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On these plains above Jena in 1806, the Prussian army was having a really bad day. Photo by Sean Manning, October 2016 In my first book, I talked about how ‘mercenary’ is more a moral and political term than a neutral category. People use different names like allies, volunteers, professionals, Private Military Companies, and mercenaries depending on their moral and political stance on those soldiers (in ancient Greece or Sir …

Early Feb NorCal wind and SoCal rain events were historically significant February started out with a remarkable pair of Pineapple Express-type atmospheric river storms, each of which brought substantial impacts, but the second of the pair ultimately generated extreme wind gusts in parts of Northern California and historic rainfall in portions of Southern California. Wind … Additional storms to bring renewed flood risk to parts of CA Read More » …

Federal law makes it a felony to “willfully or maliciously injure[ ] or destroy[ ] any of the works, property, or material of any radio, … or other means of communication, operated or controlled by the United States, or used or intended to be used for military or civil defense functions ….” I’m not sure I agree with the locals that this would apply to WJLX’s 200-foot-tall radio tower in …

I’ve been an insomniac my whole life. I remember taking long walks as a teenager around my neighborhood in the…

We tend to talk about rights without ever mentioning their corresponding duties. Every right needs an obligation to support it. At the very least we have a duty to grant the same rights to others, but more consequentially, rights have trade-offs: things we have to do or surrender in order to earn the right. The right to vote entails the duty to pay taxes. The right of free speech entails …

Sorry for the delays in posting, I have been on a short vacation. So today is one of my favorite (and obscure) fictional pop-up books about space. A really beautifully illustrated 1952 book with some amazing text to accompany it, The Jolly Jump-ups Journey Through Space!Clyne, Geraldine. The Jolly Jump-ups Journey Through Space. Springfield, MA: McLoughlin Bros. (12 p.) 1952.

Style is to genius what genre is to sceniusStyle is a relative inflexibility, a patterning, a degree of predictability – the habits of a mind, a unconscious (or willed) decrease in variety and freedomStyle is invariance, self-conformityWhen you read a new piece by a writer whose style is familiar to you and who you enjoyyour pleasure is basically saying “that’s exactly what X would think, exactly how X would say …

Tempe Arizona residents were recently sent mail ballots for the city council election of March 12, 2024. Three of the five candidates on the ballot are to be elected to the council. A voter may vote for up to three candidates, and the three candidates with the highest vote totals are elected.Suppose a voter can quantify her preferences on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 meaning she definitely …

I’ve been ruminating on the idea of narrative strategy for a while now. The last time I wrote about it was in 2020.

Sometimes when you watch a particularly low budget horror movie or tokusatsu production, it's inspirational: these works stand as proof that it's possible to create interesting, entertaining works on modest budgets. Silk is kind of like that! Common wisdom would tell you that it's impossible to make a large scale RPG/trading sim/resource management game without a large team and the financial backing of a publisher. But here Silk is: claiming …

This question came in a while ago and I was holding onto it for possible book inclusion after sending a private draft reply to the person who asked, but the manuscript has changed shape since then and it’s time to release it into the world. Dear Captain Awkward, I’m about to become a dad and I’m terrified. I’m not just scared of stuff like school shootings and global collapse, but …

Through blendery Het Boerenerf, Senne Eylenbosch saved his farm, discovered his identity, and continued his family’s storied Lambic heritage. The post This Is Senne’s Valley — On Gueuze Blendery Het Boerenerf of Huizingen, Belgium appeared first on Belgian Smaak.

It’s the 28th of February, 1950, and Jean Llante, Resistance hero turned Communist politician, rises to address France’s National Assembly: “Monsieur le ministre, they are selling a drink on the boulevards of Paris called Coca-Cola … This is not simply an economic question, nor is it even simply a question of public health - it’s also a political question. We want to know if, for political reasons, you're going to …

Mahoney (of Mahoney & Kaktus fame) and I sat down to play some SID tunes at Fjälldata, the only demoparty I'm aware of that features a grand piano.

B’s first snowman, about two feet tall. We couldn’t find much else for the eyes and mouth, and I can’t stop laughing at it.