Nonfiction
Two Comparisons
Comparing some budgets and some books.
Jack T. Crawford
Science
Neptune Problems vs. Vulcan Problems
This isn't about astrology, I promise.
Academics
My 2025 Reading Year in Review!
I managed to read 65 books this year. As an end-of-year victory lap, here's a few highlights, and a couple of suggested personal curricula. My full reading list for the year is all the way at the bottom, if you're here for that for some reason.
Social Impact
What values do you value?
On value collapse and the balance between metrics and gestalt.
Nonfiction
Gregor Mendel's Fascinating Life
Here are a couple of interesting things about Gregor Mendel that I did not know, even though I got my B.S. in a building named after him!
Social Impact
Pastry, Hope, and Social Responsibility
Some takeaways from ChangeNOW 2025.
Academics
Encountering Fate as Viking Men and Women
Fate sits at the heart of the Nordic sagas, lurking beneath the surface of the text like the ships intentionally sunk at Roskilde. Unseen but absolutely essential to those in the know. Detractors of these works (perhaps students in their initial exposure to this category of literature), will complain that
Literature
What Genre is Utopia?
As the new management of Idiosyncrasy Booksellers, I must be cutthroat in my shelving schemes...
Literature
Dante and the Relational Nature of the Soul
The multidimensional audacity of Divina Commedia is well established. A Christo-classical epic, written in the vernacular, chockablock with timely political commentary woven into theological exploration. Dante does not leave a single color untouched on his palette...
Social Impact
What if your hose doesn't fit the hydrant?
A little before eleven in the morning on February 7th, 1904, fire alarms began to sound across Baltimore. For the next thirty hours, the Great Baltimore Fire scorched the city...
Literature
The Everyman’s Epic
History is written by the victors, but the literary canon is written by the audacious...
Literature
Conrad's Romanticism
Lord Jim is not just a rollicking adventure story. Underneath the majestic prose of rich nautical fiction, the book is a philosophical parable about the merits and pitfalls of living a romantic life...