Signore Galilei

Backstory time: there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to maps without New Zealand.  It’s an unfortunately large category.  Most maps are like this one from the 404 page of New Zealand’s government: Years ago, someone made a joke post that was just a map of the United States of America, which is therefore a map without…

For some of us, our Roman Empire actually is the Roman Empire. As far as pre-modern states go, the Roman Empire was incredibly powerful, culturally influential, and well documented. Rome’s expansion shaped Europe, and Europe’s shaped the world. So when did the Romans stop being a thing? Definitions are as always tough, but they kind…

Picture this: the world’s top scientists are all telling the US government that a brand new technology is an existential threat to humanity. The president listens, and even agrees. The American government, currently a few years ahead of its rivals, proposes a plan at the United Nations that would place this technology under international authority…

Sometimes, very serious episodes in history sound incredibly silly. Such is the case with the British war against Kandy. Though it may sound like an ill-conceived health campaign, this was not a war on “candy” as in sweets, but rather “Kandy” as in the kingdom in modern Sri Lanka, around the year 1800. Sri Lanka…

Alexander Graham Bell is widely credited with inventing the telephone, in 1876. It’s not entirely undisputed: Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci, and Johann Philipp Reis each also have a decent claim as well, but Bell’s name is the one we most associate with the invention that lets us send a voice through a wire. So what…

Christopher Columbus didn’t navigate by the North Star. At least, not directly. Columbus is a controversial figure from a modern perspective, and he undeniably made many mistakes. But this wasn’t one of them. Mariners sailing for Spain and Portugal in the 1490s just didn’t use the North Star as true north. Because back then, it…

December 7th, 1941: a date that will live in infamy, though not exclusively for the reason you think. Imperial Japan didn’t just attack Pearl Harbor on the first day of the Pacific War. It was part of a coordinated assault across the Pacific. The Japanese bombed American territories in the Philippines, Midway, Wake Island, and…

On the entire opposite side of the planet from England, in the jungles of Northeastern Australia, the Mbabaram people independently invented the word “dog” for our canine companions by sheer linguistic coincidence.

You might know about sticky rice. It’s pretty popular in Asian cuisines, often used in desserts and specialty dishes. It’s sometimes called “glutinous rice”, but it doesn’t actually contain gluten. Instead, it’s sticky because of the chemistry of its starch. Sticky rice starch is almost 100% made of the gluey carbohydrate amylopectin, while the regular…

Inkhaven 2 is awesome, but notably different than Inkhaven 1. Everyone’s louder and a bit less rationalist and posting closer to the deadline. Also there are too many meta posts. (And now there’s one more. Whoops.) Mingyuan (from cohort 1, like me) has a good post about the differences between the Inkhavens and their causes.…