2025 Thoughts
✦ January
More thoughts on Middlemarch (also, why Ayn Rand is like keto)
I am up to Chapter LI in Middlemarch (that would be Chapter 51, although I will admit I had to
Nicole Dieker Finley
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Ravel and MELISANDE
It's time to show my work, so here we go:
This is the first movement of the Ravel
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
I was wrong about Atlas Shrugged
"I don't think I can finish reading Atlas Shrugged," Larry told me. "I got to
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Project management
"Enter the Princes" is finished, which means it's time to start bringing people over to the
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
I was wrong about The Grapes of Wrath
A while back I wrote a post in which I compared The Grapes of Wrath to Atlas Shrugged, noting that
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Blogs that have improved the way I think
I wrote last week that if you started your own blog (not a Substack, that's the metaphorical equivalent
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
More on teaching
So that piece of writing I put up yesterday, "To teach a child piano," is worth reading for
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
To teach a child piano
To teach a child piano is to teach them how to master their environment.
This, in turn, teaches them how
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Showing my work (and more thoughts on work in general)
The MELISANDE excerpt will be behind the paywall as usual, and if you are curious why I even have a
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
A bit about money, plus Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life
I have a new personal finance advice column in Vox today: I plan to retire in 2025. Am I financially
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Recalibrating
Larry is in the other room practicing a piano accompaniment that sounds just enough like the theme to The Young
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Is Beast Games the final form of philanthropy?
Last night Larry and I went through all of the existing music for MELISANDE and talked about what worked and
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Games and wagers
"Exponential" is scored, which means that I am very likely to both start and finish "Enter the
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
How does this book exist
I am, unbelievably, almost finished scoring the exponential growth number for MELISANDE. Tomorrow I'm going to do the
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
Avoid all that which would ask you not to think
It only took me four iterations before I was able to start building the accompaniment for MELISANDE's big
2025 Thoughts
✦ January
More Middlemarch, more MELISANDE
I am testing out several different ways of accompanying the exponential growth number for MELISANDE, by which I mean I&