Recommendations you can check.
Experimental psychologist and writer of the blog Experimental History, on psychology, science reform and creativity.
5 things
How to Survive Boiling WaterOther Jane A. Cook
"How to Survive Boiling Water" is a quintessential effort post. Cook accidentally drinks some probiotic tea, and then she's like, wait, how could "probiotic tea" possibly be a thing?
His announcement of the winners of the third annual Experimental History blog post competition, with his own note on each winning post.
2026-07-21·experimental-history.com ↗
Magical ConstitutionalismOther Ricardo López Cordero
SECOND PLACE ($250): Magical Constitutionalism by Ricardo López Cordero
His announcement of the winners of the third annual Experimental History blog post competition, with his own note on each winning post.
2026-07-21·experimental-history.com ↗
Remembering Indonesia from My GrandpaOther Melanie Hsieh
What stands out about Hsieh's version is that her roots occupy such a unique spot in history: her grandparents were Chinese born in Indonesia, which means they got caught between the rock of the Cultural Revolution and the hard place of anti-communist backlash.
His announcement of the winners of the third annual Experimental History blog post competition, with his own note on each winning post.
2026-07-21·experimental-history.com ↗
Chatting AloneOther Alex Martsinovich
Martsinovich argues, via code snippets, that there is no such thing as a "conversation" with a chatbot. The AI is born anew every time it speaks, and it simply reads the dialogue so far and then tries to write the next line:
His announcement of the winners of the third annual Experimental History blog post competition, with his own note on each winning post.
2026-07-21·experimental-history.com ↗
PangramSoftware Pangram
For the first time, I ran all potential winners through Pangram, which is an AI-writing detector.1 So according to the machine (and to my ear), all of the winners are 100% human-written.
His announcement of the winners of the third annual Experimental History blog post competition, with his own note on each winning post.
2026-07-21·experimental-history.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.