Author Archives: smellincoffee

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About smellincoffee

Citizen, librarian, reader with a boundless wonder for the world and a curiosity about all the beings inside it.

May 2023 in Review

Posted on June 1, 2023 by smellincoffee

Another month gone, and — well, I’m a little proud of this one, primarily because I FINISHED THE SCIENCE SURVEY! My previous record has been August (2022), so hurrah. The year’s science reading isn’t over, of course, but now I … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | 4 Comments

Adventures with the Enemies of Science

Posted on May 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Heretics / The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science© 2014 Will Storr368 pages Outside ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. Will Storr will meet you there, because at this point he’s not sure that there’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Teaser Tuesday because it is in fact Tuesday and not Monday

Posted on May 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

I love three-day weekends, but boy do they throw the ol’ internal kenning of time and space off. Today’s top ten Tuesday prompt was ‘things that make me NOT want to read a book’, and I can’t think of much. … Continue reading →

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Meditating while the world burns

Posted on May 26, 2023 by smellincoffee

I recently asked BingAI to review the works of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and Musonius Rufus for me, and then roleplay as a Stoic sage. We then had an interesting conversation on Stoicism, Epicureanism, Buddhism, Taoism, and human flourishing. Then, … Continue reading →

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In the air and across the Cosmos

Posted on May 25, 2023 by smellincoffee

This month’s science reading served up two surprises, both pleasant. When I arrived at university and joined the Astronomy Club, which met once a month to aim a giant telescope at the skies and gasp as we saw Saturn’s rings … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Favorite YouTube Videos

Posted on May 24, 2023 by smellincoffee

This week’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is…..favorite youtube videos. I can’t tell you how many hours of YouTube I’ve watched since 2007. Google probably could, but I think I’d rather not know. I had a painstaking list of … Continue reading →

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Humans

Posted on May 23, 2023 by smellincoffee

Published after the success of Humans of New York, here Brandon Stanton expand his range and deepens his connectivity with the people whose lives he shares in a single photo. In Humans of New York, readers were presented with an … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Reviews | Tagged | 2 Comments

Tuesday things

Posted on May 23, 2023 by smellincoffee

Welcome to Tuesday! Today’s teaser comes from Air: The Restless Shaper of Our World, and the Top Ten Tuesday topic is “Things That Automatically Make Me Want to Buy a Book“. […]it was Darwin who taught us to think in … Continue reading →

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Humans of New York

Posted on May 19, 2023 by smellincoffee

Humans of New York© 2013 Brandon Stanton304 pages If you ever needed proof that a picture is worth a thousand words, consider one shot near the end of this volume. The scene is a New York city street. A young … Continue reading →

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Log Cabin Pioneers

Posted on May 18, 2023 by smellincoffee

Log Cabin Pioneers: Stories, Songs, and Sayings© 2001 Wayne Erbson184 pages Few things are more evocative of the American frontier than a log cabin. This isn’t a new thing, either: log cabins entered American iconography as early as the 1840s, … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment