The glow of grime Of course this 'sheen of antiquity' of which we hear so much is in fact the glow of grime. In both Chinese and Japanese the words denoting this glow describe a polish that comes of being touched over and over again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over long years of handling—which is to say grime. If indeed 'elegance is frigid', it can as well be described as filthy. Jun'ichirō Tanizaki & Thomas J. Harper, In Praise of Shadows timeaestheticsfilthflaws
The Method of Loci An Article fs.blog From the time we learn to walk, we start building up spatial memories—recollections of the layouts of physical spaces and their relationships to the objects in them. These memories tend to form fast and stick around for a long time. The method of loci hijacks our innate aptitude for remembering physical spaces, using it to help us remember other kinds of information with greater ease. On Memory Palaces & Visual Computation memoryspaceplace