Interesting blogs you follow

I'll throw one out with Locklin On Science, written by a computer programmer who works for several major American banks. The blog generally concerns scientific method, theoretic philosophy and their relevance for the social sciences not to mention how the interaction between these and how they're covered in popular culture. Being not just a computer programmer writing about economics and sociology but also from a decidedly non-academic family and social background (he's a very "do it yourself" kind of person about technology), there's something of an outsider perspective to all of Scott Locklin's musings on these subjects. I gather that's something that'll make or break his blog for most readers.

Being from the humanities myself I don't always understand the advanced mathemathics Scott Locklin throws around, but he does get understandably frustrated at how many journalists and economists have a rather superficial grasp on the subject and how this ends up misleading the general public. My favourite blog posts of his have to be the ones about the Cold War's effect on technological development particularly in aircraft engineering, kinda reads like The Right Stuff as written by Maddox.

Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 17 2015 at 08:32

Time to resurrect this thread, to bring attention to my new favourite blog: Yearly Cider, ran by a computer programmer from the US state of Maryland named Darcey Riley. (the blog's title is an anagram of her name) She uses the mathematically rigorous systematic thinking learned in computer science to analyze how humans find phenomenological meaning in the world around them - both on the individual existential level and the cultural structures through which their experience is mediated.

A large part of her focus is on finding mathematically organized patterns in social and cultural processes where they're not immediately apparent, as well as finding methods how individual humans can re-program the thought processes by which they filter their experience of the world through specific culturally mediated narrative structures. What makes it such an interesting reading experience for me is that while these are very standard "Continental Philosophy" concerns, Riley is coming at them from a radically different academic background and as a consequence she approaches much of the theoretical methodology from a sideways perspective.

Riley is also interesting to read because of how it fits into her entire life story and how she attempts to find meaning in life: It looks like she's been raised to think about life in an extremely rational and scientific manner, a worldview and ethos that she as an adult finds extremely unsatisfying. This is where her attempts to find a way of engaging with the world in a more immediate and intuitive way come from, the important factor being that she is constantly reconfiguring that project to fit into the rationalistic worldview and in turn adapt that. Her Tumblr account Until the Sea Shall Free Them is also worth reading, as it's where she puts her less theory-heavy but still very insightful writings.

I've seen Why Evolution Is True linked to a couple of times, will check it out one of these times.

^ I've dropped in on Raff's blog a few times, and found some interesting music suggestions there. She's the reason I'm now into the Amazing.

my life is complicated enough without starting a blog. I'm fine with reading everyone else's.  start one and I will drop in.

For political blogs I can also recommend K-Punk, ran by a British Marxist named Mark Fisher who is basically the Slavoj Zizek of the UK. I don't find him quite that consistently insightful as Zizek, mind you, but his writing is probably more accessible. Also check out Fredrik DeBoer, an American rhetorics professor who's one of the very few US academics of his generation who can be called "Old Left". (I've just interviewed him for a major political magazine here in Denmark)

As far as right-wing blogs go, there's the rather witty libertarian journalist Dain Fitzgerald. He's somewhat in the H. L. Mencken/P. J. O'Rourke vein, though somehow at the same time a level sillier than those and thinks about political divisions in a more abstract way. In any case, if you enjoy reading those two you'll probably find a lot to appreciate on his blog. (that Scott Locklin guy I linked to in the OP also appears to have similar political views as the people who write for The American Conservative, which I think he might have contributed to a couple times, but his blog isn't focused on that)


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 17 2015 at 06:42

Uh...these blogs sound a bit  heavy...anyone have a fun blog?

micky wrote: emigre80 wrote: ^ I've dropped in on Raff's blog a few times, and found some interesting music suggestions there. She's the reason I'm now into the Amazing.   I'm a political junkie, so like Daily Kos and Plum Line. do those count as blogs?   I'm also addicted to Wonkette. great group!  She can thank me for that, and I can thank Jim (Finforest) who turned me to them on while I was turning him off to politics on FB I do love politics... but I prefer discussing it rather than reading it. I have often thought of starting my own blog. I do have a lot of interests outside of music, women's fashion, military history, sports, men's footwear, and work related interests like explosions and fires.  I just never got around to it. It would probably be just like my failed attempts at having a FB life. I'd see or hear something that rubbed me the wrong way and I'd start foaming at the mouth and laying waste to all around me.

it's a strange thing, but when men are interested in history it is almost inevitably military history. I have a degree in history, but I have to say the military aspect of it was always the least interesting for me.

as to blogs: I used to be s regular visitor on the website of Terry Pratchett, but since he is dead now I no longer go there


Edited by BaldJean - November 17 2015 at 11:54

Sid Smith blog - Postcard from a yellow room.

Irish heavy metal singer Alan Averill - known from the groups Dread Sovereign, Primordial and Twilight of the Gods - has started his own blog. He's one of my favourite lyricists in the genre, Primordial being one of the few overtly nationalistic black metal groups whose political musings I find particularly insightful, so to see his musings on life and society collected in blog format is quite something  Alan's essay on mental health in particular comes worth reading.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 25 2015 at 10:10