Deteritus

Cal Newport – Digital Minimalism (2019)A-

Cal Newport makes a compelling case for being more intentional about our technology use. This book pairs well with my earlier thoughts on reading in the digital age.

The core argument: our attention is valuable, and we should treat it as such. Rather than mindlessly adopting every new app and service, we should carefully curate our digital lives.

Newport’s suggested 30-day digital declutter is challenging but worthwhile. The key isn’t to abandon technology entirely, but to ensure that every tool we use provides clear value.

On Reading in the Digital Age

I’ve been thinking about how we read now versus how we used to read.

The shift isn’t just about screens versus paper—though that’s part of it. It’s about attention, about the constant pull of notifications, about the subtle anxiety of knowing there’s always something else demanding our attention.

When I sit down with a physical book, there’s a different quality to the experience. The book asks nothing of me except to turn its pages. It won’t buzz, won’t update, won’t suggest other books I might like. It’s just there, patiently waiting.

This isn’t nostalgia. I read plenty on screens, and I’m grateful for the access that provides. But I’m trying to be more intentional about creating space for the kind of deep reading that feels increasingly rare.

Maybe the medium matters less than the mindset. Maybe we can learn to read deeply anywhere, if we’re willing to defend our attention.

Slaughterhouse-Five cover — Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)A+

So it goes.

Vonnegut’s anti-war masterpiece is told in a fractured, non-linear style that mirrors the psychological state of Billy Pilgrim, who has become “unstuck in time.” He experiences his life out of order: his childhood, his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden, his abduction by aliens from Tralfamadore, and his mundane post-war existence as an optometrist.

The novel is simultaneously about everything and nothing. It’s about the firebombing of Dresden—which Vonnegut survived—but refuses to describe it in conventional terms. It’s about trauma, but treats it with darkly comic detachment. It’s about death, but views it from a perspective where death is just another moment, no more significant than any other.

“So it goes” becomes the book’s refrain, appearing after every mention of death. It’s fatalistic, yes, but also oddly comforting. A shrug in the face of the incomprehensible.

This is the rare book that makes you laugh, breaks your heart, and changes how you see the world—all in under 200 pages.

Parasite (2019)A

Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner defies easy categorization. Is it a black comedy? A thriller? A social commentary? Yes to all, and somehow more than the sum of its parts.

The Kim family—clever, desperate, and endlessly inventive—scheme their way into employment with the wealthy Park family. What follows is a masterclass in tension, class dynamics, and architectural storytelling. The Parks’ modernist home becomes a character itself, its clean lines hiding secrets beneath the surface.

Every frame is precisely composed, every scene building on the last. When the film pivots—and you’ll know when—it transforms into something else entirely, yet feels inevitable in retrospect.

The final act lingers. Bong refuses easy answers, leaving us with questions about what it means to want, to have, and to lose.

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)A+

Nearly three decades later, OK Computer still sounds like a transmission from another dimension. Radiohead’s third album captured the anxiety of the digital age before most of us even knew we were anxious.

From the opening notes of “Airbag” to the devastating closer “The Tourist,” this album maps the territory of modern alienation with surgical precision. Thom Yorke’s voice floats through textures that shouldn’t work together but somehow create something transcendent.

“Paranoid Android” remains one of the most ambitious singles ever released, a six-minute suite that somehow made prog rock palatable for alternative radio. And “No Surprises” achieves that rare thing: genuine tenderness without sentimentality.

Essential listening. Not just for understanding ’90s rock, but for understanding ourselves.

Morning Light

Caught this beautiful morning light streaming through the trees during my walk. There’s something magical about the first hour after sunrise—the way light filters through leaves, creating patterns that shift and dance.

Sometimes the best moments are the ones you stumble upon, not the ones you plan.

The Web's Grain

Frank Chimero’s essay on designing for the web as a medium with its own unique properties. Rather than fighting against the web’s inherent flexibility, he argues we should embrace it.

The key insight: the web is not a fixed canvas but an edgeless surface. Designing for it means thinking in terms of systems and relationships rather than fixed layouts.

Required reading for anyone who works on the web.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.

— Carl Sagan

Welcome to Deteritus

Welcome to my little corner of the internet. This is where I share my thoughts on technology, music, books, films, and whatever else catches my attention.

I’ve always believed that writing helps clarify thinking. By putting thoughts into words, we’re forced to organize them, question them, and sometimes discover that we didn’t really understand something as well as we thought.

This blog is my attempt to do that in public. Not because I think my opinions are particularly valuable, but because the act of writing for an audience—even an imagined one—makes me more careful, more thoughtful.

So here we are. I hope you find something interesting here.