The most recent proximate shaping events in Russian foreign policy are an increasingly aggressive posture towards Europe coinciding with the modernization of the Russian military starting in 2008, and the annexation of Crimea and Ukraine in 2014. In combination with a basic understanding of Syria’s importance in Russian foreign policy, […]
Disinformation is defined in terms of its relationship to the truth. Disinformation, or “false information intended to mislead”, is most commonly assumed to be limited to only factually false statements with a specific intent to mislead. Manipulative statements using factually true bases, “twistings” of facts to serve one narrative or […]
“Even if I doubt the existence of everything, I know that I am doubting.” - Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy We live in an age when the pace of development in technologies of inculcation have fundamentally outstripped technologies of doubt. The most basic technology of doubt, research - through open-source […]
We have this idea that there’s some back and forth, a linear, two-dimensional structure between left and right in our country, and it’s along this dimension that a redress of the national crisis of Trumpism needs to be applied. This is nearly useless in terms of providing a pathway to […]
SEARCH QUERY: professor dog ANSWER: Wow. So it’s a thing. SEARCH QUERY: do nose piercings hurtANSWER: No, they feel like unicorns and ice cream. That’s the reason why so many smart people who make good decisions have nose piercings. SEARCH QUERY: happy brithday quotes to a man you like ANSWER: […]
After listening to talks by a number of field-leading visual designers and data scientists over the past month and being “that one irritating guy in the audience asking questions”, I’ve noticed something strange: Mention machine data, big data, IoT or any other trendy tech topic and their eyes will glaze […]
The first computer I ever used was an 80286 with a 5 megabyte hard disk and an EGA card. It ran on MS-DOS 4.0 then later 5.1. Today, I use a two-generation-old iPhone 4S. It has orders of magnitude more power and connectivity than the first computer I ever used […]
The traditional labels of “liberal” and “conservative” apply only haphazardly to the actual beliefs and ideological systems held by most Americans today. I propose a new explanatory dichotomy based on mass individual emotional responses converging on two identifiable and well-formed collective ideological trends. Americans today live in an age when […]
I’ve been playing FPS games for better than 15 years now and learning the craft of rifle and handgun shooting for the past four or so, and one thing that has always annoyed me has been scope reticles. Recently, having some time playing Call of Duty: Ghosts has made me […]
“Don’t listen to people who tell you that life is short and that you should do something reckless. You know better. Life is only short when you’re in agony. Otherwise, life is very damn long.” - Daniel Goldstine, psychotherapist and author Let’s start with Karl von Clausewitz. Here’s a picture, […]