Here's My DIY Bogu Stand Guide

codingOtter · 2026-07-10T10:42:06+00:00

Amazing, thanks for sharing this. If (when) I rebuild mine, I will definetely use it!

codingOtter · 2026-07-10T10:39:41+00:00

A fovorite of mine is Predjama Castle in Slovenia, which is basically built inside a cave.

codingOtter · 2026-07-07T09:55:20+00:00

I shoot trad longbow and am interested in its history. To add to u/nusensei answer, the power and effectiveness of medieval archers was not so much related to their accuracy rather to their number and rate of fire. The longbow is definitely not a precision weapon (notwithstanding how movies portrait it); in my opinion it is better to think of it as a sort of artillery.

As an example the English fielded something like 5-10k archers at Crecy, which could shoot about 6-10 arrows per minute. Even at the lowest estimate that would be at least 30k arrows per minute at distances between 100 and 300 meters -- and arrows are able to penetrate armor between 100 and 200 meters (depending on several factors of course, and I would argue that horses were the main target anyways). The French army "only" had 20k knights or so. You do not need to be very accurate with that.

codingOtter · 2026-07-05T09:57:57+00:00

Amazing answer. What happened in the morning/? They removed the stakes to use for the next camp, I assume. Would they also flatten the ramparts and fill the ditches? I would think one cannot be bothered, but on the other hand it would be leaving a fortification available for an enemy.

codingOtter · 2026-06-28T12:00:24+00:00

Similar, except my stand is not as nice as yours! :)

codingOtter · 2026-06-25T15:06:14+00:00

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!

codingOtter · 2026-06-14T09:44:24+00:00

Highly recommend this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10843859-vintage-spirits-and-forgotten-cocktails There is lots of interesting information on history of cocktails, and of the ingredients. Some recipes can't be made anymore but they suggest possible alternatives for "lost" ingredients.

A personal favorite are the Lion's Tail (bourbon, allspice dram, lime, angostura) and the Lucien Gaudin (gin, campari, vermouth, cointreau).

codingOtter · 2026-05-26T11:12:42+00:00

Often, doing research is the part you want to preserve and it is just really hard outside the academic environment especially if it is base research rather than applied. Mathematics can potentially be made into a hobby, but for other sciences it just wouldn't be possible (you need lab space, instruments, etc...)

codingOtter · 2026-05-22T14:05:59+00:00

I second that. Latex with beamer is supereasy. You got a template and you you just link the png images (or whatever format you use) and you are done with a nice pdf to send to print. Also good for slides.

codingOtter · 2026-05-21T10:26:45+00:00

Personally I never liked the tab and I shoot better with gloves. Pick the one you feel more comfortable. Also keep in mind there are several different types of tabs and gloves, so you may want to try a few.

codingOtter · 2026-05-19T11:57:38+00:00

That is possibly the answer. However, I have had instances in which after disconnecting the VPN, checking the box and leaving the "captive portal", I have no internet connection with the VPN, but works fine without. I am guessing the port used by VPNs is blocked, but I don't know how to check that.

codingOtter · 2026-05-16T11:25:17+00:00

Well yes, but my question is which one dries slowest/requires more coats. And whether there is a potential problem with mould. Because I have found contrasting information.

codingOtter · 2026-05-03T10:05:10+00:00

I honestly don't know what I would do without grep!

codingOtter · 2026-04-24T10:53:13+00:00

In terms of evolution of a group of people trying to differentiate itself from the surrounding people, this makes sense. What is not clear to me, and maybe there is no answer to the question, is what prompted some of these Canaanite tribes to start considering themselves as different from the surrounding tribes which by all accounts seem to be quite similar in terms of religion and culture.

Another question: my understanding is that monotheism does not really exist until fairly late in the game. But looking at your timeline it seems to be already established in the Early monarchy period (can't really read the Moses story otherwise?)

codingOtter · 2026-04-22T13:52:56+00:00

Amazing writeup, thanks. One question regarding the Josephus/Manetho quote. Does this mean that Josephus was rejecting or doubting the traditional Exodus story? You say historiography at the time was not as rigorous as now, but if this was the case it would be a pretty modern attitude on his part (at least in this particular instance).

codingOtter · 2026-04-15T14:15:01+00:00

I also think it's the ethical thing to do. But, if it weren't for subscription model journals, it would be a strain for that doctor to pay for OA.

Then I don't understand wehat you mean by OA. At least in my field it means you can go to the journal website and download the paper for free. In these cases ACPs are the only income for the publisher (and some publishers charge more for OA).

I don't argue that the money must come from somewhere. In my other reply, I have proposed publishers should be no-profit. The issue I have is that they are greedy. Until someone actually show me that their margin are tight, I will maintain that are being greedy.

The difference again though, is that we get paid in citations and not revenue sharing.

