Back when I was in college, I had a roommate named Gary who I still see every once in a blue moon. Gary is a very smart guy who always had a finger on the pulse of popular culture, perhaps more than most. For some reason, I always remember one of the things he said during freshman year, long before my mind had turned from dreams of being an engineer (like most boys, I had…
Gold may be the single most consequential material in human history. Gold was almost certainly the first metal humans ever worked, simply because it occurs in pure form in nature with no smelting required. The oldest known gold artifacts date to around 4,600 BC, found in the Varna Necropolis in modern Bulgaria. Those were grave goods that already suggest gold’s association with status, divinity, and the afterlife. Egypt became the ancient world’s great gold power.…
When big geopolitical summits take place it is sometimes hard to tell who has the power stroke and who is coming off as the groveler. Sometimes there’s a strong meeting of the minds and a palpable sense that great things were accomplished. Other times it appears that the two sides are talking at cross purposes and things only get more rather than less at odds at the end. And then there is a third type…
The typical discussion I have with millennials regarding AI usually involves some reference to the fact that they grew up with movies about AI domination run amok. The great films on that theme start with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) when HAL 9000 locks the crew out. Of the spaceship to save the mission. It’s the first real machine over man movie moment. The classic is the whole.Terminator line-up starting with The Terminator (1984), then…
On Sunday, Kim and I went to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2. It has been 20 years since the original The Devil Wears Prada was aired and we have both always loved the movie and all its stars. The sequel just opened May 1st, several days ago, so this is hot off the presses. The plot follows Miranda Priestly (editor of Runway magazine) and her struggle against Emily Charlton, her former assistant, now…
A friend of mine has asked me to shadow him on a private investment and manage it for his descendants should his health prevent him from doing so himself. Getting back into the process of venture capital is not really something I am all that keen on, but I’ve done it enough and am proficient enough that I’m happy to help out a friend. I made my living in finance and investments for almost 50…
I just had a silly epiphany today. I’m scheduled to take a Cinco de Mayo motorcycle ride for five days up to Utah and back. Four of us will ride up to Lake Las Vegas, across the San Jacintos and across the Mojave, join two others coming up fro Phoenix, and then head up through the Pinto Valley Wilderness north of Lake Mead, through the Virgin Valley Gorge to Zion, to the Lodge at Red…
People grow continuously throughout life. While that is a true statement, the picture is more nuanced than simple linear growth. What clearly continues throughout life are the obvious things like wisdom and judgment, which tend to improve well into old age. In terms of emotional regulation, most people genuinely get better at managing feelings over the decades, that that is not a universal truth by any means. Vocabulary and crystallized knowledge (accumulated facts, expertise) certainly…
When I was just clicking into my teens and living in Maine, noted academic and author, J.R.R. Tolkien was about the age I am now. Besides being an Oxford Don (twice over), he had already written The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in the following 17 years after that. Tolkien’s Rise to popularity developed in waves with his early reception through the war years for The Hobbit thought of as a…
Towards the end of listening to 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin, he references Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I’ve heard of Pinker’s book, but never read it and there was an upcoming opening on my Audible dance card, so I downloaded the book and have started listening to it. Notably, Pinker wrote the book in 2011, fifteen years ago. In it, he argues that, despite widespread perception to…