Mostly Dross
Ramblings From Benson
Mostly Dross
Ramblings From Benson
Month May 2025
Book Deals for Wednesday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- The Fall of Japan: The Final Weeks of World War II in the Pacific by William Craig ($1.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited) Recommended
- Victory in Italy: 15th Army Group's Final Campaign, 1945 by Richard Doherty ($2.99)
- Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson ($1.99)
- DUNE: The Graphic Novel, Book 1 by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson, Illustrated by Raul Allen, et al. ($1.99)
- Jane Austen, Game Theorist: Updated Edition by Michael Suk-Young Chwe ($3.99)
- Washington's Marines: The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution, 1775-1777 ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser ($2.99)
- The Heart Sutra translation and commentary by Red Pine ($1.99)
- The Guide of the Perplexed, Volume 1 by Moses Maimonides, translated by Shlomo Pines ($3.99)
- Escapement by K. J. Parker ($2.99)
Assorted Links for Tuesday
- In Defense of the Thesaurus for writers.
- Why it's so hard to scale up new materials
- Spain Orders Airbnb to Take Down 66,000 Rental Listings (NYT)
- What's the Matter with India
- How Miami Schools Are Leading 100,000 Students Into the A.I. Future (NYT)
- China is almost single handedly driving the global green electricity transition
- Is the U.S. in a "high-level equilibrium trap"?
- In pro-military Nebraska, a lawmaker's stand over Hegseth tests the GOP (Wash Post)
- 'Sesame Street,' Facing Crisis, Signs New Deal With Netflix (NYT) - Show will also air on PBS again.
- Scott Sumner on why tariffs won't cause much inflation but are still bad
- Rare Earths Plants Are Popping Up Outside China (WSJ)
- Trump's Retreat Still Leaves Tariffs at 90-Year Highs
- What Are the Most Popular Baby Names in the U.S.?. I wouldn't have guessed any of these.
- Malaria: One of the leading causes of child deaths, but progress is possible…
- When Pol Pot Read a Book on Marx
- I got fooled by AI-for-science hype—here's what it taught me
- America's College Towns Go From Boom to Bust (WSJ)
- NIST set its new atomic clock in motion, and it’s astoundingly precise (Wash Post)
- Megan McArdle on the calm before the AI storm (Wash Post)
- Space Force official: Commercial satellites can do a lot more than we thought
- Do More Powerful Unions Generate Better Pro-Worker Outcomes?
- How ancient India changed the world (Wash Post)
- Through the Eye of the Storm: Post-Hurricane Migration in Florida's Panhandle
- Remote Work, Employee Mix, and Performance
- The Snob Effect, Bandwagon Effect and Financial Behavior: A Comparative Study among Spanish and Turkish Students I'm familiar with bandwagon effect but snob effect is new to me.
- A peek into the big, wide world of miniatures
Book Deals for Tuesday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- Target: Rabaul - The Allied Siege of Japan's Most infamous Stronghold, March 1943 - August 1945 by Bruce Gamble ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited) Recommended
- Mexicans at War: Mexican Military Aviation in the Second World War, 1941-1945 by Santiago A. Flores ($2.99)
- Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography by Margaret Thatcher ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World by Andrew Lambert ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Operation Sea Lion: The Failed Nazi Invasion That Turned the Tide of War by Leo McKinstry ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War by Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Peiper's Last Gamble: Hitler's Panzer Spearhead in the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944 by Danny S. Parker ($4.99)
- The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo by Walter Lord ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
Assorted Links for Monday
- The Coalition That Powered Trump to Victory in 2024 Is Starting to Fray (WSJ)
- Utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, Population and Pigs
- The 'Great Hesitation' That's Making It Harder to Get a Tech Job (WSJ)
- The Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse - Protectionism, Socialism, Populism, and Nationalism.
- Meet the 'Stealthy Wealthy' Who Make Their Money the Boring Way (WSJ)
- Severed Fingers and 'Wrench Attacks' Rattle the Crypto Elite. (WSJ) When digital crime morphs to IRL.
- Feelings, Facts, and Our Crisis of Truth via Conor Friedersdorf
- China's warplane combat debut over Kashmir riles tense geopolitics (Wash Post)
- The Economist's global rip off
- What Desi Arnaz Could Teach Hollywood Today (NYT)
- Tariffs Will Reshape the Economy. What Should Change Won't. (Barrons)
- Jason Brennan's Good Work If You Can Keep It. It's a review of a book about how to get to a tenured position and the reviewer, Bryan Caplan, has additional insight to add. Interesting even if, like me, you have no thoughts about teaching at a University, much less tenure.
