H.264 is magic: a technical walkthrough of a remarkable technology
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/
Articles
Collections: Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’
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… Read More »Collections: Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It
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… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals
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… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration
There was no local police in the past. “MMORPGs and fantasy worlds alike love their ‘local village guards,’ but these societies cannot afford many full-time soldiers and the ones they can afford tend to be guarding things like castles and… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight
People are hard to coerce by force alone. “why do these fellows feel like they must or ought to serve. A lot of historical fiction or fantasy settings fail to address this particular question or else answer it with a… Read More »Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight
Phones Are Bad
Not the old kind. The smart one. “There’s also an impulse to do a sort of “Good Tsar, bad boyars” maneuver, where people say “it’s not the phones, it’s social media”. But this is an argument over whether guns kill… Read More »Phones Are Bad
Book review: “Power and Progress”
Even famous scientist can argue badly. “The idea that the Haber-Bosch process has “brought nothing like shared prosperity” is an absolutely wild claim. Nitrogen fertilizers are so important to human existence that by the most common estimates, about half of… Read More »Book review: “Power and Progress”
How the God of Israel Was Born
There was not one God. “Reading a Bible translation today, the text seems to speak everywhere of a generic “God” or “the Lord”. This, however, is a linguistic illusion produced by later confessional versions, which flattened and standardised under abstract… Read More »How the God of Israel Was Born
Attack of the Vibe Coded Photoshop Clones
Writing the code was never the main issue. “They rant and claim the era of subscription software is finished, but they are subscribed to AI services and AI software. The amount they are paying to AI companies is far higher… Read More »Attack of the Vibe Coded Photoshop Clones