Sorry for the increasing number of pauses. I’m doing my best to keep up…

– A couple interesting videos on augmented reality, both Japanese (natch).  Good has the real-life example, the N Building in Tokyo. Kitsune Noir features an art piece called “Augmented (hyper)Reality.” Shades of Blade Runner.

– Absolutely everyone has to read The Whig Interpretation of History. If we’d all just do that, then Joshua Foust wouldn’t have to remind us that not everything historical is an appropriate allegory:

It’s bad enough that writers think it’s witty to jump from 326 B.C. to 1200 A.D. to 1842 and assume that’s all history has to offer; when they look at unrelated wars and try really hard to draw parallels, I sometimes wonder if they just hate the very concept of understanding something.

– The banality of jihad.

– Great article by Chicago Boyz‘s Joseph Fouche on Albert Wedemeyer and the making of American strategy.

– Via War is Boring: China is mounting artillery on cargo ships in the Taiwan Strait. Cardboard tanks or naval technical?

– Patrick Porter says there’s no international law:

Would that mean we lived in a world dominated by strong states who decide for themselves and without deference to the UN whether wars are justified? Yes, but that is the only world we have ever lived in.

I would have to agree. And admitting that something is the way it is doesn’t imply a valorization, either.

– Are fat politicians more trustworthy?

– Strike – Hold! covers the British side of training the Afghan Army.