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📚 Neat Stuff I Read, August 2025 Edition
Tips for taking notes. Deep dives on obscure infrastructure, color theory, and language acquisition. Lessons from history to help everyone feel a bit…
Aug 29
•
Eleanor Konik
18
9
📚 REVIEW: Empress of the East by Leslie Peirce
A great biography describing how a European slave girl became queen of the Ottoman Empire and changed it forever.
Aug 20
•
Eleanor Konik
8
2
🏵️ Improvements come with tradeoffs
Relating AI hallucinations, medieval copywriting errors, and the impacts of radiation on the human genome. Plus, some great book recommendations!
Aug 13
•
Eleanor Konik
9
1
🏵️ On Class, Corruption, & Fire
A review of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Plus, the dark underbelly of American poverty, and how control of fire is useful to man and birds…
Aug 6
•
Eleanor Konik
10
4
July 2025
💎 How Claude + Obsidian + MCP Solved My Organizational Problems
I thought they were just a gimmick, but MCP Servers are unusually reliable — and useful — compared to most AI tools I've tried.
Jul 16
•
Eleanor Konik
32
12
🎓 When Royal Marriages Keep Power Inside the Family
How the Egyptians and Ottomans bucked diplomatic marriage trends by marrying their sisters and slaves.
Jul 9
•
Eleanor Konik
11
4
June 2025
📚 Stoicism & the Cobra Effect in The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker
A spoilerific reflection on a book Patrick McKenzie called "the best low-fantasy public health writing you'll ever read."
Jun 25
•
Eleanor Konik
8
2
🌲 The Fastest Way to Learn Depends on Circumstance
What desert engineering and Paul Atriedes can teach us about tacit knowlege.
Jun 18
•
Eleanor Konik
17
8
🏵️ What aloe, flax, & silica gel taught me about timing
On supply chains, spiders, and screwing up spaghetti sauce.
Jun 11
•
Eleanor Konik
10
5
🌲 Familiarity with the Western Canon is Surprisingly Reassuring
It's amazing how much modern conservative rhetoric sounds like Augustus and Chesterton.
Jun 4
•
Eleanor Konik
18
5
May 2025
🏵️ Daydreaming is Valuable & so are Classics
On the value of personalization, planning, pretend -- and giant tortoises.
May 28
•
Eleanor Konik
10
10
🏵️ Judgment > Generation, & a question about Roman swords
The spread of human technology & knowledge throughout history is a fascinating, perennially relevant topic.
May 21
•
Eleanor Konik
9
9
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