It seems that too much of what we have built, or allowed to be installed, has a very short MTBF, or “Mean Time Between Failures”, going anecdotally by what I experience on an almost daily basis. You want data? Help me, I don’t have time for these kinds of things. You suss out the data […]
It wasn’t possible to have this video on the site itself, so I’m embedding it from YouTube.
Jason L Riley has written “Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell”. I have not read the book yet but have heard Jason Riley talking about it on a couple of interviews. Having heard those, I have no hesitation recommending the book itself to you if you can afford to get it and are so inclined, […]
I’ve been hearing historian Dr Niall Ferguson, who is the Millbank Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, amongst many other titles, use the term “counterfactual” more than a few times now, and always wondered what on earth he meant by it. That was answered for me when I listened to this podcast, and I do […]
I attach the video link and also embed the video in this short post. It is a discussion between three eminent historians of today about the “Big Three” of the Second World War, namely Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin and how they fared vis-a-vis their national strategic goals as they went about defeating Hitler. This is […]
Surveys, polls and the like are nice, quick and easy tools to use, especially when they can be crafted to elicit responses one is looking for. Companies, governments, research folk and the like, seem to love using surveys, polls, modelling and so forth because they can be made to produce faster results, “conclusions” and they […]
War games, business simulations, fantasy feeder games and the like are all models. Models are fantasies we create about people and places as we’d like them to be. Advertisements are models. Marketing is one big model. Political hackphrases are models. They primarily attempt to put flesh on the dry bones of the greatness we aspire […]
I have just watched George Friedman on Mauldin Economics discussing, of course, the situation in Ukraine, what it means for the rest of the world, etc. The video can be found below, and I would encourage you to watch it in its entirety, and maybe yet again if you need to in future. One of […]
At a talk some years ago, I heard the speaker, someone who moved in diplomatic circles, say that the three leading causes of death in the world were: Actions by a foreign government. Actions by your own government. Actions by your own family. Not ever having been an academic, I didn’t know what numbers he […]
“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence”, or so we have been told. Just because the water seems fresh and clear doesn’t mean the liver flukes aren’t there. We shouldn’t get paranoid over that, but we ought to still boil the water before drinking or make sure the water gets filtered or otherwise […]
Once again, I see arguments over more tax, how to tax, whom to tax, ad nauseum. By the way, it’s “whom” to tax, not which corporations to tax. You can’t tax companies, you can only tax people. Once again, when will we take to heart that raising tax rates lowers tax revenues, and vice versa? […]
I discovered that there was such a thing as “human resources”, especially a scourge called the “Human Resource Department” several years ago and came to loathe the phrase. Not long after that, I discovered the term “Human Capital” used by economists and that sat a lot better with me. Humans have a tendency to squander […]
Over the last few days, I have seen at least two persons, one Matt Taibbi writing on Substack, and the other George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures, apologizing for being wrong about the assumption that Russia would NOT invade Ukraine based on analyses of the situation. Why? Overall assessments were essentially there in the ballpark. Russia […]
The word “lebensraum” meaning “living space” has been on my mind again recently. That’s because we humans never seem to be satisfied no matter how much we have. Maybe that’s because we think “contentment” means “complacency” and they are not the same thing at all! How can we get ourselves to be content with what […]
Channel News Asia (CNA) sent an email titled “Making sense in a world of flux”. The phrase “redistribution of wealth” caught my eye. I followed the link to this article titled “Greater social spending and redistribution rest on economic growth and government prudence”. Reading the article, this paragraph caught my eye: I wonder what “A […]
I’ve done four episodes of “Literature” with my friend Benjamin Thomas on YouTube, and I was introduced to the idea of poetry as “bending the rules of grammar to add layers of meaning”. Well, today I was musing (well, brooding, actually) on what our Presence promotes, whether it is in-person or otherwise. So I indulged […]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in “Letters and Papers from Prison”, wrote “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” While most of us would regard this as honourable and true, especially when compared to Mein Kampf’s seemingly interminable […]
