The Eighteenth Elephant

[Pay graphs updated Aug. 19, 2026, described below.]

I wrote four months ago about the strange, nonsensical proposal from a technology company, Reflect Orbital, to put mirrors in space to reflect sunlight onto the Earth at night, which customers could use to power solar panels to generate electricity.

If you’ve ever wondered: What has the enrollment in the introductory “Physics with calculus” (PHYS 251) course at the University of Oregon (UO) been over the past 30 years?

What makes a college course popular or unpopular?

I wonder if fraudulent or foolish investment schemes are more likely to attract victims if the schemes involve high technology, saving the planet, or, especially, both.

There are basic facts about the living world that we learn when very young.

Once again, highlights of the books I read in the past year, including a tale told by a beech marten, memoirs by people much older than me, and a recurring theme of work.

On a Sunday evening in March, nine months ago, I sat on an airport floor in Los Angeles staring at my laptop, attending an online meeting of the University of Oregon’s faculty union, facing the possibility of going on strike the next day.

About two years ago, I read a string of books that were all published in 1965.

Does homework matter, in a college gen-ed science course?