Miscellany № 107: old books (and a new Book)

Some big news today: The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of our Time will be published soon in paperback!

The paperback edition is updated from the hardback, with all of the various errata fixed and a number of changes made to account for the book’s paperback rather than hardcover construction. If you remember, the hardback edition had a number of references to its own physical form (“Tip the book towards you and look at the spine”, and so on) which have now been modified accordingly. Of course, the paperback edition provides a new and different set of reference points, so if some passages now ask you to find a hardback on your bookshelf, others can now tell you to look again at the paperback in your hands.

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Shady Characters on AMSEcast: a podcast about calculators

I’ve had nuclear energy on the mind recently — a product of watching Oppenheimer, perhaps, and also the UK government’s newfound interest in nuclear power in the interest of combatting climate change. Apropos of all that, then, I was happy to appear on a recent episode of AMSEcast, the podcast of the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The episode was hosted by the museum’s director, the genial Alan Lowe, who was kind enough to let me rabbit on at length on the subjects of counting, calculators, and computers. I really enjoyed talking to Alan, and I hope you enjoy listening too!

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Shady Char­ac­ters advent calendar 2023: the E-6B

Welcome to day eight of the first ever Shady Characters advent calendar! I’m counting down to Christmas by way of a collection of beautiful, clever, important, and/or outright odd calculators and calculating devices. Some come from the pages of Empire of the Sum, some are part of my Calculator of the Day series, and some will be new to the blog. I won’t manage twenty-four posts, but I do plan to hit at least one every other day. I hope you enjoy the series!

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Shady Char­ac­ters advent calendar 2023: Napier’s bones

Welcome to day three of the first ever Shady Characters advent calendar! I’m counting down to Christmas by way of a collection of beautiful, clever, important, and/or outright odd calculators and calculating devices. Some come from the pages of Empire of the Sum, some are part of my Calculator of the Day series, and some will be new to the blog. I won’t manage twenty-four posts, but I do plan to hit at least one every other day. I hope you enjoy the series!

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