The History of Money Part II Part I left off discussing the innovation of paper money, by merchants in Sichuan in tenth-century China, but that story is incomplete without a discussion of the Mongols and their role in the money…
Hello Everybody, 3761 BCE, the dead of winter The world was coming to an end. No, not the Al Gore style world coming to an end in a few decades if we don’t stop man-made global warming, but the world…
It’s Chanukka, so let’s talk about Gelt. The story of money is quite incredible, but we can’t cover it all in one week, so we’re going to start this week, and continue on to the next two weeks, so please…
The fifteen passenger van was dented, rusted, and filled with benches covered with industrial strength vinyl. For four years that canary yellow van conveyed me to school, about twenty minutes from my house, and deposited me back home again in…
Did I ever tell you about the time I was kidnapped by a group of radical turkeys? It was definitely one of the crazier times of my life, and something I generally avoid talking about because I’m still suffering from…
There are three kinds of people in the world. The people who wonder why tall, strong buildings fall down during earthquakes, the people who don't think about it much, and the people who wonder why anyone would think about earthquakes…
If you ever get a ride in my car, you might notice a collection of empty water bottles sitting quietly in the front passenger footwell. They have no more purpose to me, and I would throw them out in gas…
Popcorn is good, but corn puffs are great. Both of them are made by doing something magical to corn kernels, but popcorn is a messy expression of that magic, leaving behind husks and debris all over your teeth and gums,…
I currently have 31 tabs open on my laptop. These include, but are not limited to; work email inbox, personal email inbox, a few Google Spreadsheets I use to track various work related metrics, an interesting article I saw a…
When I think of jellyfish, I think of the bright colorful gummy candies I used to eat as a kid. But when I think of swimming in the ocean, I think of the living jellyfish. As a matter of fact,…