Extra Credits
Published on 21 Aug 2018From Aldous Huxley to Philip K. Dick, early references to virtual reality simulations abound in science fiction literature, and tremendously impacted consumer anticipation for VR technology available in the modern day. Many thanks to Oculus Rift for sponsoring the next two episodes of Extra Sci Fi and giving us a chance to explore our collective definition of virtual reality.
August 22, 2018
The History of Virtual Reality – A New Place to Call Home – Extra Sci Fi – #1
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The 10 Worst British Military Aircraft
Hush Kit
Published on 5 Feb 2018Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/hush_kit
PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/HushKit
Blog – https://hushkit.net/
If you want something done slowly, expensively and possibly very well, you go to the British. While Britain created the immortal Spitfire, Lancaster and Edgley Optica, it also created a wealth of dangerous, disgraceful and diabolical designs. These are just ten plucked from a shortlist of thirty. In defining ‘worst’- we’ve looked for one, or a combination, of the following: design flaws, conceptual mistakes, being extremely dangerous, being unpleasant to fly, or obsolete at the point of service entry (and the type must have entered service). Grab a cup of tea, and prepare for ire as you read about ten machines they wanted your dad, grandad or great grandad to fly to war. I’d love to hear your opinions below. The original article can be found here: https://hushkit.net/2016/03/02/the-te…
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QotD: Corruption
People do not oppose corruption in politics and government. They oppose only the corruption that does not steer loot and social domination to them. After all, the entire process of so-called democratic government is nothing but corruption writ large and backed by the threat of violent force.
Robert Higgs, “Political and Governmental Corruption Is a Feature, Not a Bug”, The Beacon, 2016-11-04.
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August 21, 2018
Creating An American Army – John J. Pershing I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 20 Aug 2018Check Out Desert Operations: https://desertoperations.gamigo.com/
John Pershing already had a long career in in the US forces when World War 1 broke out. When 1917 came around he was tasked with the monumental challenge of creating and expanding the American Expeditionary Forces and send them over to Europe.
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Celebrity chef accused of cultural appropriation
Tim Worstall explains why, despite jerk chicken being something like the national dish of Jamaica, accusing Jamie Oliver of culturally appropriating it makes no sense whatsoever:
Well, here’s a recipe for that jerk chicken which does seem to be close to being the Jamaican national dish.
Ingredients
8 -10 pieces of legs and thighs
1 lemon/lime
Salt and pepper to season
½ tablespoon cinnamon powder
1 sprig of fresh thyme
3 medium scallions (green onions) chopped
1 medium onion coarsely chopped
2-4 habanero pepper chopped
1 1/2 tablespoon Maggi or soy sauce
1 tablespoon bouillon powder optional
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
6 garlic cloves chopped
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon allspice coarsely ground
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger chopped
1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepperAs far as I can tell those ingredients coming from, in order – the chicken, SE Asia via land cultural exchange to Europe and then the Americas by the Portuguese and Spanish. Sure, some evidence of Polynesian delivery but on West Coast only. The lemon, SE Asia, salt everywhere, pepper India or perhaps Indonesia. Cinnamon, SE Asia but introduction to European thus Caribbean cuisines through Ancient Egypt and thus into Greece. Thyme, the Levant and Ancient Egypt, scallions at least as far back as Ashkelon and further east than that. Onions, definitely Eurasian, habaneros definitively Latin American. Soy sauce, think we’ll allow Nippon to claim that, maybe China. Bouillon powder, industrial civilisation somewhere. Sugar, Indian subcontinent, garlic central Asia we think. Nutmeg and allspice the Spice Islands, now Indonesia. Ginger, South and SE Asia.
So, someone who makes this is accusing us of cultural appropriation if we make it?
Oh Aye?
All of which is, of course, to misunderstand the basic point about human beings. We’re apes, ones with a special and remarkable talent. We’ve this readin’ an’ writin’ stuff meaning that when we spot something that works we’re able to tell other people about it. In a manner rather more efficient than just teaching junior to do what we’ve learned to do. This is the secret of our success. That things once learned can be passed onto millions, billions, of other people. If we had to go reinvent the wheel each generation then we’d not all be rolling around in cars now, would we?
The very essence of our being the successful tool using species we are is that we copy. Appropriate that is. So insistences that we don’t “culturally” appropriate are demands that we stop being us, stop being human. Well, you know, good luck with that, however delightful the concept of cultural appropriation is as a method of having something else to shout about.
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The StuG III – Germany’s deadliest AFV
Lindybeige
Published on 31 Jul 2018At Bovington Tankfest, there were three Stug III assault guns for me to have a look at. Naturally, I looked at all three.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeThanks to The Tank Museum at Bovington for the invitation.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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QotD: Coffee
It occurred to me this morning that coffee is like Viagra for the brain. After you drink coffee, your brain may still be small and ineffective, but at least it will function.
