5 Interesting Reads – 9/20/2021

Since I’ve collected another five interesting reads, I figured I might as well share them. Five at at time seems just about right: enough to warrant a post, and not too much to overwhelm. Incidentally, I’ve been categorizing these posts as “interesting-reads” and you can use that category if you want to see all of the posts.

1. Over at Marginal Revolution, I read this short excerpt on barbarism and immediately thought of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. The passage explains perfectly the development of Asimov’s Periphery and even why power seems to shift from the center of the empire to the Periphery, while wealth moves in the other direction. Of course, Asimov based is fall of the Galactic Empire on the fall of the Roman Empire, so maybe this isn’t much of a coincidence.
2. In the Washington Post, this opinion piece by George F. Will on “The Pursuit of Happiness,” which is based on his new book American Happiness and Discontents. I’ve enjoyed Will’s baseball writing (especially his book A Nice Little Place on the North Side).
3. This one in the New Yorker by Haruki Murakami, “An Accidental Collection,” amused me because I tend to collect t-shirts and baseball caps from various places I’ve been and products I like. Not too long ago, I read Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and it made me want to be a runner, if only I could skip all of the building-up-to-it, and you know, just run.
4. Another one from the New Yorker, this time a long profile of Colm Tóibín, “How Colm Tóibín Burrowed Inside Thomas Mann’s Head” by D. T. Max. I’ve only read one Cold Tóibín book, The Testament of Mary, but I really enjoyed it. I found this piece interesting because it delves a bit into how another writer works and I always enjoy reading that kind of stuff.
5. Finally, courtesy of a coworker, this fascinating piece on “Project Silica proof of concept stores Warner Bros. ‘Superman’ movie on quartz glass” by Jennifer Langston. All about how Microsoft and Warner Bros. are collaborating on storing data on pieces of glass. Really, about the possibilities of long-term data storage.

If you’ve got any of your own interesting reads you want to share, drop them in the comments.