Top all-time · #275
The Marginalian
Personal blog · themarginalian.orgwritingphilosophyculture
The Marginalian is a personal blog at themarginalian.org about writing, philosophy and culture. Since 2021, 176 different Hacker News readers have linked it 228 times, most often “Umberto Eco's Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable Than Read Ones”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link it for cross-referenced cultural and intellectual history, such as Darwin, Feynman and Umberto Eco's antilibrary, and for book recommendations.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- One commenter praises its "beautiful prose"; others say "I recommend it" and "some nice things in here".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Marginalia on our search for meaning.
Most-linked posts?
- /9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2022-01-24
- Umberto Eco's Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable Than Read Ones8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2022-05-20
- /2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-11-07
- The Taste Gap: IRA Glass on the Secret of Creative Success3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-11-04
- Carl Sagan's Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-03-10
- A parliament of owls and a murder of crows: How groups of birds got their names3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-01-22
- Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli bridged mind and matter (2017)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-12
- Yo-Yo Ma Performs Richard Feynman’s Ode to the Wonder of Life, Animated2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-24
- Keep Life from Becoming a Parody of Itself: De Beauvoir on the Art of Aging2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-09
- A Stoic’s Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-13
What Hacker News says?
„ We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no…
Comment linking /2014/05/02/creativity-inc-ed-catmull-book/
on “Procrastination is connected to perfectionism”Submitted How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself (2014) as a story · 272 points
HN discussionAh, but would you doubt Feynman's? https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/01/17/richard-feynman-of...
Comment linking /2013/01/17/richard-feynman-ofey-sketches-drawings/
on “Grok3 Launch [video]”Submitted The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior as a story · 210 points
HN discussionDo not neglect the Paper Nautilus, a kind of Mediterranean octopus. https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-seamstress-and-th... https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-... Jeanne Villepreux-Power invented marine biology, single-handed in the early 19th century. She observed them repairing a hole in their shell by gluing on a found patch.
Comment linking /2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-power-argonaut/
on “When Armor Met Lips”Submitted The Invention of Zero as a story · 150 points
HN discussionMy favorite Darwin fun fact is his detailed pros and cons list on whether to get married. https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/08/14/darwin-list-pros-a...
Comment linking /2012/08/14/darwin-list-pros-and-cons-of-marriage/
on “Darwin's children drew all over the “On the Origin of Species” manuscript (2014)”Submitted The story behind Beethoven's “Ode to Joy” as a story · 141 points
HN discussionhttps://www.themarginalian.org/2013/05/20/bill-watterson-199...
Comment linking /2013/05/20/bill-watterson-1990-kenyon-speech/
on “Bill Watterson’s refusal to license Calvin and Hobbes (2016)”Submitted The fine art of Italian hand gestures: A vintage visual dictionary (2012) as a story · 124 points
HN discussionThere's also this spray-on-a-pole diy option https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwe...
Comment linking /index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwei-cctv-camera-do-it/
on “Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests”Submitted The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as a story · 117 points
HN discussionI didn't know this! That just makes me appreciate this more, and thank you for making me aware of it. But thinking of it as "The Anna Principle", named after a character from a children's movie, remains way more fun. It was already a tongue-in-cheek-ism to ascribe what I really do believe is a strong foundational idea (not just in project planning, but in life) to a character in a children's movie. By the way, I tra…
Comment linking /2021/12/07/carl-jung-next-right-thing/
on “Breaking down tasks”Submitted Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means as a story · 109 points
HN discussionSounds like you have a flourishing Anti-library: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili... > Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there.
Comment linking /2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/
on “Get things done with Emacs”Submitted A parliament of owls and a murder of crows: How groups of birds got their names as a story · 104 points
HN discussionhttps://www.themarginalian.org/ has a Bitcoin address for donations on the page, and has received significant donations through that.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?”Submitted Tolkien’s Little-Known Original Drawings for the First Edition of “The Hobbit” as a story · 101 points
HN discussionThe ubiquitous "LLM slop is the car and thoughtful development is the horse" analogy makes me think of Steve Jobs's "Bicycle for the Mind". https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle...
Comment linking /2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/
on “The death of web development education”Submitted Mary Somerville, for whom the word “scientist” was coined as a story · 97 points
HN discussionI agree they are symbolic, but I believe we should see them as a symbol of how much knowledge has been created that yet remains potentially untapped and unexplored. https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili... I'm sure people would make an argument to the effect that writing that has existed for X years or decades would have already been tapped if it was of any value, and I would respond by saying…
Comment linking /2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/
on “Libraries and Well-Being: A Case Study from The New York Public Library”Submitted Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli bridged mind and matter (2017) as a story · 87 points
HN discussionLess known than 4'33" being "silent" (which it's not) is that John Cage was an anarchist. "Both Fuller and Marshall McLuhan knew, furthermore, that work is now obsolete. We have invented machines to do it for us. Now that we have no need to do anything what shall we do? Looking at Fuller's Geodesic World Map we see that the earth is a single island. Oahu. We must give all the people all they need to live in any way…
Comment linking /2015/09/15/john-cage-silence-human-nature/
on “John Cage recital set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change”Submitted Voice is a garden: Margaret Watts Hughes's Victorian sound visualizations as a story · 76 points
HN discussionit's an antilibrary https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili... I buy games I might play, my kids might play. And sometimes to repay my younger self debt.
Comment linking /2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/
on “Most people who buy games on Steam never play them”Submitted Yo-Yo Ma Performs Richard Feynman’s Ode to the Wonder of Life, Animated as a story · 71 points
HN discussionCheck out the Jung/Pauli letters. https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/03/09/atom-and-archetype...
Comment linking /2017/03/09/atom-and-archetype-pauli-jung/
on “Internet Sacred Text Archive”Submitted The poetic science of how cicadas sing as a story · 46 points
HN discussionPART 1 >> The mind is not part of nature? >Nope. It's a theoretical construct with no empirically measurable properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem : "The mind–body problem is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and body." This is a problem because there's no obvious connection between the mind and everyday reality. Now,…
Comment linking /2014/01/03/baloney-detection-
on “Research in psychology: are we learning anything?”Submitted Alan Watts on Money vs. Wealth (2014) as a story · 40 points
HN discussion
