-
The metal that remade time
Elon Musk says “The best part is no part”. Elon Musk says a lot of things, but there are definitely times in history when this principle shines. The best example I’ve heard is the story of Charles-Édouard Guillaume, winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize for inventing the alloy Invar…
-
Factorio is a zombie shooter for nerds
Left 4 Dead 2 is a 2009 game where you shoot zombies. It’s very popular, owned by maybe 60 million people. It’s also…
-
When the heck did Hammurabi actually rule?
Hammurabi was the king of Babylon. He reigned about 3800 years ago in Mesopotamia, in what’s now Iraq. You may have heard of his code of laws. I say “about” 3800 years ago because there are several possibilities for exactly when he reigned. Right now, the leading…
-
I ate bear fat, to prove a point
Eliezer Yudkowsky did not exactly suggest that you should eat bear fat covered with honey and sprinkled with salt flakes. What he actually said was that an alien, looking from the outside at evolution, would predict that you would…
-
A formula for round numbers
A “round number” is a number that you’d round something off to. For example, 100 is very round: it’s intuitive to say that 98 or 103 are both about 100. 17 is not round: if you knew there are 18 people in a room, saying that there are “about 17” is more confusing, not less.…
-
Ahoy Ahoy, Mound!
This blog is for Inkhaven. Inkhaven is a 30-day blogging extravaganza where I and several other writers will each be posting every day for the entire month of November 2025…
Signore Galilei
Let's Explore!