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Robert

@braveamateur.bsky.social
80 followers 90 following 104 posts

"They shout and curse, stabbing wildly, more brawlers than warriors. They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part." 300 (2006)

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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This essay is quite good. Great fodder for discussion with my teenagers. “The moment calls, more than ever, for a different vision of human autonomy, beyond the blinding rationalist narratives of independence and self-mastery.” www.noemamag.com/how-to-prote...
noemamag.com
How To Protect Human Autonomy In An Age Of AI | NOEMA
It’s time to move past the fantasy that humans are absolutely self-sovereign.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"It’s possible to discern a terrifying trend: the loss of deep literacy is not an organic development or an accident without an author but rather the intentional consequence of concrete actions undertaken by the unholy alliance of capital and the state" thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...
thebaffler.com
Brain Rot Without Borders | Baffler Forum
There’s no point in denying it anymore: literature as we know it is well on its way to becoming a lost art.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“True, his looks were against him, his face had the terrifying look of an undeniable murderer, or rather, to be fair, the look of a reckless man in a terrible hurry to get ahead—which amounts to the same thing.” #books #NowReading
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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Rob Klippel @robklippel.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Kurt Vonnegut's advice to high schoolers: “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction... no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience BECOMING, to find out what’s inside you, to MAKE YOUR SOUL GROW.”
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Rereading this and it's blowing my mind all over again. 🤯 #books
Straw Dogs by John Gray
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Catch of the day. Looking forward to these. I read Watts' Blindsight a while back and I knew I had to read it again, so I went for the omnibus. The Durbin I stumbled over the other day and it had me at "weird Western", had to buy it. @headofzeus.bsky.social @melvillehouse.bsky.social #books
Firefall by Peter Watts
The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. Durbin
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
At the same time, outlawing technology won't necessarily help us and even the hope of being able to put it back in the bottle once it's out may be futile.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
"I think my 2018 decision to re-embrace blogging as my “primary means of online communication”, remains the single best decision I’ve ever consciously made about how I behave on, and interact with, the Internet." thejaymo.net/2026/01/23/2...
thejaymo.net
2025 - thejaymo
2025: AI zealotry on both sides, the feed is collapsing, and my own attempts to keep making things that last longer than a doomscroll
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Ooh this is good. This hits me just right. 💙📚 #NowReading
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
My top 5 reads of 2025. 📚💙 #booksky
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
The Tower of Love by Rachilde
The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
I finished The Manticore a week ago or so. I read Fifth Business last year and liked it a lot so I had high expectations for this one. For some reason though this one was a bit underwhelming while I was reading it. 1/2 📚💙
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
‘You thought this a few years ago, now you say something else,’ I reply, ‘Do you think I’ve worked so hard, all these years, to say the same thing and not be transformed?’ submittedforyourperusal.com/2025/12/12/w...
submittedforyourperusal.com
We Alter Ourselves in What We Do
Interviewer: Your intellectual journey has been marked by several shifts. You’ve moved from Derrida to neuroscience, and your thinking has evolved to encompass the threats posed by artificial intel…
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Project Gutenberg @gutenberg.org · 02/02/2025
"You mustn't feel sorry for me. Don't you see I'm happy at last — free — free! — freed from the farm — free to wander on and on — eternally! Look! Isn't it beautiful beyond the hills? I can hear the old voices calling me to come..." Robert: Act 3, Scene 2 ~Eugene O'Neill #books #literature
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
This is a fun and interesting little book. A bit of a noodle scratcher at times. This one's as "sprawling" and intricate as Inherent Vice but not quite as funny and entertaining imo. Still good though. I'll keep going with Pynchon. 1/2 📚💙
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
This is kinda interesting. I made my kids do something away from the screens, so they colored some. On the left is what our 14 yo did (she has normal vision) and on the right what the 11 yo did (she has #achromatopsia).
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Went down a little rabbit hole of pics of iconic male actors smoking cigarettes. Man, a filterless cigarette stuck in the corner of the mouth, especially on some b&w old time iconic dude is a cool as hell look. If it weren't for all the negative sides to it, I'd be smoking in a heartbeat! 😅
Alain Delon, lit cigarette dangling from his lips, looking cool as ice. I mean come on!Jean-Paul Belmondo, cigarette in mouth, leaning out of a car window trying to see what's going on up ahead but not really giving a shit.Mads Mikkelsen, taking a drag on a filterless cigarette, looking hard as flintstone.Paul Newman, lit cigar in mouth, looking like he's about to hustle your last money off you.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
"It is a peculiar hallmark of the American economy that you can produce a dangerous product and effectively off-load any legal liability for whatever destruction the product may cause by pointing to the individual responsibility of the consumer." - Patrick Radden Keefe #NowReading #booksky
Empire of Pain - The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
I don't remember the last time a text held my attention from beginning all the way to the end like this one. @michaelrance.bsky.social www.michaelrance.news/p/dancing-at...
michaelrance.news
Dancing At the End of the World
Love, Joy, Fascism, & The End of the World.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
"We trained our young men for victory...but they don't quite know how to act in defeat. We told them they were brighter and braver than other young men. It was a kind of shock to them to find out that they aren't a bit braver or brighter than other young men." The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
“Writers must oppose systems. It’s important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments. Writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us.” -DeLillo #books thepointmag.com/criticism/fo...
thepointmag.com
Foes of God | The Point Magazine
It wouldn’t be absurd to describe Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis as the most prescient American novel of the last fifteen years.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Hm, this is a little interesting. I'm currently reading In the Heart of the Country and the other day the line "we might as well be living on the moon" stuck out to me. #NowReading #books
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
This I always find interesting and thought provoking. It's easy to forget that most things people are dealing with are either themselves complex processes or connected to complex processes. It's easy to assume that things are linear. It's about good decision making. www.noemamag.com/measuring-a-...
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
A few more days of this before it's time to get back to work.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Italy is great, as expected. Buzzati is exceeding expectations. What a book! It's stirring up feelings and memories from my early childhood up to recent events in my life. It's not a heavy read. It is a bit melancholy, but most of all thought provoking. Quality read. #NowReading #books
The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati
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Archipelago Books @archipelagobooks.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
You can now read an extract from Walter Siti's Paradise Overload in @grantamag.bsky.social! We'll publish Brian Robert Moore's translation of this Italian classic in 2026. granta.com/my-poor-pare...
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A. M. Vincent @vincent.northsky.social · 05/05/2025
FOR A STUDENT WHO USED AI TO WRITE A PAPER

Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious 
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous 
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
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PJ Onori @pjonori.com · 26/02/2025
I wrote about design system teams and morale. pjonori.blog/posts/design...
pjonori.blog
The existential challenge of design system team morale
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
"Of course you got to have some, but there's a middle ground between take everything and destroy all the native forests or just live in a shoebox. There's a middle ground somewhere." youtu.be/WEz3187qjqs?...
youtu.be
Rants About Pine Plantations in an Araucaria Forest
YouTube video by Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
"The unfed mind devours itself." Gore Vidal
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
This painting is rad af!
Hypnosis by Sascha Schneider
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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 27/12/2024
Souls on the Banks of the Acheron Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, 1898
there is a lot going on in this. a group of people are clustering around a man wearing a winged hat and carrying a staff.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
www.epsilontheory.com/facebook-del... @epsilontheory.bsky.social
But foundations and corporations and unions and political parties are conveniences, not citizens. They exist because they are useful efficiencies, not because they possess unalienable rights. They are not the same as voting citizens, and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is under zero obligation to extend the same protections to the political voices of these non-people as it must to its actual people, much less MORE protections.

But that’s where we are today.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
"... researchers and other knowledge workers need to slow down and spend more time thinking, to focus on maintaining and improving quality in their work."
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
"No need to live in trouble until trouble comes." The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King #books
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Secret Agent Number Six @designationsix.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
On our way back home on a late night train and I just noticed the reflection in the window. 🤡
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
For me it's always been about the relationship between Coop and his kids, especially Murph, and it always destroys me. I'm sure it's at least partly because I have two daughters and one of them kinda resembles young Murph. Definitely going to see it at the cinema this time around.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
"If we see causation without verifying that there is indeed a plausible causal mechanism, or if we draw conclusions without considering the wider context, we risk being misled — misled by ourselves."
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Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Work used to have busy periods of the day, or busy seasons but work is now either 100% busy or no work & no pay thanks to mechanisms such as zero hours contracts and gig platforms. Brilliant for management, not so good for workers. Customers get fragile systems due to failures or upticks in demand
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John Leavitt @leavittalone.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
This is awesome and quite thought provoking. "It appears that the photosynthesis machinery evolved not for maximum efficiency but rather for an optimally smooth and reliable output." www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plan...
quantamagazine.org
Why Are Plants Green? To Reduce the Noise in Photosynthesis.
Plants ignore the most energy-rich part of sunlight because stability matters more than efficiency, according to a new model of photosynthesis.
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
This is good: "Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves." aeon.co/ideas/before...
aeon.co
Before you can be with others, first learn to be alone | Aeon Ideas
Solitude is a practice that prepares one for social and political life. To be with others, first learn to be alone
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
This morning's viewing was "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Great feel good #movie 😅 Everett: "Well, I guess hard times flush the chumps. Everybody's lookin' for answers..."
Everett: "Well, I guess hard times flush the chumps. Everybody's lookin' for answers..."
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 01/11/2024
Thinking in Education by Matthew Lipman is so good! It's about teaching thinking and resoning skills to children and students but it's just as useful for adults. www.cambridge.org/core/books/t... #books
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 30/10/2024
"The best way to go through the process of gathering evidence is to write down your thoughts. If you have the urge to just power through this and explore the evidence in your mind, know that you run the risk of getting stuck in an ongoing internal debate..." psyche.co/guides/how-t...
psyche.co
How to take things less personally | Psyche Guides
Always blaming yourself or assuming others think ill of you? A CBT therapist shares ways to break these self-critical habits
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 27/10/2024
Man, I could listen to these guys talk all day long. Though, it almost did take an awkward turn right off the bat, where it looked like even McConaughey thought "whoa, what's going on?". 😅 youtu.be/pmqtyVE290Y?...
Matthew McConaughey and Jeff Bridges
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Robert @braveamateur.bsky.social · 26/10/2024
"And storms are formed behind the storm we feel" Misgivings by Herman Melville www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51929/... #poetry
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koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · 19/10/2024
An underrated productivity mistake: slow-motion multitasking. @TimHarford confesses to it, and I reckon—no, I know for sure— he’s not the only one. buff.ly/48kmBPK
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Tom Reagan’s Witch’s Hat @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social · 16/10/2024
Barry Corbin is 84 ‘What you got ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.’ His Uncle Ellis in No Country is seared into my mind: unsentimental about the past, clear-minded about the future.
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