Pods That Don’t Encourage Sleeping!
I'm currently at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, waiting for my connecting flight to Vilnius, Lithuania where I'll be speaking at BuildStuff 2024. Upon arrival in Vilnius, I'm driving to Kaunus,…
Random Learnings #47
Czechoslovakia first came into existence at the conclusion of World War I and the collapse of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The new country immediately needed to create a working government, establish…
Random Learnings #46
"A Peasant Leaving His Landlord on Yuriev Day" by Sergei V. Ivanov I thought that Russian serfs were essentially slaves - a belief supported by many English-language references - but…
Random Learnings #45
"United Nations" by japedi is licensed under CC BY 2.0. I knew that China joined the United Nations at Taiwan's expense - China also getting the permanent seat on the…
Random Learnings #43
Lebensraum is often attributed to Hitler and the Nazis as a component of Germany's imperial and racist visions towards the east, and contributed to the Holocaust as killing the Jews…
Random Learnings #42
In an article on The Guardian, a women describes her mother's abusive boyfriend and the impact on her and her mother's life. Ultimately, her mother dies - it's unclear whether…
Random Learnings #40
The Carnegie Museum of Art is currently exhibiting the works of the German artist Beate Kuhn. I initially read a contemporary biography in German: despite my sehr schlecht school-boy Germany,…
Random Learnings #39
Karl Marx popularized - but did not create - the slogan From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs that is most often associated with communism.…
World War I Era Maps
My interest in maps - especially older maps - has grown over the past few years, and on a Monday in late February I spent a few hours in the…
Meandering Thoughts #31
During major football tournaments, the referees assigned are, for obvious reasons, are neutral. For Switzerland v. Germany, the referees are Italian. I'm currently watching Belgium v Romania in Euro 2024…