Michael Smith

[Michael Smith @dmmyccnt]

@NewYorker In 1884 ten percent of 13-year-olds didn't know how to ride a horse. By 1926, that number was up to 37%. Today, the epidemic of horse ignorance among youth is over 99%.

What's going on? How can we turn the clock back and return to the days of our great-great-grandparents?

[Michael Smith @dmmyccnt]

@Tinfoilearth @AncientHistorry Also, Pompeii was kind of the Martha's Vineyard of Rome. Lots of rich Romans had vacation homes there. It's possible that it might have had an even higher level of literacy than many other towns did.

[Roman Helmet Guy @romanhelmetguy]

The most fascinating part of the Odyssey to me is the Cretan Lie. When you think of the Odyssey, the first thing you picture is probably Odysseus’s run-ins with famous monsters. The Cyclopes, the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, etc. But there’s a reading of the Odyssey in which none of these events took place, and a far more historically intriguing sequence of events emerges.

For one, we don’t actually ‘see’ the run-ins with the monsters take place in the poem. Instead, these details all come from Odysseus’s own narration to the Phaeacians. They’re part of the story he tells them of his travels to convince them to charter a fleet to send him back home to Ithaca.

The problem is, Odysseus is a liar. He lies constantly, any time he pops up in Greek mythology. In fact, in the Odyssey he tells many different people many different versions of what he did after Troy. And why would he tell the Phaeacians the truth? He wouldn’t, of course. He would tell them whatever he thought they wanted to hear.

To me, the most intriguing version of events he tells is to his loyal swine herd. While still in disguise pretending to be a Cretan, Odysseus says that after the sacking of Troy, he led his men on an expedition against the Egyptians. But his expedition failed. His men were all killed or enslaved by the Egyptians. But he threw himself at the Pharaoh’s feet and begged for mercy. He received it, and spent 7 years in Egypt, where he amassed great riches, before being tricked and nearly sold into slavery in Phoenicia, but then surviving a shipwreck and making his way back to Ithaca.

We know the Trojan War would’ve taken place during the same period that the Sea People were sacking their way down the coast of Anatolia (where Troy was) to Egypt, where Ramses III ultimately defeats them. This matches up perfectly with Odysseus’s ‘lie.’

I like to think that Odysseus saved the most honest version of his travels for his most loyal servant (though still cloaked in a lie, as Odysseus’s stories always are). And that Homer has preserved more about the Bronze Age collapse than we’ve ever given him credit for.

[Micah Erfan @micah_erfan]

Iowa has one of the fairest maps in the country.

They got it through a truly exceptional set of unique rules:

(1) Countries cannot be split.

(2) A completely non-partisan agency draws maps.

(3) This agency cannot look at most demographic data (including the partisan makeup of an area) or the addresses of incumbents.

(4) State senate districts must follow the boundaries of Congressional districts.

(5) Each state senate district contains two house districts that are fully contained within its boundaries.

[Jake Browne @jakeformayor]

Total unique printings of Magic cards in the first twenty five years of the game: 35,656

In the last five years: 42,065

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

The United States has just nuked its own arms export business. Not with a missile. With a phone call.

Pete Hegseth rang Estonia’s defense minister and told him the HIMARS and Javelin deliveries are on hold.

Indefinitely. Months, not weeks. No timeline. No alternative. Just: sorry, we’re busy bombing Iran.

And that’s it. Twenty years of patient alliance-building, vaporized in a Monday morning call.

Here’s what European defense planners now know for certain: American weapons come with an asterisk. The asterisk reads “subject to cancellation whenever Washington decides its own adventure takes priority.”

You can sign the contracts. You can train your soldiers. You can build your entire defensive posture around US systems. And then one day, the ammo stops. No warning. No plan B.

Estonia is already shopping elsewhere. So is everyone else, with the kind of focus that only comes from genuine betrayal.

The Americans think this is a pause. Europe knows it’s a divorce.

[Dave Smith @MTGDaveSmith]

I’m saddened to announce that due to declining health I must let my MTG collection go. I have consigned 1000 graded and 5300+ ungraded cards from Alpha to Revised to Kid Icarus on eBay https://t.co/UNuQXQy5Na I would like to thank the community for all the fun since 1994. Cheers!

