THE AMERICAN AUTO FACTORY—A MINI HISTORY
THE AMERICAN AUTO business began some 120 years ago. What was originally small-shop, hand-made, one-off fabrication evolved into a highly automated, complex, internationally integrated industry. Olsen and Cabadas’s fine 2002 … Continue reading
TIDBITS ON AUTOS—FROM THE BEST SOURCES
EVEN IN these days of e-this and e-that, I find the weekly print Automotive News the most useful and authoritative source of what’s happening in the world auto industry. And … Continue reading
ETYMOLOGY—KAKISTOCRACY, KLEPTOCRACY
ALAS, WHAT an optimist I was back in April 2016! In what turned out to be the first of my Etymology for our Times series, the topic was ”Governing by … Continue reading
AMMONIA FROM A REVERSE FUEL CELL
AMMONIA, NH3, is used primarily as fertilizer, at an annual expenditure of $60 billion worldwide. It’s estimated that at least half the nitrogen in the human body today is traceable … Continue reading
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY
WE SEEM to be burdened at the moment with the least historically informed leader in U.S. history. I offer our president’s misdating the career of Andrew Jackson (“I mean, had … Continue reading
HOLMES AND RUGBY (MOSTLY RUGBY) PART 2
Yesterday at SimanaitisSays, we encountered the challenge of understanding rugby jargon, part of “The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter.” Here in Part 2, we profit from editor Leslie S. Klinger’s … Continue reading
HOLMES AND RUGBY (MOSTLY RUGBY) PART 1
IN HIS YOUTH, Dr. John H. Watson played rugby, or rugger, as it was also called at the time. He mentions this in chronicling “The Sussex Vampire,” a Holmes adventure … Continue reading
CELEBRATING SIR FRANCIS BEAUFORT
THIS SUMMER has had a lot of hot air, everywhere from Washington, D.C., to Helsinki, and back. This got me thinking of how we measure its forceful expenditures. Add to … Continue reading
ADA LOVELACE REDUX
AN ARTICLE in the London Review of Books, June 21, 2018, taught me a new word and more about Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer. Indeed, Ada invented the … Continue reading
CELEBRATING RUSSELL BROCKBANK
I WAS recently recalling the old days of Formula 1 in reading the R&T August 1967 report of the 25eme Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco. Henry N. Manney provided the … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 