This morning, Channel News Asia’s (CNA) “The Big Read: Singapore goes all in with F1 – will it pay off for a desperate tourism sector?” caught my eye. Risk assessments, boldness, and memories of the enjoyable times I had facilitating team building programs for DPDHL’s (Deutsche Post DHL) IT Services Cyberjaya under the auspices of […]
Yes, “To kill a mockingbird” was dancing around inside my head. Let’s get that out of the way. I found myself sitting on the floor this morning picking hairs and sticky dust monsters out of a plastic broom we have. The broom was made of plastic, and the business end of it was comprised of […]
I just read on LinkedIn that the two most powerful passports in the world are that of Japan and Singapore. Holding either of these passports grants you access to 192 nations without the need for visas beforehand. Of course, right now, you would want there to be arrangements for Vaccination Travel Lanes (VTLs) as well, […]
Edited transcript. Well it’s the 14th of january 2022, Elijah’s Expressions. Today the topic: If you resign should you fret about the “hole” you left behind? This was sparked off because CNA sent me something in the email. I subscribed to the newsletters and so on and something caught my eye, “Colleagues who resign create […]
Edited Transcript It is 13 january 2022, Elijah’s Expressions. Yesterday I was talking and referring to something called ANOVA single factor. I’m not going to go into detail about ANOVA single factor today, that’s for videos down the road. Remember I said I need to do a course on statistics. I think I will do […]
“Good governance key to helping Singapore reinvent and stay relevant in post-COVID-19 world: Ong Ye Kung” was the headline which caught my eye when I received the Straits Times (ST) evening update in my email inbox. I ask what good governance is and how good governance is achieved. The answer, to my mind, is that […]
This is an edited transcript. 12 january 2022 Elijah’s Expressions. Today’s topic – Hybrids are better. Or are they? I’m talking of course about working from home, running remote teams and so on and so forth. Right off the bat let me state this, that many others have already observed. Work from home cannot be […]
In my Straits Times feed this morning, the article “10m population not really a ridiculous number for S’pore to plan for: Liu Thai Ker” caught my eye. While I am not one to favour crowds, I am also keenly aware of the need for a basic population mass in order that any nation state be […]
This is an edited transcript. 11 January 2022 this is Elijah’s Expressions. Today I want to talk about a topic called “Has the free market run its course?” About last year I was having a conversation with a couple. They were involved in economics. I think they were lecturers in economics at one of the […]
Sometimes you can’t help but eavesdrop when you’re in the same confined space with others and the topic happens to be a trigger one like culture. Enjoy! Edited Transcript 29 December 2021 Elijah’s Expressions. Today I happened to eavesdrop on a conversation. I can’t help but eavesdrop because of the limited space that is available […]
Why would anyone want to have slaves? Does owning slaves make you richer? I don’t think so. Came across this video from the Hoover History Working Group and that’s my main takeaway. Do watch the video in its entirety, and look for Thomas Sowell’s “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, especially Chapter III, for his perspectives. […]
This was what came to me as I watched the video called “The Last King of America” by Andrew Roberts. The introduction was done by Victor Davis Hanson, and Peter Robinson was in the audience and got to ask a question also (Extra!). Andrew Roberts says that King George III was a much misunderstood king. […]
A recording of what came to me as I watched “Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster | Australia: Peace & Prosperity Across the Indo-Pacific and Beyond”, which is embedded here also. What is prosperity? Is it just money, or is it people? More specifically, is it Human Capital? How about Intellectual Property? Would Intellectual Property matter so […]
A short video I did in response to a CNA Insider’s video on “China’s Mega Dams: The Threat to Asia’s River Communities.” Do we have a right to water? What if our water sources start dwindling or even dry up? How do we diversify? Do watch the CNA video in its entirety, CNA makes great […]
I am putting the video I did on 01 Dec 2021 here, together with the Goodfellows video which sparked this off. Do take the time for both. They are worth your time, and if you want more discussions on like topics, come on board as a subscriber! Go to my membership page, read and email […]
The verse from “The Illustrated Art of War” by Samuel B Griffith swirls around in my mind and comes to the fore from time to time. I am in the midst of lifelong learning and have been greatly blessed by Thomas Sowell and many others who are in the Hoover Institution part-time or full time. […]
