Zompist Bboard Again

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Apothecary Diaries
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I feel sick, but I've got work.

After zompist pointed to his website in another thread, I'm now on a bit of a Maciej Cegłowski binge. It doesn't happen often that you come across an internet writer you haven't heard of before who can write equally well about matters of science and technology, matters of human life, and the interactions between the two. Right now I'm on my way through his account of how the cure for scurvy basically fell out of fashion (!) a while after it had been discovered for the first time: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Dec 05, 2025 2:32 pm After zompist pointed to his website in another thread, I'm now on a bit of a Maciej Cegłowski binge. It doesn't happen often that you come across an internet writer you haven't heard of before who can write equally well about matters of science and technology, matters of human life, and the interactions between the two. Right now I'm on my way through his account of how the cure for scurvy basically fell out of fashion (!) a while after it had been discovered for the first time: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

I remember reading that article some time ago! Thanks for helping me rediscover it.

At this very moment? War Within a Breath by RATM

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Dec 05, 2025 2:32 pm After zompist pointed to his website in another thread, I'm now on a bit of a Maciej Cegłowski binge. It doesn't happen often that you come across an internet writer you haven't heard of before who can write equally well about matters of science and technology, matters of human life, and the interactions between the two. Right now I'm on my way through his account of how the cure for scurvy basically fell out of fashion (!) a while after it had been discovered for the first time: https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

Moving on to Anatomy of a Moral Panic: https://idlewords.com/2017/09/anatomy_o ... _panic.htm

Just read it. Great. To quote:

The implication is clear: home cooks are being radicalized by the site’s recommendation algorithm to abandon their corned beef in favor of shrapnel-packed homemade bombs.

I never thought I'd be into something like that, but I've discovered the podcast The Outfit, by Alana Hope Levinson and Dan O'Sullivan, which is about organized crime in the USA and elsewhere, and I really like it. The hosts generally don't glorify anything, don't make anything sound less nasty than it was or is, and are politically solidly progressive.

Video versions of the episodes are on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 1EX9S_TTTo

You can probably find audio versions if you search for "The Outfit" on your preferred podcast service.

This reminds me, the viewing numbers for the episodes on Youtube are really shamefully low. Something that interesting, fascinating, and sometimes fun should really have better viewing numbers.

Among my favorite episodes so far are The Mafia & Gay Bars: The Raid on Louie's Fun Lounge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWQihodSgPQ, which is about the interactions between homophobia, semi-underground gay venues, organized crime, and the authorities in the pre-Stonewall days,

and George Remus: The Bootlegger Who Inspired The Great Gatsby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgkXHxRVxQ, which is about, well, read the title. I had heard of Remus before, but I hadn't known, or I had forgotten, that he was the inspiration for the titular character in The Great Gatsby. Not being from the USA, I've never read the book, and I haven't watched any of the adaptations, either, but judging from the descriptions of the book that I have seen, I would have been pretty sure that it was entirely set among Old Money WASP types, not anyone as sordid as a newly rich bootlegger from an immigrant family.

Chris Cutrone, who claims to be Marxist philosopher on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QFOYAsSZ8Uk

I will try to keep up with mainstream economic and social theory once I'm feeling better. I have obtained:

The Power of Creative Destruction by Philippe Aghion
How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil

A book that looks interesting:

Billion Dollar Whale by Bradley Hope. This is about the infamous party goer who spent a million dollars a night in clubs. He was college friends with a Malaysian politician. He told his friend he can get the Saudi Royal Family to invest in Malaysia. Then he found a Saudi who was worried about getting disinherited after his father's death and was desperate to make a successful business deal. Since all of these people were in too much of a hurry to carefully inspect all the details, the guy transferred $700 million of government funds earmarked for development to a shell company in the Seychelles, and from there to a secret Swiss bank account. He then apparently used the money to party with models. Amazing.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu Dec 11, 2025 12:20 pm I will try to keep up with mainstream economic and social theory once I'm feeling better. I have obtained:

The Power of Creative Destruction by Philippe Aghion

You're braver than I am. I can't stand Aghion. You might end up throwing the book at the wall

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:28 am You're braver than I am. I can't stand Aghion. You might end up throwing the book at the wall

I'm used to it. Dunking on leftists and lower classes is normal, acceptable conversation in the 21st century. I also got:

Nonfiction:

On Populist Reason by Ernesto Laclau. This is leftist theory.

