Avoiding local maximums
Easier said than done.
Book: The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Book: Seeing Like a State by James Scott
Book: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Book: The Story of Medieval England (audio)
Book: The New Father
Book: Tribe by Sebastian Junger
Reading in 2018
I read and listened to a few books in 2018. My highlights include speculative fiction stories from Chinese authors: Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin, Ken Liu's translations of, Chen Qiufan, Xia Jia, Hao Jingfang. Also really enjoyed Player of Games and Darkness at Noon. On the non-fiction front, I listened to two excellent history lectures: one on modern China, another on the French Revolution. I also read a pair of books describing cyclical views of history: The Fourth Turning and a more scientific take, War and Peace and War. A standout non-fiction favorite was Impro, which I will definitely be returning to.
Most of my internet reading happens through Instapaper, which affords me a handy chronicle of articles that I enjoyed. Here are a few of them (excerpts are not endorsements):
Book: Infinite Planets
Book: Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
Book: The Fall and Rise of China (audio)
Book: War and Peace and War by Peter Turchin
Book: Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (audio)
Comparing classical music interpretations
I built an audio player to easily compare multiple interpretations of the same piece. Here's an interactive demo, and a video to give you a sense of how it works: