Since 2021
By Ray Tellili Bank notes came into being long after bartering, shells, clay tablets, leather, and coinage.The Chinese created the first bank note in the 700s during the Tang dynasty. It was basically a bank draft. You would deposit coins with an official, who gave you a certificate (like a receipt). You could then retrieve…
By Ray Tellili Towards the end of WW2, having suffered a series of serious military setbacks Germany was desperate to develop advanced weapons that would give it a decisive advantage over the allies. So it went about compiling a list of engineers, rocket scientists, mathematicians, technicians and other relevant personnel that could help it achieve…
By Ray Tellili Are we hard-wired for war? Is our propensity for warfare genetic/biological or is it cultural or learned? Either way, the primary cause of war is human nature. There is something completely imbecilic about warfare and yet we keep engaging in it. Why is that? The main reasons seem to come down to…
(2021) In the pantheon of great human inventions lies the greatest of all life-saving inventions – the vaccine. No other medical invention has relieved human suffering to the extent vaccines have. Vaccines have had the single biggest impact on reducing child mortality rates as well as preventing lifelong disabilities. Inoculation against smallpox, one of…
By Ray Tellili Does how we sleep influence the success or failure of the ensuing day? That time you snapped, or the time you were rude and impatient, or that silly argument over nothing; perhaps it wouldn’t have happened if had you slept properly the night before or started the day right. Maybe you wouldn’t…
What is it about sports that makes it such a powerful tool for nation building, politics, business and propaganda? 3.6 billion people tuned in to watch the last Olympics — the most watched event in human history. The next 24 most watched television broadcasts in history are all sports events, almost entirely either Olympics or…
By Ray Tellili We hear about it all the time; machine learning, deep learning, big data, neural networks — the nomenclature goes on, but exactly how in concrete terms will this change our lives? Artificial Intelligence (AI) imitates human intelligence to help us perform simple or complex tasks. Intelligence is broadly defined by the Oxford…
(February 2021) The storming of the Capitol caused shock and consternation around the world. Aside from being an affront to democracy and the rule of law, it’s significant because it impacts the confidence the world has in the United States. And anything that impacts confidence in the United States affects everyone and everything. As they…
By Ray Tellili (2021) Vaccine Nationalism is the practice of tackling the global pandemic with a nationalistic response when vaccines are in short supply. That is to say for example, that a vaccine producing country prioritizes its own citizens over those of other countries. Sounds reasonable, except where some countries had signed-production and delivery agreements…
(February) Is this the last we’ve seen of Trump’s rioters and that type of demagoguery? It’s hard to tell, but it might not be unfortunately. It all depends. Major mainstream political parties and democracies across the Western world should pay particular attention. Simply brushing off the rioters as just extremists or lunatics without addressing or…