Quotulatiousness

July 19, 2020

Barbarossa: a Wehrmacht Soap Opera – WW2 – 099 – July 18 1941

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Germany, History, Middle East, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 18 Jul 2020

As the German armed forces stretch further and further into the USSR, the Wehrmacht command doesn’t seem to agree where they are really going. In the Middle East, the Fascist French forces are delivered a hard blow as the Allied Syrian campaign comes to an end.

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Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_two_realtime
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Map consultants: Rabih Rached and Patrick Adaimy

Colorizations by:
– Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization
– Cassowary Colorizations – https://www.cassowarycolor.com
– Denis Marinov from Wikimedia

Sources:
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Imperial War Museum: TR 1762
– Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0: Bild_146-1971-068-10, Bild_101I-009-0882-04, Bild_101I-209-0090-29, Bild_183-B0716-0005-002, Bild_183-B0716-0005-003, Bild_146-1974-170-23.

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

“Evolved cognition is a kludge – more properly, multiple stacks of kludges – developed under selection to be just barely adequate at coping”

Filed under: Health, Science, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

ESR considers the role of programmers who need to document their software, after a brief trip into the kludginess of human cognition:

Maybe you’re one of the tiny minority of programmers that, like me, already enjoys writing documentation and works hard at doing it right. If so,the rest of this essay is not for you and you can skip it.

Otherwise, you might want to re-read (or at least re-skim) Ground-Truth Documents before continuing. Because ground-truth documents are a special case of a more general reason why you might want to try to change your mindset about documentation.

In that earlier essay I used the term “knowledge capture” in passing. This is a term of art from AI; it refers to the process of extracting domain knowledge from the heads of human experts into a form that can be expressed as an algorithm executable by the literalistic logic of a computer.

What I invite you to think about now is how writing documentation for software you are working on can save you pain and effort by (a) capturing knowledge you have but don’t know you have, and (b) eliciting knowledge that you have not yet developed.

Humans, including me and you, are sloppy and analogical thinkers who tend to solve problems by pattern-matching against noisy data first and checking our intuitions with logic after the fact (if we actually get that far). There’s no point in protesting that it shouldn’t be that way, that we should use rigorous logic all the way down, because our brains simply aren’t wired for that. Evolved cognition is a kludge – more properly, multiple stacks of kludges – developed under selection to be just barely adequate at coping.

This kludginess is revealed by, for example, optical illusions. And by the famous 7±2 result about the very limited sized of the human working set. And the various well-documented ways that human beings are extremely bad at statistical reasoning. And in many other ways …

Black Saturday, Nuclear War on Autopilot | The Cuban Missile Crisis | Day 12

Filed under: Americas, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 18 Jul 2020

On October 27, 1962 a deal to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis is ever so close, but then almost everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. The world is left teetering on the brink, and someone has to die.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Colorizations:
– Carlos Ortega Pereira (BlauColorizations) – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
– Daniel Weiss
– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?

Sources:
From the Noun Project:
diary By Astoe
Handshake By priyanka
telegraph By Luke Anthony Firth

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Cold Eyes” – Elliot Holmes
– “Nightclub Standoff” – Elliot Holmes
– “From the Depths” – Walt Adams
– “When They Fell” – Wendel Scherer
– “Juvenile Delinquent” – Elliot Holmes
– “Kissed by Thunder” – Elliot Holmes

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
26 minutes ago
Just when everything looks OK again, the house of cards that the USSR and USA have built starts to crumble. To us in 2020 that should serve to remind us that words matter. Because that’s all it was to begin with — words like “give it to the Reds!” and “down with the Bourgeoisie!” But words easily become bluster, and bluster easily becomes action, and action is always hard to control.

Remembering the past so that we can learn from it, without ideological bias, without demagoguery, and proposing oversimplified solutions to complex problems. That is our mission here at TimeGhost Become a part of that effort by joining the TimeGhost Army at https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory or https://timeghost.tv

In some mature countries, politicians resign when caught in ethics violations … but this is Canada (by definition, an immature country)

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Chris Selley lists some of the ethical mire the Trudeau Liberals are wading through, and points out that other countries wouldn’t put up with corrupt sh!t like Canadians do:

Other countries’ prime ministers occasionally have to work at keeping their jobs. Not so much Canada’s. We look down our noses at Australia’s “leadership spills” as unconscionably chaotic, though they have ushered in a new prime minister a grand total of three times in 30 years. If only we had such chaos, PMs might at least be reminded occasionally they aren’t elected emperor in non-negotiable four-year chunks. Instead many of us blanch even at the idea of minority governance. So unstable!

