Great Stories From Hip-Hop

I recently finished Can’t Stop Won’t Stop , Jeff Chang‘s history of hip-hop music. The writing is of variable quality, but the book’s a phenomenal read because the stories are just so damn strong. I’m not going to review the book here (Amazon does a great job) – and hey, you should read it yourself… Continue reading Great Stories From Hip-Hop

What Are The Odds This Is True?

So here’s a thought for you. According to a recent visit to the German History Museum, at its apogee, the Roman army had 400-500 thousand troops to protect the empire’s 50-60 million inhabitants. Today, the United States military has ~1.5 million active duty personnel and a similar number of reservists (source) to protect its roughly… Continue reading What Are The Odds This Is True?

Cappadocia

1. I’m 1,000 meters above the earth and falling at 5 meters per second. Actually, it’s not just me – Wendy’s there too, plus almost 20 unbathed French, German and Japanese tourists. The funny thing is that I have no idea that we’re falling. We’re not accelerating so I can’t feel anything. Despite the fact… Continue reading Cappadocia

Geography is Destiny

When we visited Laos, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was so (relatively) poor due to its status as a landlocked country. So I put together the following graphs comparing PPP Adjusted GDP per Capita (IMF or CIA number if IMF not available) for all countries that are not islands (my hypothesis is that… Continue reading Geography is Destiny