Karl's Notes

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Why state-building is important: the case of Haiti

Why state-building is important: the case of Haiti

Haiti has been in the press a lot lately. The country has been dealing with a number of serious challenges, leading some analysts to label the country "a failed state". The government of Haiti's recent call for an armed intervention by foreign powers, continues to cement this rhetoric, while armed

Why is everything so hard in a large organisation?

Why is everything so hard in a large organisation?

A user posted a link to an article on Hacker News discussing the question 'why is everything so hard in a large organization?'. I found a reply comment by another user interesting. Reproducing it here word by word. "It's hard because it's meant to be hard. Once you have

You have 4000 weeks

You have 4000 weeks

Based on an average lifespan of 80 years, we have 4000 weeks on Earth. 4000 weeks to spend learning, working, sleeping, travelling, enjoying our hobbies, doing sports, talking to friends or family, fall in love, and everything in between. Sometimes we feel that there is never enough time to do

ChatGPT: the new, better Google?

ChatGPT: the new, better Google?

Some days ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, an 'AI chatbot' that is able to hold a conversation, “admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests”. ChatGPT is a fantastic tool for anyone looking to have an engaging and informative conversation. It uses cutting-edge natural language processing technology to understand

Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online

Estonia is a small country with a population of only 1.3 million. In 2005, it became the first country in the world to allow its citizens to vote online in elections, and today 46.9% of those eligible opt to vote online. Almost everything in Estonia can now be

How to build an automated ecommerce store with Gumroad and Printful

How to build an automated ecommerce store with Gumroad and Printful

Integrating a Printful store with your Gumroad account is one of the easiest ways to start a simple ecommerce store with automatic fulfilment. Gumroad is an online marketplace that allows you to sell and buy different services, including digital and physical goods. Printful is an online 'print-on-demand' service that allows

I created a map of protests taking place in Iran

I created a map of protests taking place in Iran

I created a map using Felt, that shows the locations of protests and demonstrations held in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Not all locations are listed, but I'm constantly updating these as soon as they are reported by international media. Thank you for reading. If you would

Corsica's 253 year struggle for self-rule

Corsica's 253 year struggle for self-rule

This year's prison attack on the Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna reignited the discussion about Corsica's struggle for nationhood from France. Colonna, who died a few weeks after the attack, was found guilty of the 1998 assassination of Claude Erignac, a representative of the French state in Corsica. For many on

How Zalando uses AI to make your shopping experience better

How Zalando uses AI to make your shopping experience better

Zalando is a European company based in Berlin, Germany, that is equal parts fashion retailer and a tech startup. What started as an online shoe store in 2008, is now the continent's biggest wholesaler, delivering items to 23 countries and 49 million customers, from more than 5,800 brands. The

Interesting borders around the world

Interesting borders around the world

In a recent post [https://www.karlsnotes.com/how-to-start-your-own-country-in-four-steps/], I wrote about the importance of defined territory for the legitimacy of countries around the world. Sovereignty starts and ends within international borders - some marked by natural phenomena, such as rivers, mountains, forests or the sea, others are man-made, like

Montbell: the outdoors company where 'function is beauty'

Montbell: the outdoors company where 'function is beauty'

In 1969, 21-year-old Isamu Tatsuno stood at the bottom of the Eiger mountain overlooking Grindelwald, Switzerland. By then, he had two main goals in life - to climb the Eiger, and found a company related to mountaineering. He did both by the time he was 28 years old. After travelling

Snap's increasing focus on utility AR

Snap's increasing focus on utility AR

Snap has been quietly working on expanding development of its utility AR tools and experiences, making it easier for users to enhance our physical world through digital addons.

The 2022 General Election - Malta

The 2022 General Election - Malta

On 20th February 2022, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela asked the President of the Republic to dissolve parliament, so that a general election can be held on 26th March.

An African Superstate: the East African Federation

Geopolitics Featured

An African Superstate: the East African Federation

The fastest growing region in Africa is also the site of an ongoing political experiment that aims, in the coming years, to have members of the East African Community band together and form the East African Federation - a single African superstate.

https://www.fugger.de/en/fuggerei/unparalleled-worldwide-for-500-years

Fuggerei: the world's first public housing

In 1521, a German merchant and banker called Jakob Fugger, known as 'the Rich', a descendant of the famous Fugger family of Augsburg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augsburg], took it upon himself to fund and build the first social settlement in the world. Known as Fuggerei after its founders'

The towns built by Mussolini and their political legacy

The towns built by Mussolini and their political legacy

At the end of the 19th century, a Prussian officer had an idea to build a water collection system beneath the mountains in modern-day Latina Province, very close to Rome, Italy. The idea was to collect the water before this settles down and prevent it from stagnating in what are

What you have to go through to travel to Malta during COVID-19

What you have to go through to travel to Malta during COVID-19

Updated February 2022 The Health Authorities in Malta have been promoting the use of the ‘ traveltomalta.gov.mt [http://traveltomalta.gov.mt]‘ website for those wishing to travel to the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both nationals and non-nationals are encouraged to visit the website to confirm that they can

A Hacker News-inspired aggregator built with Softr.io

A Hacker News-inspired aggregator built with Softr.io

Hacker News has been a fascination of mine since I discovered it several years ago, and today it has become part of my morning routine. Through the site, I discovered countless interesting articles and ideas, and the most read article on this site also owes its success to the millions

Tim Ferriss and the Art of Online Conversations

Tim Ferriss and the Art of Online Conversations

Over the past few years, you might have noticed an increase in the popularity of podcasts and the creation of audio-based content. Producing a podcast today is considered an essential networking and promotional tool. Major news networks, entrepreneurs, and politicians all want to be on podcast shows to deliver their

Micro-level History

Micro-level History

I was recently having a conversation with a Spanish friend about the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s. While I was interested in better understanding the bigger picture of this historical period – how the civil war was fought, who won or lost, how did it start and why, I

Challenges to creating a Network State

Challenges to creating a Network State

This is a review of the ‘How to Start a New Country’ [https://1729.com/how-to-start-a-new-country/] piece by Balaji S. Srinivasan, which highlights possible pathways to a country founded and built online, and later also owning physical territory. I call this ‘the Reverse Estonia’, as the country has been on

Maltese Political Parties' Share of Parliamentary Seats

Data Visualisations

Maltese Political Parties' Share of Parliamentary Seats

In a recent post [https://karlsnotes.com/first-count-votes-in-parliamentary-elections-in-malta-1921-2017/] , I visualised the number of first count votes received by Maltese political parties since the 1921 national election. This time, I created the above visualisation to show the composition of the Maltese Parliament immediately after every election for the same 1921-2017 period.

The Barack Obama technique for making tough decisions

The Barack Obama technique for making tough decisions

Over the past years, the definition of leadership has changed. We used to think of leadership as a trait associated with one’s title or hierarchical position within a company or an organisation. Today, we think of leadership as a social process that mixes individual desires and the group’s

How to start your own country in four steps

How to start your own country in four steps

On 16th June 2014, Jeremiah Heaton declared 2,060km2 of arid land in Africa as the Kingdom of North Sudan, after promising his daughter that one day she would become a Princess. Heaton, a farmer from the US state of Virginia, had been looking for unclaimed territory around the world

First count votes in Parliamentary Elections in Malta - 1921-2017

Data Visualisations

First count votes in Parliamentary Elections in Malta - 1921-2017

Malta is required to hold a General Election to elect Members of Parliament every 5 years. Elections are conducted using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method, which is regarded as one of the fairest ways to transfer the wishes of the electorate into parliamentary seats, in a more representational manner.