Christ van Wijck

Retired ICT-pro.
Don't try to scam me. I may look like an old idiot, but that's just the outside :)

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

- Cicero

In 46 BC, Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero expressed a timeless appreciation for knowledge and nature in a letter to his scholarly friend Marcus Terentius Varro. His Latin words, “si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit,” translate to “If you have a garden in your library, nothing will be lacking.”

Written during a period of political unrest in ancient Rome, the passage reflected Cicero’s appreciation for intellectual pursuits and peaceful surroundings. Roman libraries sometimes overlooked gardens and open courtyards decorated with greenery and sculptures, creating spaces where learning and nature existed in harmony.

Over time, Cicero’s words evolved into a celebrated reflection on the essentials of a fulfilling life. Books nourish the mind with wisdom and imagination, while gardens offer tranquility and a connection to the natural world. Together, they represent a life enriched by both knowledge and peace.

[NyanChuu🔮🇯🇵🍭 @tanpukunokami]

In 1979, a quiet former naval officer died in Japan without ever telling his family what he did on March 2, 1942.

At his small funeral, his relatives knew only that he had served on destroyers in World War Two and disliked talking about the war.

None of them knew that 422 families across the ocean existed only because of a single order he gave at sea.

His name was Shunsaku Kudo.

Thirty-seven years earlier, Kudo commanded the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Ikazuchi in the Java Sea.

The day before, a fierce battle had sent the British warship HMS Encounter to the bottom, leaving hundreds of Allied sailors adrift in thick black fuel oil.

Blinded by toxic sludge and burning with thirst under a blazing sun, exhausted men clung to wreckage and waited to die.

When a gray Japanese destroyer cut through the haze toward them, men in the oil closed their eyes and braced for machine-gun fire.

Mines drifted in those waters, and Allied submarines were hunting nearby.

Stopping dead in the water meant gambling the lives of Kudo's entire crew for men who had been firing at his fleet the day before.

Kudo stopped anyway.

He cut his engines, raised a rescue flag, and ordered ropes and cargo nets thrown over the side.

Many of the young British sailors were too weak and slick with black oil to hold the lines.

So Kudo's sailors climbed down into the sea themselves, tied ropes around the chests of their enemies, and hauled them aboard one by one.

For hours they refused to quit until 422 half-dead strangers crowded a small deck built for roughly half that number.

Japanese seamen knelt beside shivering prisoners, gently wiped burning oil from their eyes, gave them dry uniforms, and shared hot rations and fresh water.

Kudo then stepped onto the deck, saluted the captured officers as fellow sailors, and addressed them in English, praising their courage and welcoming them as honored guests.

The next day, he delivered every man safely to a hospital ship and sailed back into the war.

Here's where it gets strange.

Two years after Kudo was reassigned, Ikazuchi was sunk in combat with all hands lost.

When peace came, Kudo went home, mourned his lost crew in silence, and never once mentioned the rescue at the dinner table.

Not to his wife, not to his family, not to anyone.

Meanwhile, a rescued British officer named Samuel Falle became a diplomat, raised a family that almost never existed, and spent decades searching Japan for his savior.

By the time Falle finally learned his rescuer's name, it was too late.

Kudo was already gone.

Still, in 2008, an elderly Sir Samuel Falle flew to Japan, sixty-six years after that afternoon in the Java Sea.

Standing before Kudo's gravestone, the old survivor bowed his head to deliver the thank-you Kudo never lived to hear, for 422 men and every child and grandchild born because one enemy chose mercy.

Real honor never asks to be remembered, which is why the lives it saves never let it die.

[The Math Flow @TheMathFlow]

The Quadratic Formula.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

The USS Gerald R. Ford is is the world's largest aircraft carrier, and the largest warship ever constructed.

It can carry a crew of 4,500 and up to 90 aircraft.

Its nuclear reactors can propel it for 25 years before mid-life refuel.

