Why you must create
A good reminder from The Culturist to spend more time creating new things than consuming from others. Nowadays, it is frighteningly easy to spend the best part of a day consuming the creations of othe…
Coleman McCormick — Unified Feed
Long-form writing, link posts, and micro posts from Coleman McCormick.
Latest posts
Orson Welles on Citizen Kane
Orson Welles discusses making Citizen Kane at age 25. I love his comments in deference to his cinematographer on Kane, Gregg Toland. He credits him with giving him the confidence to create from his im…
Closed loops and AI
Just read this take from Elad Gil: AI will eat closed loops first AI will first automate away the things that are easier to form a closed loop learning system on. This is why code and AI research may…
Harari vs. Henrich
An interesting piece from Joseph Heath that compares the opposed theories on the origins of human intelligence posited by Yuval Noah Harari and Joseph Henrich: What makes the field of human evolutiona…
Let them explore
Kids don’t need their every moment curated. They need space to explore and follow their curiosity, unguided by parents.
Tyrell's Owl
Tyrell's owl. Blade Runner, 1982.
What Makes Art Great?
Nabeel Qureshi breaks down the aspects of great art that make it unique.
Principles
Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.
Surface, an Obsidian plugin for Readwise
An Obsidian plugin that pulls relevant Readwise highlights into your sidebar as you write, turning your reading library into live writing context.
2010: Odyssey Two
Michael Whelan's inspiring cover art for Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two.
Brian and Thomas Owens sing Sam Cooke
Father/son duo Brian Owens and Thomas Owens, Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come." What a phenomenal duet.
C.S. Lewis's tips for writing
C.S. Lewis's tips for becoming a better writer. How quaint to think of a time when the radio was the only external stimulus.
10M
Search an archive of artworks by mood, feeling, style, or similarity.
Vin Varma's notetaking system
Vin Varma's thoughtful notes on his note-taking process. As my understanding deepens, it naturally precipitates into action. Projects start to emerge at various scales. The form follows the understand…
Flexport Atlas
Flexport built a slick app for visualizing global shipping and rail traffic.
Two roads to longevity
The latest issue of Res Extensa draws parallels between the story of Ford and Rolls-Royce and Stewart Brand's framework of Low Road and High Road design, from How Buildings Learn. We have polar opposi…
Initiation Well
The Initiation Well at the Quinta da Regaleira estate in Portugal.
Isometric NYC
Andy Coenen combines AI tools and satellite imagery to create stunning pixel art map of NYC that looks like SimCity 2000 come to life.
Mysticism
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a m…
Agent-native architecture
Discover agent-native architecture - a new software paradigm that designs systems for both human users and AI agents, focusing on composability and goal-driven interactions.
Resistance is signal
Luca Dellanna with thoughts on Pressfield's "resistance."
Running in 2025
Stats on running in 2025.
A method for changing systems
What the American Constitution established was not simply a particular system but a process for changing systems, practices, and leaders, together with a method of constraining whoever or whatever was…
The Turkish gulet
In today's accidental internet discovery, I ran across the "gulet", a two-masted style of sailboat from Turkey.
Mores, then laws, then geography
But the strongest prop of American order, Tocqueville found, was their body of moral habits. “I here mean the term ‘mores’ (moeurs) to have its original Latin meaning; I mean it to apply not only to “…
One good habit at a time
For the rest, we should look for the improvement of society, as we seek our own individual improvement, in relatively minute particulars. We cannot say: 'I shall make myself into a different person';…
Gridfinity Generator
Create custom modular organization containers with this web-based Gridfinity Generator tool - perfect for 3D printing drawer organizers and storage bins.
How terminals work
A vibecoded explainer of how *nix terminals work.
Herbie Hancock's start with Miles
Herbie Hancock on his introduction to Miles Davis. Herbie got his start with Donald Byrd. And Byrd gave him the push to go seize the opportunity to join Miles's second great quintet).
My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file
Jeff Huang writes about his 14 year old productivity system of simply using an ever-growing single text file to house everything. To-dos, meeting notes, ideas. Everything. Good reminder that you can h…
Poverty of attention
In a wealth of information there is a poverty of attention.
Leuven Town Hall
Leuven Town Hall. Flemish Brabant, Belgium.
Making a Steinway piano
The year-long process of hand making a Steinway grand piano.
Organized knowledge
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Storehouses of history
When old corporate buildings preserve a heritage.
Return to smoke-filled rooms
Jonah Goldberg on the brokenness of our primary system.
Return to Forever, Live from Jazzaldia
Return to Forever, Live from Jazzaldia San Sebastian, 2008. A great live concert from a reunion of legends. Each of these guys was a noteworthy player in his own right. Return to Forever is one of the…
Wes Montgomery, Live in '65
Wes Montgomery, Live in '65.
Ahmad Jamal in France
Ahmad Jamal live in France, 1971.
The Abstraction of AI
OpenAI launched a major update to Sora yesterday. There's something about AI video that just doesn't get me excited. Sound on. pic.twitter.com/QHDxq6ubGt— OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 30, 2025 Sur…
Can you still be human?
Iain McGilchrist on the threats to our humanity with the coming AI wave.
Humongous Fungus
In LibertyRPF's latest newsletter, he makes brief mention of the "Humongous fungus", an Armillaria ostoyae fungus that covers roughly 2,385 acres of Oregon forest, and weighs an estimated 35,000 tons.…
Murray On English
The circle of the English language has a well-defined centre, but no discernible circumference.
patternlanguage.cc
A web-published version of A Pattern Laguage's graph of pattern relationships.
Scruton Inheritance
We do not merely study the past: we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for & died for should not be idly squander…
Gratitude on the 4th of July
On being grateful for this weird and wonderful experiment.
Forget estimates, start with appetite
On Shape Up's concept of setting the appetite for a project.
Conversational Interfaces
Why conversational interfaces still aren't the right approach for human-computer interaction.
Craft is the Antidote to Slop
Will Manidis on craft as path to imbuing work with meaning.
Brain-Computer Interfaces
We already have BCIs, in our hands.