Archive - The Cleaver and the Butterfly

"In the Darkness, I Pour Wine"

The distance between a civilization’s peak and its collapse can be as short as a single love affair gone wrong. Climbing Emei Mountain, Part I

Jun 1 •

May 2025

Robot Invaders Are Coming For Your Sichuan Food

What could be spicer than the "industrial production" of Sichuan cuisine?

May 4 •

April 2025

March 2025

"A Daoist ran a wine shop in Chengdu"

A footnote about everybody's favorite drunken Tang dynasty "highest level of immortal" poet

Mar 24 •

How the Internet became the Book of Changes

The conclusion of The Universal Commerce of Light

Mar 21 •

February 2025

On The Production Line

An ode to Taiwan's women electronics workers

Feb 18 •

January 2025

Did Leibniz dream of DeepSeek？

In the age of hypography, AI will be king. Part VI of The Universal Commerce of Light

Jan 30 •

How Was It Possible?

The current that drew me from Gottfried Leibniz to curiosity about the remarkable history of the Hohenzollern dynasty and the rise (and fall) of…

Jan 16 •

The Secret of the Sichuanese iPad

Or, how the rise and fall of RCA explains everything. Part V of The Universal Commerce of Light

Jan 15 •

The Mystery of the Returned Pearl

A footnote about an wuxia footnote

Jan 3 •

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