Author Archives: Harry Katz
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
You’ve probably had the experience of being completely absorbed in an activity, totally focused, losing track of time, your body moving effortlessly, your mind clear of all distractions and worries. You were “in the zone.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this state … Continue reading
The Sum of Us
In the 1920’s and 30’s, towns and cities across the United States built large, beautiful public swimming pools for their communities. Montgomery, Alabama was one such town. Its Oak Park pool was one of the largest in the region. It … Continue reading
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Around the world we humans are adding an average of fifty-one billion (51,000,000,000) tons of greenhouse gasses to Earth’s atmosphere every year. To avoid a climate disaster, we need to get to zero. 51 billion to zero. That’s how Microsoft … Continue reading
A Year at Home
March 5, 2021 is an anniversary of sorts. Today marks one full year since I started working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When I said goodbye to my colleagues at work on the evening of March 4, 2020, … Continue reading
The Good Ancestor
We were warned. Lots of people warned us about the possibility of a global pandemic years before the outbreak of COVID-19. But we didn’t listen and we didn’t prepare. We’ve known for decades about the catastrophic effects of greenhouse gas … Continue reading
Always Day One
Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever by Alex Kantrowitz takes its title from an Amazon corporate motto. “It’s always Day 1” is designed to inspire Amazon employees with a startup mentality; lean, fast, … Continue reading
A History of Future Cities
People make cities, but cities also make people. That’s one of the key messages from Daniel Brook’s 2013 book A History of Future Cities. The book tells the stories of four cities, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. All four … Continue reading
Meditations
Meditations, written nearly two thousand years ago by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, is one of the most influential books in Western philosophy. It deserves years of study. I’ve read it just once. So I won’t be “reviewing” this book … Continue reading
Measure What Matters
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? It’s only mid-January 2021 so there’s still time. On the other hand, it’s mid-January and plenty of people have already abandoned theirs. Maybe New Year’s resolutions are broken so often because they’re so vague, … Continue reading
Notes on An Insurrection
I usually post book reviews on this blog, but the books about Wednesday’s armed insurrection by a mob of violent white supremacists at the US Capitol, instigated by Donald Trump, have not yet been written. I’m not going to wait. … Continue reading
