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Jasmine Sun

Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

2 books on the record · 2 Aug 2025 – 2 Aug 2025 · @jasminewsun

The bar next to each date shows how long ago it was said: 6d is days, 4yr is years.

recommends it

Close to the Machine by Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman's Close to the Machine is a memoir I couldn't believe I hadn't read earlier. Many of her observations about engineering culture feel as relevant today as when she was a programmer in the 1980s

on jasmi.news · 2 Aug 2025

Everything Jasmine Sun recommends — not just books — on rcmnd →

That little bar

It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about 6 years.

A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.