Best I’ve found in the US are Glerups

An iOS front end app for piefed

It renders in Obsidian but not Blorp

https://www.markdownguide.org/cheat-sheet/

==Important text == can be highlighted. I actually didn’t know about this one

Here’s a sentence with a footnote. ^[1]

That’s my main use for LLMs

• I write the code logic, the main argument points, etc
• let the LLM lint, format and structure the discussion
• I provide another round of copy editing, styling and other updates

Huh. TIL Slavic languages don’t have a definite article.

So it’s this grammatical mess of Germanic definite articles attached to a Slavic word and the outcome is politically fraught

The Ukrainian embassy says that The Ukraine is both grammatically and politically incorrect. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Similar for The Ukraine which means “the frontier” in Russian and evokes the history of Muscovite imperialism over their frontier states

Not that interesting of an origin story. Just an old stock comment from the early 2000s that lives on

300 feet of Cat6 is within spec. Trench to 18”, put in conduit, terminate in a NEMA box and you should be good

Fiber is finicky for an average person to manage. Honestly I’d rather run coax before fiber, especially if it’s not a high demand area

At what point does John Roberts grow a sense of decency?

I had an issue with the fans on mine. Went through steam support for some troubling steps and eventually had to send it in for repair.

~$160 for the repair, but issue is resolved.

I had a binder full of moves for my level 8 barbarian.

If you really enjoyed the nuance of spin in a circle with two one-handed weapons as a distinct Action from `swing one weapon really hard in a circle” it was a great system.

If you just want to play role playing game with some combat, it was a terrible system

Clothes line in the bathroom or balcony or fire escape or outside.

You can also get upright racks to hang on that can be put away when not in use

We can make an argument about net expenditures.

Is the US carrying too much of the burden? If that is true AND the US wants to reduce its spending, then other nations need to increase theirs to keep the net expenditure close to before.

Let’s hand wave discussions on waste in procurement (a big issue for the US DOD). Same as we’ll hand wave the veteran benefits portion of expenditures.

If we don’t see that commensurate expenditure, then what becomes of the NATO security guarantee?

We can’t be naive enough to expect all adversaries to make similar reductions in their military spending.

I second looking at prize lists. I read the Booker Prize longlist every year. They’re not always my favorite, but I like to consume what makes the list.

You can also check out book lists from more respected sources than “the most popular books on Amazon”. New York Review of Books is a source. Or the NYT/WaPo book reviews.

A selection of my favorite books

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (literary fiction): Two friends build a hit video game together, exploring love, creativity, and the blurry line between life and play over decades of partnership.
2. Gnomon by Nick Harkaway (science fiction, speculative): A dazzling labyrinth of nested narratives in a near-future surveillance state where truth, memory, and identity intertwine through a mysterious death investigation.
3. Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez (horror, literary gothic): A grieving father with occult ties and his son flee an Argentine cult seeking immortality, blending family drama with cosmic horror and political dread.
4. **Same Bed, Different Dreams by Ed Park ** (literary fiction, speculative history): A kaleidoscopic alternate history of Korea, identity, and diaspora, mixing espionage, pop culture, and myth into an ambitious, surreal tapestry.
5. The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (speculative fiction): In a valley where neighboring towns exist decades apart in time, a young clerk faces a moral dilemma that could alter her fate and those she loves.
6. You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue (historical fiction, magical realism): A lush reimagining of the 1519 meeting between Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma, merging myth, power, and the surreal chaos of first contact.
7. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantasy, philosophical fiction): A man named Piranesi inhabits a vast, mysterious house filled with endless halls and statues, slowly uncovering secrets about reality and himself.
8. The River by Peter Heller (literary thriller, adventure): Two college friends on a canoe trip through the Canadian wilderness face a deadly wildfire and a sinister encounter that tests their bond and survival.
9. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (post-apocalyptic fiction): After a flu pandemic, a pilot and his dog live in isolation near an airfield until a radio signal hints at other survivors — and the risk of hope.
10. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher (horror, dark fantasy): Cleaning her late grandmother’s house, a woman discovers a nightmarish manuscript and a terrifying world lurking just beyond the edge of reality.

Looking at just combatant deaths:

Now look at combatants and civilians:

So now let’s look at the Vietnam war and military expenditure for each side:

Interpretation:

• North Vietnam traded manpower for resources, accepting high losses.
• The U.S. used capital- and technology-intensive warfare.
• Despite enormous expenditure, asymmetric strategy and morale offset the imbalance.

Tie it all together… in total war against a near peer, casualty rates are significantly higher. 50x for the Red Army in WWII, 17x for the Wehrmacht.

In asymmetric war, casualty rates are lower overall. And total GDP expenditure is significantly lower.

I don’t want to ignore the human cost here. But we’re talking about specific quantifiable metrics here, not the emotional trauma

Please look at basically any asymmetric war in the past 75 years. E.g. Vietnam, Afghanistan (twice), Ukraine.

You do not need to spend as much on defense as your larger opponent.

I did this with an archipelago map.

Grabbed all the islands in Indonesia and the Philippines. Threw them in the photoshop blender to change orientation and position. Then had a totally unique map with islands and cities built out already

The United States provides security guarantees for most of the western world. That was the entire point of post-WWII reconstruction.

The US will provide security guarantees. Participating countries will provide free market access to their citizens.

- The Marshall Plan

The US has been in a position to overspend (proportionally) on defense due to having the strongest economy basically since WWII. Other countries are able to invest in their own economy, innovation or infrastructure without needing to spend money on defense.

Ignoring any Trump jingoism, look at NATO expenditures. These countries agreed to a certain level of spending based on their GDP so the US wasn’t the sole guarantor, but no one met their obligations for decades.