ephemera3444

Ask any group of working programmers what their least favorite programming language is, and there’s a pretty good chance things are going to get heated real fast. Why? What is it about programming that makes us feel so strongly that we are right and others are wrong, even when our experiences contradict those of tens or hundreds of thousands of others?

A glimpse at medieval western European astronomy, following a Roman theory that Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun and how it influenced Copernicus's heliocentric model a millennium later.

This web serial, along with its sequel 20020: The Future of College Football (both by Jon Bois), explores forms of American football in the far future that are extremely different from today's football. (If you aren't particularly into sports in general or American football in particular, don't be put off—I know basically nothing about sports, but I had no trouble understanding the story and finding it entertaining). What I like most about the web serial is its depth. It was very clearly meticulously thought out and researched, including various interesting little tidbits of local history and geography. I get the sense that the world, and people's lives, contain so many stories and so many possibilities that it's inconceivable to comprehend even a thin slice of what's out there. Give it a read!