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

MORE: Ukrainian officials reported a recurrence of in-motion speed restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite communications network over Ukraine that is significantly hindering Ukraine’s drone interception efforts and intermediate-range strike campaign.

[WarTranslated @wartranslated]

A radar reconnaissance position in Leningrad region was hit during the Defense Forces attack on November 11. The targets were the Nebo-SVU radar, the 40V6 universal mobile tower and the Sopka-2 en route radar complex.

[Euromaidan Press @EuromaidanPress]

Russia's foreign war dead rose eightfold, leaked records show

"…let the 'chocolate one' go ahead of you. Let him walk about twenty meters out," a man described as a Russian commander says, using a racist reference to an African recruit, in an intercept published by Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR). HUR says troops of the 39th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade use recruited Africans as a human shield in the kill zone.

Two days later, Bloomberg's analysis of leaked Russian death certificates showed foreign war deaths rising more than eightfold, from about 630 in 2022 to more than 5,500 in 2025. Roughly 340 of the dead came from Africa, most of them from 2025 onward.

🔗 https://t.co/0LeTfrjXYO

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Wow. Russia’s military death toll in Ukraine is projected to reach 650,000 by the end of 2026.

For comparison, roughly 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed during the nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan.

[Math Files @Math_files]

Earth has a mass of approximately 5.97 × 10²⁴ kg.

If all that mass were compressed inside a sphere of radius just 8.87 mm, it would form a black hole.

Its event horizon would be less than 2 cm across.

That's the Schwarzschild radius predicted by Einstein's general relativity.

[MAKS 26 🇺🇦👀 @Maks_NAFO_FELLA]

❗️Russia has already begun mobilization, — brigade commander of K-2 brigade Veres

This is clearly visible in the increased number of casualties in the Delta system. However, given that the front has recently been stabilized, Veres comments on this with some positivity - if the Russians are actively fighting and dying almost senselessly, then they will be killed more, they will be exhausted faster and the war will end faster.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Kellogg: Russia tried to take Ukraine by force and failed. Putin hasn't got the combat power to go much further than he's gone.

In 5 years Russia gained about 1% in fighting, with 1.2 to 1.4 million casualties on the Russian side. 1/

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ Vladimir Putin is stringing Donald Trump along with negotiations on Ukraine, a Russian commentary argues. The Russian leader is exploiting Trump's ignorance to sell the illusion that the war is merely about territory, whereas Putin in fact has far broader goals. ⬇️

[OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical]

A Finnish official confirms to the country's public broadcaster that Ukrainian drones attacked a Russian Navy Buyan-M-class corvette on the Baltic Sea Wednesday night, almost 1000 km from Ukraine.

Ukraine officially claims to have struck the nearly brand-new Buyan Naro-Fominsk.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In 1991, Isaac Wright Jr. was wrongfully convicted in New Jersey on drug kingpin charges and sentenced to life in prison.

While incarcerated, he studied law using the prison library, acted as a “jailhouse lawyer,” and helped overturn convictions for over 20 other inmates.

Some years later, he successfully proved his own innocence by exposing police corruption and perjured testimony. His conviction was overturned, and he was fully exonerated.

After his release, he earned a college degree, graduated from law school (St. Thomas University School of Law, 2007), and was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 2017, becoming the first person in U.S. history to go from a life sentence in that state’s courts to being licensed by the same court.

The original trial judge, Michael Imbriani, was later convicted of judicial misconduct, theft, and other crimes and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Isaac now practices law, often in the same courtroom where he was once sentenced.

[Conflict Alarm @ConflictAlarm]

BREAKING: RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall are on lockdown with sirens sounding, following an imminent threat to US military forces in the UK, per multiple initial reports.

Lakenheath is responding to a bomb threat and drone activity, with sirens also sounding at RAF Feltwell.

[Conflict Alarm @ConflictAlarm]

BREAKING: FAA issues nationwide ground stop across the United States, with all flight departures halted.

