Sunday Review #154 (5May2024)


📖 What I’m Reading:

Randy Gardner sleep deprivation experiment – Wikipedia

  • “After completing his record, Gardner slept for 14 hours and 46 minutes, awoke naturally around 8:40 p.m., and stayed awake until about 7:30 p.m. the next day, when he slept an additional ten and a half hours. Gardner appeared to have fully recovered from his loss of sleep, with follow-up sleep recordings taken one, six, and ten weeks after the fact, showing no significant differences. However, Gardner later reported experiencing serious insomnia decades after his sleep experiment.”

Jerry Seinfeld Says Movies Are Over. Here’s Why He Made One Anyway – GQ

  • “It’s a relief to be around people who are happy doing what they’re doing. Maybe that’s another reason people go to see comedians. I’m not trying to be anything else.”

The gift of ambition – David Heinemeier Hansson

  • Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

☝️ Word of the Week:

peripatetic (adj, n) per-uh-puh-TET-ik

Moving or traveling from place to place, of or related to Aristotle: his philosophy or his teaching method of conducting discussions while walking about; an itinerant, a follower of Aristotle.

From Greek peri- (around) + patein (to walk).

“With his back to goal in a crowded space, the peripatetic Frenchman [Nicolas Anelka] deftly chipped the ball over his shoulder, and into the net for the equalizer.”

💬 Quote of the Week:

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”

-Jerome K. Jerome

ps: happy Cinco de Mayo (X)

pps: catchy sunny summer pop house track of the week (YouTube)

Thomas Tassin

Read more from Thomas Tassin

📖 What I’m Reading: Inside America’s Death Chambers – Elizabeth Bruenig Best piece on the death penalty I’ve ever read. Elagabalus – Wikipedia “Elagabalus developed a posthumous reputation for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry, and sexual promiscuity. … Elagabalus ‘abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury’ … ‘Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had.’” A Consensus Statement on Potential Negative...

📖 What I’m Reading: Simon-Ehrlich Wager – Wikipedia Fun example of an academic putting money where his mouth is. Over the decades, life gets better in terms of resources. But it gets worse in terms of equality and ennui. You Can’t Put a Price on Mental Freedom – Nick Maggiulli Stock picking bad. Phone bad. WWEconomics: Kayfabe and the Trade War – Kyla Scanlon All the world’s a stage. “The show will continue because the incentives align: politicians get attention, corporations get deals, and...

📖 What I’m Reading: Mike White’s 15-Year Journey For “The White Lotus” – Trung Phan Mike White is Ed Schneebly from School of Rock. He wrote Season 1 of White Lotus in 14 days. And True Detective helped pave the way. The Grand Encyclopedia of Eponymous Laws – Roger’s Bacon “Gibson’s Law: For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.” “Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” “The Lindy Effect: The future life expectancy of a...