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Continue reading →: State of My Tools, 2026
I thought it might be entertaining to future me to create a record of the things I use to get my work done as the calendar turns from one year to the next. This is partially a reflection of changes I’ve made in the past year and partially a snapshot…
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Continue reading →: A Mini Stephen King Reading Project
Back in April of 2024, I listened to an episode of the Book Review podcast from the New York Times featuring journalist-turned-author Grady Hendrix. He described a project in which he read 38 novels, 15 novellas, 111 short stories and five poems by Stephen King–The Great Stephen King Reread .…
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Continue reading →: ChatGPT versus Walt Whitman
Maria Popova touches on something here that I have noticed when reading texts largely generated by artificial intelligence. They seem empty. Yes, there are words in a sequence that conform to the rules of grammar, but they usually are so formulaic as to lack much meaning. Popova’s experiment was to…
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Continue reading →: Coining Crony Capitalism
Toward the end of the 1970s, in the dark of the Cold War and through the fog of stagflation, Time business editor George M. Taber had capitalism on his mind. He wondered if the economic system was working. Weeks of research in the Princeton library and collaboration with a coauthor…
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Continue reading →: Off ListLike most readers, I maintain a to be read (TBR) list. (Okay, actually three lists: one for fiction, one for nonfiction, and one for job-related nonfiction). When I finish reading a book, I usually consult my list and choose what’s next. Sometimes, though, I abandon my carefully curated selections and…
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Continue reading →: Thoreau on Technology and Attention
Henry David Thoreau in Walden: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.”
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Continue reading →: Forthcoming Wilson Biography by Christopher Cox
Just in time for election day, as Americans reckon with presidential power and social justice, Simon & Schuster is publishing a new biography of Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson: A Light Withdrawn, by Christopher Cox. The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library describes Cox’s biography as a panoramic reassessment of Wilson’s life and…
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Continue reading →: October 31, 2024
Almost three months have passed since I have posted anything to my blog. The fall semester shouldered just about all else aside. August passed in a flash of putting final touches on my application for promotion to full professor and launching my classes, including a new prep, for the fall.…
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Continue reading →: A David Montgomery Reader
I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the newly published A David Montgomery Reader. Montgomery was a towering figure in labor history and the history of capitalism. This volume brings together many of his essays in such a way that a reader can trace his evolving interests and interpretations…
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Continue reading →: MacSparky’s Language Model
David Sparks , well-known in Apple enthusiast communities as MacSparky, upon discovering a wedding speech he heard turned out to be generated by ChatGPT: Writing is more than just a means to convey information; it’s a way to connect on a deeply personal level. Whether celebrating a milestone with loved…
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