Venture Society
11/06/2020
With the possible exception of Will Ferrell’s George Bush impression, most memories of the 2000 election aren’t exactly positive ones. I consider myself a pretty level-headed person, and even all these years later, the name “Chad” still induces a little cringe. Though admittedly it was a pretty solid Halloween costume. At any rate, there are […]
10/23/2020
I’m not sure if there’s a more iconic 80’s movie than Top Gun. It has all the trappings of the era – a killer soundtrack, a tall blond antagonist, a quirky sidekick, an athletic montage, a blond love interest, Meg Ryan, and tons of one liners. Oh, and Tom Cruise. When it was announced they were making a sequel, all this pop culture (and aviation) enthusiast could think […]
10/21/2020
Every year, there are three days that I look forward to more than any others. The first happens in mid-February, when Major League Baseball pitchers and catchers report to spring training, and the second is Opening Day. Sadly, both were disrupted this year by the outbreak of COVID-19, leaving those of us who “rely […]
10/19/2020
On August 27th, 1859, George Bissel and Edwin Drake changed the American petroleum industry forever. The two men were responsible for the first successful use of a drilling rig for a commercial well. Drilled especially for oil. Named the Drake well, and drilled to a whopping depth of 69 feet, […]
10/15/2020
The hardest class I ever took in college was Physics, and it wasn’t even close. While some concepts were fairly straightforward – Newton’s Laws, for example – the mathematics underpinning them was anything but. Moreover, the successful communication of both concepts and mathematics often proved beyond the ability of mortal human professors. […]
10/12/2020
How would you feel if you found out that the average American billionaire pays less in taxes than you do? Not just a little less. In fact, one of them has paid zero taxes in ten of the last fifteen years. In 2016 and 2017, he paid $750 a year in income taxes. […]
10/09/2020
From the moment I first tuned into MTV as a child in the early 1980’s, I was hooked for life. There was something about bringing a visual dimension into the music I loved that made it all the more memorable. But even with all the amazing records put out during that period […]
10/07/2020
Keeping up with economic data these days is like drinking from a fire hose… it comes at you incredibly fast. And while I spent a lot of time today writing up this morning’s release of the US Balance of Trade data, its relevance as a headline was rendered useless at 2:48 PM […]
09/30/2020
Back on June 30th, I posted an article here about using alternative data to predict future outbreaks of COVID-19, suggesting that Google searches for “loss of smell” or “anosmia” predate a spike in cases by a few weeks. While at the time Europe was faring relatively well at beating back coronavirus outbreaks compared […]