Stares at the World

Tagged: Technology

3

Society

The Stupid Party and the Evil Party

We’ve all been reflecting on the state of political discourse in our nations of late, and this post by Bionic Mosquito about the Spanish Civil War seems particularly poignant. I’m hoping it doesn’t get that bad, but just in case it does, this post from Aidan MacLear is worth pondering. As for me, what stands out about the past couple centuries is the left-right paradigm which seems to be at the heart of every political struggle. In previous centuries we saw plenty of civil wars and revolutions, but to translate, say, the Blues versus the Greens in Constantinople requires a...

13

Philosophy

Hard Limits and Electric Cars

Heroism and tragedy, death and vanity – they’re two sides of the same coin. In this world, we are often at our greatest when we are at our most foolish.

Low Maintenance Troop 0

Philosophy

Low Maintenance Troop

A long time ago, in another lifetime perhaps, I remember being tasked with the Leading of Young Soldiers.  Hard work, dedication, discipline; all of those were important parts of the military ethos which I tried to instill in them.  But above all of them, more important by far, I wanted each and every one of them to be a Low Maintenance Troop. There’s an old saying in the army: “Solve it at the lowest level!” It’s usually offered up as a rebuke to some hapless Private, who in terror of all things brass just asked his section commander whether he...