Other countries’ ministers sometimes stand on points of principle, too, and not just over epochal events like the Iraq War or Brexit. Sajid Javid resigned as Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer last year after Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted on appointing Javid’s senior staff. “No self-respecting minister would accept those terms,” he said. Every Trudeau minister accepts those terms.

There is simply no culture of accountability in Ottawa — not for big stuff and not for small. When Trudeau headed off to Harrington Lake while advising everyone else to hide under the bed, it was considered gauche to complain. The National Post reported this week that Health Minister Patty Hajdu took four round trips in a government jet between Ottawa and Thunder Bay during the lockdown, and Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos was chauffeured six times to and from Quebec City. Ho hum. Another nothingburger.

OK, many conclude, so let’s at least give the Conflict of Interest Act some teeth! Some legislative dentures might be worth a try — though they’re by no means universally appreciated. When the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee reviewed the Conflict of Interest Act in 2014, some witnesses argued for doing away with financial penalties altogether, on the theory “the strongest sanctions the Commissioner has at her disposal are her moral authority and the power of condemnation.” The current maximum fine of $500 may well be the worst of both worlds: Not only does it offer no deterrent, it brings the law itself into disrepute.

[…]

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was “really sorry” about the WE debacle. But she expressed her “full confidence” in the prime minister. In other countries, it might be seen as ominous that she felt it necessary. Here, however, it’s safe to take it at face value. None of us expect much of our politicians, and that’s exactly what we get.

How To Lay Siege On A Star Fortress In The 16th and Early 17th Century | Early-Modern Warfare

Filed under: Europe, History, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

SandRhoman History
Published 29 Mar 2020

From the 14th to the 17th century, the star fortress became ever more important for siege warfare. Engineers and tacticians developed fortresses that were more elaborate and more solid than ever before. As a result, siege warfare reached an immense level of complexity. Throughout the middle ages, high and relatively thin walls were enough protection against storming ladders, siege equipment and projectiles.

But since the 14th century ever more effective firearms and artillery challenged the defensive potential of fortresses. A to and fro of military innovations began – improved fortifications countered improved gunpowder weapons and vice versa. This went on until the end of the 16th century, when according to historian Stephan Hoppe, “a successful solution to all important issues of defense had been found”. One famous type of stronghold that was crucial to this evolution was the trace italienne better known as the star fortress. It was to be found quickly all over Europe, though in a variety of forms. Historian John A. Lynn states that at the same time the number of fortified sites increased drastically, so that central European warfare shifted away from open field battles and finally revolved above all around sieges.

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#history #siege #sandrhoman

Sources:
Hoppe, S., s.v. “Festungsbau”, in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit.
Lynn, J. A., “States in Conflict 1661-1763”, in: Parker, G. (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Warfare, Cambridge 2005.
Lynn, J. A., “The trace itallienne and the Growth of Armies”, in: Rogers, C. J. (Ed.), The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Boulder / San Francisco / Oxford 1995.
Ortenburg, G., Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Landsknechte (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 1) Koblenz 1984.
Parker, G., “The Limits to Revolutions in Military Affairs: Maurice of Nassau, the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600), and the Legacy”, in The Journal of Military History, 71;2, 2007; S. 331 – 372.
Rogers, C.J. / Tallet F. (editors), European Warfare, 1350–1750, 2010.
Van Nimwegen, O., The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688.

QotD: How to raise a God-Emperor son

Filed under: Health, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

When my now-adult daughter was a child, another child once hit her on the head with a metal toy truck. I watched that same child, one year later, viciously push his younger sister backwards over a fragile glass-surfaced coffee table. His mother picked him up, immediately afterward (but not her frightened daughter), and told him in hushed tones not to do such things, while she patted him comfortingly in a manner clearly indicative of approval. She was out to produce a little God-Emperor of the Universe. That’s the unstated goal of many a mother, including many who consider themselves advocates for full gender equality. Such women will object vociferously to any command uttered by an adult male, but will trot off in seconds to make their progeny a peanut-butter sandwich if he demands it while immersed self-importantly in a video game. The future mates of such boys have every reason to hate their mothers-in-law. Respect for women? That’s for other boys, other men — not for their dear sons.

Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, 2018.

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