The playing field for North Korean strategy, which reduces the number of relevant players, simplifies North Korea’s strategic situation more than almost anything else. Few other nations see such a combination of global importance and simplicity. The map below, from Wikipedia, shows nearly everything you need to know about the playing field. North Korea shares borders with three countries: China, South Korea, and Russia. Farther to the east lies Japan.[…] Keep reading →

If you want to plan something non-trivial, you need a strategy. If you don’t know what strategy is, you can’t make a good strategy. I’ve read one book that covers strategy better than any other — Competition Demystified: a radically simplified approach to business strategy, by Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn (I haven’t read On War yet but I have read Porter). While it focuses on business as opposed to[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on creating happiness and reward by understanding pleasure. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Two days ago and yesterday I described how seeing how easily you can create physical pleasure in your life shows how easily you can create emotional pleasure —[…] Keep reading →

“What can I do?” This question drives interest in North Korea perhaps more than any other after asking what it’s like. Even people who know little about the rest of the world sense something about North Korea they’d like to help with. Nobody sees what they can do. The next few posts will cover what you can do. I believe you need to understand North Korea’s situation from a strategic[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on creating happiness and reward by understanding pleasure. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday I wrote about how to bring about emotional pleasure in your life. Today I’ll clarify and explore the analogy physical pleasure : emotional pleasure :: physical environment […] Keep reading →

Today’s pictures were from the bus ride back from the Demilitarized Zone and Kaesong to Pyongyang. The early bus rides featured a lot of very friendly, open, and educational interchange between the guides and us. For some reason Mr. Kim, whom we affectionately nicknamed Crazy Kim for his ebullience and outspoken expression, quieted down after the first few days. Our loss.     I wrote the following about the above[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on creating happiness and reward by understanding pleasure. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] You may have heard the phrase that we aren’t designed to be happy. I agree with the concept. More than that, since in the Model we consider not[…] Keep reading →

After visiting the Demilitarized Zone we visited the city of Kaesong, the southernmost city in North Korea. WordPress doesn’t always get links in captions, so here’s a sentence in there with some links, “Here’s a video of many to start with and here’s a Wikipedia page.” After the day in Kaesong, we went to a traditional-style hotel, I think this one. I went to sleep early, but others drank and[…] Keep reading →

My post on how Freedombox’s pursuit of perfection is undermining its goals prompted some discussion. Hearing how people the Freedombox community wants to help end up supporting products we see as non-Free jolted my system. I believe constructive criticism helps, but my desire to contribute more led to the offer below. One person’s response got me thinking about how I, as someone who doesn’t write much software, can help. Diaspora[…] Keep reading →