I spent eight days in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, primarily in and around the cities of Cancun, Valladolid, and Merida.
Notes on the Dominican Republic
I spent eight days in the Dominican Republic, covering Santo Domingo (the capital), Puerto Plata, Sosua, and Jarabacoa. As with my other travel notes, I’ll try to avoid generic travel blogging stuff and focus on anything unusual I experienced or learned.
Notes on Panama
I spent one week in Panama this summer. As with Spain and Peru, I took notes while I was there and will try to summarize the most interesting experiences and things I learned in this post. Unfortunately, I think I’m a bit less detailed on Panama than the other two because most of what I did was hike through jungles, which is amazing and highly recommended, but I don’t have much to say about it.
Shadow of the Sun
Sometimes I want to abandon any pretense of a normal life and live like a drifter. I could drop the burden of ordinary work, friends, relationships, property, and just go to unusual places, see unusual things, and exist on the margins of civilization where society doesn’t really make sense, but is never boring. I’d have to give up on safety, stability, and the traditional building blocks of happiness (family, structure, etc.), but I’d gain adventure, ruggedness, and assuredness born from being solely responsible for my safety. I’d live by my own rules.
In other words, sometimes I wish I could live like Ryszard Kapuscinski.
Notes on Peru
I spent 11 days in Peru with two friends in the Spring of 2021, during which time we visited Lima, Paracas, Ica, Huacachina, Cusco, and a few other minor towns. The following is a summary of some notes I took during the trip. As with my Notes on Spain, I’ll try to keep my accounts brief and to stay away from ordinary travel blogging observations.
Everything You Might Want to Know about Whaling
I think whaling is really cool. I can’t help it. It’s one of those things like guns and war and space colonization which hits the adventurous id. The idea that people used to go out in tiny boats into the middle of oceans and try to kill the biggest animals to ever exist on planet earth with glorified spears to extract organic material for fuel is awesome. It’s like something out of a fantasy novel.
So I embarked on this project to understand everything I could about whaling. I wanted to know why burning whale fat in lamps was the best way to light cities for about 50 years. I wanted to know how profitable whaling was, what the hunters were paid, and how many whaleships were lost at sea. I wanted to know why the classical image of whaling was associated with America and what other countries have whaling legacies. I wanted to know if the whaling industry wiped out the whales and if they can recover.
This essay is the result. It is over 30,000 words long, a new record for my blogging. It’s broken into seven parts linked here:
Part I – Economic Value of a Whale
- Breakdown of the parts of a whale which have been harvested and commercially traded throughout history
- Description and valuations of whale oil, meat, baleen, and other resources
- Attempts at estimating quantities of resources extracted from a single whale
- Breakdown of the whale hunting methods throughout history
- Shore hunting, ocean hunting, and technological evolutions in hunting
- The many ways whale hunting can go wrong
Part III – Early Whaling History (6,000 BC-1700 AD)
- Overview of the origins of whaling
- Estimated value of a beached whale
- The commercial success of Basque whaling
Part IV – The Anglo Whaling War (1700-1815)
- Tracking the ascendancy of British whaling based on subsidies, tariffs, and military dominance
- Tracking the challenge of early American whaling based on innovation
- Explanation of why American whaling triumphed
Part V – The Golden Age of Whaling (1815-1861)
- Examination of the high point of global whaling, when whaling was one of the most important industries on earth
- Most in depth description of the economics and experience of whaling – 50% labor desertion rate, highly inconsistent payout matrix, 6% of voyages never returned, etc.
