Many times daily in North Korea you see someone crouching doing nothing but passing time. Usually they’re alone, but sometimes in a group. I kept meaning to take pictures, but it feels funny to take a picture of someone doing nothing. I found the two below on the web. As best you can tell they’ve been squatting all day and will be for a while longer. They’ll be in a[…] Keep reading →

The U.S. has “a dysfunctional patent system.” Those aren’t my words. They aren’t the words of an ignorant person either. They are the words of U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner, one of the nation’s most esteemed judges and faculty at University of Chicago. A patent dispute between Apple and Motorola prompted that description. Here’s an article from a couple weeks ago — Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”[…] Keep reading →

Watching people on the streets of North Korea, you see a different culture than in New York City. In three cumulative weeks in North Korea I saw almost no one hurrying or seeming like they wanted to get somewhere important. I was curious if I could find a root cause. From a leadership perspective — that is, for someone who wants to motivate and lead others — how do capitalism and[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about Do The Math, the blog that takes a quantitative, scientific, and usually non-judgmental approach to understanding our impact on the environment. I posted on it today for the first time about some questions I’d been thinking about for a while but haven’t approached in that blog’s way. He has written about increasing his efficiency in using energy. I generally applaud that approach and do it myself, but[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about the Do The Math blog, which looks at the numbers underlying how our economy works, particularly the energy part, which is to say, what drives it. If you think something else drives it, do the math! I think you’ll see otherwise. Incidentally, analysis like his is one of the reasons I studied physics (if you didn’t know, I got a PhD in the subject) — to understand[…] Keep reading →

Following yesterday’s post on a the blog — Do the Math — that covers the economy, environment, and ecology the best I know, along with Limits to Growth, I found another blog that covers a perspective on economics I haven’t seen, but consider important. We rely on an economics system based on growth but we live on a finite planet. We will one day reach an equilibrium with our environment.[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before on the poor dialog I’ve seen on the environment, ecology, and economy. Almost everyone seems to promote an agenda or not know what they’re talking about. Today I found a blog called Do the Math that compares with the book Limits to Growth in treating those topics thoroughly and intelligently. It covers the issues as I would, but in much more depth than I could, clearly explaining[…] Keep reading →