Knife Friction

An Interview With Salman Rushdie

Eleanor Wachtel & Salman Rushdie | Brick | 24th July 2026

Begins with his memoir Knife and then covers a lot of territory — realism in the novel, his father’s drinking, Cambridge and Bombay. “The weird thing is that I never saw the knife. I understood that I’d been punctured all over my body, but I never saw the weapon. Then I began, because I’m that kind of writer, to think of the knife as a metaphor. If I were to fight back, my only weapon would be language” (6,600 words)

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Person want thing do? Person Do Thing: say no-big thing, make many person think good.

The Cost Of Seamlessness

Taotuner | Hacker News | 26th July 2026

Concise reflection on the costs of eliminating all friction. When an AI answers before you finish your question, it interrupts the process by which an insight is formed. Urban planners who over-optimise zoning create efficient but sterile cities. Should we design differently? “If we’ve felt the exhaustion of being constantly predicted, preemptively satisfied, algorithmically managed — we already know the answer” (1,000 words)