Aloud: Recent Episodes
Byron
A weekly audio newsletter where professional narrators read aloud some of the best pieces of written content uncovered in the past week, both old and new.
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Arie Altena | June 2015 | Original Source
Short compilation of information and analysis surrounding the Russian mining town, Nikel (Никель), located near Russia's border with Norway. (9 minutes)
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Richard P. Gabriel | Original Source
Excerpt from the essay “Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big” by computer programmer Richard P. Gabriel on two competing programming philosophies and how they influenced the world of software. (13 minutes)
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Michael Nielsen | April 2017 | Original Source
Blog post by author, programmer, and scientist Michael Nielsen on a potentially inherent trade-off between the rate of generation of ideas and the rigorousness of those ideas. (10 minutes)
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Nate Soares | June 2016 | Original Source
Blog post by Nate Soares, executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Group (one of the foremost AI research labs in the world), about the importance of action over deliberation in life. (9 minutes)
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Mark Twain | 1923 | Original Source
Essay by American literary legend Mark Twain on how people form beliefs and the subtle ways that our peers and our environments shape us. (12 minutes)
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Isaac Asimov | Fall 1989 | Original Source
Essay by famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov on why right and wrong are fuzzy concepts and how small differences often matter a great deal. (17 minutes)
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Will Robbins | October 2018 | Original Source
Post by Venture Capitalist Will Robbins that outlines some core strategies for becoming an elite tech nerd/startup founder. (11 minutes)
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Eliezer Yudkowsky | August 2007 | Original Source
Blog post by author and Artificial Intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky on the temptation to think in generalities and why we should avoid doing such. (8 minutes)
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Venkatesh Rao | June 2007 | Original Source
Blog post by Ribbonfarm author Venkat Rao about the fuzzy process of coming up with concepts, both in mathematics and in language more generally. (7 minutes)
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Paul Graham | September 2012 | Original Source
Essay by Y-Combinator co-founder and startup investor Paul Graham on precisely why investing in startups is such a difficult thing to consistently get right. (10 minutes)
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Stephen Jay Gould | May 2002 | Original Source
Essay by the prolific writer and Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould on his personal experience with cancer and how statistics are often misunderstood and misused in medicine. (14 minutes)
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Paul Valéry | 1928 | Original Source
Short essay by legendary author Paul Valéry from 1928 predicting much of technological modernity, which he explains by using the idea of transmitting the senses on demand. (8 minutes)
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James Somers | July 2015 | Original Source
Article by writer and programmer James Somers about the various benefits of maintaining a mindset of speed while working. (7 minutes)
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Brian Schul | April 1994 | Original Source
Excerpt from an extremely rare and expensive book by Brian Schul about piloting the famed SR-71 Blackbird and some associated thrills. (8 minutes)
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Venkatesh Rao | July 2011 | Original Source
Ribbonfarm post from the incredibly prolific writer and tweeter Venkatesh Rao on the various complications he faced when explaining his digital nomadism to others. (21 minutes)
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Elad Gil | March 2015 | Original Source
Short blog post from serial entrepreneur and investor Elad Gil on the various factors one ought to consider when making large changes in their career. (8 minutes)
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Tiago Forte | April 2016 | Original Source
Ribbonfarm post from social media guru and writer Tiago Forte on the importance of self-measurement and self-experimentation. (27 minutes)
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Ben Thompson | September 2019 | Original Source
Blog post by Ben Thompson, the writer of Stratechery, on what makes a company a ‘tech company’ and why such a demarcation is important to consider. (22 minutes)
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Dan Wang | June 2017 | Original Source
Essay by researcher and writer Dan Wang on how colleges have become a prime location for mimetic contagion (in the Girardian sense), and why we should be paying more attention to them. (22 minutes)
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Renee DiResta | November 2018 | Original Source
Essay by researcher and writer Renee DiResta in Ribbonfarm about the tactics of informational warfare in the digital age and the complications in our societies that arise from such warfare. (29 minutes)
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Chris Gillett | July 2019 | Original Source
Blog post by student writer and data scientist Chris Gillett about how the complexity of the world forces humans to come up with explanations and models that are far too simple, and often times harmful. (18 minutes)
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Eli Dourado | August 2019 | Original Source
Blog post by economist and regulatory hacker Eli Dourado about realistic paths towards implementing large-scale geoengineering projects that could help save the environment. (24 minutes)
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George Orwell | Summer 1946 | Original Source
Essay by the writer of 1984 and Animal Farm fame, George Orwell, about what drives his writing and how writing is used as a tool in the world. (18 minutes)
Curator’s note: I misspoke in my introduction of this narration – George Orwell is famous for Animal Farm, not Animal House. Animal House is a classic comedy film starring John Belushi, and although quite funny, it has nothing to do with Orwell.
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Trevor McKendrick | Original Source
Newsletter excerpt from writer and entrepreneur Trevor McKendrick about Sam Walton's long, difficult path to success and the falsity of most founders' stories. (8 minutes)
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Ash Milton | October 2018 | Original Source
Article by the thinker and writer Ash Milton in Palladium Magazine about how the creation of privately funded cities won't necessarily result in a decrease in the strength of national governments. (23 minutes)
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Scott Alexander | November 2013 | Original Source
Blog post by the writer and pseudonymous rationalist Scott Alexander about some of the probabilistic dangers associated with having children that society seems to largely ignore. (15 minutes)
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Kevin Simler | April 2014 | Original Source
Blog post by author and programmer Kevin Simler on how difficult it is to accurately characterize the boundaries of our bodies and understand what makes us physically ourselves. (13 minutes)
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Richard Feynman | May 1974 | Original Source
Commencement speech given at Caltech by the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman about the difference between rigorous and non-rigorous science and how one can distinguish between the two types. (22 minutes)
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Paul Graham | May 2008 | Original Source
Blog post by famed venture capitalist and founder Paul Graham about the personalities of different cities and the impact those personalities have on the people that live in them. (16 minutes)
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