Posts tagged “culture”:
Pluribus & Alienation
Pluribus — the newest show by Vince Gilligan (of Breaking Bad fame) — is a show that is refreshingly new in its ideas. After finishing it I discussed its themes with some of my friends and acquaintances, almost all of whom had quickly connected the show with artificial intelligence (AI). But for me, continuing on an earlier thought that AI is not extraordinary, it was much more obvious that Pluribus is about “the internet” more-so than AI.
Continue Reading学中文
There are a multitude of reasons why I wanted to study Chinese. Being the language of the “workshop of the world” naturally offers many business opportunities, but I am more interested in the burgeoning fields of Integrated circuit (IC) R&D and software development. Planet Emacslife allows me to keep tabs on the goings-on in the Emacssphere, but I also want to be able to read Emacs China; so I figured it might be a good idea to be able to read Chinese.
Continue ReadingA Phenomenology of the PRC
This is part of a series of posts written during or shortly after my visits to the mainland of the People’s Republic of China in the summer of 2025.
Continue ReadingDivided Empire
The video game Victoria 3 is a historical, and often times ahistorial, 4X grand strategy video game by Swedish developer Paradox Interactive. It is meant to depict the period of world history from 1836 to 1936, including events such as the middle and late industrial revolution, American civil war, the scramble for Africa, the first world war, among numerous others. Emerging from the Napoleonic wars as one of the great European powers of the age was the Austrian empire. In reality, the history of the Habsburg monarchy was very tumultuous during the period portrayed. In Victoria 3 however, the Austrian monarchy often remains stable and even when it undergoes significant economic and social reforms when controlled by the player, the empire often exits the fires of nationalism comparatively unscathed. This essay intends to describe the limitations of the model in Victoria 3, as well to recommend changes that might better represent the unique history of the dual monarchy.
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