I've been reading A Book of Luminous Things by Czeslaw Milosz which is a large anthology of poetry and I found this poem that is particularly thought provoking.

We have talent. People call us
The leading poets of our day.
Too bad, our homes are humble,
Our recognition trivial.
Hungry, ill clothed, servants treat
Us with contempt. In the prime
Of life, our faces are wrinkled
Who cares about either of us,
Or our troubles? We are our own
Audience. We appreciate
Each other's literary
Merits. Our poems will be handed
Down along with great dead poets'.
We con console each other.
At least we shall have descendants.

It's Thankgiving in America and I thought I would celebrate by showing you these elaborate pi decorations. They are made by Lauren Ko at okokitchen and featuring very colorful geometric designs that look nothing like the apple pies your mother used to make. I'm just disappointed that I don't get to eat any of them.

Links

America Is a Dream

In remembrance, an inspiring message from one of the greatest American creators.

I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It.

How destination travel + the Internet age is killing local places. I've seen this personally with restaurants I enjoy getting popular due to reviews and fundamentally changing with their success. While you can be happy for the owners for their success in some cases, it's still not the same place it was as a neighborhood restaurant. I think one of the best thing is getting to visit restaurants over and over again to build a relationship with the kitchen + staff.

How Secret Societies Stay Hidden on the Internet

My primary question about this is to wonder if it's real? This seems like a very odd way to recruit for a secret society and seems to lend itself well to being mimicked for effect. You can look at Cicada 3301 for a similar sort of situation.

I’m Possibly Alive Because It Exists

Medical hackers are amazing people who put an incredible amount of time into a difficult task. I think this points to the fact that user controlled devices have both positive (user customization) and negative (security) aspects. It does seem odd that this area isn't better served as a market and points to that fact that medical billing is incredible broken.

Media

Stellaris - I still happen to be playing a bunch of this, it's pretty okay. I'm eager for the next patch to come out and improve the state of economics in this game.

Cultist Simulator - This game is an absolute blast. There is no tutorial and none of the rules are explained because it's designed to let you discover them on your own. This perfectly scratches an itch that I didn't know I had. I've already got one minor victory under my belt and I expect that I'll be trying for another over the upcoming holiday season.

Great British Baking Show - The latest season came out on Netflix recently and it's incredible relaxing. It's so nice to have television that doesn't feel like it's designed to drive my anxiety up the wall. I would love to see more shows that highlight masters of their craft competing in a friendly way.

Eshel Ben-Jacob was a physicist who turned towards studying bacterial self-organization. While he was studying that process, he also took some excellent images of the colonies. It does sadly seem like his original website with it's gallary of images has been taken down but they remain scattered around the internet including on this gallary. It's very interesting that this mimics so many patterns that are present in the large scale of nature.

“No wonder they disagreed so endlessly; they were talking about different things.”

• Robert L Heilbroner