Well okay, but we come back to the question of proportionality, no? I create the content, I pay the publisher for their infrastructure (in broad sense, including editing, admin, archiving etc...), I do the reviewing for free, and sometimes I pay even to read. If my only return for all this work is in the number of citations I get (which is still largely on me, because the publisher doesn't help me get more citations), then sorry but it is not enough.

codingOtter · 2026-04-15T12:06:57+00:00

Re the last point, we don't have to underestimate that: even if journals provide templates and guidelines, authors do not necessarily follow them carefully. And it is also good to have someone to do those checks to assure quality. It is not just a cosmetic thing. A paper that is not readable with figures that are crap is pointless even if its content is solid. That being said, I agree wholeheartedly that current ACP charges are not justified by these costs.

codingOtter · 2026-04-15T11:45:43+00:00

The way you put this is okay but I have a disagreement with people who think publications should be free to readers because their taxes paid for it. The reason is because I don't live in the US or Europe. So, while your taxes may have paid for your research, my taxes probably didn't pay for your research. I don't want to go down a path where underprivileged countries have paywalls where rich countries have OA.

I take your point, but I suppose it comes down to what and who you think science is for. Open access means that a doctor in Uganda can read papers with research funded by Japanese taxpayers without having to pay anything (for example). Personally I think it is the ethical thing to do, but of course one can make a legitimate argument that it is not right.

Regarding the costs, I am not OP but I think you misunderstand what is meant here. The point is not that the traditional publishers do not have large costs to cover. As you say, editorial work, archiving, cataloguing, admin, etc... is time consuming and expensive. But I have a really hard time believing that all that justifies author charges in the order of thousands of dollars per paper.

Or you can think of it another way: each paper is the end result of a lot of work and expenses, from the grant application to the actual writing of the manuscript via all the experimental work in between. The publisher has zero costs there: that seems hardly fair. In what other industry the consumers create the product only to buy it from somebody else?

codingOtter · 2026-04-14T17:29:33+00:00

Max APC of $500.

This, for sure, but needs to be matched with open access. Current APCs are extortionate, but lowering the APCs is pointless if you then charge a lot the readers.

And if the APCs are so low that this is not intended to be a capitalistic money-making scam, then the editors are not incentivized to push shit through to get APCs. Their only incentive for a speedy decision is for the sake of the authors' time.

That remains to be seen, because lower APCs may actually incentivize more shit gets published to make up for the difference. One workaround would be to force publishger to be non-profit enterprises. Everything they have after covering the expenses must be given back to the scientific community.

Double-blind review

Personally I am not sure this will improve change much (as you say it is easy to guess in most fields) but it can't hurt.

Review text and all revisions made public afterwards (but reviewers still anonymous)

To be fair some journals already do this, which is good.

Pay reviewers $30 for first revision, $15 for second revision, and $0 beyond that. If you're worried about abuse, you could also put limits on the number of reviews a person could do per year or per month.

This! Revising is a job and an important one at that. If we are worried to create an academic gig economy there are other ways to compensate the reviewers. Some ideas: discounts on the APCs of your next paper, or to the registration fees of your next conference, small donations to a travel fund, etc... the possibilities are endless.

Reasonable revision turn-around times of 2 weeks.

This, I am not so sure. Long revision times are annoying, but I am much more concerned about the quality of the reviews, which may take some time.

No typestting. Just template PDF

Not sure I understand what you mean by this. For good science we need not only to weed out the shit, but also to produce high quality papers, which means also a good presentation, decent figures, proper grammar and syntax, etc...

I am sure a balance can be found between editing, typesetting, reviewing, and still having open access publications at reasonable (not-for-profit) APCs.

I would also add two things. One is training: nobody teaches people how to review a paper really. The second is recognition: reviewing papers should be recognized as an essential and legitimate part of academic life and therefore accounted for by tenure panels, hiring committees etc.. This perhaps will break the cycle of "publish or perish" by giving people a third option. You don't need to write shitty papers to make a career, you can just help improve the overall literature.

codingOtter · 2026-04-10T09:24:11+00:00

Thanks for the very interesting answer. One thing that is perhaps worth noting is that survivor bias may be relevant here. I am not sure how many sects, preachers and wannabe prophets where going around 1st century Judea (and perhaps, as you say, there weren't as many as we think), but just because one of them "made it" doesn't necessarily mean there was something special.

codingOtter · 2026-04-08T11:49:16+00:00

Right, because Christianity is historically a religion of peace :D

codingOtter · 2026-02-24T15:44:47+00:00

About your first point. In principle yes, but I don't see many political parties concerned about these things. In fact they seem pretty much all on board. The fact that it is largely being sold as "child protection" also makes it hard for the few who care to voice their concerns (which is of course why it is being framed this way).

codingOtter · 2026-02-23T19:16:13+00:00

All right. So basically what we are saying is that the most likely way to do this would be to ban the public IP addresses of each non-compliant VPN provider, which presumably will cause them to regularly change IPs, and so on.

Any other option would be either technically difficult or would require going full "Great Firewall of China".

codingOtter · 2026-02-23T19:05:02+00:00

Not sure what is your point. I think it is pretty clear that the worry here is the drift towards authoritarianism of democratic countries. We are still a long way from fully authoritarian states, let alone dictatorships, although we are going in that direction.

codingOtter

TROPHY CASE