Steve H., “Coffee: Viagra for the Flaccid Brain”, Hog On Ice, 2005-01-12.
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August 20, 2018
1918 Flu Pandemic – Lies – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 18 Aug 2018Series writer Rob Rath is here to tell us about all the moving pieces and complex storylines he researched to write our Flu Pandemic episodes.
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The Opium War
In Quillette, Jeffrey Chen reviews Song-Chuan Chen’s Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War:
The war had a name even before its first shot. The first recorded use of the moniker, the ‘Opium War,’ was in an 1839 piece in the London Morning Herald; within months it would be echoed across the benches of Parliament and across the carronades of the fleet sent to punish the Chinese crackdown on British trade.
The war’s nomenclature revealed from the beginning the multivalent views the British public held towards the war: it was at once the “unjust and iniquitous” Opium War — to use Gladstone’s well-known phrase — as well as the patriotic ‘China War,’ as its proponents wanted it to be called. The historiography of the war is similarly divided among varied lines. Some see the war as reflective of China’s failure to catch up to Western technologies; others emphasize the British desire to avenge their slighted national honour as the prime motive for the conflict. A wide array of scholars have placed a central focus on the role of opium, while some prefer to see the war in the context of imperial and economic expansion. Song-Chuan Chen’s Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War is a worthy addition to these voices.
Chen’s portrait of the Opium War places the role of British traders and their lobbying efforts in the foreground by arguing that it was British knowledge of China, as transmitted via the merchant class, that contributed to the ‘making’ (in the sense of both manufacture and execution) of the war. Chen asserts that it was the decade-long campaign of bellicose editorials and pamphlets on the part of the Canton merchant intelligentsia, as well as an accumulation of knowledge on the details of China’s coastal defences and overall military strength, that made it possible for Britain to both conceive of and win the war. The book casts, as its main actors, the ‘Warlike Party,’ a group of British merchants in Canton who lobbied for military intervention to expand the Canton System of trade, and the ‘Pacific Party,’ who opposed the war and criticised the diffusion of opium as an illicit and immoral drug. By narrowing his focus towards the production of knowledge, Chen also elevates the importance of language. A chapter of the book is devoted to a summary of the ‘Barbarian’ controversy – the disagreements and narratives spun around the British choice in translating the Chinese character 夷 (Yí) as ‘Barbarian,’ rather than ‘Foreigner.’
Chen’s account is thus of a battle as much between China and Britain as an internal conflict within the British public sphere. Though Chen is careful to nuance his depiction of the war by overlaying the many causal factors detailed by existing scholarship, his book makes two main arguments, which, in the words of the author, are new to the field: firstly, that the decisive factor in the war’s escalation was due to the machinations of the Warlike Party; and secondly, that the Canton System represented a ‘soft border’ through which the British were able to secure intelligence on the Qing state, without a reciprocal exchange of knowledge.
Written in engaging, lucid prose that presents its ideas clearly, if repetitively, Chen’s monograph is studded with riveting selections of his primary source research, drawn from the National Archives, UK, the First Historical Archives of China, the National Palace Museum, the British Library, SOAS Library, and Cambridge’s Jardine & Matheson archive. These quotations are often reproduced at generous length from the Warlike Party’s Canton Register and the Pacific Party’s Canton Press, and they provide a revealing account of the vigorous rhetorical strategies employed by the two camps.
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Causes of Inflation
Marginal Revolution University
Published on 24 Jan 2017In the last video, we learned the quantity theory of money and its corresponding identity equation: M x V = P x Y
For a quick refresher:
•M is the money supply.
•V is the velocity of money.
•P is the price level.
•And Y is the real GDP.
In this video, we’re rewriting the equation slightly to divide both sides by Y and explore the causes behind inflation. What we discover is that a change in P has three possible causes – changes in M, V, or Y.
You probably know that prices can change a lot, even over a short period of time.
Y, or real GDP, tends to change rather slowly. Even a seemingly small jump or fall in Y, such as 10% in a year, would signal astonishing economic growth or a great depression. Y probably isn’t our usual culprit for inflation.
V, or the velocity of money, also tends to be rather stable for an economy. The average dollar in the United States has a velocity of about 7. That may fall or rise slightly, but not enough to influence prices.
That leaves us with M. Changes in the money supply are the driving factor behind inflation. Put simply, when more money chases the same amount of goods and services, prices must rise.
Can we put this theory to the test? Let’s look at some real-world examples and see if the quantity theory of money holds up.
In Peru in 1990, hyperinflation came into full swing. If we track the growth rate of the money supply to the growth rate of prices, we can see that they align almost perfectly on a graph with both clocking in around 6,000% that year.
