The Great War
Published on 5 Mar 2018Felshtinsky, Yuri: Lenin, Trotsky, Germany and the Treaty of Brest-Ltivosk. The Collapse of the World Revolution. November 1917- November 1918, Milford 2012: http://amzn.to/2oILHmK
Swain, Geoffrey: Trotsky and the Russian Revolution. New York 2014: http://amzn.to/2CY0gqF
Swain, Geoffrey: Trotsky. Edinburgh 2006: http://amzn.to/2FoRnfb
Wolkogonow, Dimitri: Lenin. Utopie und Terror. Berlin 2017
Vladimir “Lenin” Ilyich Ulyanov and Leon Trotsky are two of the most well known communists today. But how did they meet and how did they rose to the top of the Bolshevik movement? And how did they manage to overthrow the Russian Empire? We take a look at their lives and their early days until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
March 6, 2018
Lenin & Trotsky – Their Rise To Power I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
Playboy‘s extortion attempt against Boing Boing dismissed
Back in January, I linked to the bizarre story of Playboy attempting to sue Boing Boing for the terrible crime of … linking. On the web. I’m not making this up. Thankfully, common sense finally did triumph as reported on Monday:
In January, we let you know that Playboy had sued us. On Valentine’s Day, a court tossed their ridiculous complaint out, skeptical that Playboy could even amend it. Playboy didn’t bother to try.
We are grateful this is over. We are grateful for the wonderful work of the EFF, Durie Tangri, and Blurry Edge, our brilliant attorneys who stood up to Playboy‘s misguided and imaginary claims. We are glad the court quickly saw right through them.
Playboy damaged our business. This lawsuit cost our small team of journalists, artists and creators time and money that would otherwise have been focused on Boing Boing‘s continued mission to share wonderful things.
Winning a Trade War Isn’t “Easy”… It’s Impossible!
Foundation for Economic Education
Published on 5 Mar 2018Trump wants to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum? Bad idea. We’ve been down this road before. Trade wars are short-sighted and economically destructive.
Ever wondered what caused the Great Depression? Check out this free eBook (available in mobi, epub, PDF, and audiobook formats!) by Larry Reed, “Great Myths of the Great Depression:”
https://fee.org/resources/great-myths-of-the-great-depression/
Real estate reality may finally be changing minds in Silicon Valley
I’ve never lived in Silicon Valley, and my one vist there was over 25 years ago — but even then, I thought the real estate market was far higher than it should have been. The sale of a tiny house in Sunnyvale (for $2 million or $2,358 per square foot) is symbolic of real estate values all around the area, as the stories get told of new employees living in their cars because even on six-figure salaries, they can’t afford to buy or even rent near where they work. Iowahawk linked to a New York Times article which shows that some movers and shakers acknowledge that Silicon Valley has a serious problem:
Silicon Valley execs devise strategy to solve Silicon Valley affordable housing crisis: GTFO of Silicon Valleyhttps://t.co/MlRDfqJWbD
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
If there was ever an industry that had no reason to be concentrated in one geographic location, it's software tech.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
In 95% of the American landmass, this is a $75,000 house. (ht @rdmcghee)https://t.co/sv8pwNS0g1
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
I mean, I can kind of understand expensive housing in NY or SF, but Silicon Valley? It has all the excitement of Dubuque, at Monaco prices
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
"I'm only 1 hour from the mountains and beaches!" – Silicon Valley drone coding at 2 AM to pay his $2 million house trailer mortgage
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2018
Cannon loading in the eighteenth century
Lindybeige
Published on 24 Sep 2015In Fort Rinella. Kalkara, Malta, every day, they put on a show of loading and firing cannons, and members of the public are invited (for a fee) to fire them off.
The cannon shown are eighteenth century barrels mounted on more modern carriages. The uniforms worn by the crew do not match those worn by eighteenth century artillerymen, but these same men were just minutes before performing a Victorian infantry drill, and are still dressed for that.
The loading process shown here is not complete, because it lacks the vital stage of ramming in the ball and wadding. The carriages each have a stopper behind them, securely fixed down into the ground, so that they do not recoil backwards dangerously, and since no heavy ball is being fired, there is not nearly so much recoil as there would be in a battle.
See also: http://www.fortrinella.com
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
QotD: Baseball versus modern art
By now I hope the problems here are obvious. Hessenius notes at the linked essay that “The heart of the sports complex support over the past fifty years has been the farm team system,” and that the arts have lessons to learn from that fact. I can only speak for visual art, but there the continuity between the creative acts we engaged in as children and what goes on in the lofty regions of the professional world, by design, have little or nothing to do with each other. A painter I know in grad school — someone deeply thoughtful about materials and surfaces — was told by his department head a couple of months ago that she thought it was important to transcend the romantic idea of the artist working alone in his studio and contemplate how to become a better global citizen. Art that succeeds in doing this sort of thing, or appearing to do this sort of thing, wins praise for raising serious questions about this issue or that one.
Baseball hasn’t spent a hundred years smashing its own conventions. Baseball players don’t endeavor to turn hitting into a critique of late capitalism. Baseball doesn’t call upon fans to comprehend discussion full of coinages by PhD students trying to impress their dissertation committees, or implicitly punish them for having bourgeois values. Audiences instinctively and rightly hate this kind of pretentiousness.
Franklin Einspruch, “Why Sports Are Surging But the Arts Are Not”, Artblog.net, 2016-07-15.
