Welcome to the weekend,
Let’s dive straight into this week’s links.
A cheeky idea; excerpts from classic novels whose actions “rhyme” with the current moment of enduring a pandemic. This particular excerpt is from Robinson Crusoe.
Digitally Reading 17th-Century Locked Letters. An excerpt on the fascinating process and technology developed by MIT researchers, allowing them to read these letters without damaging the originals; “The first step of their digital opening is to scan a target letter with an advanced X-ray machine. The resulting three-dimensional image — much like a medical scan — reveals the letter’s internal configuration. A computer then analyzes the image to undo the folds and, almost magically, turn the layers into a flat sheet, revealing handwritten text that can be read.”
“The whole language of writing for me is finding what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.” James Baldwin on being a writer. Compliment with Baldwin’s interview with The Paris Review.
An overview of the impact of volcanoes on the classical world.
No meetings, no deadlines, and no full-time employees. The curious case of how Gumroad’s “minimum viable culture” produced the company’s $11 million annual revenue, straight from the founder himself. The takeaway here is how the founder started with this desire for his career to be part of his life, not the entirety of his life, and allowed this prioritizing of flexibility to encompass the entire company.
Currently reading: The Stranger by Albert Camus
