Currents in currency
Away with the past: (Death to Pennies) The story of the penny starts in the first US Mint founded in 1792 which produced these one-cent pieces along with other coins…
Good reads–Pricing Beauty by Ashley Mears
This book is a thorough, academic treatment of the modeling industry. The author ably covers a number of fascinating sociological aspects of one of the more extraordinary industries in modern…
Good reads–Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
By many accounts, Daniel Kahneman is the father of his field, Behavioral Economics, which is a mix between behavioral psychology and traditional economics and has provided perhaps the most fascinating…
Population 7 Billion
There will soon be seven billion people on the planet. By 2045 global population is projected to reach nine billion. Can the planet take the strain? via Population 7 Billion…
The end of the credit card?
It’s an app called Card Case, and it’s made by Square, the brilliant payments company founded by Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey. Because Card Case runs on your phone, it may…
Free Market Forum via Hillsdale College
All those interested in all things free will be delighted by a series of events this week hosted by Hillsdale College. The information is as follows: Free Market Forum “Markets,…
Thermostats? Yes, Thermostats.
What’s it like for a guy who worked at Apple to start making thermostats? A lot like this: “So what are you working on lately?” a friend asks over lunch….
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Bank Transfer Day is November 5
A group on Facebook has announced that Nov. 5th is Bank Transfer Day. The idea is simple: take your money out of the sprawling, corporate monstrosities called banks and move…
The course of scholarship
One of Google’s new apps, the Ngram Viewer, promises hours of study, play, and debate. It basically provides a graphical representation of the commonality of words throughout the history of…
Propaganda: repetition and fear
A propaganda film about propaganda. Learn how the powers that be use argumentum ad metum (the appeal to fear) and constant repetition to subtly manipulate your emotions. Be sure to…
Farms cropping up in the Bronx
(WSJ) The slice of land in the Bronx at first appears no different than many of the borough’s derelict empty lots, where any glimpse of green often resolves into a…
Desktop manufacturing gaining steam
In the fourth section of Juggernaut, I proposed something called a ‘Materializer’ or what is called a ‘Replicator’ in science fiction as a tool that can provide independent individuals with…
Kon-Tiki–a reminder of possible
(Janson Media) Kon-Tiki is the Academy Award-winning film of an astonishing adventure, a journey spanning 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, Norwegian biologist…
The virtues of competition
Orson Welles as Harry Lime in the film adaptation of Graham Greene’s Third Man. Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy…
Are sovereign islands the new frontier?
(Details) [Peter] Thiel spends a lot of time thinking about frontiers. “Way more than is healthy,” he admits. Not just financial frontiers, though that’s his day job: He cofounded PayPal,…
Juggernaut
This is a blog dedicated to economics, politics, and modern living. It is anchored by the theory in a recently published book titled Juggernaut: Why the System Crushes the Only…
The math behind economies of scale
(TED) Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities — that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can…
It’s every person in the world, connected to every other person in the world, and no one fully understands how to make best use of this new reality because no one has seen anything like it before.
Designer and entrepreneur Ben Pieratt on the Internet.
Fourth of July Playlist
Our ode to the best holiday ever featuring some of the best music ever. You’ll be surprised at how many great songs are about or feature allusions to the 4th…