archive 2025 Year in Review Another year in the rearview mirror In my annual update a year ago, I opened it with the following summary: In 2024, I wrote 9 posts including this one. That's down slightly from last year, but on par with 2020; my annual average from 2020 - 2024 has
Ideas The Inexorable March of Maintenance I mentioned in my previous post about getting the exterior of my house painted this summer. That prompted some assorted thoughts about the topic of maintenance in general. As mentioned, I had the exterior of my house painted this summer. It is an old house (built in the 1930s) with
Art Beavers I didn't have any posts in August and September due to the volume of travel I had for work. Now I'm trying to ease back into writing here with a few shorter posts I have planned to round out the year, but I also have several
Knowing Knowing about Knowing, for Fun and Profit In an information environment that is somewhere between actively hostile to indifferent to providing you with knowledge that is true and useful, you have to take a defensive posture.
Industry Industry series retrospective A round-up of my writing theme for 2024 (that spilled over into 2025), along with some highlights from what I learned or that stood out in some way Over the past year and a half, I've been working on a series/theme about industry (and closely-related stuff like
Industry Materials, Processes, and Supply Chains: Recent Readings on Technology and Industry steel, silicon, jet engines, microchips, cars, phones, paper, and pipe organs
Book Mini-Reviews 2024 These are books that I read last year (plus one or two non-books) that didn't fit into my theme on Industry/Technology/Supply Chains—for which a similar collection of reviews is still pending. I've done similar posts in prior years. Eunoia Eunoia by Christian Bök,
Industry Baie des Chaleurs' industrial patrimony The category of things that must exist as a going concern or not at all
Blog Info 300th Post 300 posts is a major milestone and a good time to look back on past writing and reflect on why I write a blog. The Ghost blogging platform that I use informs me that this is my 300th post since I started this blog around 11 years ago. My own
3D Printing Recent 3D Printing After several years without one, I got a new 3D printer in 2024. This post explores what I've been doing with it. At the start of last year, I got an Ender 3 V3 KE. However, it didn't work initially. I had an issue basically the
Kids Kids' Books We Like These books are for the 1.5-3.5 age range (in my experience so far, noting that each child is unique and will mature at different rates with respect to their understanding of stories and specific interests). They are ones that my eldest daughter has enjoyed (and hopefully her sibling(
archive 2024 Year in Review This year's writing on The Drafting Table and general life updates. In 2024, I wrote 9 posts including this one. That's down slightly from last year, but on par with 2020; my annual average from 2020 - 2024 has been 9.6. Having two kids under
Computer Apps I use in 2024 Six years ago, I wrote a post about updating a netbook I was running Linux on, and what I installed on it. This year, my Windows desktop died, so I replaced it and thought a similar post about what I set up on it would be interesting: both as a
Industry Urban Metabolism and other Topics Vaclav Smil's book Growth is wide-ranging enough that this isn't a comprehensive review. Rather, I decided to mainly explore just a few topics from it. Introduction Growth was one of my five 500+ page books from last year (Lord of the Rings and Journey to the
Links Assorted Links (Summer 2024) This summer has been very busy with work and family life, so I haven't had much time for writing. The title of this post, set when I started putting it together, reflects this. This blog is not defunct, however, so I wanted to at least share a link
Book Mini-Reviews 2023 This post is to provide some notes from books I read (and a couple of movies that I watched) that aren't going to feature in dedicated posts. See here and here for similar posts from prior years. In 2023, I had set a goal to read five books
Links Assorted Links (Winter 2024) Previously. Let's start with a few links related to current events. Scroll down for stuff that's less timely but of more enduring interest if you're reading this page sometime not in the winter of 2024. * This winter has seen (large and at times intense)
Professional My Erdős # I only found out last year (at the Water Chair 3oth reunion) that I had one. An Erdős number is a measure of someone's degree of separation from the prolific mathematician Paul Erdős. Coauthorship on the same peer-reviewed paper counts as a link. A related concept is the
Industry INDUSTRY: A Global Overview Aiming for the proverbial ten-thousand foot view both in terms of geography and categories. Introduction What do we mean when we talk about Industry? In this post (and others on the same theme that I have planned for this year), I'm using "Industry" in its narrower
archive 2023 Year in Review ... I believe themes of technology and industry will be useful/productive to continue reading, thinking, and writing about in the year ahead.
DIY Fire and Water Alternate title: A Tale of Two Tables (or perhaps Tables of the Elements) This post is a write-up of a couple of DIY projects I did this year. The first one was a fibreglass water table for my 2-year-old daughter to play in with water toys outside. The second was
Quotes From Plato to Pascal During the pandemic, among other books, I got around to reading some classics that had been on my list for some time: Plato's Republic, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Pascal's Pensées. Timeless works like those are hard to say anything new about, so this isn&
Links Assorted Links (Summer 2023) It's been a year since my last links post. Tried to squeeze this one in while it's still technically summer. This one has more video content than previous ones. I'll start with something I wrote elsewhere: a guest post for an online book club
Review Mini-Reviews 2022 Last year is well in the rearview mirror by now, but I wanted to compile some of my notes from books I read (and a movie) in 2022 while they're still somewhat in my mind. I did a similar post last year and thought it worked pretty well.
