Bjorn Munson

Satisfaction & Stepping Off the World’s Treadmill

By Bjorn Munson | February 14, 2022February 14, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

Monday posts have been about motivations and resolutions and worldviews so far this year, so why stop now? From that standpoint, Arthur Brooks’ piece for The Atlantic was a welcome read (or, if you so desire, a 41-minute listen). What I appreciated was the time Brooks took in defining why we human animals are on this neverending treadmill for satisfaction. The societal pressures are, I would hope to most people, rather self-evident. The evolutionary arguments…

Various and Sundry

Say, Why Did Norway and Sweden Break Up?

By Bjorn Munson | February 11, 2022February 8, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

I’m still looking for a longer video that answers my questions about 1905 attitudes regarding lutefisk vs. surströmming and how that factored into Norwegian independence, but this works for now.

Various and Sundry

Shipping Ships and How Long Said Ships Ship

By Bjorn Munson | February 9, 2022February 5, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

From the same folks who had the piece on the airline industry I posted back in January comes another illuminating piece about the container ships that dominate shipping via the oceans these days. One notion I found especially interesting was the one that posited that “perfect” systems –by which I read systems that are optimized as perfectly as factors allow– can be more susceptible to issues than imperfect –or non-optimized systems. That’s not necessarily an…

Various and Sundry

Spaceguard is On the Case

By Bjorn Munson | February 7, 2022February 5, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

When I watched the recent film Don’t Look Up — as a great deal of other Netflix subscribers appeared to– they mentioned the very real Planetary Defense Coordination Office which made me think instantly of Spaceguard, which isn’t an official overall terms, but dangit, I’m not alone in thinking of it. In fact, overall efforts appear to be inspired by that vision of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, visions that have born fruit over…

Various and Sundry

Film Genre Popularity Over the Decades

By Bjorn Munson | February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

Bo McCready has done every cinephile a solid by taking film genre data (as tagged on IMDb) and creating this visualization via Tableau. Now, considering that this is over 100 years’ worth of films… and thousands and thousands of films, this is quite interesting. However, if you look at the visualization above, you’ll see a given genre waxing and waning in relation to its maximum percentage of the overall number of films released that year…

Various and Sundry

What’s the Deal with the Groundhog?

By Bjorn Munson | February 2, 2022February 2, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

All of a sudden, it’s Groundhog Day… again. And in case you’re wondering why this is the case, Danny Lewis in the Smithsonian Magazine goes deep into the historical record. And in case you don’t want the Smithsonian, but still want something plausible, perhaps with a theater reference, well here ya go. And if you were reading Danny Lewis’ article above and were thinking “hmm, what about a horror film where the groundhogs in Groundhog…

Various and Sundry

For When You Want Wonky with your New Year’s Resolutions

By Bjorn Munson | January 31, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

So, for the past few Mondays (see 1/3, 1/10, and 1/24), I’ve done posts about New Year’s Resolutions and similar life goals on both the micro and macro goal. But what if you want something a bit more wonky? What if you want to track your progress in such a way that friends and family may recoil in horror as if you asked them to watch a paint-drying marathon on HGTV? Meredith Dietz over at…

Various and Sundry

Historical Gold from the Silver Screen

By Bjorn Munson | January 28, 2022January 27, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

As I’ve mentioned various times, my dad made sure we saw many of the classic and not so classic films from bygone ages. I mean, I’ve seen pre-Russian Revolution films using stop-action animation of insects for crying out loud! Now, besides such curiosities and rattling good stories, these films provided de facto period pieces: they were recording the here and now of an era long past –in human terms– with details quite unknown to me.…

Various and Sundry

The Surprising Profit Center for Airlines

By Bjorn Munson | January 26, 2022January 26, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

Continuing my trend of learning more about how certain industries actually work (see the McDonald’s article or film distribution video from previous weeks), I stumbled across this ‘explainer’ video about how airlines have changed their profit priority: it’s no longer focused on flying planes. Now, I’m sure some people already knew this, just as many people know that, historically, movie theaters make more money on concessions than on the movie tickets themselves. But I’m just…

Various and Sundry

Hacking Your Personality in the Pursuit of Happiness

By Bjorn Munson | January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by Bjorn Munson

So, a couple weeks ago, I posted a link to some deep thoughts: guideposts for how to live your life. It was all part of a series of posts I’ve been doing this January exploring the whole notion of New Year’s resolutions writ large. So why not continue? The article that piqued my interest in this case was an article by Christian Jarrett for the BBC. A TL;DR summary of the article might be “everyone…

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Categories

Satisfaction & Stepping Off the World’s Treadmill

Say, Why Did Norway and Sweden Break Up?

Shipping Ships and How Long Said Ships Ship

Spaceguard is On the Case

Film Genre Popularity Over the Decades

What’s the Deal with the Groundhog?

For When You Want Wonky with your New Year’s Resolutions

Historical Gold from the Silver Screen

The Surprising Profit Center for Airlines

Hacking Your Personality in the Pursuit of Happiness