Whereas Frederick got rid of his father’s beloved Regiment of Giant Men as soon as he became king, I don’t think that Peter ever really suffered from Dwarf Fatigue. Hey, convention news! So, we are definitely going to be at […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Archive for Chatter
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Dr. Valerie Grinder, ladies and gentlemen! Give yourself extra points if you were reading the comic back when we first met her in the Distant Future arc of 2009! The asterisk here refers to the fact that Frederick and Peter […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
There is a long-standing military tradition that if you take people who ought to be one thing and make them into something else, they should be twice as good at it as those folks who were already that other thing. […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Peter loved performing surgery in the same way that he loved building ships with his bare hands. I don’t have the stats on his success rate, but considering the state of medicine generally at the beginning of the 18th century, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Well, that wraps up this arc. The Collegium destroyed, three philosophers trapped in Emily Dickinson’s imagination, Euler in an indeterminate state just this side of Not Dead, and Carl Sagan heading out for the stars. I have had all manner […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Christina of Sweden, especially early in her reign, had a particularly lovable tendency to do things that were entirely against her interest in the name of “dissembling.” She thought she was scoring points against her political opponents, when in reality […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It’s one of the most famous stories in mathematical biography – Rene Descartes was summoned by Queen Christina of Sweden to teach her philosophy and the history of Catholicism. His habit was to stay in bed until, oh, noon, every […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Perhaps the early 17th century wasn’t THE worst half-century ever, but it’s hard to argue against it being in the top five. It was a time of constant warfare married to senseless religious strife married to unheard of disease and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Of course, Christina here is using the 17th century meaning of Lusty, as “Industrious and Diligent.” Probably. – Count Dolby von Luckner
Part of every kid’s education in the United States is the “Compare and Contrast the Treatment of the Native Americans by the French, Spanish, and English colonists” essay in which Spain and England come off as right asses while the […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…