" @lrb.co.uk (Plus- Hal Roach) Juxtapose: roughlydaily.com/2025/11/02/i...