While travel in French Polynesia is great… … the wifi is rather slow and unpredictable. As a side-effect, I haven’t been able to get a good connection for a long enough period of time to actually do the online research needed to get answ…
I managed to find wifi! As I mentioned last week, I’m touring through French Polynesia for the next two weeks. It’s kind of a long way to go, but it’s completely worth it. Lots of long stretches as we sail from one island to the next.&…
Last time we talked about history… Now, let’s talk about math and geography and how much people know about each. In this excerpt from Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens, Pythagoras is shown writing in a book as a young man p…
HA! You thought I’d gone away. But no, it was just another busy couple of weeks. Got the chance to give an invited talk at the American Library Association (in DC) all about the book, and then I was a discussant for a wonderful p…
It’s been a busy week… … for me, and I just couldn’t quite get the time to write up the answer to this week’s Challenge. On the other hand, it’s been a very fun week. I was at a small conference (the Human Computer Interaction…
My new book “The Joy of Search” now has a free chapter available! (Thanks, MIT Press.) If you’d like to try before you buy, you can read a sample chapter and get a great sense for what the rest of the book is like. Click here…
It’s common to point out that people don’t know much about much… And it always makes me wonder: How much DO people know about history, about math, or about geography? More importantly, how would you assess “our” level of knowled…
For folks in the DC area… My “Joy of Search” book tour continues with a stop at the American Library Association (ALA) this coming Saturday, June 22, 2019. If you happen to be attending the conference in DC, I’m talking at 10:30AM in room 1…
The odd and unusual are fun to search for! As we noticed last week, there are lots of fascinating sporting (if you use that term loosely) events in the world, many of which deserve a bit of background research. I love th…
There are plenty of amazing sports… … many of which strike me as pretty unusual. There’s the annual wife-carrying competition (multiple locations), an international “worm charming” championship in Chesire (UK), and the locally well-…
The trumpet shall sound! This week’s Challenge was a fun one, and tests your ability to sleuth out the backstory. I was walking down the street when I heard an odd trumpet tune being played. It was a surprising tune–not quite a melody,…
They say that travel broadens the mind… … and sets you up for some pretty remarkable surprises. This week’s Challenge is a fun one, and will test your ability to sleuth out the backstory. Can you do it? I was walking down…
Where was I? This week’s Challenge is another in our series of “What’s the story?” This week’s Challenge wasn’t difficult in the ordinary sense. (I figure that you’ll be able to search out the place and name of the things.)…
I’m in a port city somewhere in the English-speaking world. This place is full of remarkable places, and in my walkabout today I saw two things that I didn’t know anything about, and for which there was basically no signage. I suppose …
So…. I’m about to head over to Scotland for a conference all of next week, but SRS will continue unabated! (Assuming I can get a bit of wifi in a coffee shop somewhere.) I’m looking forward to a Celtic-inspiration for SRS!  …