“The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” by Matt Ridley My rating: 2 of 5 stars THE GOOD: Ridley’s first and most consistent argument is that specialization (the ability of one person or organization to do one thing while another does another thing) and exchange (the ability to trade the products of those two things) setContinue reading “Review: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”
Author Archives: Bryan Guido Hassin
More on the Beatles
As a follow up to yesterday’s post about the Final [Fab] Four and in celebration of the UNC Tarheels basketball championship last night, here are some more thoughts on the Beatles that came from discussions in the group. First thought: even if you go back pre-Beatlemania to their time as a cover band, their potentialContinue reading “More on the Beatles”
The Final [Fab] Four
While Chapel Hill is going crazy with Final Four fever, I have been focusing my March Madness attention on a different Final Four – the Final Fab Four. A friend of mine from university drew up a bracket of 128 Beatles songs and we spent the month of March in a Facebook group devoted to theContinue reading “The Final [Fab] Four”
Uncomfortable Podcast
Stop what you’re doing and subscribe to this podcast right now. My intelligent, worldly high school classmate at ABC News has launched a series of uncomfortable conversations. There has only been one episode so far, but it is riveting. In the first episode she hosts an intelligent, articulate (the most dangerous kind) white supremacist whoContinue reading “Uncomfortable Podcast”
Full of Birthday Love
What a wonderful birthday celebration it has been! Although I prefer to celebrate all month, things crescendo’ed last week. On birthday eve, a couple of guys came over to try out some new beers. Instead of beating our chests and male bonding, though, we found ourselves talking politics, economics, science, and entrepreneurship until we realizedContinue reading “Full of Birthday Love”
Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander FreedMy rating: 2 of 5 stars I read this hoping for something that would fill in the gaps and plot holes of the movie (as the novelization of The Force Awakens did) but I was unfortunately disappointed. This book doesn’t fill in any gaps or explain awayContinue reading “Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
Travel Recommendations for Toscana
A friend recently let me know that she would be traveling to Tuscany and was seeking recommendations both for tourist travel and wine travel. Having lived in Florence and spent much more time since then traveling around bella Toscana, I compiled the following recommendations for her: Firenze There are a million more things to doContinue reading “Travel Recommendations for Toscana”
Harry Potter Dinner
Last Friday we hosted a Harry Potter dinner at our house for a small group of friends. It was a blast! DECORATIONSTo create a Hogwarts-like ambiance, we made a few changes to our dining room: FOOD AND DRINKWithout house elves to help, I think we still did a pretty admirable job of preparing a Hogwarts-caliberContinue reading “Harry Potter Dinner”
Processing the Election
It’s been three weeks since the US presidential election and I’m still processing what happened. It should be no secret that I am disappointed in the election result, but what is important now is to understand what happened (and why) and make some sense of it to inform the way forward. OUTCOME I didn’t supportContinue reading “Processing the Election”
Rogue One Review
Last night Katie and I attended the opening night of Rogue One and, long story short, I liked (didn’t love) it. It started off pretty weak – I was actually fighting to stay awake for the first act of the movie – but finished really strong. Overall I would give it three stars out ofContinue reading “Rogue One Review”