All airborne ATC communications across the United States are experiencing technical issues, the FAA says.

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

Russian Occupation Update, November 13, 2026: The Luhansk Oblast occupation administration appears to be pursuing limited bilateral cooperation with Republika Srpska (the Serbian political entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina). (1/2)

[The Iran Watcher @TheIranWatcher]

The Islamic Republic’s law-enforcement forces are confronting collapsing morale and public contempt as their uniform becomes associated with repression, humiliation and mass killing.

A video circulating from a recently discharged police conscript gives voice to a broader crisis inside the security apparatus.

He says the era of automatically respecting military and law-enforcement personnel is over.

Many Iranians now view those in uniform as “mercenaries,” “repressors” and “murderers” because they participated in the January 2026 massacre—or remained silent while it happened. Estimates place the death toll at more than 45,000.

The United Nations later concluded that the regime’s widespread killings, imprisonment, torture and other abuses amounted to "crimes against humanity."

But public hatred was not created by the massacre alone.

These are also the forces that patrol streets, harass women, arrest them over hijab compliance and subject ordinary Iranians to daily intimidation and humiliation.

The uniform no longer represents public safety. For many Iranians, it represents the officer checking a woman’s clothing, the van taking her away and the armed personnel firing on protesters.

This anger extends beyond senior commanders or ideological members of the IRGC and Basij. It increasingly follows police officers, regular military personnel and young men completing compulsory service.

Not everyone wearing the uniform supports the Islamic Republic.

Milad Moazami Goodarzi reportedly came from the military ranks but stood with the people and was killed during the January uprising. Others may privately oppose the regime while remaining trapped inside its institutions.

But the regime deliberately erased that distinction by using every security branch - including compulsory-service conscripts - to control the population.

When society despises the uniform, personnel lose more than public respect. Their families face shame, their communities distrust them and their own belief in the institution begins to weaken.

That directly damages morale, cohesion, recruitment and obedience across the security apparatus.

The Islamic Republic can force young Iranians to serve, order them into the streets and place weapons in their hands.

It cannot force the Iranian people to respect them—or prevent its own forces from feeling the shame attached to the uniform they wear.

[Cloooud |🇺🇦 @GloOouD]

❗️🇷🇺Russia has begun a planned mobilization, says Commander of the 🇺🇦"K-2" USF Brigade, Hero of Ukraine, Kyrylo Veres.

– Operation Vivaldi was the best thing we have had in recent years.

– The Russians are currently preparing a counteroffensive in Donbas.

– I am looking for a tattoo artist for the unit and several masseurs; I also want to set up a barbershop in the brigade. Everything must be done for the soldiers' comfort as if you wanted it for yourself.

– We need to deal with the idiots in the army. We are all so nice, saying how much we love our soldiers, but then the commander sits in a Land Cruiser, his subordinates are send to the assault on bicycles.

– Commanders should not love people, but they must protect them.

– We are so technologically ahead of the Russians that we cannot do anything about Shaheds and are requesting permission to produce missiles. I cannot say that we are ahead of the Russians in technology anywhere, but we are not losing by much either.

– If the Russians launch their space network Rassvet, it will be a disaster.

– I hope that by the end of the year, there will be light and bridges in Kyiv.

– The end of the war is a victory for me, but I am against giving Donbas to the Russians without a fight; this needs to be asked of the people.

– There are brigades that brilliantly assault enemy positions, and there are brigades that simply die.

– We all need to pull ourselves together and survive... Everything will be fine, we need to believe in our army, because otherwise we will have to feed a foreign one.

– There are no major territorial losses right now; we are returning the land.

– It is safer for me at my positions than for civilians in the cities.

– The Russians are dying very well right now; they are clearly dying.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Russia has gathered 47 nuclear-capable bombers at one Far Eastern airbase, its largest such concentration since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The remote location may reduce the risk of Ukrainian drone strikes, United24. 1/