I have a number of things blog-related, some of them fairly exciting, that are cooking at the moment. That said, site stats indicate there’s not as much interest in new posts as there was a year or two ago. I don’t know if this is an across-the-board phenomenon with history of science blogs, or if it’s just a reflection of EWP posts’ current pace and subject matter. But, at any rate, it doesn’t seem like anyone will be terribly disappointed if I put new posts on the back-burner until the new year.
My main reason for doing this is that I have to commit my now-precious spare time to working on my longstanding interest in the intertwined histories of operations research, systems analysis, decision theory, and the proliferation of scientific advisory positions during and after World War II. Happily, I am now in a position where I have to format my book manuscript, Rational Action: The Sciences of Policy in Britain and America, 1940-1960, for publication. Coincidentally, I have also recently been named to the History and Traditions Committee of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), which should also take up a little time. So, in addition to “machine philosophy” and other topics of the moment, look for a number of operations research-related goings-on in 2014.