Well, I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m having trouble finishing my second novel. It’s been months since I worked it for any decent length of time and now I’m almost afraid of touching it and messing up what’s already written. Plus, each time I sit down to work on it I have to reread 65k words to get caught up with what’s going on, as well as to get into the character voice again. By the time I’ve read all that I’m out of energy to …

For most of my life I’ve been fascinated with Lego building blocks. I love the idea that they are a strangely modern art form – small manufactured pieces assembled together in a billion different ways to create microcosms of culture. There’s something so powerful in that idea that I can’t quite wrap my mind around it.
I’ve collected Legos on and off since I was a kid, castles mostly, although I dabbled in the town, space, and pirate themes a little. When I was a kid my favorite thing to do …

Clay Shirky turned me on to “The Collapse of Complex Societies” by Joseph Tainter. I’ve been reading it for a number of weeks, whenever I feel in the mood to mentally tackle the subject matter.
In a nutshell, the book’s thesis is basically this: In order to solve problems, societies must add complexity. Complexity is a valid method for solving problems, but increasing complexity comes with increasing energy needs.
Once a society is no longer able to sustain the energy costs of its level of complexity (i.e. when it reaches the unsustainable …