Wall Street finished down on Friday after stunning jobs report

US stock markets closed in the red on Friday thanks in large part to the shining jobs report published earlier in the week. While it may seem counter-intuitive, the positive job report has pushed the US Treasury to hike its bond yield, which is causing interest rates to rise. “There’s no question the job market […]

On this day in history: The birth of Niccolò Machiavelli

May 3, 1469 — Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence, in the Republic of Florence located in modern-day Italy. He was a politician, a philosopher, a diplomat and an early Italian humanist. He was devoted to the unification of Italy and penned many politically inclined philosophy books that would eventually make him (according to some) the […]

Netflix’s ‘Lost in Space’ — Problem solving and adventure

This article contains minor spoilers that you might find in a trailer. Netflix has recently released its newest science fiction saga, “Lost in Space,” a reboot of the television series from 1965 of the same name, and the film from 1998. It follows the Robinson family as they have crash landed on an alien planet […]

‘Wild Wild Country’, the need to belong, and echo chambers

Netflix has recently released a new documentary series called, “Wild Wild Country.” It’s six episodes long, each episode running around an hour each, and it dives into the Rajneesh movement that reached global headlines in the 1980s. Called a cult by some and a movement by others, the Rajneesh followed under the teachings of an […]

‘Altered Carbon’ and the value of death

This article contains minor spoilers — nothing you wouldn’t see from a trailer. Netflix has recently released “Altered Carbon,” a show starring Joel Kinnaman, set in a sort of dystopian future where minds are stored on small devices embedded in everyone’s necks. When they die, the device can be transferred from one body to the […]

Netflix’s ‘Dark’ and living in the present

There are minor spoilers in this article. Netflix has been branching out beyond stories set in the U.S., and has even distributed some excellent foreign shows that have found popularity in America. For example, “3%” is a Brazilian show, but was recommended to me by many of my friends. Netflix has released its first season […]

Frames of War: ‘Peaky Blinders’ and a crushed post-WWI society

BBC (available on Netflix) has released the fourth season of “Peaky Blinders” recently, a show centered around British gangsters of the same name in 1919. We follow Tommy Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy, as he takes his small, hometown, family-run gang beyond the small pickings of local crime and into some high-risk high-reward criminal ventures. […]

Mexico suffers record high murder rate in 2017

This year, records have shown that Mexico has suffered more murders than ever. From numbers in November, 2017 averaged 69 murders per day, totaling to 20,878 from January to November. To put it in perspective: in 2011 the United States had around 40 murders a day on average; Mexico averaged around 63. The U.S. had […]

‘Mindhunter’: to know your enemy, foreign and domestic

“How do we get ahead of crazy if we don’t know how crazy thinks?” Netflix’s “Mindhunter” follows two FBI agents in the 1970s.  Apparently at that time, the whole concept of a serial killer was a pretty foreign concept, and the two protagonists, special agents of the FBI, take on the burden of pioneering this […]

‘Spectral’ is military science fiction done right

I am somewhat infamous for my negative reviews of movies about special operations forces. I’m not one of those guys who watches these films expecting some high degree of hyper-technical accuracy. Fictional films are just that. However, I find a lot of these films to be silly, as they claim to recreate something with authenticity, […]