mastodon 4.8.0-alpha.3+glitchFormer medieval philologist (Ph.D, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 1993). Living on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory.
Header picture: Large reddish-orange letters spelling "Hintonburg", some lying flat on the sidewalk for use as benches.
Me: #tea #gardening #classicalGuitar #vegetarian #language #disabled #aviation #flightSim #slideRules #tech #Linux #Ottawa
Society: #socialJustice #nonViolence #aid #urbanism #accessibility #transit #standards #FOSS
My five butternut squash plants are starting to vine, and the buds for the early (male) blossoms are visible.
This is my first time growing butternut squash, but apparently the vines can grow 2–3m long (!!!)
When totalitarian states realise failure is imminent, the old men running them engage in a kind of nihilist generational expenditure: since there's no future for them, they assume there couldn't possibly be any future (of value) for anyone, and start deliberately squandering the lives and livelihoods of future generations.
Examples:
Imperial Japan's push for "Ichiogu Gyokusai" (100M shattered jewels, or national self-anihilation), including the suicide attacks the west calls "kamizake"
Nazi Germany's Volkssturm, forcing child soldiers as young as 12 to fight, and the "Nero-Befehl" to leave no infrastructure for any Germans left alive after the war
Be prepared for similar scorched-earth policies if some of the world's current authoritarians start losing their grip on power.
A Restrung Guitar is a Happy Guitar
or
How to Make Your instrument Sound $5,000 Better with a $25 Set of New Strings
Reminder to self: don't wait so long next time.
"It never did ME any harm…"
Yep, and 5 out of 6 players survive a round of Russian Roulette.
Humans suck at understanding risk. We fear things that are highly improbable (terrorist attack, airliner crash) but are blasé about things that put us in real danger (climbing a stepladder, driving a car on the highway).
The legend: the average lifespan of a British or Empire infantry subaltern (junior officer) on the Western Front in WW1 was 6 weeks.
The reality: 75–80% of subalterns survived the war. 6 weeks was the maximum period the British calculated they could leave a subaltern on the front line during an offensive safely before rotating them out.
A 20–25% mortality rate is horrific by itself; no need to exaggerate.
Head-to-head comparison videos are the hobgoblin of small minds.