- Cars beneath the ground via Conor Friedersdorf
- Man sits with chairs and his sign: 'You are not alone. I will listen.' (Wash Post)
Book Deals for Monday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer by Christopher Clarey ($2.99)
- Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World by Amir Alexander ($2.99)
- Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology by David Hinton ($2.99)
- The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori by Mark Ravina ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Tocqueville's Discovery of America by Leo Damrosch ($2.99)
- A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War by Thomas Fleming ($2.99)
- Secret Formula: The Inside Story of How Coca-Cola Became the Best-Known Brand in the World by Frederick Allen ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Genius Club by NJ Barker ($0.00 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
Assorted Links for Sunday
- Why did U.S. wages stagnate for 20 years?
- Why Are So Many Retirees Filing for Social Security Earlier? (NYT)
- U.S. Support for Same-Sex Marriage is Strong, Despite Dip
- U.S. Loses Last Triple-A Credit Rating (WSJ)
- Is China Pulling Ahead in the Quest for Fusion Energy?
- Military Revolutions From the Spanish Tercio to First-Person View Drones
- We Finally Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Lasts Thousands of Years. Its not just the materials apparently.
- Statistical Methods Links, 5/17/2025
- Scientists Say Earth Has Made Enough Hydrogen to Power Humanity. Here's How to Find It.
- Why the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act Was Enacted Swiftly and Silently
- Unbundling the Effects of College on First-Job Search: Returns to Majors, Minors, and Extracurriculars
- Giant Wave in Pacific Ocean Was the Most Extreme 'Rogue Wave' on Record
- A Taipei Airlift: Lessons From Berlin
- Literature Review: Cryptocurrency vs Fiat Currency
- An Eras Tour of Deleware Corporate Law
- Coral Archaeology: How Corals Help Explain the Holocene
- The Optimal wage Share in Adam Smith
- Modernizing Legacy Applications: Strategies And Emerging Trends
- Systematic ROI Assessment Framework for Legacy System Modernization
- Congressional Witnesses Matter: Proving Witness Testimony Impact Using Large Language Models
- Anchoring Peace: The Battle of Lake Champlain, The End of the War of 1812, and How Ships That Didn't Sail Shaped America's Destiny
- Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurances
- IEA Oil Market Report - May 2025
- Counting Happiness and Where it Comes From
- Country Centered Map Projections
- Export restrictions on critical raw materials rise sharply amid growing demand
Book Deals for Sunday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero by Tyler Cowen ($2.99)
- How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices by Annie Duke ($1.99)
- The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe: Parodies and Pastiches Featuring the Great Detective of West 35th Street edited by Josh Pachter, et al. ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak by Travis Sawchik ($2.99)
- The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull ($1.99)
- The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World by Jeremy Rifkin ($2.99)
- Deep Sea Hunters: RAF Coastal Command and the War Against the U-Boats and the German Navy 1939-1945 by Martin W. Bowman ($3.99)
- Altman by Kathryn Reed Altman and Giulia D'Angelo Vallan ($3.99)
- The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters by Mark Wigglesworth ($2.99)
- The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas ($2.99)
Assorted Links for Saturday
- FEMA Head Admits in Internal Meetings He Doesn't Yet Have a Plan for Hurricane Season (WSJ). Not to worry, Hurricane season doesn't begin for another two weeks.
- Reading Difficult Books
- Over a hundred million infants receive measles vaccines annually
- Concern About Immigration Differs Widely
- The Import-So-That-They-Can-Export Firms
- The Trade War Isn't Over
- Making american milk safe
- Using ChatGPT for learning a language - in this case Chinese.
- Children in rich countries are much less likely to die than a few decades ago
- Latest Polls on President Trump's Approval Rating (NYT)
- Baby is Healed With World's First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment (NYT)
- MIT Says It No Longer Stands Behind Student's AI Research Paper (WSJ)
Book Deals for Saturday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse by Lawrence Scanlan ($2.99 or available through your Audible membership)
- The Americans: Letters from America 1969-1979 by Alistaire Cooke ($2.99)
- Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton ($1.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram ($2.99 or available through your Audible membership)
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway ($1.99)
- Coming into the Country by John McPhee ($3.99 or available through your Audible membership)
- "The Good War": An Oral History of World War II by Studs Terkel ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible by Simon Winchester ($1.99)
- The Union Cavalry Comes of Age: Hartwood Church to Brandy Station, 1863 by Eric J Wittenberg ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)