No, I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I simply call out the way most governments worldwide have reacted and flip-flopped where the current craze, and, perhaps, jaded weariness, with SARS-Cov-2 (COVID 19) is concerned. I recall my own nation’s full-throttle rush to invite investors in with low to no taxes and an eager, industrious, low-cost labour force. […]
The above quote has been attributed to Helen Keller and is a good reminder to us all that there is no such thing as a safe world, at least, the world as we know it in this life. We cannot legislate safety, just as we cannot legislate high morality. What we CAN legislate is merely […]
When the word “propaganda” comes your way, what comes to your mind? Do you instantly think of repressive authoritarian regimes brainwashing their people so as to gain more control over them? No need to look too far, just look at your own government in action, not as espoused. Propaganda is all around us, left and […]
This has been on my mind for a long time. I of course take the stand that greed is never good, and have said so many times before. I learned from Thomas Sowell that just because one is greedy does not mean that one will be rich. Also, economics, to me, is simply the study […]
In Book III, Chapter Four of the second volume of “The Lord of the Rings” titled “The Two Towers”, Merry and Pippin meet Fangorn or Treebeard in the course of their adventures and the Ents, as Treebeard and his kind are called, decide to put an end to Saruman’s ongoing ravaging of the trees in […]
This is why I keep telling people I meet that I am decades behind in my reading and writing. No one’s fault but mine, of course, but it’s never too late, eh? Niall Fergus on is of course a most prominent historian. You know that, of course, because even I have come to know of […]
Well, you know as well as I do that life is unfair. I get to sit in cafes all over Singapore and write stuff that you probably don’t want to read but should. You get it for free when you should be paying me for it. You might be running a world-class F&B joint but […]
The Golden Mile Food Centre, a.k.a. Army Market, has undergone more than a few upgrades and renovations over the years. I went there looking for some comfortable safari-style togs but couldn’t find any I liked. The washrooms had been upgraded, though, which was cheery to see. Something inside caught my eye, though. Do you see […]
I simply had to take this picture yesterday. We might be forgiven for thinking that the dog was driving, which of course it wasn’t. I have been told that where it is common for dogs to ride in cars, all dogs stick their heads out the window. With typically heavy traffic in Singapore, that might […]
I’ve been wanting to take a photo of the nest that mynahs keep using at the ground floor of the apartment block I live in. Every now and then, there would be the sounds of young birds cheeping and sights of adult mynahs moving in and out of the nest. The said nest was made […]
I thought the People Development world had finally woken up to the fact that Style is certainly subordinate to Substance. Too bad, I happened to come across more than a few conversations, posts and the like within the last few days, all about trying to entice a discouraged staff member who was wanting to quit […]
I have heard quite a few conversations about whether bosses ought to increase the pay of those of their staff who have been with them for many years. One such conversation concerned a chef who had been with the company for more than ten years but who was still being paid a monthly wage of […]
Rights. More and more, we are focusing on Rights. What are Rights? The Right to remain silent? The Right to an attorney? The Right to be reminded that anything you do or say can and will be used against you in a court of law? Or is it the Right to Life, Liberty and the […]
The term “Content Consumer” has been with us for a while now. Have you wondered what it means? Are you a “Content Consumer”? Do you “Produce Content” for others to “Consume”? What is “Quality Content”? Would you say that you are a “Quality Content Consumer” and/ or a “Quality Content Creator”? How do you know? […]
What’s this “Green Revolution” all about? People have been trumpeting about “new” stuff for about as long as there have been humans on this earth. No, there’s nothing new. People have always had a basic understanding of how to care for the environment and what work needs to be done to keep food and water […]
We are all born with a will to dominate. None of us are naturally submissive. Those times when we seem to be submissive are really when we’re waiting for the next opportunity we get to be top dog. Some may go through life seemingly “meek” and subservient. (By the way, to me, meekness is actually […]
To me, economics is the study of how to best manage human covetousness so that the least amount of harm is allowed to be perpetrated. Of course, it is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses and emphasizes the importance of realizing that there are no “solutions” in this world, […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.