A remarkable blog post on the meaning of life: “(…) The stories of our heroes select for meaning – for the kinds of stories that scratch a certain human itch. They project a narrative simplicity backwards onto lives full of false leads, crises and dead ends. They gloss over long periods of despair, the noise of randomness, the elements of chance, and personal and moral failings to tell the story of someone special who carried out a special mission. (…)”
Isegoria, on why there are no biographies of Xi Jinping: “(…) Many people fell for the delusion that China was nominally Communist but sliding inexorably toward greater freedom. (…)”
The case for US Civil Affairs-led Special Operations in Africa: “(…) In the scope of Great Power Competition, SOTF-NWA competes in the under-governed spaces of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger as a part of United States Government efforts to protect our nation’s influence and interests in the face of aggressive expansion by competing nations. (…)”
Cool African story to stick with this week’s apparent theme: “(…) on the 6th of November the two Su-25UBs bombed and rocketed a clearly marked French peacekeeper camp in Bouaké. The resulting tragedy claimed the lives of nine French soldiers and one American missionary, with dozens more soldiers injured. Then, in what can only be described as an act of sheer lunacy, the mixed Belarusian-Ivorian crew of the Sukhois returned to Yamoussoukro airport, which they now happened to share with a very angry bunch of French paratroopers (…)”
An exciting exoskeleton project for ski touring: “(…) We tend to think of wearable robotic devices as complex machines that work best in controlled environments. A snow-covered mountain is hardly the environment one imagines for this technology. The striking imagery pushes the envelope on the potential applications for exoskeletons. (…)”
The Outpost 