Month: April 2008
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Moving
I just completed my eighth move in nine years, which is why the blog has been neglected. We still have lots of book boxes to unpack, so it may take me a few days to become dependable again. When possible, I prefer to move much of the stuff myself, to have time to put things…
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Mercenaries
In schoolbook accounts of the fall of Rome, one thing that was always mentioned was that the empire started hiring mercenaries to defend its borders, rather than the volunteer army. Those mercenaries were professional soldiers with no strong allegiance to the empire, and they often became a force in the struggles over who would be…
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Cellphone Money
I read about an interesting technique for people to transfer money in less developed countries. Let’s say that you live in the big city, a hundred miles away from your parents. You want to send them some money but there is no bank where they live. Recently, though, somebody in your parent’s village got a…
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Capitalism => Consumerism?
The basic idea behind capitalism as an underpinning of society is that if you give people the freedom to earn a lot of money however they please, society will tend to get better. They will get better because the best way to earn a lot of money is to sell something which lots of people…
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California Weather
I grew up in Massachusetts, where the weather is unpredictable and changes regularly. I recall one March several years ago where one day I was walking around in shorts and two days later we had a huge snowfall. I’ve been conditioned to expect that sort of weather. Now I live in California, where the weather…