Shadow Docket. The Supreme Court's shenanigans.

Fiction:

In the Dream House. LGBT domestic violence.

Witness for the Dead. D&D murder mystery.

Have any of you watch the animated series The Mighty Nein? I didn't have the time to watch either Critical Role's original D&D campaign or the animated series based on it. It looks amazing.

PS. Sadly, an ancient in-world language is represented by German.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Dec 12, 2025 9:14 pm On Populist Reason by Ernesto Laclau. This is leftist theory.

Specifically, this book tries to analyze social movements in terms of multiple points of coinciding demands instead of isolated individuals or unities in conflict with outsiders.

I have started reading Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History, an academically respected semi-Marxist alternative to Jared Diamond.

I'm reading more slowly than usual. I'm only a few pages into the introduction. Already, I'm bowled over by the ambition of this work. Apparently, this guy thinks he can write a total, interconnected world history of modernity in 400 pages! All peoples will be dealt with as one connected whole. I'm curious to see where it goes from here.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Dec 16, 2025 3:54 pm Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History

https://www.pyknet.net/1390/pdf/WolfEurope.html

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Dec 09, 2025 9:11 am I never thought I'd be into something like that, but I've discovered the podcast The Outfit, by Alana Hope Levinson and Dan O'Sullivan, which is about organized crime in the USA and elsewhere, and I really like it. The hosts generally don't glorify anything, don't make anything sound less nasty than it was or is, and are politically solidly progressive.

Video versions of the episodes are on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 1EX9S_TTTo

You can probably find audio versions if you search for "The Outfit" on your preferred podcast service.

This reminds me, the viewing numbers for the episodes on Youtube are really shamefully low. Something that interesting, fascinating, and sometimes fun should really have better viewing numbers.

Since it's still what's usually called the Second Christmas Day over here today, I decided to stay in the festive mood by watching their Christmas episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXdqNzstW1w

Oddly enough, in the one photo they show of the guy-on-top who's at the center of that episode, he looks somewhat uncannily like Gandhi to me.

Jean Dytar and Romain Bertrand wonderful graphic novel, les sentiers d'Anahuac

How the General History of New Spain came to be written, or how Nahua elders and monks, working with friar Bernardino de Sahagun, set about the monumental task of documentating the precolumbian Nahua world.
As you'll see on the cover art above, the art takes inspiration from both Mesoamerican codices and contemporary Spanish engraving. Loved it.

Mathieu Bablet's Silent Jenny. The chase for the last surviving bees in a post-apocalyptic desert inhospitable earth, with huge mobile villages, evil mutants and miniaturized humans. Really felt like 70's/80's French SF comics, with hints of Moebius and Druillet.

The last season of Stranger Things is incredibly stupid. But I caught a pretty bad case of the flu, so with the fever shutting down half my brain I'm able to enjoy it nonetheless.

I got The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the books, not the movies) from my parents and my daughter for Christmas, so I am now reading The Hobbit.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 1:45 pm I got The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the books, not the movies) from my parents and my daughter for Christmas, so I am now reading The Hobbit.

They knew for certain that you didn't have them yet?

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 2:36 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Dec 27, 2025 1:45 pm I got The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the books, not the movies) from my parents and my daughter for Christmas, so I am now reading The Hobbit.

They knew for certain that you didn't have them yet?

Considering they asked me for ideas, and I gave them a list of books I hadn't read and didn't own to choose from (except for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which I put on the list despite having read it from the library as a teenager as it is a book I would really like to read again sometime)...

I've been watching the anime Made in Abyss. Both the story and the animation is really well done. But it's really dark and the body horror is really gross.