The Rust Age (2007-2012)
A start page for the early years of Ribbonfarm (2007–2012), retroactively named the Rust Age. Selected posts from these years were collected into 4 curated ebooks (edited by Jordan Peacock), each 50,000–75,000 words containing 15–20 posts. Together with The Gervais Principle, they provide a fairly comprehensive overview of the era.
In The Art of Refactored Perception, Venkatesh Rao explores how to think about any topic in "refactored" ways, by consciously cultivating sensibilities and disciplines of perception, mental preparation, metacognition, and execution.
In Towards an Appreciative View of Technology, Venkatesh Rao offers a course in technology appreciation, from meditations on container shipping and garbage to speculative models of technology evolution and philosophical riffs on creative destruction.
In Getting Ahead, Getting Along, Getting Away, Venkatesh Rao tackles amateur sociology with the unsociable sensibilities of an engineer: exit and voice, competition and cooperation, introversion and extroversion, solitude and collective experience.
In The Mysteries of Money, Venkatesh Rao tackles the mysteries of money, business, and the economy — from core essays on metaphors and mental models for money to startup culture, consumer psychology, and life beyond the legibilizing reach of money.
For a comprehensive dive, here are the complete annual roundups: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007.