The Commonplace
A running record of what's worth thinking about — history, philosophy, economy, code, culture, and the world as it turns.
For centuries, readers have kept commonplace books — private notebooks where a passage worth remembering, a half-formed argument, or a stray observation was copied down and filed by theme, so that a lifetime of reading and thinking could be found again later. This is that practice, made public.
What you'll find here moves across history, philosophy, economy, programming, culture, food, local and global politics, weather, farming, artificial intelligence, and music videos — not because these fields have much in common on the surface, but because a mind paying attention doesn't stay in one lane. There's no editorial calendar and no algorithm deciding what comes next — just a running record of what seemed worth thinking about, written down before it was forgotten.
Welcome — About This Website
The Commonplace is a personal essay archive written and maintained by Glenn Junsay Pansensoy. It is an independent, one-person project: every entry is written, edited and published by the author, and the site is free to read, with no account or sign-up required.
What you will find here
- Twelve sections — history, philosophy, economy, programming, culture, food, local politics, global politics, weather, farming, artificial intelligence and music videos. Use the section tabs on the left (or the menu on mobile) to browse any of them.
- Latest Entry, The Shelf and Recently Written below this panel show the newest and most recent essays. Select any entry to read it in full.
- Search at the top of the page finds essays by title or topic.
- Listen Every word can be heard.
- Share Share the Knowledge.
What you should know
- Opinion and commentary. Essays reflect the author’s own views and reading. The political sections in particular are commentary, not reporting, and are not endorsed by any organization.
- Not professional advice. Economy, farming, weather and technology pieces are explanatory. They are not financial, investment, legal, agricultural or safety advice — please consult a qualified professional before acting.
- No fixed schedule. New entries appear when they are ready, not on an editorial calendar, and older entries may be revised or corrected.
- Also on Blogger. Many essays are mirrored at poetic-bytes.blogspot.com, where you can join the discussion through Disqus comments.
- Advertising. The site is supported by Google AdSense ads. Ads are clearly separated from the writing and do not influence what is published.
- Your privacy. The site does not require you to register. See the Data Privacy, Cookies and Terms pages for details on how data and cookies are handled, and the Accessibility page for how the site supports all readers.
- Corrections and contact. Spotted a mistake or want to get in touch? See the About page. The Sitemap lists every page.
Tip: share an individual article from its own page so friends land directly on that essay.
Latest Entry
The Shelf
Recently Written
GitHub Auto-Deploy
Every saved article pushes straight to this repo as markdown, photo included. Needs a Personal Access Token with Contents: read & write access — kept on this device only.
Facebook Auto-Post
Deployed articles post straight to this Page, preview built automatically from the article's own tags. Needs a Page ID and access token from Graph API Explorer — kept on this device only.
Backup & Restore
Everything in the database — articles, photos, video links — plus the GitHub/Facebook settings, in one file. ⚠️ Includes the GitHub and Facebook tokens in plain text. Keep it private.
Deploy to GitHub
All articles as markdown, organized by category, with YAML frontmatter for Jekyll/GitHub Pages.