#The Archivist&039;s Pen

[saurotitan]

AI and You

New technology is always exciting. Remember when the world fell in love with social media? That’s something we’re still figuring out now that the initial honeymoon period is over. It’s also a solid lead-in to talking about the new kid on the technological block, since it’s something that’s benefitted wildly from the claims made on social media that it’s the greatest thing ever. If the title…

[saurotitan]

A Little Dark Age

Today I'm going to share something I wrote while the wifi wasn't working. Hopefully this doesn't make me look insane.

 Nothing makes an addict realize how bad their addiction has become like going cold turkey without any advanced warning. All of a sudden the idea of living without the thing you relied on for so long goes from a future possibility to a present certainty, and it can feel like a challenge worthy of an Ancient Greek hero. Your first thought while reading the previous two sentences was probably…

[saurotitan]

Thanksgiving Up

Thanksgiving's right around the corner, and I've got some great advice on how to celebrate it! Just give up! ... trust me, this will make sense in a minute.

Just when you thought I was done with holiday specials for a while the turkey-faced beast of Thanksgiving rears its ugly head! This Saturdays-only schedule of posting has a lot of advantages, but it sure makes it seem like all I ever talk about are holidays around here. I figure as long as I can do it in a funny enough way none of you will mind, but if this routine ever gets on your nerves let me…

[saurotitan]

Making Mistakes

Now that I've talked about hardware stores I should probably tell you what to do with those tools...

Back on the 20th, I put out a post about the kind of people you’ll bump into while shopping at a hardware store like Home Depot or Menards. I’m assuming at least a few of you read that, because it was a pretty good piece of writing if I do say so myself, but a question now remains: what should you do with those tools you bought now that you’ve got them? Obviously your first project is going to be…

[saurotitan]

The Hole in My Backyard

Today I'm talking about a hole in the ground. That sounds fun, right?

There’s something magnetic about watching someone dig a deep hole, whether that someone is another person or it’s you doing the digging. Back at my old elementary school they used to have a sand box with a rip in the plastic lining at one of the corners. Every year kids would work as long as they could to reach the soil under that sandbox with their plastic shovels, and even if all their hard…

[saurotitan]

Space Force: Further Insanity in the New 20s

With all the issues facing us here on earth, perhaps now would be a good time to look up? .... nope, war there, too

At this point, everyone sort of assumes we’ve seen the oddest things the 2020s have to offer. We’re always proven wrong, but it’s still nice to hope. Since my last post, it’s been revealed that Putin’s advisors have been lying to him about how poorly the war in Ukraine is going and how the Russian economy has been impacted by sanctions; I honestly don’t know which is worse – a leader who has…

[saurotitan]

IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!: A History of Artifacts Lost in War

It's time to talk about treasures lost, how humanity lost them, and how I can squeeze another Indiana Jones reference into the post along the way.

I was going to do a post about the inspirational bravery of the Ukrainian Air Force as it fights against the much larger Russian Aerospace Forces (ironically meaning that the UK’s Royal Air Force is sharing their acronym at the moment), but then I heard that a certain plane had been destroyed back at the very start of the Russian invasion. The Antonov An-225 Mriya was the largest airplane ever…

[saurotitan]

The Ukrainians Aren't Ewoks: Seeing the Russo-Ukrainian War in a Warmer Light

Just a heads up, Thursday's post is postponed until Friday. That won't impact this one, but I thought you'd like to know

    After writing about the Russo-Ukrainian War for the last seven posts, I’m sure that some of my readers are wondering when I’ll go back to talking about  micronations and flying tanks. Honestly, I’d love to go back to sharing incredibly interesting yet largely useless information about this moldy space rock we call the planet earth, but it feels like there’d be something wrong about looking…

[saurotitan]

Syrians, Super-Weapons, and Sore Losers: The War Continues

Putin's playing dirty... well, dirtier than normal...

     Well, the war in Ukraine is still going on, much to the displeasure of Vladimir Putin, and while it’s clear that the impact of this conflict is going to be a part of life in Eastern Europe for decades to come, it’s not as one-sided as the world expected. The Ukrainian people are displaying a level of resistance worthy of a Sabaton song (great band, by the way), and President Zelensky of…

[saurotitan]

Fast Food, Firepower, and Separatist Factions: More News And Speculation On Eastern Europe

Yet another unqualified attempt to share my opinions on global events. Try not to get offended, because I'm not trying to offend

I miss the days when the biggest things I had to write about were Pleistocene rewilding and axes that doubled as firearms; my column may not have had many readers back then (not that it has many now), but I’d rather be writing about crazy subjects like that than a war that’s tearing apart Eastern Europe. Still, it feels wrong to consider covering a topic like Himalayan sea salt or vinyl records…

[saurotitan]

Super Bowl 2022: The Game is an Afterthought

Even if you aren't an American, you can still enjoy this look at the Super Bowl!

   Before I forget, may I wish all of you a happy Valentine’s Day; this post will have nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, and I doubt that any of you were expecting me to write anything special about my love life (which is nonexistent at the moment) or the love lives of anyone I know (I’d be a dead man) anyway. I’m also abandoning my plans to write a trilogy of blog posts about the Beijing…

[saurotitan]

Getting in the Holiday Spirit: Refugees, Russian Atrocities, and an Evolving Situation

It's St Patrick's Day, and that stirs up a historian's brain more than you'd think these days...

   I’d like to start by wishing my readers a happy Saint Patrick’s Day, even though most of you will probably be reading this after March 17th. I’m not Irish, and as far as I know none of my ancestors ever lived in the country, but these days that doesn’t really seem to be a prerequisite for celebrating. Saint Patrick’s Day began as a local religious holiday for the Irish people, whose history is…