Skip to content

Sign up for a small monthly payment and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD

Make a one-time donation and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD

Home
About Us
Recommended Reading
Magazine Archives
Support 3QD
Log In
Search for:

FIREWATER: The story behind “The Golden Hour”

Posted on Thursday, Sep 6, 2007 3:41PMFriday, December 8, 2017 by S. Abbas Raza

Post navigation

Patriotism: A Negative Assessment

Goodbye, cruel Word: A personal history of electronic writing

The Curated Links at 3QD *

The usual curated links to articles elsewhere are no longer on the front page. They are on the “Recommended Reading” page which can be accessed by clicking the menu item of that name, just under the main 3QD banner. Try it and see.

Receive 3QD Posts by Email

Please fill out the form below to get our email with all the posts from the previous 24 hours, which is sent out a bit after midnight (NY City time) each day. This is completely free of charge for everyone.

	Name:
	Your email address:*

Please enter all required fields Correct invalid entries

Follow 3QD on Social Media

What People Say About 3QD

"I like to check in from time to time with 3 Quarks Daily."

—Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. "One of the most celebrated writers of his generation," according to the Virginia Quarterly Review.

"3 Quarks is a daily must-read for intellectuals of all stripes. It is perhaps even smarter and better and more comprehensive than Arts & Letters Daily, the de facto gold standard of the smart set on the internet."

—Laura Claridge, former Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, and author of Romantic Potency: The Paradox of Desire, Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence, and Norman Rockwell: A Life.

“I’m a longtime fan of 3 Quarks Daily!”

—Ben Orlin, author of four best-selling mathematics books: Math with Bad Drawings (2018), Change is the Only Constant (2019), Math Games with Bad Drawings (2022), and Math for English Majors (2024).

"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."

—Richard Dawkins, previously Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

"For sheer elegance, wit and worldly wisdom when it comes to reading, editing, presenting the real news of the world... for liveliness, cosmopolitanism, range of scientific, philosophical, and literary curiosity in harvesting big and provocative ideas... for consistency of character and manners, ever above the ordinary... 3 Quarks stands alone. If 3 Quarks Daily were a person, wouldn't it be Proust?"

—Christopher Lydon, host of the excellent show "Open Source" on National Public Radio, author, media personality.

"3QD is always interesting--you (and your other contributors) have a fine eye for good writing in both the arts and the sciences, which is a very rare thing indeed."

—Rochelle Gurstein, author of The Repeal of Reticence, and frequent contributor to The New Republic, Salmagundi, and American Scholar.

"I couldn't tear myself away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on this superb site."

—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.

"Thanks for 3 Quarks Daily which has been very high on my reading list for several years now!"

—Huw Price, Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He is also co-founder, with Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn, of a project to establish a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

"3 Quarks Daily is first rate."

—Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Chair in Philosophy and Director of the South Asian Institute at Columbia University.

"3 Quarks Daily is one of the most interesting and thoughtful websites out there."

—Sean Carroll, physicist at Caltech, author.

Recent Comments on 3QD

3QD Design History and Credits

The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis in 2006. The next major revision was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde in 2013. And this current version 5.0 has been designed and deployed by Dumky de Wilde in collaboration with S. Abbas Raza.

3 Quarks Daily

3 Quarks Daily started in 2004 with the idea of creating a curated retreat for everything intellectual on the web. No clickbait, no fake news, not just entertainment, but depth and breadth —something increasingly hard to find on the internet today. If you like what we do, please consider making a donation.