- Golden Age whaling did not have a significant impact on global whaling populations
Part VI – The Industrial Age (1865-1986)
- Fall of US dominance, rise of Norway and then European competition
- Overview of early attempts to restrict whaling for environmental purposes, and why they failed
- Collapse of whaling population, estimated species populations before and after industrial whaling
Part VII – Modern Whaling (1987-Present)
- Present state of whaling legality and population impacts
- Norway and Japan continue to hunt whales for opaque cultural reasons
- Commercial whaling can return, but I’m not sure if it should
As with my deep dive into K-pop, I advise that if you are interested in whaling, but not that interested, you should skip some sections and focus on others. Parts I and II are short and get into the fun nitty-gritty details of the practice of whaling. Parts III and IV are more about the history of the industry and how it interacted with politics, trade policy, etc, and are the most easily skipped sections. Part V is the longest and (IMO) most interesting section; it’s both an overview of American whaling and a deep dive into the economics of the industry, including crew payouts, profitability, venture earnings, and the impact of whaling on the global whale population. Part VI and VII bridge the gap between the high point of whaling and its near death in the modern age.
Continue reading “Everything You Might Want to Know about Whaling”
The 24 Hour “Do Nothing” Challenge
There’s not too much to say on this one, so I’ll keep it short.
My goal was to do nothing for 24 hours. Like everyone in the modern world, I’m hopelessly addicted to little dopamine bursts provided by algorithmically optimized technology (in my case – Reddit, video games, phone messages, and having music or tv shows in the background), so I wanted to see if I had the willpower to cut off all stimulation for an extended period of time.
Continue reading “The 24 Hour “Do Nothing” Challenge”The Blind, Alone, and Confused for 24 Hours Challenge
For 24 hours I will be blind and alone in my apartment. I eventually want to try being blind for a week, but I’ll need seven days with no other obligations, and I won’t have that for a while. For now, I’ll suffice with a smaller-scale experiments with a few extra provisions for added difficulty.
Rules:
- I must leave my blindfold on for 24 hours.
- If I remove the blindfold, I have failed the experiment
- If the blindfold falls off or I can get partial sight, I have failed the experiment.
- I am only allowed to readjust my blindfold if I can see light.
- I must not be in contact with any other people for 24 hours.
- I cannot answer my phone or any other messaging system.
- I cannot receive in-person visitors.
- If someone knocks at the door, I cannot answer verbally or physically.
- I will set an alarm for 24 hours. I cannot set any other alarms or use any other means to ascertain the time.
- It is up to me to keep my phone charged so the alarm goes off.
- I cannot leave my apartment.
Thoughts on Meaning and Writing
I was once at a dinner party and someone was telling me about her recent trip to Arizona. One of the highlights was visiting a biodome project where scientists had attempted to achieve a totally self-sustained structure in preparation for the colonization of other planets. I told her that Steve Bannon used to run that place. She didn’t believe me. I obnoxiously pulled out my phone and showed her Bannon’s Wikipedia page.
Steve Bannon has lived a fascinating life. That’s not an evaluation of his politics or morality, it’s a statement of fact. Witness Bannon’s life in bullet points:
- Born in 1953 in Norfolk, Virginia to a telephone lineman and a housewife
- Attended military prep school and then Virginia Tech for a degree in Urban Planning, was elected president of the student body, worked in a junk yard
- Served in the navy for seven years in the Pacific fleet
- While in the navy, earned a Masters in National Security Studies from Georgetown
- After leaving the navy, earned an MBA from Harvard
- Got a job at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the mergers & acquisitions division, worked way up to a Vice President position
- Left Goldman Sachs with some colleagues to launch Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media, nabbed a small slice of syndication rights to mega-hit tv show Seinfeld, still receives residual payments from the show to this day
Everything You Need to Know About Chinese People (According to the US Government in 1943)
Pocket Guide to China is a 64 page primer for American soldiers stationed in China during World War II written by unknown personnel of the Special Service Division of the Army Service Forces of the United States Army. The text offers insights into Chinese behavior, cultural values, food, cleanliness, social structure, military capabilities, and everything else an intrepid American spending years in the deep interior of a foreign land might need to know. The Guide is a charming time capsule of old-school liberalism, propaganda, and clunky-yet-earnest cultural tolerance, and while it’s too short for me to write a deep dive, I couldn’t help but do a quick write-up about it.