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Hey folks! Fireside this week! Last week’s post was a monster (over 10,000 words compared to our more typically ~6,000) which left me with some non-blog catching up to do. Next week, we’ll be starting our next Teaching Paradox series, this time looking at Hearts of Iron IV, which has been requested for quite some … Continue reading Fireside Friday, September 4, 2026 →
This is the first half of the final part (I, IIa, IIb, III, IVa, IVb, Va) of our apparently five-part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are organized, in particular exploring the principle that armies cannot help but recreate their civilian social structures on the battlefield. Last time we looked at … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part Va: Putting It Together →
Hello again all. It is once again the week of July 4th and so, as is customary here, I am going to use this week’s post to talk about the United States. This is going to be a bit more of an open musing than an argument as compared to previous years (2021, 2022, 2023, … Continue reading Collections: On the Declaration of Independence →
This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems tend to map on to societies, both because such general historical frameworks are handy for thinking about the past, but … Continue reading Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight →
More in history
I was going to start with “it has been a while since we had one of these” but then I saw that the previous one started with “Wow, has it really been 7 months since I did one of these?” and that was in December 2023. Maybe I can make it a more regular thing. Anyway blogging itself has become a more regular thing of late so there is quite a lot to report just from last month. This article was written by an opaque and incomprehensible stoachastic process, namely me. . I have retracted this description.In 2007 I described Naomi Wolf as “very smart” now mentions that "Johnny Doc” was released from prison on the orders of Donald J. Trump.My article from January about crooked policitians and crab cakes In 2022 I published , which ended with “This article, which I wrote at 3:00 in the morning, is filled with many errors, including some that I would not have made if it had been daytime. Please disbelieve what you have read, and await a correction.” I have decided that it is uncorrectable, and retracted the whole thing.an article about the etymology of a purported Dutch phrase Dan Luu pointed out an important omission from .my July article following up on Steph Curry's 2015–16 crushing of the 3PFG record In 2021 I argued for . The coming of LLM technology has rendered my suggestion completely imprctical.an interesting replacement for the usual engineering interview process
Is she the canary in the coal mine
Frontier models can now produce novel historical knowledge, but in a really weird way
