This Side Op 📦

@TerribleMaps The shifting politics of Portugal

The true size of Portugal compared to Spain

@nickschifrin @POTUS @jonasgahrstore @NobelPrize Nothing says I “think purely of Peace” like getting angry about not getting a medal.

NEW: @potus letter to @jonasgahrstore links @NobelPrize to Greenland, reiterates threats, and is forwarded by the NSC staff to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. I obtained the text from multiple officials: Dear Ambassador:   President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, be forwarded to your [named head of government/state] “Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT”

@hh123145 #frieren #OldCoot

Brendan Loper is so good at making cartoons

@ChibiReviews I’m looking forward to it. Disappointed to hear that there will only be 10 episodes

Tomorrow this series returns

@asherperlman Each card is laced with a drug that instantly erases your memory of the name you were just told

Cooking.

Trump has thin blood, and even thinner skin

@asherperlman Santa likes to watch

@2percentisfair @aakashgupta California also benefited by being geographically farther away from more entrenched and powerful competitors on the east coast. One of the reasons the film makers moved to California was to escape Thomas Edison’s monopolistic control of the film industry on the east.

@aakashgupta One law+the most perfect weather/geography of all time+Lockheed Martin putting their missile facility there after Harvard shut down all of its WWII labs. But yes, every single state should follow the no compete law.

This is about a legal quirk from 1872 that created the most consequential network effects in business history. California banned non-compete agreements 152 years ago. One law. That’s the seed that grew the $18 trillion concentration shown in this chart. Here’s what that law did in practice: When eight engineers quit Shockley Semiconductor in 1957 to start Fairchild, they couldn’t be sued. When Fairchild employees left to start Intel and AMD, they couldn’t be sued. When their employees left to start the next generation of companies, they couldn’t be sued. The “Fairchildren” spawned over 2,000 companies. 70% of the 130+ Bay Area tech companies trading on NASDAQ or NYSE can be traced directly back to the founders and employees of Fairchild. Meanwhile, Boston’s Route 128 had every advantage in the 1960s and 70s. Closer to Washington. More established universities. More defense contracts. Bell Labs invented the transistor on the East Coast. But Route 128 companies had lots of reliance on government contracts that led to a secretive culture that stalled collaboration with competitors, partners, and other organizations. Engineers who left were sued. Knowledge stayed locked inside companies instead of flowing through the region. Most people that worked in Silicon Valley weren’t from California. They were from the East Coast or the Midwest. They weren’t spending time with high school friends or church groups. They socialized with coworkers. And when those coworkers left to start companies, they collaborated rather than competed in courts. Silicon Valley’s open structure was complemented by a risk-taking culture that attracted entrepreneurs willing to embrace uncertainty. Route 128’s culture was rooted in a more conservative approach shaped by its ties to the defense industry. The result: By the early 1990s, Silicon Valley rebounded while Route 128 failed to do so. Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang, Prime, Data General, all collapsed or became irrelevant. Companies that were once larger than Apple. Seattle proves the pattern. Microsoft and Amazon both founded in Washington, which allows non-competes. They became giants, but the region never spawned the startup ecosystem Silicon Valley did. Two massive trees, not a forest. The nine companies in this chart represent roughly $18 trillion in market cap. The structural conditions that concentrated that value on the West Coast compound over decades. Every generation of departing employees seeds the next trillion-dollar company. That’s not happening anywhere else. And the gap is only getting wider.

“Buying their holiday presidents…”

@joeljeffrey Go to your nearest recombobulation area

@emollick Character creation can be hard 🤓

Interesting study, but this is somewhat unexpected. (green is programming, yellow is role playing)

@archeohistories Uranium glass production predates blacklights, so some collectors must have been in shock after seeing their collection in a new light.

“Girl in Pool,” uranium glass pin tray by Heinrich Hoffman, Czechoslovakia, 1928.... This pin tray, dated to 1928 and attributed to the Czech master glassmaker Heinrich Hoffmann, is a superb example of uranium glass (Vaseline glass), a popular form of decorative glassware during late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Hoffmann, whose factory in Czechoslovakia was known for its high-quality Art Deco and Art Nouveau pressed and cut glass, intentionally incorporated small amounts of uranium oxide (typically less than 2% by weight) into the silica mixture during the glassmaking process. This uranium compound acts as a powerful colorant, giving the glass its distinct, appealing yellow-green hue under normal daylight conditions, and classifying it as a prized collector's item. The defining characteristic of uranium glass, which elevates it from merely decorative to truly unique, is its dramatic reaction to ultraviolet (UV) light. When placed under a blacklight, the traces of uranium within the glass become energized and emit visible light, causing the piece to glow a brilliant, vivid fluorescent green. This spectacular visual effect made uranium glass highly desirable during its peak period of manufacture. Though the addition of uranium renders the glass mildly radioactive, experts generally deem the radiation emitted by these domestic pieces to be negligible and comparable to typical background levels, posing no significant health risk. The Hoffmann pin tray thus serves as a tangible link to the Art Deco period, showcasing the era's fascination with novelty, industrial materials, and bold design. It represents a confluence of Czech glassmaking skill and the period's playful use of chemical properties for aesthetic effect. Today, these pin trays and other uranium glass objects are highly sought after by collectors who appreciate their historical context, artistic detail, and the unique, captivating phenomenon of their luminous glow, which makes them a standout feature in any collection. #archaeohistories

@TerribleMaps I’m curious what the map would look like if city/town was excluded?

The most common words used in U.S. place names

@RocketPulpHack Not to get too sidetracked, but is Alfred the only staff at Wayne Manor?

Not to be a pedantic jackass but a butler is the head of a household staff. A personal manservant, like Jeeves (or Alfred from Batman in most portrayals) is a valet. The difference between a valet and a valet is one is a kid who parks your car and the other is a gentleman’s gentleman, and in the latter case you pronounce the T. Americans have historically less inclined to employ personal servants like that. If we do, we prefer them to be foreigners who we don’t get too attached to. (American classism is often strange, as you’d expect from a society with as much economic mobility as ours.)