Skip to content

Robert Rackley

Mere Christian, aspiring minimalist, inveterate notetaker, budget audiophile and paper airplane mechanic. Self-publishing since 1994.

Members Public

Magnum Mars

The subject of Christian masculinity has been hot these last few years and the NYT piece on Orthodoxy and the influx of young men to the faith have reignited interest in the Orthodox world. Religion professor Phil Dorroll writes about what masculinity looks like within the Orthodox Christian context. In

Magnum Mars
Members Public

A Cutting Egress

About a week ago, many bloggers were writing about the nightmare scenario of getting locked out of your iCloud account. Indeed, what could terrify a geek more? There was sense of panic at the realization this could occur. Nick Heer writes at Pixel Envy: What I am stunned by is

Members Public

Free The Bluebird

Cyrus Farivar writes for Ars Technica about a startup company that wants to reclaim the Twitter brand from the clutches of Elon Musk. Called Operation Bluebird, the company has filed a formal petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office on the premise that X Corporation has abandoned it. Elon

Members Public

The Demise of a Newsletter

Another Substack writer jettisons the platform.

Members Public

No Carbon Copies

Damon Krukowski from Galaxie 500 writes about the vitality of live music — not just music experienced in person, but also live albums. I started collecting live albums— bootlegs in particular — because they helped me hear how musicians actually play their instruments. Growing up in the heyday of 1960s and ’70s

No Carbon Copies
Members Public

Let Me Take You Out

Listening to “Let Me Take You Out” by Class Actress in 2025 feels like hearing the sound of promise unfulfilled. When the single from their first EP, Journal of Ardency came out in 2010, it seemed like the start of a band destined to make a mark. The song was

Members Public

Treasure Hoard - November 2025

And now for the links... Bradley Androos has an interesting take on the recent deprecation of the penny. In a recent segment on Bill Maher’s Real Time, Maher joked that Spotify will no longer be able to pay artists after the penny has ceased to be minted. While the

Members Public

Negative Witness

In the TV series, Shogun, the fish out of water character, John Blackthorne, a Protestant English sailor on a Dutch ship, finds himself stranded in Japan. Almost immediately, viewers are introduced to his intense hatred of Catholics, particularly the Portuguese priests he quickly encounters in the country. He spews vehement

Negative Witness
Members Public

Long After Midnight

Few musicians are as prolific as Jenn Wasner, the creative force behind Flock of Dimes. She has made much critically acclaimed music as both as Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes as well as collaborating with a host of others on their tunes My favorite project of hers is the

Members Public

Walden on an iPad

I was reading some thoughts on Walden the other day, and I realized I hadn’t engaged with one of my favorite philosophical works in some time. I first encountered Thoreau and the transcendentalists as a teenager. Their emphasis on nonconformity seemed really punk at the time. Wasn’t Jello

Walden on an iPad