Newsletter 852
Best of the Moment
Unbelievable Lightness Of African States
James Fearon | Monkey Cage | 23 November 2012
"What is striking and surprising is how easy it can be to take over some African states, or large parts of them. Post-independence historical record provides numerous examples where dozens or a few hundred armed men have done it" Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/unbelievable-lightness-african-states)
Cooking For Freedom
Aidan Hartley | Spectator | 24 November 2012
Somali-born British chef goes home to open restaurant in Mogadishu. First guests include three Al-Shabab suicide bombers, who kill themselves and 20 customers. Service resumes after four or five coats of white paint Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/cooking-freedom)
Scientific Blind Spots
David Shaywitz | WSJ | 18 November 2012
Review of Samuel Arbesman's "Half-Life Of Facts". When an idea, even a mistaken one, becomes conventional wisdom, it is hard to dislodge. Spinach owes its reputation as an iron-rich food to a German chemist's error in 1870 Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/scientific-blind-spots)
Lies, Damn Lies And GDP
Morton Jerven | Guardian | 20 November 2012
Big African countries have been growing far faster than published figures suggest. Ghana has revised GDP estimate upwards by 60%. Nigeria may soon do likewise. Official statistics have failed to capture structural changes in economy Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/lies-damn-lies-and-gdp)
Why Can't India Feed Its People?
Mehul Srivastava | Businessweek | 21 November 2012
Reporter returns to village of his father's family to see how people there live, eat and work today. He towers over them, a product of better childhood nutrition, and finds their diet still woefully inadequate Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/why-cant-india-feed-its-people)
What Killed Michael Porter's Monitor Group?
Steve Denning | Forbes | 20 November 2012
Consulting firm founded by business-school guru goes bankrupt. Why? Because Monitor advised clients to focus primarily on protecting themselves from competition. Not on innovation or customer satisfaction. Bad strategy Comments (https://thebrowser.com/articles/what-killed-michael-porters-monitor-group)
(http://www.amazon.com/Best-of-FiveBooks-2011-ebook/dp/B007GAM6RC?tag=thebro-21)
FiveBooks Interview
(https://thebrowser.com/interviews/alex-bellos-on-maths)
Alex Bellos on Maths
The author of "Alex's Adventures in Numberland" tells us about popular attempts to explain the history of counting and numbers Read on (https://thebrowser.com/interviews/alex-bellos-on-maths)
Featured Special Report
(https://thebrowser.com/reports/hackers)
Hackers
Cars, nuclear plants, computers, phones, webcams -- they all succumb to hackers in the end Read on (https://thebrowser.com/reports/hackers)
Reader Recommendations
@polit2k (http://twitter.com/polit2k) : Online course of the day, investing department - Felix Salmon t.co/JYNe7YWJ #browsings (http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=#browsings) #ponzi (http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=#ponzi)
More like this (http://thebrowser.com/browsings)
Book of the Day
Book of the Day (https://thebrowser.com/recommended/west-indies-and-spanish-main-by-anthony-trollope)
The West Indies and the Spanish Main by Anthony Trollope
Paul Theroux says (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/paul-theroux-on-travelling) : I don’t think there’s the temptation to fictionalise. There might be a temptation to over-describe
FiveBooks Archive (http://thebrowser.com/fivebooks/archive)
Video of the Day
Stories Of Philosophies
(https://thebrowser.com/videos/stries-philosophies)
Descartes, Nietzsche, and a fountain pen More videos (http://thebrowser.com/videos)
Quote of the Day
Bill Gates, on religion (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bill-gates-quotes-book-excerpt)
"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning"
More quotes (http://thebrowser.com/quotations)