I just received an email noting that the Harvard Book Store is for sale. I know that online book sales has limited the ability for book stores to succeed, but I personally think that Harvard Book Store is the best in the world. I hope this sale doesn’t affect its standing.
Quite a while back I reade a book called Satisfaction: the science of finding true fulfillment. The book is about the scientific escapades of its author, Gregory Berns, as he seeks the answer to a number of questions about happiness. The book varies from extremely technical descriptions of Berns’ research in neuroeconomics to extremely accessible [...]
Sure, I’ve got tickets to the 10pm showing of Snakes on a Plane tonight. With the help of Justin, we might be eating some dips and pretzles off of a blueprint-covered table (snacks on a plan). I’ve been impressed with all of the quite-savvy marketing done on behalf of the producers thus far, but I [...]
Now that I have forsaken the academy (just kidding!) and have copious amounts of commute time, I’ve been trying to read all of the books I punted on over the past 6 years. I just finished Donna Gaines’ Teenage Wasteland, an ethnography of the youth culture in the late 80’s that coincided with a number [...]
A team of MIT students under the direction of a quirky math professor moonlight as blackjack sharks, pulling a profit for investors by academically outwitting casinos. This has been a rumor I’ve heard on and off for the past three years; sometimes rumors are true, and they turn out to be bigger than you ever [...]
A story on OnPoint tonight, a story about William McDonough’s preaching environmentalism beyond recycling. In his new book Cradle to Cradle with co-author Michael Braungart, McDonough predicts another industrial revolution where materials move beyond the “cradle-to-grave” paradigm, where resources are created with their demise in mind. Recycling can perpetuate the life of a milk bottle, [...]
I just finished one of the best pieces of non-fiction I’ve read quite some time, Jane Jacobs’ indictment of orthodox city planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. This is one of those books I wish I was forced to read at an early age: insightful, motivating, and connected to so many ideas [...]