Inkhaven Recommendations
and other notes
Inkhaven was a program where I wrote a blog post every day for the month of November. It is the impetus for this very blog you’re reading right now, as distinct from my main blog.
People who enjoy my Inkhaven blog may also enjoy the blog posts of other Inkhaveners. Friend-of-the-blog Ozy Brennan compiled a list of their favorite Inkhaven posts. I broadly agree with their taste and judgment.
In addition to the posts they highlighted, I also enjoyed Tomas’ Harry Potter and the Rules of Quidditch (an extension/parody/homage to HPMOR), With Adjustable Chef Tool’s Drawer (weirdly NSFW metafictional story). His farewell letter was also particularly touching. I like Vaniver’s article on Biodefense Shelters (a topic I had nontrivial past professional interest in), as well as his grounded arguments against Objectivism and militarism. Finally, I enjoyed Vaniver’s notes on finding a partner, though I don’t expect much of the advice to be directly applicable to me. (Incidentally, my DMs are open! ;) )
I enjoyed reading Ben’s Unexpected Things That Are People (should it be who? Grammar conveys weird implicit judgments), Vishal’s The Reputational Windfall, Adria’s Cultural Norms Shape Contingent Facts about AI releases (and their earlier Great Scene Theory of History), AGG Liu’s A Leap of Logic was genuinely laugh-out-loud funny plus actually taught me something about logic. Jenn’s takedown of one of my worst posts was brutal1, and quite interesting (for me personally). Collisteru’s Zoomer Children Want Kids was an informative data-driven dive, and his post on rock paper scissors helped to inspire me to write my own!
Michael Dickens wrote many bangers this month, enough that I almost want him to focus on fast content rather than the long-form articles he usually prioritizes. I particularly enjoyed TV is Better When You Trust The Writers (which pushed me over the edge to actually watch Pluribus), Wartime Ethics is Weird, Where I Am Donating in 2025, Do Disruptive or Violent Protests Work?, AI alignment is a meta-one-shot, Epistemic Spot Check on Alex Bores, Do Small Protests Work?, and many more.
Rob Miles’ Hypa-Queue was very funny. Ben Steinhorn pays a lot of attention to low-level details of the craft of his writing, and you can tell in his blog posts. William Friedman’s fiction is quite strong. One of my more embarrassing guilty pleasures is reading stories on Royal Road, and The Tragedy of the Titanium Tyrant is fairly high up there with other RR-style fiction I enjoy.
There are, of course, many other articles I enjoyed but are not coming to mind for me. When you spend an entire month just reading and writing blogs, you ingest a lot of things!
If you particularly like other Inkhaven posts that Ozy and I both missed, feel free to leave a comment below! I’ll probably read or reread it.
PS. Now that Inkhaven is over, I’ll shut down this blog soon. Most of you are already subscribed to my main blog (The Linchpin), which is like this blog but much more detailed and careful. There, I write higher-effort and more insightful posts over the course of days and weeks, rather than spending a single day for each post. For people who aren’t already subscribed to The Linchpin, I’ll transfer you over to my main blog by default. Please let me know if you object.
Jenn disagrees with this categorization.