digest

Digest — December 2025

Logan Johnson

02 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

"SNOWY SUNSET" by Aquila-chrysaetos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Digest is a monthly post where I share what I’m reading. Read along if you like. Articles are linked.

Books

The Intelligence Illusion — Baldur Bjarnason
“Generative models are bad for business. Optimism was unwarranted.”

King Sorrow — Joe Hill
“He used a device called a modem, which made an awful squeal and shriek as it tried to connect to other computers through the telephone line plugged into the back. That shrill grinding sound was, Arthur thought, the voice of the future: inhuman, idiotic, and loud.”

A Deadly Education — Naomi Novik
“I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life. I hadn’t really cared much about him before then one way or another, but I had limits.”

Articles

“The Conservative Grievance Business Is Always Hiring” — David Roth for Defector
“It is reductive to say that the central fantasy of contemporary conservatism is Punching The Teacher, but it is not really wrong.”

“On Not Dying in the Drafts” — Jonathan Nielson for A Playground and a Plea
“How do you write against the tide? The information sphere around us is being flooded.”

“AI Grief Observed” — Audrey Watters for Second Breakfast
“I always feel the need to remind people that neither robots nor AI are coming for our jobs. But management probably is.”

“What Kind Of Future Does De-Extinction Promise?” — Sabrina Imbler for Defector
“There is no objective calculus of how many suffering creatures is "worth" one healthy one.”

For Sale: Street Trash, Never Dying

I saw a bit of trash this morning. It was in the parking lot: cups, straws, water bottles, and a grocery sack in a meandering line. They were all plastic, their bodies formed by last week’s whims and built to last forever, now streaked with grime and morning dew.

Pepper

I put too much pepper in my soup today, but don't worry. I did it on purpose. It's getting cold outside, so I put extra pepper in the broth to force that lingering warm feeling in my chest. I wanted my body to know that as

Is anyone else a little dizzy...?

The cultural landscape of modern America is characterized by uncertainty. In my deepest analytical conversations exploring politics, faith, technology, and the future, someone always ends up crying. Someone always says “I don’t know,” with an air of finality. I don’t know either. Nobody seems to know, and the

nondefragmentation

As a child, I adored disk defragmentation. This was a part of a larger sense that computers were magic, a sense that even computer utilities were a kind of inspired play, the conversation between metal and sand and electricity. I watched defrag run for long minutes, tiny colored blocks shifting