from the Oklahoma Philippines

Via The Marmot’s Hole, this United States Map of the World gives a face to the astonishing extent of global inequality. With each state matched up with the country that has an equivalent GDP, it also puts a new perspective on familiar issues. For instance, immigration from Latin America, legal or otherwise, is not going […]

assault rifles, keyboards, and trains

The AK-47: an open source assault rifle? Andrew Leonard also mentions the QWERTY keyboard, which really has a remarkable story behind it. It just popped up in my reading of Guns, Germs, and Steel (highly recommended, and I’m sure to have more to say about it later): Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard […]

everyone likes cake

Ezra Klein on France: The French like not working incessantly. They are consciously sacrificing a bit of economic growth in order to devote more time to leisure. It’s a perfectly legitimate choice for a society to make. But it’s never represented that way in domestic punditry, as we exclusively evaluate policy decisions based on their […]