Dubai
Turning weaknesses into strength. “Why did it work for Dubai? A big reason was that it was weak. That weakness was an asset, not a liability: The port was not huge, the Sheikh was not powerful, so if he tried… Read More »Dubai
Logistics
Optimizing things in the USSR
And more like this. “To reduce the dimensionality of the problem, administrators would often track the total tonnage of a few broad classes of steel tubes in the models, rather than using a more detailed classification scheme. While their models… Read More »Optimizing things in the USSR
How Complex Systems Fail
It is not matter of if, but matter of how. “The failures change constantly because of changing technology, work organization, and efforts to eradicate failures.” https://how.complexsystems.fail/
How Transportation Technologies Shaped Empires
Travel times matter. “Levant was closer to Mesopotamia (mostly present-day Iraq) and Anatolia (mostly present-day Turkey) so Egypt could not hold that territory for long after empires emerged there. For example, the Achaemenid Empire (Persia) emerged close to Mesopotamia, conquered… Read More »How Transportation Technologies Shaped Empires
How Transportation Technologies Shape Cities
Your building would be considered a skyscraper a few decades ago. “Chicago’s Home Insurance Building is considered the first skyscraper in the world, completed in 1885 with elevators to reach its 12 floors. It was not the first building to… Read More »How Transportation Technologies Shape Cities
S Curves
They are not only for budgeting. “When something is in hypergrowth, it’s growing faster than it’s ever been. This is when healthcare systems collapse during a pandemic, or when hypergrowth companies can’t cope with all the ways they’re breaking at… Read More »S Curves
A Science of Cities
This is mo longer as clear. “Historically, the biggest driver of the number of people that could live in a specific area—the density of people—was food per acre: If one acre can produce a lot of food, it can feed… Read More »A Science of Cities
Miscellanea: Victoria III Confirmed! (First Impressions)
Delegation. “the war system is quite different. Gone are moving individual armies through provinces, replaced by ‘fronts’ to which armies are assigned to either defend or push forward. I think some players are going to be quite unhappy with the… Read More »Miscellanea: Victoria III Confirmed! (First Impressions)
Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate
This is so true. “Given his personality, he strikes me as exactly the sort of very intelligent person whose assumes that their mastery of one field (effectively science-and-engineering, along with magic-and-persuasion, in this case) makes them equally able to perform… Read More »Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate
Why Iran’s ‘ghost ships’ are making billions
How shipping works.