Category Archives: Miscellany

Jane Jacobs has died. To my mind, she was exactly what an intellectual should be, in every respect. I like the quote from the Globe and Mail referenced at Crooked Timber: “She believed implicitly that there was no such thing … Continue reading →

I began this blog three years ago in November. One of the earliest things I wrote about was Sony’s internal conflict between its content-producing divisions and its hardware-producing divisions. I like Sony hardware, by and large. However, I’ve decided that … Continue reading →

Chris Clarke inflicted this on me a while back and now I finally tackle it. 1. Of all the books that you have eventually finished after many starts & stops, which one took you the longest and how long did … Continue reading →

Just to prove I can unload invective as well as sweet reason, as long as my targets are anonymous idiots, I had a fun time today going to pick up a leaf blower (having discovered that our relatively large new … Continue reading →

Well, that was a different sort of story to read in the local newspaper. A four-and-a-half foot caiman was found by the cops in the little creek that runs below the college, about a half-mile south of the college. They … Continue reading →

So we were thinking a bit of going camping this weekend. I used to backpack in the Sierras with my family when I was a kid, haven’t really done anything like it as an adult, just a lot of day … Continue reading →

…but boy, do I understand why someone in a 19th Century Wild West saloon might have reached for the hidden gun in their boots to blow someone away after a hand of [online] poker. I say this after having gone … Continue reading →

This morning my 4-year old daughter Emma reported that she had a nightmare last night. We’ve talked a bit about nightmares, I’ve told her how I used to have really bad ones at her age. She asked me what dreams … Continue reading →

Unfogged makes fun of Matt Yglesias’ spelling. I used to have the opposite problem as a teenager: I read constantly but I had no idea how most of the words I was reading were actually pronounced, since they weren’t often … Continue reading →