John Macilree MRAeS

Guess where the biggest refineries in Europe are? Clue is in the chart.

Read this a few years ago, an interesting history of left-liberal proponents of early globalizations and the overlooked tradition of trade liberalisation as a movement for protecting the welfare of those most vulnerable to the consequences of war, famine, and economic depression

@dairymanNZ And: Why did the bulls cross the road? Was the grass greener on the other side? Was there a herd of cows involved? Did she call a vet?

Pretty sure the answer is p=mv

This was one of Mancur Olson's important points in The Rise and Decline of Nations. In societies with long periods of stability, "distributional coalitions" slowly accumulate. Lawyers are his main example: they thrive on regulatory complexity, litigation, and zero-sum redistribution rather than productive innovation. The result is institutional sclerosis. Ironically, stability breeds stagnation.

In which I explain the extraordinary energy density of nuclear power using the world‘s most famous equation E=MC2. Start with a 100 tonne fuel load in a 1 GW PWR. We fission 3kg of heavy metal per day. Everyday 3g of that mass is transformed into energy. According to E=MC2 thats 3g x the speed of light 300 million m/s squared. 3g x 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/s2 equals a lot of Joules. Expressed in more familiar terms for the power sector thats 75GWh thermal or 24GWh electric. So to summarize that 3g/day powers 1 million homes every day for 18 months. To watch the full interview on the Great Simplification podcast with Nate Hagens see the link in the replies.

Somewhere on Earth, the ocean is always warm enough to fuel a hurricane. This animation shows how that energy shifts around the globe throughout the year. Red areas mark waters above 80˚F (26.5˚C), the approximate threshold needed for storms to form.

Apocalyptic might be an overstatement but nonetheless Meloni is pretty rattled here. There’s a growing line of world leaders saying that all is not well. Which makes sense as it isn’t.

@niklasorrenius Schweiz spenderar €400 per capita per år på järnvägsunderhåll. Österrike tvåa i Eur på €165.bott här i 8 år och kör nästan aldrig bil. Tågen går alltid i tid. Billigt, man köper ett Swiss Pass för c. chf 200 per år och betalar 50% av listpris på alla biljetter.

Mapped: How Europe’s Economic “Center of Gravity” Has Shifted Since 1950 💰 This graphic by The European Correspondent is one of the many incredible data-driven charts and stories from creators featured on our @VoronoiApp. ✅ voronoiapp.com/economy/From-C…

Even though this is from an older podcast, Jimmy Carr’s take still hits different: “The Roman Empire didn’t fall. It became the Church.” And the British Empire? According to Jimmy, it didn’t collapse either — it simply turned into a bank. We handed the colonies back with a polite “sorry about that,” then offered to “hold” all their money safely in the City of London. Roman Empire → Vatican British Empire → Global financial hub Empires don’t die. They just rebrand. Still one of the most provocatively entertaining history takes I’ve heard. What’s your favourite “history didn’t end, it just changed form” observation?

