Slovensko má 5,4 milióna obyvateľov, vlastný jazyk, hymnu, menu euro a miesto v OSN. Vyzerá to ako samozrejmosť. Keď sa však pozrieme na mapu Európy z roku 1900, nenájdeme na nej nič, čo by sa volalo Slovensko. Nenájdeme ho ani na mape z roku 1500 či 1000. Nebolo kráľovstvom, kniežatstvom ani provinciou. Nemalo hranice, hlavné… Read More »Prečo Slovensko vôbec existuje?

[You Are Not So Smart] 337 Cognitive Surrender – Gideon Nave and Steven D. Shaw https://podcastaddict.com/you-are-not-so-smart/episode/221489728 via @PodcastAddict

Hoci je pravda, že „gladiátor“ je asi jedno z najtvrďáckejších povolaní hneď po „nindžovi“, „rolbárovi“ a „obsluhe kanóna na tričká“, v časoch starého Ríma to neboli len chlapi v sukničkách, čo sa pre zábavu naháňali po štadióne, a bicepsy Russella Crowa. Bola to sakramentsky tvrdá robota a už zo svojej podstaty prinášala len pramálo výhod… Read More »Spartakus – Gladiátor, ktorý dal Rímu výpoveď

“The most we know is that if you called some of these folks (but not all of them, as we’ll see) keltoi or galli, they’d say, “yeah, I guess that more or less describes me,” perhaps in the same way describe a Swiss person as ‘European’ isn’t wrong, but it also isn’t quite right.” https://acoup.blog/2023/05/12/collections-who-were-the-celts-and-how-did-they-some-of-them-fight/

You can be clever, influential AND unsuccessful. “Cleopatra was, I’d argue, at best a mediocre ruler, whose ambitious and self-interested gambles mostly failed, to the ruin of herself and her kingdom. This is not to say Cleopatra was a weak or ineffective person; she was very obviously highly intelligent, learned, a virtuoso linguist, and a… Read More »Collections: On the Reign of Cleopatra

“How we fit the world into boxes matters, because those boxes then affect our thinking and decisions on a wide range of issues. In your own view of the world, who is part of what group? How do you assign them to that, and what can you or can you not imply about them on… Read More »Meet a Historian: James Baillie on Digital Humanities and the Medieval Caucasus

This article was originally published in Slovak: Prečo je Bratislava na okraji? On the night of August 14, 1919, shortly after two in the morning, a group of barefoot men armed only with hand grenades crawled along the underside of Bratislava’s only bridge to the far bank of the Danube. They were hand-picked volunteers from… Read More »Why Is Bratislava on the Edge?

Tento článok je publikovaný aj v angličtine Why Is Bratislava on the Edge?. V noci na 14. augusta 1919, krátko po druhej hodine, sa po spodnej konštrukcii jediného bratislavského mosta plazila na druhý breh Dunaja skupina bosých mužov vyzbrojených len ručnými granátmi. Boli to vybraní dobrovoľníci zo Sokola, telocvičného spolku, z ktorého vyšla veľká časť… Read More »Prečo je Bratislava na okraji?

Biases remain. “A shared canon is not necessarily a bad thing. Newcomers reading the classics of a field is how fields are supposed to work, and search engines concentrated attention long before chatbots did. Models may also bring forgotten papers back into view. The concern is not that the canon exists, but that it is… Read More »The Septuagint Effect

Tomyris, bojovná kráľovná Massagetov zo 6. storočia pred Kristom, bola drsná ženská, ktorá síce problémy nevyhľadávala, ale vedela ich, kurva, ukončiť, keď niekto prišiel do jej kúta sveta robiť bordel. Bola tvrdá, múdra a divoká a na každý vpád na svoje územie s radosťou odpovedala tak, že votrelcov nakopala do gúľ a potom im ich… Read More »Tomyris – Kráľovná, ktorá z Kýrovej lebky pila víno

Same goes for AI usage. “Knowing the rules is one thing. Knowing which rules apply, which can be ignored, and what the consequences are for getting those things confused is a whole other bag of chips.This is the reality of working with living, breathing systems. They’re complicated, unpredictable, and rarely fail in convenient or obvious… Read More »Knowledge is not experience

Evolution might kill and save us all. [Radiolab] Antibiotic Apocalypse https://podcastaddict.com/radiolab/episode/220270965 via @PodcastAddict

This article was originally published in Slovak: Prečo je Slovensko také dlhé a úzke? In October 2021, something Slovakia had waited fifty years for finally happened: a continuous highway connected Bratislava and Košice. It just doesn’t run through Slovakia. It runs through Hungary. Why does the first highway between our two largest cities go through a… Read More »Why Is Slovakia So Long and Thin?

Tento článok je aj v angličtine: Why Is Slovakia So Long and Thin? V októbri 2021 sa konečne stalo to, na čo Slovensko čakalo päťdesiat rokov: Bratislavu a Košice spojila súvislá diaľnica. Len nevedie cez Slovensko. Vedie cez Maďarsko. Prečo prvá diaľnica medzi našimi dvoma najväčšími mestami vedie cez susedný štát? Prečo má Slovensko 428… Read More »Prečo je Slovensko také dlhé a úzke?

Was little ice age caused by colonization? [In Our Time] The Columbian Exchange https://podcastaddict.com/in-our-time/episode/220152466 via @PodcastAddict

Why are we getting fat? “Our great-grandparents (and the French) were able to maintain these weights effortlessly. They weren’t all on weird starvation diets or crazy fasting routines. And while they probably exercised more on average than we do, the minor difference in exercise isn’t enough to explain the enormous difference in weight. “ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-part-i-mysteries/

Think about what your LLM knows and provide the rest.

Easiest stuff is almost always the hardest.

Similar applies to our mental models (maps).

Almost anything you will do with enough effort will sooner or later bring fulfillment. Minimal interest into the task or topic at the start is usually enouhg.

Very short version after Europeans.

Crazy.

Seems like witchcraft. “The H.264 video, 300 frames long is 175KB. A single frame of that video in PNG is 1015KB.” https://sidbala.com/h-264-is-magic/

Even nowadays any gold coin has no useful value for day to day stuff. “functionally no one used gold in any amount in every-day transactions in the ancient or medieval Mediterranean (or most other places!), because a gold coin at almost any size was such an enormous monetary unit as to be unsuited to most… Read More »Collections: Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’

Most of economy is like this nowadays. “We’re used to the monetized form of this system, where the state pays those non-subsistence laborers, who can then buy their subsistence needs from the broader civilian economy (the loop then generally being completed with those civilians use that money to pay their taxes). But as we’ll see,… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It

Môžete si nechať svojich zženštilých elfov, ohraných orkov, šialené, kurva, nepochopiteľné kúzla s cestovaním v čase a celé to „high fantasy“ ošahávanie zadkov. Podľa mňa nič neprekoná pôvodného gangstera medzi barbarskými zmrdmi – Conana Barbara, nakopávača rití. A nie, nehovorím o tých Schwarzeneggerových filmoch z osemdesiatych rokov, v ktorých Arnold dal päsťou do tváre hipisákovi… Read More »Conan z Cimmerie – Najtvrdší barbar všetkých čias

Probably not how you think.

Pred Hanom Solom. Pred poručíkom Starbuckom, kapitánom Kirkom a Flashom Gordonom. Ešte pred Buckom Rogersom tu bol John Carter z Marsu – vojvodca Barsoomu, šermiar, ktorému sa nikto nevyrovná, a úplne prvý gangster medzi medzigalaktickými dobrodruhmi a nakopávačmi mimozemských rití. John Carter je hrdina série románov Edgara Ricea Burroughsa zo začiatku dvadsiateho storočia a držiteľ… Read More »John Carter z Marsu – Praotec všetkých vesmírnych hrdinov

Dnes je V-E Day, čo je spôsob, akým frajeri z novín v štyridsiatych rokoch zobrali výraz „Victory in Europe Day“ (Deň víťazstva v Európe) a spravili z neho niečo, čo znie ako akcia, ktorú zorganizovala nejaká nemocnica na zvýšenie povedomia o kvapavke. Presne pred sedemdesiatimi rokmi sedeli posledné rozbité zvyšky velenia wehrmachtu v zdemolovaných ruinách… Read More »Georgij Žukov – Maršal, ktorý zlomil Hitlerovi väz

Bureaucracy makes sure stuff people don’t want to do happens. “Now you can see that each of these systems relies – at least for the peasants – on compulsion. The peasants do not get anything for their service – they aren’t paid, they don’t get increased social status nor can they expect some sort of… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals