The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe This is one in a series of books by Strauss and Howe (Wikipedia) that looks at American history based on the cycles of generations, such as GenX, Boomers, etc.. It proposes...
Posted by Stephen at 09:50 AM
The Unpolitical Animal: How political science understands voters by Louis Menand, The New Yorker, [archive text] Fascinating article about various studys that show why people vote the way they do. Only about %10 of Americans have a logical political ...
Posted by Stephen at 09:27 PM
Blade Runner Brilliance, by George Dvorsky. [archive txt] One of the better essays on the meanings and significance of Blade Runner. Interesting insights on particular scenes and quotes and how they are more relevant today than ever....
Posted by Stephen at 09:52 PM
The Age of the Essay by Paul Graham [archive text] I've been writing/editing Wikipedia articles lately on medieval history topics and so it was with interest I read this article on the nature of writing Essays. Paul Graham provides a...
Posted by Stephen at 07:18 PM
Good Teeth from Birth to Death, by Dr. Gerard Judd Every once in a while I run into a wacky way out idea that actually makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure what that says about me, but Dr....
Posted by Stephen at 03:26 AM
Fear of Death Wins Minds and Votes, AP article July 29 2004 [archive text] This study on the nature of fear and politics is about a common sense idea expressed succinctly in terms that are quantifiable. There is new/additional scientific...
Posted by Stephen at 03:48 PM
Arctic Grail, by Pierre Berton I first read this book in 2000 when it was out of print and tracked a first-edition copy down through the used book network, which then got ruined suitably in a flood. It has since...
Posted by Stephen at 07:07 PM
Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansk. My Dad, an old sea salt, handed me this book and I rolled my eyes like how interesting can a book about a fish species be. The...
Posted by Stephen at 03:52 AM
The First World War, by Michael Howard The First World War is recently making a renaissance with a flood of books coming on the market on the heels of new material previously unavailable to historians and new revisonistic theories to...
Posted by Stephen at 01:43 PM
The Corporation, a film by Mark Achbar. Winner of Sundance awards. The film brings to light the internal contradictions of corporations such as human rights, the environment, patents and also looks at the history of the Corporation and how it...
Posted by Stephen at 02:14 AM
Open Source Everywhere, by Thomas Goetz, Wired Magazine November 2003 [archive text] This is one of the better articulations of just how broadly the idea of open, collaborative, distributed innovation can be used. Open Source is a revolution across ...
Posted by Stephen at 02:28 AM
Power Steer by Michael Pollan March 2002 New York Times. [archive text]. This is the article that got me buying grass fed beef from local farmers. A NYT reporter buys a calf and follows it from birth to slaughter in...
Posted by Stephen at 12:25 AM
The Journey Of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells This book is amazing. It's a laypersons overview of the current technology and understanding of DNA research into the origins of man. We have discovered a lot very recently about...
Posted by Stephen at 12:24 AM
Rapid Climate Change, by American Institute of Physics Aug 2003 [archive text] Here is a super single-paper introduction to the topic of Rapid Climate Change - probably the best overview I've read. Woods Hole also has some excellent papers for...
Posted by Stephen at 12:29 AM
Is there really a Fatherhood Crisis?, by Stephen Baskerville Spring 2004 [archive pdf] Abstract: Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherless children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, ...
Posted by Stephen at 11:35 PM
The Empty Craddle by Phillip Longman May 2004 [archive pdf] You may or may not agree with his conclusions but the facts presented here are stark and real. The world population is on the decline. This goes against everyday experience...
Posted by Stephen at 03:14 AM
The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington Summer 1993 [archive text] This is a pretty famous work about the state of the world post cold war. It came out a few years after the classic End Of History 1989...
Posted by Stephen at 02:16 AM
An Oil Enigma Alen Brensen, New York Times, June 11, 2004 [archive text] Ok there's a lot of scary stuff on the net about 'peak oil' and the collapse of civilization and for the most part it's been easy to...
Posted by Stephen at 01:16 AM
The Mentality Of Homo Interneticus: Some Ongian Postulates by Michael H. Goldhaber, April 29th 2004 [archive text] Curious and insightful read on how the mind is shaped by the mediums we use. Those who read books primarily will think diffrently...
Posted by Stephen at 01:03 AM
Blunt talk by General Zinni on Iraq, interview with General Anthony Zinni, May 14th 2004 [archive text] This is the article that won me over that the war in Iraq is a bad idea. Hearing it from a cigar chomping...
Posted by Stephen at 12:51 AM
The oil we eat - Essay by Richard Manning, Feb 2004 [archive text] "The day is not far off," Kennan concluded, "when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts." This is an interesting article about agriculture...
Posted by Stephen at 12:42 AM
Bugs, Sweat and Fear by Felicity Lawrence, May 3rd 2004 [archive text] This is another article about how bad industrialized agriculture is except instead of focusing on America it looks at Euope and amazingly they can be just as bad...
Posted by Stephen at 12:41 AM