World War Two
Published 29 Jul 2021The extermination camps of Operation Reinhard are ready to start killing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto, starting the deadliest 100 days of the Holocaust.
(more…)
July 30, 2021
The 100 Deadliest Days of the Holocaust Begin… – WAH 039 – July 1942, Pt .2
Modern vs. Vintage Plane Irons. Head-To-Head Test!
Rex Krueger
Published 28 Jul 2021This traditional woodland vise gives amazing hold and will set you up for lots of outdoor projects.
More video and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger
Get the Specialty Plane Bundle! https://www.rexkrueger.com/store/spec…
(more…)
The British government reaches deep into the bag of “nudge” tricks yet again
Britain’s public health boffins have got the government agitated enough to try major incentives to encourage British shoppers to buy healthier, lower-calorie foods. Tim Worstall explains that, because those shoppers are human beings, this suite of incentives won’t do at all what Nanny expects them to do:
Now consider how it has to work. You go shopping, you present your DimbleCard and gain points for the healthiness of that shopping basket. Lettuce and carrots galore, super, free ticket to London on the choo choo.
So, where are the chocco biccies? If you buy them when presenting your card then no choo choo for you. What happens?
The lettuce and the carrots are bought on the card, the chocco biccies are not. Everyone simply does two transactions, with DimbleCard and sans. Lots of free choo choo and no change, whatsoever, in diet.
Yes, of course people will do this. For that’s what people do. Survey the landscape of incentives in front of them then maximise their utility, the outcome, in the face of them. It’s a restricted rationality, restricted by knowledge, but it is there. Everyone will fiddle the system because that’s what it is to be human. Collecting the fire from the lightning strike is fiddling the universe, that’s just what we do.
This being why so many clever schemes to encourage or deter this or that just don’t work. This being why those detailed plans for men, if not mice, gang aft into idiocy. Because we out here, hom sap, will play whatever system there is to our benefit.
No, this will not work out like supermarket loyalty cards. Yes, it’s true, most of us do use them. But the incentive is for us to do so. The more we do use them then the more discounts we gain, the better off we are, even at the cost of that data. How does this new government one work? The less we buy of certain things the better off we are. So, less of those things will be bought using the cards.
It is not possible to insist that people must use the card to buy things. Well, not unless we’re about to descend into the dystopia desired by Caroline Lucas it’s not. There might be a card reader at the point of purchase but the supermarkets will not demand that a sale can only happen when a card is read.
Therefore there will be those sales which gain points which make prizes. There will also be those DimbleCardless sales which do not gain points, or even demerits, and are done without their being registered in the system.
Imperial Roman army organization & structure
Military History Visualized
Published 16 Jan 2016Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/mhv
The Imperial Roman Army consisted of the provincial armies, the garrison in Rome and the Roman Navy.
The brunt of the forces was in the Provincial armies that were made up by the legions and their auxiliaries in total around 240k men. The Garrison in Rome was about 15k men, although few in numbers these units were the most powerful in political terms. Finally, the Navy consisted of about 45k men.
*Sources*
Le Bohec, Yann: The Imperial Roman ArmyWebster, Graham: The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D
Nemeth, Eduard; Fodorean, Florin: Römische Militärgeschichte
Fields, Nic: The Roman Army of the Principate 27 BC – AD 117
Culham, Phyllis: “Imperial Rome at War”. In: The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World
QotD: Bismarck on history
A statesman has not to make history, but if ever in the events around him he hears the sweep of the mantle of God, then he must jump up and catch at its hem.
Otto von Bismarck





