📚 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 better about now.

Capital Weather Gang informs me that summer is officially over in the DC metro region, so now seems like a good time to share all the neat stuff I read lately.

Taking Notes

• Henrik Karlsson offered a neat look into how many of the most influential notebooks and commonplace books weren’t ever meant to be public. “They are not second-guessing if their thoughts are interesting to others, or trying to frame them in a certain way. And, paradoxically enough, this is more interesting to read.” The footnotes are the best part, but the idea is that “thinking on paper” is raw and real and the process of thinking in a way that essays written for public consumption less frequently are.

• Here’s how Miguel Conner is using LLMs for language learning in lieu of dedicated spaced repetition apps. It reminded me of the discourse about whether AI is going to help Duolingo or hurt it. Personally, now that Readwise has AI-suggested themed reviews, I find that I’m reviewing my notes more than ever and getting a lot more out of them.

• Jillian Hess writes by far and away my favorite newsletter on knowledge management and note taking. This month she had a great piece on how commonplace books are becoming more important in an era increasingly struggling with information overload and bereft of authenticity, as well as this lovely article suggesting ways to take travel notes. The nice thing about Jillian is that all of her articles are backed by an extensive knowledge of the the actual notebooks of people who were genuinely successful in their chosen fields.

Education

• Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal) had a really thoughtful piece about the “last mile” problem in using AI for things like education and hiring. She was mostly focused on curriculum and how easy it is to automate rote learning like coding bootcamps and online courses, but this line really stuck out to me: “AI automation of the hiring process means students can go through college and onto a job platform without a human vouching for their qualities and abilities, without someone making a phone call saying ‘yes, this young person will show up, be responsible, learn from you,’ which is what an employer really needs.” I suspect networking is going to be a lot more valuable in the future, which is a shame for the same reason that getting rid of the SAT was a shame for college admissions.

• Severe grade inflation is something I experienced back when I was still teaching, and it’s something I worry about for my own children’s education. At least one Harvard professor is so disgusted by — and conflicted over — the current state of affairs that he’s “offering two grades” … which the journalist writes as though this is a big deal and a shocking thing, but as far as I can tell just means he’s grading on a curve to meet Harvard averages but still telling the students their raw score. Still, in the context of faculty at Harvard busting out laughing at the school’s average GPA, the framing is interesting… especially when one stops to consider why grade inflation is bad. Easy As do not actually make high-performing students more chill in my experience, either.

• Ian Leslie wrote a neat review of A Brief History of Intelligence, which is apparently a really excellent science book. The review is in some ways an interview, and focuses on asking the author further questions about the development of language — from an evolutionary perspective and also in children and machines. I found it interesting how highly specific that part of our brain is, and I also enjoyed the comprehensive history of how AIs were trained. The emphasis on the value of a stepped curriculum was particularly useful.

History & Science

• This 6,000 word article about how digital color works is not for the faint of heart, but I love learning high-level things about how computers work at their most fundamental levels. It starts with the electromagnetic spectrum, moves right into how cones and rods work, then jumps into things like standardized color palettes and the entire history of computing as it relates to color displays. My kids keep asking about light, and this article covered basically everything I ever learned in school about light and color while being much more engaging and clear than your average science textbook and including neat computer history that most teachers don’t care about but I do.

• Relatedly, this is a deep dive into the history of why the West is more color-minimalist than other parts of the world. It touches on how Europe has fewer natural colorants and dyes, and the ones they do have are toxic. The author has an entire substack consisting of deep dive into color history and I adore it.

• My big summer read was Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Peirce, which I reviewed in depth. It’s well-written, tidily organized, and doesn’t suffer from midlife doldrums; Roxelana’s life was interesting from beginning to end, and this book offered a much more well-rounded perspective into Ottoman history than most of the others I’ve come across.

• This tweet offers some much-needed perspective about the recurring, perennial nature of complaining that the times now are harder than what our predecessors experienced. An excerpt: “Young men in the 40s: we were told that war was ended and everyone could live the good life. The entire economy collapsed and the entire world is at war AGAIN. We wish we could be hopeful like our fathers in the 20s. // Young men in the 20s: the car has destroyed the American way of life, and most of our fathers died or were maimed in the War. I wish we could live in simpler, honest times like our fathers in the 1890s.” One of my top reasons for reading so many history books is to get perspective about where my life fits into the story of my ancestors. To that end, I really enjoyed Bret Devereaux’s recent collection about the life of pre-modern peasant families. I also enjoyed the writeup from Derek Thompson about how 1910 was “the year the modern world lost its mind” due to technological change and social crisis.

• I am a huge nerd about early human history, and Lyman Stone had an interesting article pushing back on some of the more common myths about the Neolithic Revolution. It’s titled “The Neolithic Revolution Was Awesome, Except for Cows” (which I think is a great title) and reminded me strongly of the arguments between the “With the Grain” people and the “Against the Grain” people (most famously James C. Scott, who wrote a book with that title that I enjoyed much more than David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything although they’re similar in vibe). Stone’s piece has a lot of nice graphs and hard data, which I always appreciate.

Geopolitics

• One of my good friends lived in China as an English-language social studies teacher for a few years, and talks about those experiences pretty fondly for the most part. So I’ve been interested in learning more about China, and these are some nice longform reads that have felt reasonably even-handed, or at least shared a personal perspective that felt informative. Noah Smith has a lengthy review of Dan Wang’s book Breakneck. Santi thinks that China is speedrunning the Western progress process by leapfrogging unnecessary stages. It reminded me somewhat of the “Abundance” stuff Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein have been talking about, particularly with regard to how the American regulatory environment is making infrastructure projects like high-speed rail difficult.

• There used to be an “invisible barrier” in Panama that released sterile screwworms over the Darién Gap every week, which kept a particular flesh-eating parasite out of Mexico and the United States. It’s mostly a problem for cattle, which is a big problem because America eats a lot of beef, which is already expensive right now due to drought conditions. “While the exact reason for the breach is unknown, experts attribute it to the Covid-19 pandemic causing ‘supply-chain snarls at the fly factory in Panama’ and disrupting ‘regular cattle inspections that might have set off the alarm bells earlier,’” — it was, for me, a pretty stark reminder of the complex geopolitics that goes into things that seem fairly isolated — like American beef prices. This one also hit close to home because I live in Maryland, which is the location of the first travel-associated human screwworm case.

• Alex Irpan of Sorta Insightful wrote about his experiences with a my little pony convention that ended up having a lot of drama. It was a hyperlocal phenomenon, but it rhymes with a lot of other subculture drama I’ve read about or experienced in the last twenty years, and really got me to thinking about how much of global politics is just subculture drama involving a subculture that I don’t really have much insight into.

Infrastructure

• Here’s a deep dive study about why some beef has more plastic. It’s not exactly neutral and unbiased — it’s essentially an advertisement for why you should buy their boutique beef instead of Whole Foods beef — but I still found it interesting because I like learning about infrastructure, supply chains, and the chemical composition of plastic. Here’s an example of what I mean: “Phthalates soften plastics, and bisphenols harden plastics. Bisphenols form hard, clear, heat-resistant plastics and are used in items like water bottles, food can linings, and medical devices. Phthalates make plastics more bendable and are used in items like food wrap and medical tubing.”

• Now that I have two kids I need to pack lunches for, I have become a Costco member. I resisted it for a long time because I have Amazon Prime and there are two grocery stores within comfortable walking distance of my house, but these days Costco is not too far out of my way when I’m picking up the kids from school. One thing I’ve noticed is that for all the emphasis on how low their margins are and how cheap their goods are, the main advantage for me is the reduction of cognitive load. Suburban families with kids are obviously their target audience, and knowing that the lunch-portioned snacks they’ve got are what other people like me buy, and not needing to sort through crazy-overpriced or ridiculously-low-quality items to make a decision is a huge stress reliever. This 2018 article about Costco’s formula for success really helped crystalize my understanding not only of why I appreciate shopping there, but of how going “against the grain” of common wisdom can be a formula for marketing success in a particular niche. I was also really intrigued by the website itself, which seems to put out less than an article a year, and structures them as powerpoint slides in a way I found interesting from a web design lens.

• This deep dive about “how a $1 lighter defied inflation for 20 years” is a remarkable story, to the Costco $1.50 hot dog in some ways. I liked the article because it digs into all the complex industrial processes that go into making a cheap lighter. It shines a light on everything from the obscure Chinese city where they’re made to the automation innovations necessary to keep them cheap and the US safety regulations that were neatly targeted to help American businesses compete. The industrial cluster that developed around this product is incredible.

• This article focused on work requirements for access to Medicaid was a fascinating look at the practical considerations in trying to achieve policy goals. It’s broadly applicable to all political problems — and the general disconnect between rhetoric and implementation — and reminded me of this article by a teacher from a rural school district about the complications in trying to implement tracking programs that handle kids who are educational outliers well.

• My husband spent some of his formative years in the American Southwest, where desert water conservation was a big concern. So I thought this deep dive into how the USA uses water was really interesting, not least of which because “water infrastructure often gets less attention than other types of infrastructure.” There’s been some back and forth lately about precisely how much water AI data centers use, for example, but the broad strokes seem to be: “66 million gallons per day [used by AI datacenters] is about 6% of the water used by US golf courses, and it’s about 3% of the water used to grow cotton in 2023.” The whole thing reminded me of this article about why Ted Nordhaus has “stopped being a climate catastrophist.” Putting climate concerns into perspective is another reason I like reading history, for example this summary of new research into the Mayan Collapse and how much of it had to do with changes in rainfall rates. I suspect that things like the Tehran water crisis are rather a lot like historical famines (which I analyzed back in 2023); a combination of government mismanagement and getting unlucky with the timing of a changing climate.

• Ever wonder what it’s like to work in a diamond mine in the frozen Canadian tundra, just outside the Arctic Circle? I admit that I had not — I didn’t even know Canada had diamond mines — but this is exactly the sort of long-form journalism I love: Whiteouts, Ice Roads, and Wolverines: What Working at a Diamond Mine in the Far North Is Like is full of neat gems I didn’t know I wanted to know (but do!). For example, the Canadian North Boeing 737 is “one of the few larger planes that can touch down on gravel.” The language is incredibly evocative, and all the more delightful because the author is that rare nonfiction writer who also has over thirty years of experience in the mining, environmental, and engineering field.

I hope you find something interesting here to learn from! I’m always a bit self-conscious about this kind of linkspost, because I know some people really don’t like them and they feel a bit derivative, but I for one always like it when guys like Zvi and Scott Alexander do big roundups like this, so… here you go, enjoy!

And feel free to share anything you read lately that you think I might like 🙏