Quotulatiousness

April 23, 2018

The Empire of Mali – An Empire of Trade and Faith – Extra History – #2

Filed under: Africa, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published on 21 Apr 2018

Seeking a meeting with the emperor of the Mali Empire, a man named Ibn Battutah journeyed across the perilous Sahara sands to discover Mali’s gold… instead, he found out how Mali blended its Islamic and African cultures.

Yggdrasil – Nine Worlds of the Norse – Extra Mythology

Filed under: Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 20 Apr 2018

Sponsored by God of War! http://bit.ly/2FBqVPH

Everything, from the giants’ home of Jotunheim, to the primeval Vanaheim, to the mortal realm of Midgard, is connected by the tree named Yggdrasil, life to all nine worlds of Norse peoples.

Finland’s basic income plan coming to an end

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Karin Olli-Nilsson on the Finnish government’s decision to move away from further basic income experimentation:

Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month – and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25–58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland’s social-security institution.

Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560, or $690, per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.

While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction.

”Right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income,” Kela researcher Miska Simanainen told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

The initial plan was for the experiment to be expanded in early 2018 to include workers as well as non-workers early in 2018, but that did not happen – to the disappointment of researchers at Kela. Without workers in the project, researchers are unable to study whether basic income would allow people to make new career moves, or enter training or education.

[…]

No official results of Finland’s basic income experiment will be published until 2019, after the pilot has come to an end.

Tank Chats #28 Char B-1 Bis | The Tank Museum

Filed under: France, History, Military, Technology, WW2 — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published on 3 Nov 2016

A French heavy tank from 1940.

In its day the Char B was regarded as one of the most powerful tanks in the world, yet still had many features which harked back to the First World War. The Char B was issued to tank battalions in armoured divisions and saw extensive combat in the summer of 1940.

Of the 365 Char B-1 bis built, large numbers were captured intact by the Germans in France in 1940. Those tanks that survived were later incorporated into the German Army and modified in various ways.

http://www.tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1951-40

QotD: The knife

Filed under: Humour, Quotations, Technology, Tools — Nicholas @ 01:00

A simple edged tool is likely to be the human ur-tool, especially as tool-using hominids moved farther away from sources of flint or obsidian. IMO, any adult human — and most children past a certain degree of maturity — ought to carry a knife. Otherwise you’re just a chimp with a haircut.

Roberta X. “My Kershaw! My Kershaw!”, The Adventures of Roberta X, 2016-08-17.

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