The Kurlansky thread — mundane things that run the world. Two series: Hidden Maps (interactive network studies, start with the primer) and Microhistories (~2-hour PDFs).
Read in order if you’re learning network analysis. Episode 0 is the plain-language primer; episodes 1–4 are sky, grid, streets, internet.
Start here
Ep. 0 · Primer
Hidden Maps
Dots, lines, hubs, and chokepoints — the shared vocabulary for the whole series, no math background required
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Ep. 1 · Flights
The Architecture of Flight
Why a delay in Atlanta reaches Pittsburgh and Portland
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Ep. 2 · The Grid
When the Lights Go Out
What a blackout teaches you about the transmission paths the grid cannot afford to lose
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Ep. 3 · Streets
When One Intersection Closes
Pittsburgh’s street map looks fine until you shut the wrong junction — most closures barely matter, the right one strands half the city
Read →
New
Ep. 4 · Internet
The Handoff Behind Your Click
Who carries your traffic on the internet’s hidden routing map — and what happens when the right backbone goes down
Read →
Microhistories — ~2-hour PDFs
Single-sitting reads. Mundane objects, hidden worlds.
New
Microhistory
The Pencil
Graphite, cedar, and the line that drew the modern world — from Borrowdale’s guarded mines to the space-pen myth and the classroom No. 2
Microhistory
The Zipper
The humble fastener that changed how we dress, work, fight, and live — from Judson’s failed clasp locker to YKK’s billions
Long Reads
Narrative histories and engineering deep dives — multi-chapter ebooks and monographs.
History
Salt, Tires, and Explosives
How America's strategic missile industry grew from explosives, rubber chemistry, and unlikely corporate alliances
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History
In Search of the Optimum
A narrative history of mathematical optimization from Queen Dido to Karmarkar — ten mathematicians, two World Wars, and a polynomial-time algorithm that rattled AT&T
History
Friction and Flow
The history and mystery of the Navier-Stokes equations — five men, one equation, and a million-dollar proof no one has found
History
The Restoring Force
Hooke’s Law and the birth of the science of materials — from a coiled spring in seventeenth-century London to earthquake sensors, piezoelectric watches, and silicon accelerometers
Data Science & Optimization
Methods, models, and reproducible analysis.
Operations Research
Data Science Tools for Classical Operations Research
Python Implementation of Numerical Optimization & Modern OR
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Causal Inference
Uncertain Minds
Causal Inference, Bayesian Reasoning, and the Science of Learning
Read →
Optimization
Origami Optimization
Numerical optimization in origami engineering — crease geometry, circle packing, energy minimization, and inverse fold design in Python
Read →
Data Analysis
Carrier Throttling Analysis
When “unlimited” stops meaning unlimited — what two years of speed tests reveal about your phone plan
Tools & Apps
Standalone interactive tools — no account required, no API keys, works in the browser.
Expat Analysis
Where Should You Go?
Data-driven ranking of 31 expat destinations for Americans across 11 dimensions — one-click presets, live weights, radar compare, custom scenarios. (Full paper inside the app.)
Launch app →
New
Citizen Science
Backyard Seed Advisor
What your feeder says about the birds in your zip code — and which seed they actually want this month
Try the app →
Independent Verification & Validation
Occasional spot-checks of published claims against raw microdata and primary sources. The US Census IV&V series doubles as a tour of what the Census API has to offer — each note is a potential seed for a future project.
Replication Study
The Bell Curve — Replication
Herrnstein & Murray's 1994 book generated one of the most contentious debates in modern social science. This is a personal look at the underlying numbers — AFQT, SES, and social outcomes in NLSY79/97 and GSS — not to litigate the conclusions, but to see what the data actually show.
US Census IV&V
US Census IV&V
Spot-checks of Census Bureau data releases against raw microdata and the Census API — a running tour of what the API can do and a seed bank for future projects
Computational Linguistics
Survey
Etymology + Data Science
A computational survey of word origins — from the comparative method to transformer-based proto-language reconstruction
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Technical Paper
Do Technology Words Drift Faster?
Measuring semantic change rates across word categories using Hamilton et al. historical embeddings
Read →
New
App
Sentence Diagrams
Interactive visual sentence diagramming for English & German. Traditional Reed-Kellogg + modern syntax trees. Extensible to Spanish, Latin, Greek.
Try the tool →
Paper WIP
Loanword Networks
Graph-theoretic analysis of borrowing density across Indo-European branches
Paper WIP
Cognate Detection Benchmark
Comparing edit-distance, PMI, and neural methods on gold-standard cognate pairs
Paper WIP
The Neogrammarian Test
Are sound changes truly exceptionless? Corpus validation of the regularity hypothesis
Paper WIP
Reconstruction Accuracy
Transformer vs. rule-based proto-form reconstruction — scored against attested Latin and Greek
App WIP
Semantic Drift Dashboard
Interactive browser for any word's semantic trajectory across decades
App WIP
Cognate Explorer
Input two words — alignment score, shared ancestry probability, and tree placement
eBook WIP
The Indo-European Problem
Full reconstruction pipeline for one language family — phylogenetics, sound laws, and the debate history
Music & Practice
Two companion volumes for deliberate practice on nylon-string instruments. Scores, tablature, audio references, and focused technique guidance.
Guitar
Classical Guitar Companion
A practical study guide for nylon-string players — repertoire, technique, scores in notation + tablature, and deliberate practice strategies with audio
Play →
Vol. II
Ukulele
Classical Ukulele Companion
Classical repertoire and technique for tenor (standard tuning) and baritone ukulele — notation, tablature, audio references, and deliberate practice strategies