Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Wargames
Brilliant post and a good read.
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We’re hours into our war and no longer strangers. Jeff Gringer, known to us as the Taliban, stands and thrusts a hooked finger in my direction while declaring he’s going to “pop those Coalition troops in Helmand.” The Taliban is using a car bomb to ambush my men. I rock back in my chair, resigned to my fate.
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We’re hours into our war and no longer strangers. Jeff Gringer, known to us as the Taliban, stands and thrusts a hooked finger in my direction while declaring he’s going to “pop those Coalition troops in Helmand.” The Taliban is using a car bomb to ambush my men. I rock back in my chair, resigned to my fate.
Robert Leonhard, pulling the strings for the Warlords, is in real life a national security analyst at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and a retired Army lieutenant colonel. He has been sitting in mostly quiet concentration but finally speaks up: “I hate to hear you say that, Jeff. My oldest is in Helmand province.” He pauses, moving his glasses from his nose to the top of his graying high-and-tight. “I think. He can’t tell me exactly where he is.”
"
Mmh... the more I think of it, the more it is pleasing. I was always a sucker for real-time strategy games and it gives me a thrill to see board games on these topics. Need to check for these now.
Monday, 13 January 2014
Think you understand space? View this!
Mind boggling, mind numbing. Deeply humbling.
A fraction of a fraction is just about right.
Brilliant infographic Makes for careful viewing...
Comprehensive view of space and things inside it along with a timescale and distance [I didn't know till date that it takes sunlight 4 hours to reach Pluto. WOW. Kaput.
A fraction of a fraction is just about right.
Brilliant infographic Makes for careful viewing...
Comprehensive view of space and things inside it along with a timescale and distance [I didn't know till date that it takes sunlight 4 hours to reach Pluto. WOW. Kaput.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
13 traits of mentally strong people
Personally, I am not a great fan of numbered traits of any kind, whatsoever.
But this seems worth ones while.
But this seems worth ones while.
Monday, 6 January 2014
If you are a poor performer, chances are that you wouldnt be aware of it
Seems intuitive and sensible. Now there is ample proof for it too.
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In a logic test administered to people who had volunteered over the internet, a team of researchers found that the lowest scorers vastly overestimated their performance, believing, on average, that they had gotten 7 out of 10 items right, when the actual figure was 0, according to Thomas Schlösser of the University of Cologne in Germany.
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I find that most interesting. Through HBR
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In a logic test administered to people who had volunteered over the internet, a team of researchers found that the lowest scorers vastly overestimated their performance, believing, on average, that they had gotten 7 out of 10 items right, when the actual figure was 0, according to Thomas Schlösser of the University of Cologne in Germany.
"
I find that most interesting. Through HBR
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Gregorian Calendar - A geopolitical perspective
As always, a brilliant 'un from Stratfor
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At its core, the modern calendar is an attempt to track and predict the relationship between the sun and various regions of the earth. Historically, agricultural cycles, local climates, latitudes, tidal ebbs and flows and imperatives such as the need to anticipate seasonal change have shaped calendars. The Egyptian calendar, for example, was established in part to predict the annual rising of the Nile River, which was critical to Egyptian agriculture. This motivation is also why lunar calendars similar to the ones still used by Muslims fell out of favor somewhat -- with 12 lunar cycles adding up to roughly 354 days, such systems quickly drift out of alignment with the seasons.
The Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, was itself an attempt to address the problems of its predecessor, the Julian calendar, which had been introduced by Julius Caesar to abolish the use of the lunar year and eliminate a three-month gap that opened up between the civil and astronomical equinoxes. It subsequently spread throughout the Roman Empire (and beyond as Christianity spread) and influenced the design of calendars elsewhere. Though it deviates from the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun by just 11 minutes (a remarkable astronomical feat for the time), the Julian system overly adjusted for the fractional difference in year length, slowly leading to a misalignment in the astronomical and calendar years.
Read more: The Geopolitics of the Gregorian Calendar | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
"
"
At its core, the modern calendar is an attempt to track and predict the relationship between the sun and various regions of the earth. Historically, agricultural cycles, local climates, latitudes, tidal ebbs and flows and imperatives such as the need to anticipate seasonal change have shaped calendars. The Egyptian calendar, for example, was established in part to predict the annual rising of the Nile River, which was critical to Egyptian agriculture. This motivation is also why lunar calendars similar to the ones still used by Muslims fell out of favor somewhat -- with 12 lunar cycles adding up to roughly 354 days, such systems quickly drift out of alignment with the seasons.
The Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, was itself an attempt to address the problems of its predecessor, the Julian calendar, which had been introduced by Julius Caesar to abolish the use of the lunar year and eliminate a three-month gap that opened up between the civil and astronomical equinoxes. It subsequently spread throughout the Roman Empire (and beyond as Christianity spread) and influenced the design of calendars elsewhere. Though it deviates from the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun by just 11 minutes (a remarkable astronomical feat for the time), the Julian system overly adjusted for the fractional difference in year length, slowly leading to a misalignment in the astronomical and calendar years.
Read more: The Geopolitics of the Gregorian Calendar | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
"
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