Author Archives: authorbengarrido
Getting My Ass Kicked
I’m a pretty big proponent of jumping into novel experiences and then figuring out the consequences later. As such, when Professor Oh Yong-sun of the engineering department invited me for a nice little hike in the countryside I did not worry that I would be the only non-engineer on the trip. It did not concern […]
Vengeance and the Matter of Anders Breivik
Anders Breivik murdered 77 people in Norway. Some he blew up with bombs – tearing off limbs, bursting eardrums and rending brain matter as the immense pressure wave accelerated and decelerated in the various densities of the human skull. Most he simply shot. Breivik walked the paths of that small Scandinavian island, during a summer camp, seeking out […]
Problems With the Gold Standard
Explanation of the gold standard’s problems. I would like to thank Schmitt Van Dean for contributing to this article. When discussing the virtues of a gold standard, advocates almost always lead with a variation on this question. Why don’t governments operate with collateral – ie a gold or silver backing – in their money printing […]
More Youngam Race Weekend Pictures Courtesy of Chris Marsh
Please peruse these photos from our weekend at the Korean Formula One track.
Looking Back on Looking Forward
Hi, this is 29 year-old Ben and I’ll be writing in italics for the duration of this article. I’ve lived in Korea four years now. This means a lot of the things I found fascinating and amazing at first have become entirely mundane. This normalization of what, four years ago seemed very exotic, makes it […]
Photos From the Yeongam Race Weekend
Here are some photos from my weekend at the Yeongam Formula One Circuit. I should explain the classes before we get going too far. There is TT100 for weak diesel cars and 1.5 liter gasoline cars. Above that there’s the TT200 class for stronger diesels and naturally aspirated 4 bangers of larger displacement. I want […]
Context in Foreign Language
I had gotten to the point I was feeling pretty cocky with my Korean. Granted, I am perhaps a bit (okay, a lot) more prone to bouts of cartoonish egomania than most, but this particular run of overconfidence wasn’t entirely my fault. You see, on the morning in question the nice lady selling me coffee […]
Gravitational Pull
. A review of the film Gravity and examination of scary fiction. Gravity combines scary and beautiful in ways I’ve never seen. That the director is able to keep his characters dangling in the abyss the entire length of the film without straining the audience’s suspension of disbelief is, certainly, a sign that Alfonso Cuaron is very […]
The Tale of Bob
Tale of Bob, The Blue Collar American Worker Ben Garrido Bob was driving his one ton duly pickup truck out of his highly mortgaged driveway to work when he received a call from his employer, Global Bicycles. “We’re sorry, Mr. Bob. We regret to inform you that your position is no longer available.” “How did […]
Making the Reader Hallucinate
Good, evocative writing is very much a drug. You, the benevolent (or not) narcotics dealer, deceive your readers’ senses to the point where they taste, smell, hear and feel through, of all things, their eyes. This doesn’t seem so fraudulent at first, but really think about how you are creating those sensations. At its most […]
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