The Adventures of Eiki Martinson

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book 3

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:06:50 -0700

Edouard Hamman, The Awakening of Michel de Montaigne

When the mind is satisfied, that is a sign of diminished faculties or weariness. No powerful mind stops within itself: it is always stretching out and exceeding its capacities.

Still unsatisfied, still stretching out, we come to it at last: the third and final book of Montaigne's essays. If you've stuck with me from the beginning, I salute you, although reading Montaigne is really its own reward. If you're here for the first time, I welcome you. This one you really can pick up anywhere; there is no shame in starting on book three and reading the others whenever you can, so don't be shy! Montaigne, after all is one of the fun ones. Here is another taste of the fun we'll have in October:

The ridiculous and simple look of another always warns and advises me; that which pricks, rouses and incites much better than that which tickles. The time is now proper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by differing more than by consent.

Indeed, the time IS proper for just that. So bring your dissent to Vino's on October 26, at 7:00 PM, and be ready to incite.
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The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Baltasar Gracián

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 05:14:38 -0700

Velázquez, The Surrender of Breda

Wait. It's a sign of a noble heart dowered with patience, never to be in a hurry, never to be in a passion. First be master over yourself if you would be master over others. You must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the centre of opportunity. A wise reserve seasons the aims and matures the means.

Now for a tasty slice of seasoned and matured jamón in our triple-decker Montaigne sandwich: Baltasar Gracián's Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia. Gracián (1601–1658) was a Jesuit priest, philosopher, and one of the brightest lights of Spanish literature. Despite the efforts of church authorities to get him to stop publishing, seven works escaped his sharp and subtle mind, works that long after his death would earn extravagant praise from figures as varied as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Elon Musk (three sometime atheists that nonetheless found much to admire in this Catholic clergyman's thinking).

The Art of Worldy Wisdom, his most popular and accessible book, is a collection of 300 humane-but-realistic aphorisms with brief commentary. Fans of La Rochefoucauld will detect the considerable influence that Gracián had on him with this book, published less than two decades prior to his Maximes (a favorite of O.S.S.I. in the past). But if that doesn't sell you on the Oráculo Manual, then try this:

Pride yourself on the fact that if gallantry, generosity, and fidelity disappeared from the world, they could be found in you.

Now what could better express the ethos of our club than that?

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Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book 2

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:27:20 -0700

Fleury François Richard, Montaigne Visiting Torquato Tasso in Prison

Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

After a brief holiday in the sun, we return to our scholarly towers and pick up, once again, The Essays of Montaigne. Although usually bound as one volume, his 107 total essays were published as three books, which we are reading one at a time, with breaks in between. This month, we are only reading the second book. If you didn't attend our June meeting for Book One, don't worry, you really can begin at any point. So pick a translation and get started on Book Two; it's the longest of the three so plan accordingly!

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Sun and Steel, Yukio Mishima

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 19:12:16 -0700

Ogata Gekko, Picture of Officers and Men Worshipping the Rising Sun While Encamped in the Mountains of Port Arthur

If my self was my dwelling, then my body resembled an orchard that surrounded it. I could either cultivate that orchard to its capacity or leave it for the weeds to run riot in. I was free to choose, but the freedom was not as obvious as it might seem. Many people, indeed, go so far as to refer to the orchards of their dwellings as "destiny".

One day, it occurred to me to set about cultivating my orchard for all I was worth.

Here's a summer read, a short palate cleanser before we dive back into Montaigne, and as a special treat, it's not even that old. 1968! Our youngest book yet. I'm bending our rules hard this time.

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Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book 1

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:00:39 -0700

Portrait of Michel de Montaigne, Augustin de Saint-Aubin, 1774

Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject.

In 1570, Michel de Montaigne, then 37, retired from his law career. A year later, he began his real work. Sequestering himself in his study (literally a tower), he set about inventing, and even immediately perfecting, a new literary form: the essay.

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Zip-Tie Organizing

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Wed, 20 May 2026 18:32:04 -0700

Here's a new video in my "Pushing Back the Chaos" series. In this short one I 3D-print some wall-mounted bins for my large and varied collection of zip ties. See some satisfying organization and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!

The Complete Works of Epicurus

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:56:00 -0700

Photo by Batatolis Panagiotis

It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honourably, and justly and impossible to live prudently, honourably, and justly without living pleasantly.

Epicurus was a very prolific philosopher, authoring over 300 works. This month, we will read all of them.

All of the ones that have survived.

Had you going there, didn't I? As it happens, there's not that much left, so with very little effort, by the end of the month you will have read as much Epicurus as anyone alive.

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X-Carve Rescue Episode 2: Dust Collection, Modifications, Tweaks

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 03:56:43 -0700

Finally, here is the long awaited next chapter in the saga of this long-neglected CNC machine. In this one I hook up dust collection with a 3D-printed dust shoe, add stiffening modifications to the Y-axis rails, attach the machine to the torsion box tabletop I built in the last episode, and make many tweaks to get this machine running right.

Part 2 of a series!

Epistles, Horace

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:47:01 -0700

At Maecenas' Reception Room, Stefan Bakałowicz, 1890

He who puts off the hour to begin living rightly;
Is like the yokel who stands at the stream with a sigh:
“I can't get across. I'll wait here till it runs dry.”
Meanwhile, it flows, forever flows on and rolls by.

