Hello there, reader, and welcome to another issue of Kat’s Kable. As always, ten great things to read. I’m going to be off for a short vacation now, but I’m planning a fun year-end special - ten best things from the year! Watch out for it.

1. Book of Lamentations (The New Inquiry):

The DSM-5 (2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders if you’re interested in the full name) is… well, a large book meant to diagnose mental disorders. This 2013 essay by Sam Kriss is a scathing review of the book, and it’s interesting because it assumes it’s… well, a book, and not a manual.

2. The Sentence is a Lonely Place (The Believer):

Gabrielle Lutz is an American writer of fiction. This 2008 essay is actually a speech she delivered. It’s beautiful - it talks about the sonic and phonic beauty of sentences in fiction. It reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “Rhythmic Pattern in The Lord of the Rings”.

3. The PixelWeaver (Chris Fenton’s blog):

This one is a lot like I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display from last issue. If you like fun hardware projects, this one is for you!

4. Is It a Bubble? (Oaktree Capital):

Well, the question on everyone’s mind. Is it an AI bubble? Howard Marks’ answer is pretty pragmatic - it’s pretty obvious that it is a bubble, but bubbles are often the best ways to channel enormous amounts of capital quickly when a new technology is so disruptive. Now where we go from that is a matter of some more debate..

5. The Talented Mr. Bruseaux (Atavist Magazine):

Great profile. “He made his name in Chicago investigating racial violence, solving crimes, and exposing corruption. But America’s first Black private detective was hiding secrets of his own.”

6. 32 Bits That Changed Microprocessor Design (IEEE Spectrum):

This is the fun story of AT&T’s Bellmac-32 chip, which is set to be honoured with an IEEE Milestone this year. It was a revolutionary chip for its time - relying on new, risky and unproven fabrication equipment. What’s more, a lot of the work for this chip had to be done manually.

With no CAD tools available for full-chip verification, Kang says, the team resorted to printing oversize Calcomp plots. The schematics showed how the transistors, circuit lines, and interconnects should be arranged inside the chip to provide the desired outputs. The team assembled them on the floor with adhesive tape to create a massive square map more than 6 meters on a side. Kang and his colleagues traced every circuit by hand with colored pencils, searching for breaks, overlaps, or mishandled interconnects.

7. Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon’s Creator, Chris Sawyer (Atari Club):

Nostalgia! What a fun, fun read. Chris Sawyer is clearly a game-design genius.

8. Agency is Eating the World (Gian Segato’s personal blog):

Pretty interesting essay that apparently went viral some time ago but I missed it then.

For years, we feared automation would replace humans. But as AI reshapes the economy, it’s becoming clear that far from replacing human ingenuity, AI has amplified it. The critical dividing line in our economy is no longer simply education or specialization, but rather agency itself: the raw determination to make things happen without waiting for permission.

9. The Penicillin Myth (Asimov Press):

I didn’t know that Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was so fraught with controversy! I thought that the penicillium mould just floated in from outside Fleming’s lab. But that doesn’t make sense either when you try to tally it with Fleming’s journal or if you consider how scrupulous Fleming normally was. Fun read! Not sure I’ll ever use any of this information but what I found interesting was the way this changes our view (or should change or view) on accidental discoveries in science. Alas to the most common themed round in science-tech quizzes from my undergrad days.

10. Everything I Know about Self-Publishing (Kevin Kelly’s personal blog):

Well written and exhaustive list. This essay gave me a lightbulb moment of realizing you can just print… a single copy… of something you’ve written and have it delivered to you as a book. Gotta try!