Manuscriptions

Manuscriptions

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📗 REVIEW: Coal by Barbara Freese
The black rock that bootstrapped modern civilization, from Roman jewelry to corrupt psuedo-govenments stamping out angry miners' 'terrorist' cells.
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 Neat Stuff I Read in January 2026
Tips for improving your AI-monitoring intuitions, intellectual endurance, and grasp of power-brokering institutions. Also: neat parasitic worms, a…
 • Eleanor Konik
📗 REVIEW: The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester
A history of precision enginering spanning the first machine-bored cannons to the reason ultra-flat planes are vital for space telescopes and jet…
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 Neat Stuff I Read Before January 2026
The plan for Manuscriptions in 2026, plus a bunch of neat articles about science, history, technology, and literature. Deep dives on pen cap…
📚 Neat Stuff I Read in December 2025
Famine-fighting wheat, hippopotamus schemes, pagan witchcraft historiography, Boox e-reader hacks, and mythbusting deep dives on asthma, colds, …
 • Eleanor Konik
🌪️ Do Crises Really "Reveal" Character?
Advice columnists — and fiction novelists — often claim that pressure exposes “who we really are,” but I'm not sure how relevant those crises really are…
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 Neat Stuff I Read in September 2025
Tips for self-improvement. Deep dives on how to do a deep dive, the infrastructure demands of tourist destinations, and useful experiments.
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 REVIEW: Civilizations of Africa, A History to 1800
A look at early African government, religion & economy. Fans (and critics) of James C. Scott or David Graeber should really read this book. So should…
 • Eleanor Konik
🏵️ On Learning About Cultures From Stories
On stone gods, internet monsters, and the cultural practices that aren't quite what we think when we think of religion... but aren't exactly not…
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 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…
 • Eleanor Konik
📚 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.
 • Eleanor Konik
🏵️ Improvements come with tradeoffs
Relating AI hallucinations, medieval copywriting errors, and the impacts of radiation on the human genome. Plus, some great book recommendations!
 • Eleanor Konik
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