1/ In September 1993, then-Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold wrote his landmark memo "Road Kill on the Information Highway", laying out a dozen-ish predictions on the rise of the internet

27 years later, I think it's a super interesting case study. Let's evaluate the predictions -

1. Now that Stan Lee is being eulogized far and wide, it's important to remember how marginal Stan Lee and his collaborators (Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) were in the 1950s and 1960s.

2. Marvel Comics (before that Atlas) was just a cog in the machine of a bottom pulp publisher run by Martin Goodman, the husband of one of Lee's cousins. It was the lowest of the low in the publishing world.

3. Now Mario Puzo (not yet the author of the Godfather) shared offices with Stan Lee in the 1950s and 1960s. Puzo wrote for garrish men's adventure magazines and, like Lee, dreamed of writing a novel & breaking out. But Puzo looked down on Lee.

4. Flo Steinberg, 1960s secretary at Marvel: "They were always making jokes about us. They'd come in and giggle. mario Puzo would look in and would see us all working on his way to the office and say, 'Work faster, little elves. Christmas is coming.'"

5. When JFK was killed, the whole office of Magazine Management was stunned and quiet. Except Lee. He continued working. "He was still working on the comic books," Puzo said. "Like that was the most important thing in the world."

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)

(MAJOR NOTE) The reason Manafort took over Trump's campaign in just 3 weeks despite being hired as a mere delegate counter is that ROGER STONE initiated a whisper campaign against Corey Lewandowski. That campaign started...days after Manafort returned from meeting with WikiLeaks.

2/ Stone and Manafort are longtime business partners; we'd expect Manafort to tell Stone what Assange told him, and for him to expect Stone to then pressure the campaign not only to hire him but quickly elevate him.

And who was Stone in touch with at the campaign? Trump himself.

3/ I bet you Manafort's late March emails are very interesting and that some of them are to/from his longtime business associate Roger Stone. And I bet Roger Stone's late March phone calls are very interesting and that some of them are to/from his longtime friend Donald Trump.

4/ At the end of March 2016, Trump suddenly convenes a NatSec meeting. At that meeting he directs his NatSec team to change the RNC platform in July to benefit Putin. Who later takes credit for that change?

Paul Manafort's business associate, Kremlin agent Konstantin Kilimnick.

5/ Why did Donald Trump suddenly convene a NatSec meeting 3 days after he finally hired Manafort? Why did he issue a pro-Kremlin directive at that meeting that Manafort's camp would later take credit for? What did Manafort tell Trump in the days leading up to that NatSec meeting?

An interesting set of games that I've been vaguely interested in since I was a kid, after seeing one at a friend's house and never being able to find it again, was the BATTLES IN A DISTANT DESERT/BATTLES ON DISTANT PLANETS series.

These are turn-based wargames for windows 3.x, sharing the same engine.
Battles in a Distant Desert is from 1992, and is based on the first Iraq war (Desert Storm)

and Battles on Distant Planets is from 1991, and takes place in SPACE!
I'm pretty sure this is the one I played as a kid.

They've got 3 options to play with:
* Player vs. Player
* Player vs. Computer
* Computer vs. Computer

So it's a 0-2 player game!

They also did a DOS strategy game called "STARDATE 2140.2: GALACTIC CONQUEST" in 1990, but it seems to be lost.
All the games share an experimental AI system based on neural networks.

THE BATTLE OF TALIKOTA and the destruction of Vijaynagar (Hampi)
26 January 1565

A tale of valor, deception and decimation.

A grim reminder that if we fail to protect our heritage, it will eventually crumble under the onslaught of "forces of anarchy".
(Elaborate thread)

This decisive battle was fought between the Vijayanagara empire and the Deccan sultanates resulting in a rout of Vijayanagara and ending the last major medieval era Hindu kingdom in south India.(1)

The seeds of 1565 encounter were sown more than 250 years earlier when the forces of the Delhi Sultanate, during the time of Alauddin Khilji and later Md Bin Tughlaq swept through southern India in an expansion spree.(2)

By middle of the 14th century, facing rebellions, Tughlaq withdrew to Delhi, leaving behind 2 empires, Bahmani, which ruled the Deccan from Kalaburagi, and Vijayanagara, which ruled most south India with its capital at Vijayanagar.(3)

The Raichur Doab, between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers, existed as a natural boundary between these two kingdoms, with wars often breaking out over control of this territory.(4)