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notable reads

Here I collate some interesting text I've read recently, be it an article, poem, essay, comment, and what have you. Divided by the month, by the year.

2025

July


pc bios or why smartphones are lame

my interest in linux also got me interested on tweaking my phone; i found it difficult however and this article explains it quite well

"User Engagement" is code for "Addiction"

The great spectre haunting the twenty-first century will not be any sort of –ism. It will be the great beast of global technocracy, and Big Brother will not be a government. On the contrary, the Ministries of Truth, Peace, Love, and Plenty will all be private (or publicly traded) entities. In this way, no Constitution, or Magna Carta, or any other foundational document designed to keep government tyranny at bay will be able to operate as intended.

to do nothing

Half of the trouble in our world is caused by people doing stupid things instead of sitting peacefully with their thoughts. We create problems so we can get busy solving them.

May


Never Violence

All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone.

Things That Aren't Doing the Thing

some cheeky anti-procrastination essay i came across

Postscript

The air turned red. The ocean grew teeth.

March


‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’

Living in reality means becoming a scientist of shame.

The You That Is You

This is your escape, it is quiet and lonesome and hard and it's entirely yours.

February


Fuck Puritanism

This is an important distinction. Failure is inevitable failure to be the best person you can be, to not err and offend, to not alienate others. But for those serious about material progress, failure is necessary to the building of a larger political project. For the Secular Puritans, the tenderqueers, and their ilk, failure is their goal.

Resolution: GA#697

Despite the absolutely banal archaic language and gross amount of hedging, it nonetheless flows very well.

kinder than man

If I am killed for simply living, let death be kinder.

Where it is Easy to Do Good

Suddenly, it all makes sense. The impossible requests, the wildly difficult farming, the over-leveled monsters, the rusty tools, the non-upgradeable weapons, the dangerous wilderness, the villagers who claim they’ll charge me “next time,” the friendships that never became romantic, the lack of plot: I had been playing inside of an introduction sequence. I had built my whole life inside of the tutorial.