@keyframes rainbow { 0% { color: #ff6b6b; } 14% { color: #feca57; } 28% { color: #48dbfb; } 42% { color: #1dd1a1; } 57% { color: #5f27cd; } 71% { color: #ff9ff3; } 85% { color: #54a0ff; } 100% { color: #ff6b6b; } } .animate-rainbow { animation: rainbow 3s linear infinite; } Aether Mug has just turned two years old....

Roughly three years and three months ago I executed what I call my Master-Switch Plan: I resigned from my stable, well-paid position at an excellent up-and-coming Japanese startup and hired myself. That same company immediately became my client, but now I was working for them only two days a week instead of five. I...

This is the final episode in the series of curated quote collections "Darwin in His Own Words". Darwin the Fun-Loving Young Fellow Darwin the Voyager Darwin the Man of His Times Darwin the Witness Darwin El Naturalista At last, it's time to talk about young Charles Darwin's scientific side during his voyage on the...

It should be clear by now that Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle is much more than a log of scientific notes. Descriptions of nature and its mysteries abound—we'll see them in the next episode—but his book is also a window into his own character, an adventure story, and a reminder of the glaring ethical blind...

This is the third installment in a series of curated quote collections I've gathered while reading Darwin's famous travel book. You can also read episode 1 and episode 2. If you've read the previous two posts, you might have formed the impression that Charles Darwin's voyage aboard the HMS Beagle was all adventure...

This is the second installment in a series of curated quote collections I've gathered while reading Darwin's famous travel book. Read episode 1 here. Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle was more than a series of fun episodes. It was, first and foremost, a scientific expedition, and this job occupied Darwin...

I recently read a book with the nicely vintage title of Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, describing their Examination of the Southern Shores of South America, and the Beagle's Circumnavigation of the Globe - Volume III, and I want to share its joys with you. It's truly...

Overcast. An old loghouse with a balding thatched roof along a mountain path. Goats linger about, munching at the anemic grass that grows around the building. A wooden sign, which might have once hung high but is now resting oblique against the wall beside the loghouse's door, reads: "Pilgrims Welcome" in ancient...

Wow. It's been over a year since I published my last essay on Plankton Valhalla. That was the second episode in a trilogy, and my work only got harder after that. I worked on the third piece on and off (mostly on) for the past 13 months, and I have finally published it today. It's titled Purpose From First...

Disclaimer: these are little more than reading notes. I'll list some excerpts and highlights from a paper I've loved reading recently, with only marginal explanations. Rougher than usual, but this shortcut allows me to share things I wouldn't have the time to cook otherwise. Let me know how it landed. The paper:...

You're looking for the Place. Not a special place, or an important place. The right place for yourself. A place that means nothing to anyone else, but that completely fills the nooks and crannies of your being and lets you hold on to the world as firmly as is possible for a human being. A place that is like it was...

A part of me still hasn't recovered from learning that some people believe there is no such thing as an untranslatable word. I've written about why I disagree before, but that explanation didn't satisfy me completely. There was a stronger argument to be made, I thought, but I couldn't put it into words. Now I...