Horace's Epistles are collections (two of them, but almost always published together) of letters addressed to various people and composed in hexameter verse. They are full of useful moral maxims, but this is poetry, not carefully argued philosophy with a definite point of view. Nonetheless, the mature Horace of the Epistles is definitely reaching out beyond beauty, to get a hold on truth and goodness as well:

So now I lay aside my verses and all other toys. What is right and seemly is my study and pursuit, and to that am I wholly given.

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Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 01:14:31 -0800

Portrait drawing of Rainer Maria Rilke, Leonid Pasternak, 1901

Do you remember how this life of yours longed in childhood to belong to the 'grown-ups'? I can see that it now longs to move on from them and is drawn to those who are greater yet. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but also why it will not cease to grow.

It's been a while. Let's ease back into our reading with a short one, a miniature jewel: the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's ten letters written to Franz Xaver Kappus in the years 1903–1908 (Yes, that's very modern by our standards. We'll let it slide this time). Kappus, an unhappy officer cadet who dreamed of living the life of a poet instead, sent some of his verses to the already published and somewhat famous (although almost as young as himself) poet Rilke asking for criticism and advice. He didn't get criticism (“any critical intention is too remote from me”, says Rilke) but of advice he got plenty. And what advice it is!

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A Logo for Sadamasild

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 14:27:30 -0800

In late 2022 I designed this logo for Estonian musical ensemble Sadamasild.

Sadamasild logo, December 2022

The name "Sadamasild" means "Sadam's Bridge", after frontman and songwriter Marek Sadam. The arch formed by the crossbars of the A's in the logo is meant to read as a bridge, at least to an Estonian audience that understands the name.

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Saar ja Sadam Logo Design

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:33:49 -0800

Here's a logo I designed for Marek Sadam and Mikk Saar's band Saar ja Sadam, with wider and narrower variations for different applications. For non-Estonian speakers: "Saar" means "island" and "Sadam" means "harbor", so the last names of these gentlemen naturally suggest nautical ideas to an Estonian audience.

As with my logo designs for the LEP festivals in 2019 and 2021 (postponed until 2022 for COVID), I've prepared a proposal document with some details and other variations, including text-only versions without the logomark elements, suitable for reproduction at small sizes.

I can't wait to see these on t-shirts!

Using a Laser Pointer and 3D Printing to Align Electrical Conduit

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 17:13:49 -0700

As part of my ongoing garage renovation I installed new LED light fixtures on the ceiling. This required me to rebuild the existing network of surface-mounted conduits and brought to light some disturbing discoveries about the state of the electrical system in the garage I've lived next to, in blissful ignorance, since 2019. For more on that, watch the video above and learn how NOT to wire a garage with an extra circuit.

In addition to the downright hazardous faults I'm referring to was a class of problems that rise to the level of the merely annoying. One of those: the ceiling box that the lights depend on was rotated by a small but immediately apparent angle from the walls of the building. If, as planned, I installed the linear LED lamps using conduits connected to the box, the pattern of lights would not be perpendicular to anything else, which I obviously could not accept.

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On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:07:11 -0700

A Painter's Studio, Louis-Léopold Boilly, c. 1800

But how does the artist secure himself against the corruptions of his time, which everywhere encircle him? By disdaining its opinion. Let him look upwards to his own dignity and to Law, not downwards to fortune and to everyday needs.

It is common to say that philosophy is about three things: the true, the good, and the beautiful. We've sampled widely across philosophy, but most of our reading has been about the good, because we are looking for practical advice on how to live. Modern academic philosophy, by contrast, is mostly about the true, because you can endlessly turn out answers to “how do we know what we know?” and academics need jobs, after all.

Beauty, however, is the most neglected of the trio. Maybe because it's easy to dismiss as an unnecessary luxury, something we should give up for the sake of some other worthy goal. Maybe because of the slippery task of trying to define what it is and the subsequent escape into subjectivity. You've heard all that noise about the “eye of the beholder”, “that's YOUR opinion”, “one man's trash” and so forth.

But let's not give the bromides too much credit. One man that definitely didn't was the 18th century German Friedrich Schiller, who wrote On the Aesthetic Education of Man (sometimes rendered in English as Aesthetical Letters or several similar variations), a work that respects Beauty as at least equal to her sisters Truth and Goodness. Shocked by the descent of the French Revolution, which seemed to begin with high-minded ideals, into blood and madness, Schiller asks: how could this have been avoided? If political revolution doesn't work, what conditions are necessary to really produce human flourishing?

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An Emergent Emergency

nospam@example.com (Eiki Martinson) — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 22:26:35 -0700

I keep hearing “emergent situation” or similar phrases used in place of “emergency”. This is incorrect; “emergent” means something like “coming into existence” or “coming into view” and does not, by itself, imply urgency or crisis. Although before taking to my blog in anger I had only heard this usage rather than seen it in print, a quick visit to the search engines reveals the poisonous weed taking root in (where else?) the offices of state bureaucrats and educationists. In the New Jersey Administrative Code, Chapter 53B (Jursidictional Assignments for Railroad Overhead Bridges), we find the phrase explicitly defined thus:

"Emergent situation" means a sudden, urgent, or unexpected occurrence or occasion that interferes with the free and safe movement of traffic over a railroad overhead bridge, which requires immediate action.

This same production informs us also of the possibility of “emergent bridge repairs”, whatever that means. Are the repairs emerging in some way? Is the bridge?

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