Ada Palmer

Posted on April 26, 2026 by RegenAxe

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. — Henry VI, Part 2, Shakespeare

This morning, I was busily losing my soul in YouTube, when I happened upon a series of shorts, where podcaster Dwarkesh Patel was interviewing Ada Palmer, a University of Chicago professor in Renaissance and Intellectual History and an accomplished Sci-Fi writer. I had previously encountered Mr. Patel with his interviews of Sarah Paine, an American historian who teaches at the Naval War College. I found those interviews on Chinese, Japanese, and Russian modern strategy, as well as WWII history fascinating. Just today, Patel is featured in a NY Times article about his interviews of Silicon Valley tech bros. While these interviews hold little interest for me, but they go far to credit Patel’s gravitas.

Gravitas aside, it is Ms. Palmer who captivated me in this interview. In her 2+ hour interview she ranged so widely that the only comparable conversation in my experience would be the one captured in Louis Malle’s movie, My Diner with Andre. This podcast is subtitled, “Why Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird.” To summarize this podcast, Palmer explores the Renaissance’s information technology revolution and its parallels with our current computer-based revolution. But to summarize it so is only to do the thoughts expressed within a disservice. Bite the bullet and watch the show.

Theatrical Masks

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Guilty Pleasures

Posted on April 25, 2026 by RegenAxe

I started doing it first, but Anne has joined in too. We throw our empty boxes down the basement stairs and watch and listened to them falling down the stairs. It is the simple things in life that makes it worth living.

New Air Conditioner

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Tropical Heat Wave

Posted on April 24, 2026 by RegenAxe

We’re having a Heat Wave,A tropical Heat Wave.The temperature’s rising,It isn’t surprising.—Ethel Waters

Well, it is only in the sixties today. It is raining too, but we are ready for summer now. We have a new air conditioner. Starting at 7 AM this morning, installation commenced. It took six hours, longer than expected because the squirrels had chewed into the outdoor lines, necessitating their replacement and additional labor. I was wondering what those demon rodents were up to, since they have not attacked the car again recently. The new unit has an app. It also has Wi-Fi and can be remotely controlled. It also displays the humidity, which in St. Louis is usually half the summer air conditioning problem. It comes with a trial service agreement, where the vendor comes out to inspect the unit. This is how we got this new air conditioner to begin with, but I want some peace of mind knowing that it will run all summer long, even while we are away.

The other thing that occurred today, was that we were visited by a drive by notary, Pamela. We are closing on the Monterey house next week and things have progressed to the point where the title company is stepping in. So, you know that things are getting serious. The long and short of this experience is that I signed a lot of paperwork. Pamela had a rather laissez faire attitude. Whenever I had questions, she advised that I only fill out the minimum and let the title company complete the rest. Hopefully, I’ll get paid. When we do, Anne wants to flush a bunch of this money down the toilet, in the form of a new bathroom and I would like to have our current one-and-only bathroom updated with a walk-in shower, because we are getting older.