Ils ont choisi le libéralisme et se sont enrichis: Singapour 1965 Pays baltes 1989 Corée du Sud 1961 Taïwan 1950 Rwanda 1994 Turquie 1980 Australie 1983 Pologne 1989 Tchéquie 1989 Slovaquie 1989 Roumanie 1989 Bulgarie 1989 Croatie 1989 Hongrie 1989 Slovénie 1989 France 1815 France 1852 Nouvelle-Zélande 1984 Autriche 1955 Suède 1991 Norvège années 80 Danemark années 80 Islande 1991 Allemagne de l'Ouest 1949 Taiwan: 1950 Finlande 1991 Georgie 2004 Royaume-Uni 1979 Kazakhstan années 90 Pays-Bas 1980 Israel 1985 Botswana 1996 Irlande 1987 Chine 1978 Maurice Années 80 Arabie Saoudite 2015 Costa Rica Années 80 Panama Années 90 Uruguay Annéss 90 Hong Kong 1950 Japon 1950 Canada 1995 Etats-Unis 1776 Etats-Unis 1980 Mexique 1986 Colombie 1991 Argentine 1880 Emirats Arabes Unis 1990 Inde 1991 Chili 1974 Vietnam 1986 Suisse => depuis toujours Ils ont choisi le socialisme et se sont appauvris: Venezuela 1999 URSS 1917 France 1981 Royaume-Uni 1945 Zimbabwe 2000 Algérie 1962 Cuba 1959 Corée du nord 1952 Cambodge 1975 Laos 1975 Mongolie 1924 Salvador 1979 Egypte 1952 Nicaragua 2006 Chili 1970 Mexique 1970 Bolivie 1952 Bloc des pays d'Europe de l'Est 1945 Afrique du sud 1994 Argentine 1946 Tunisie 1960 Angola 1975 Madagascar 1975 Sri Lanka 1970 Birmanie 1962 Haiti 1957 Pakistan 1972 Syrie 1963 Ethiopie 1974 Tanzanie 1967 Portugal 1974 Nicaragua 1979 Yougoslavie 1945 Suède 1970 Grèce 1981 Chine 1949 Inde 1947 Vous allez avoir besoin de combien d'exemples pour vous remettre la tête à l'endroit?

Chinese firms hold stakes in dozens of European ports (often in strategically located hubs) ranging from minor shares to full ownership, embedding China deeply into Europe’s maritime infrastructure. Source: datavisualizations.heritage.org/defense/chines…

Applebaum's piece is worth reading slowly because the specific details are doing work that the summary can't. Danish military commanders - inside a NATO alliance the United States founded - had to sit in a room and war-game whether their forces would shoot down American planes and kill American soldiers. Some of them still haven't fully recovered from running that exercise. The most popular app in Denmark during Applebaum's visit was one that identifies American products so users know not to buy them. NATO has invoked Article 5 exactly once in its history. On behalf of the United States. After September 11th. Allied troops went to Afghanistan and some of them died there. Trump told reporters those allies "stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." The families of soldiers who didn't come back heard that. Now Trump is in the middle of a war in the Persian Gulf with the Strait of Hormuz locked, oil prices spiking, and he's telling NATO allies - the same ones he insulted and tariffed and threatened - that he's "demanding" they come help solve a problem his own decisions helped create. Applebaum's conclusion is precise: he doesn't connect what he does on one day to what happens weeks later. Allied leaders have drawn their conclusions. The rupture, as Mark Carney called it, isn't coming. It already happened.

In 2013, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen gave a 59-minute masterclass at Oxford on why smart companies destroy themselves. His frameworks: - The seminary of new finance - The steel mill death spiral - The $35 plastic box that changed India 12 lessons on disruption:

Weather update: A tropical storm and a mid-latitude trough. A tropical low is likely to be named a cyclone in the next 24 hours just to the east of the Vanuatu archipelago. Guidance from the grand ensemble of 292 weather models is increasing their confidence, it will intensify to become a strong tropical cyclone just to the west of Fiji by Tuesday. It will also connect with a mid-latitude trough drifting over the upper North Island to inject tropical moisture and produce heavy rain and vigorous northeasterlies for our region late Monday into Tuesday. More to come on projected rainfall totals soon. Longer term the ex-tropical cyclone will likely move towards the Kermadec Islands by Friday but at this stage lots of uncertainty remains on its track southward next weekend.

What if the British had never colonized Australia? @NigelBiggar and @ARoberts_Andrew discuss the historical counterfactual on the latest episode of Secrets of Statecraft. Tune in to the full conversation below:

The “@” symbol in your email exists because of one engineer’s decision

This excerpt from NZ's 1912 Royal Commission on the Cost of Living (which helped pave the way for a formal CPI in 1914) still feels relevant today given high global meat & dairy prices. It also shows that Kiwis worrying about NZ butter/meat being cheaper overseas is nothing new!