[Michael Smith @dmmyccnt]

@db_gamgee @33elkMTG I hope the message Wizards is getting from this is to stay out of real-world settings. We really don't need yet another set dropping us into New York City.

[#1 Terminus Topdecker @33elkMTG]

Local game store, one that I go to frequently and respect a lot, just started up a new draft night.

"Drafts will always be an IN UNIVERSE standard legal set" is so damning to read on the promotional material for it, its just incredible.

[Michael Smith @dmmyccnt]

@parjanyudu Is there any chance that you might produce more of these videos in the future? Even to sell, perhaps?

[Perkʷunós @parjanyudu]

Homer's Iliad Book 1 Lines 1-27 in Restored Ancient Greek Meter, Pitch Accents & Pronunciation with English translation.

[Being J Wood @BeingJWood]

When Trump loses power, his assets should be liquidated and returned to the American people.

[Proton @ProtonPrivacy]

"Why should I care about privacy? I have nothing to hide".

We hear it every week.

Today, the company that builds software for law enforcement by mining your medical records just published a 22-point manifesto about "freedom" and "democracy".

This is why you should care.

[Luke Gromen @LukeGromen]

UAE to Trump Administration: "You started this war; if we run short of USDs as a result of it, either you will give us USD swap lines, or we will be forced to start transacting oil and gas in CNY and other currencies."

-WSJ, just now

Via @ces921

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

This is how Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos avoids paying a personal income tax

- For the last 20 years he’s had the same salary, $82,000
- He does this because a higher salary that would support his lifestyle would be subject to payroll and income tax, he doesn’t want to pay that
- Instead all his money is in his stocks, those are never subject to any taxes as long as they aren’t sold
- He takes out a loan and borrows against his stocks
- The only money he’ll ever had to pay is the loan and interest on the loan

This is common practice for billionaires so they avoid the majority or all of a personal income tax

[roon @tszzl]

passive observation that once you’ve outsourced state capacity to corporations such as this one it’s bound to be that they come with other aspects of quasi-statehood like internal politics, ideology, internal judiciary

[Aleksandar Djokic (Александар Джокич) @polidemitolog]

Sweden is preparing for a possible Russian operation to seize the island of Gotland, as Kremlin forces could occupy one of the Baltic Sea islands at short notice to test NATO unity amid statements from Trump, according to Sweden’s armed forces chief Michael Claesson in The Times. Gotland, known as NATO’s unsinkable aircraft carrier, is strategically located and could become a key base disrupting alliance operations in the Baltic if occupied.

[RS Archer @archer_rs]

Just spoke to an old friend, now a senior officer in the British military. He said US military is closely maintaining intelligence links by "back channels". The US military wants to keep the relationship alive and working because the US needs it. Seems Hesgeth is loathed.

[Alexander Ulysses Thor @AlexUlyssesThor]

I'm really starting to think Buttigieg could win in 2028. Just from all pushback I got from MAGA morons for calling him the smartest person in whatever room he's in, I realize how scared they are of him. If anyone with his background can, it's going to be Pete.
Buttigieg 2028.

[Owen Zidar @omzidar]

I think @Princeton
should seriously consider adopting the recommendations in the Yale report, which include:

• Expand financial aid and make pricing more transparent and predictable for families
• Reform admissions by prioritizing academic achievement, reducing legacy/athlete/donor preferences, and establishing a minimum academic threshold
• Address grade inflation — Yale's median grade is now an A — through grade normalization and transcript percentiles. (Harvard and Yale are moving so we wouldn't be going alone this time.)
• Combat self-censorship in classrooms, with joint faculty-student classroom principles
• Pursue intellectual pluralism through departmental self-studies and investment in underrepresented scholarly traditions
• Implement a device-free classroom default to restore focused learning
• Create a shared civic education curriculum for first-year undergraduates
• Streamline administrative bureaucracy with a transparent, faculty-involved review
• Strengthen faculty governance, including faculty liaisons to the Board of Trustees
• Communicate more openly and listen more broadly to public concerns