Over the years I have managed to read quite a few books on the history of the Second World War. Virtually every one of them focused on the war in Europe. The closest I’ve come to war in the Pacific was by way of biographies of people involved in the Pacific front, or books like…
Recently I had an inquiry about cleaning articles. Not cleaning as in editing my posts, but cleaning as in articles about the act of cleaning. My correspondent “noticed we cover similar topics, such as housekeeping and cleaning tips.” I immediately began to worry about my memory. I’m rapidly approaching 50 (birthdays in this mirror are…
A troll on Reddit1 had a post in r/books that berated anyone who considered listening to an audiobook “reading.” Their post has since been deleted (possibly they realized how silly they sounded) but part of their claim was that it wasn’t reading unless you were doing it with your own eyes and brain. I posted…
Welcome to my blog series, “Practically Paperless with Obsidian.” For an overview of this series, please see Episode 0: Series Overview. As I go through the process of migrating from Evernote to Obsidian, I have moved all kinds of notes and documents into Obsidian. Some of these, like tax documents, for instance, raise the question:…
It was bottom of the ninth with two outs and a very slow runner on third and the score tied nothing-nothing. There were two strikes on the batter. It wasn’t looking good. And then, by some miracle, that batter got a hit, the run scored, and the game was over! I thought about this scenario…
There are some tools that I use that are so seamlessly integrated with my workflow that they are almost invisible. They work so well that I simply don’t think about them. That really isn’t fair since tools like these do far more than they get credit for. And since I had a particular tool in…
Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. I also share my recommended reads on Pocket for anyone who wants to follow along there. Books Finished The Rising Sun by John Toland (16/1144). A fascinating and engaging read, and my first specifically on the war…
Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, I started to read The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire by John Toland. This Pulitzer prize-winning history had been on my list for a long time. I’ve read quite a few books on the history of the Second World War in Europe, and I’ve…
What is the value of memorizing state capitals? I had to do this when I was in grade school. And yet I can’t recall a single instance–beyond trivia–when I needed to pull that information from my brain. I can see the point of knowing the capital of one’s own state. But all fifty? Decades later,…
Not long ago, I wrote a post on my desert island bookshelf. The idea came to me while I sat in my office and happened to glance over at the shelf containing all of my Will Durant books: a complete shelf of books. Those, I thought, were the books I’d want with me on a…