Bench Grass

Bench Grass is a blog about the history of technology by the former student of a student of Lynn White. The main focus is a month-by-month retrospective series, covering the technology news, broadly construed, of seventy years ago, framed by fictional narrators. The author is Erik Lund, an "independent scholar" in Vancouver, British Columbia. Last post will be 24 July 2039.

Monday, January 26, 2026

Postblogging Technology, October 1953, I: It's Just A Cardial Infarction! Walk It Off!

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R_., C_., Shaughnessy, Vancouver, Canada Dear Father: Here I am, your favourite daughter-in-law, dashing off a late one from an undisclosed ...
Wednesday, January 14, 2026

The Early Iron Age Revival of the State, XXIV: Believing Because It Is Absurd

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  I did the Axial Age five years ago from the perspective of the relationship between religion and technological change. Let's come at ...
Friday, January 9, 2026

Has Anyone Mentioned That Einstein Was Jewish? A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, September 1955

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  If you are of a certain age and a nerd, you may have encountered the idea that the "spindizzy" reactionless drive of James Blish...
Sunday, January 4, 2026

Postblogging Technology, September, 1955, II: Ike in '56!

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R_. C_., Shaughnessy, Vancouver, Canada Dear Father: You might be happy to hear that I have been branching out from pouring over patent tend...
Saturday, December 27, 2025

Postblogging Technology, September 1955: Paper Rationing Is Over, Interest Rates Are Up, and the President is still Healthy

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It appears that Susannah and the Singing Dogs are only represented on Youtube by this, and not their chart-leading performance of "Jing...
Saturday, December 20, 2025

Another Thing About Balloons: A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, August 1955

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 So if the Soviets said, in the summer of 1955 , that they were going to launch an Earth satellite in September of 1957 as part of their c...
Friday, December 12, 2025

"Power To Cheap To Meter:" A Technical Appendix to Postblogging Technology, August 1955

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  The now-closed Dounreay fast breeder reactor in Caithness, Scotland I had to watch one of those "You should totally buy AI because it...
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