If we plot the growth rates of the money supply along with the growth rates of prices for a many countries over a long stretch of time, we can see the same relationship.
We’ll wrap-up the causes of inflation with three principles to keep in mind as we continue exploring this topic:
•Money is neutral in the long run: a doubling of the money supply will eventually mean a doubling of the price level.
•“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomena.” – Milton Friedman
•Central banks have significant control over a nation’s money supply and inflation rate.
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QotD: Economic refugees wanting to re-create the hell they just escaped from
I can’t tell you now many people I know here in Arizona that tell horror stories about California and how they had to get out, and then, almost in the same breath, complain that the only problem with Arizona is that it does not have all the laws in place that made California unlivable in the first place. They will say, for example, they left California for Arizona because homes here are so much more affordable, and then complain that Phoenix doesn’t have tight enough zoning, or has no open space requirements, or has no affordability set-asides, or whatever. I am amazed by how many otherwise smart people cannot make connections between policy choices and outcomes, preferring instead to judge regulatory decisions solely on their stated intentions, rather than their actual effects.
Warren Meyer, “When You Come Here, Please Don’t Vote for the Same Sh*t That Ruined the Place You Are Leaving”, Coyote Blog, 2016-11-02.
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August 19, 2018
Jacksonville Jaguars 14, Minnesota 10
The second preseason game for the Vikings had Jacksonville visiting US Bank stadium, after a week with two joint practices between the teams. Based on the play of the game, one thing the Jaguars didn’t show during the practice sessions was any kind of screen game, because it was the only thing that seemed to work for them … and it was like the Vikings had never seen such black sorcery before.
In all, a low-scoring game with far too much input from the referee and his crew that neither team can really be proud of. Disturbingly, there were several injuries for the Vikings — especially along the already suspect offensive line, where four of the five projected starters weren’t in the game. Judd Zulgad confirms that quarterback Kirk Cousins and the first team offence still have a lot of work to do to be ready for the regular season:
Kirk Cousins and the Vikings’ first-team offense could not have looked better than they did in the preseason opener last week in Denver. Cousins connected on all four of his pass attempts for 42 yards, completing his only series with a 1-yard touchdown strike to Stefon Diggs.
That was exactly what the Vikings wanted to see from their $84 million quarterback.
Cousins’ second preseason go-around, which came Saturday in his home debut at U.S. Bank Stadium, wasn’t nearly as smooth. After having some struggles in a couple of joint practices against Jacksonville this week, Cousins and Co., put on a sloppy performance in a 14-10 loss the Jaguars.
“I think he can play a lot better,” coach Mike Zimmer said when asked about Cousins.
Cousins completed only 3-of-8 passes for 12 yards in a four-series outing that extended into the second quarter and also saw the Vikings go 0-for-3 on third down en route to a dreadful 0-for-12 performance overall. The Vikings have two exhibition games before the Sept. 9 regular-season opener against San Francisco. Considering starters almost never play in the preseason finale, Cousins really only has one game in which to get work.
That means Zimmer and first-year offensive coordinator John DeFilippo are going to want to see far more from the first-team on Friday when the Vikings play host to Seattle.
Christopher Gates reports on the sloppy, injury-filled, overly penalized game for the Daily Norseman:
The game featured 20 penalties, with 13 of them being called on Jacksonville for 140 yards. the Vikings were penalized seven times for 60 yards.
The big story for the Vikings is that it appears that they’ve lost three players for the season with serious leg injuries. Rookie defensive end Ade Aruna appeared to suffer a serious right knee injury in the first half that resulted in him being carted off the field. After that, reserve offensive lineman Cedrick Lang was also carted off with an air cast on his right leg in the fourth quarter. Reserve fullback Johnny Stanton also needed to be carted off the field late in the fourth quarter as well. When we have updates on those injuries, we will bring them to you.
The Vikings fall to 1-1 on the preseason, and will host the Seattle Seahawks in the All-Important Third Preseason Game™ on Friday night at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Jaguars raise their preseason mark to 1-1, and will host the Atlanta Falcons next Saturday in Jacksonville.
We’ll have plenty of discussion of this game over the next day or two, ladies and gentlemen, but sufficient to say that the Minnesota Vikings did not look nearly as impressive in their second preseason game as they did in their first one. They fall to the Jacksonville Jaguars by a final score of 14-10, and now have some injury issues to deal with.
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Recruits from Alsace – Angel of Siberia I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 18 Aug 2018Next to the Chair of Wisdom, Indy Neidell talks about how the German Army dealt with recruits from Alsace-Lorraine and how Elsa Brändström became the Angel of Siberia to many prisoners of war.
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