You Should Know

Most european countries use 2 round elections or proportional representation.

In Britain, they use First-Past-The-Post.

What’s with all the brand new accounts that post random YSKs then delete their profile? There are a lot of these in YSK and I can’t figure out why.

The Haganah commanders acted against experts’ advice and placed the bomb in the rickety side of the old ship, rather than under the machines area, where there would be no passengers. The Patria disaster was largest catastrophe in which Jews caused the death of other Jews.

Source

In addition to not tracking you and being fully open-source, there are 12 search categories in its settings with literally hundreds of available search engines.

Don't. Even if you understand what you're doing, someone else won't and your family will die in a house fire.

Male-to-male end cables allow for the two leads of an open male end to make contact with anything conductive (including your flesh, causing some pretty gnarly burns) to complete the circuit and start a fire. No conscionable electrician will make these for you. It is the dumbest solution to any problem you're looking to solve. Don't.

Just a reminder coming up on Christmas.

YSK: there was a time when pumpkin pie was comparitively niche as fall holiday foods go. People would make sweet potatoe pie. However, it was essentially impossible to source sweet potatoes in the USA that were not made via slave labor, and so abolitionists pushed for an alternative: pumpkin pie. It's interesting what boycotts and politics are baked into culture (and ovens), and how we forget about their origins.

The Financial Times has an expensive paywall. British people usually read free newspapers.

However, this story is so important that the Financial Times decided to drop the paywall.

In European school system, children are encouraged to learn how to reach conclusions through arguments. In order to reach a conclusion, Europeans usually asked themselves:

1. What are the facts? Do you believe these facts to be true?

2. How are the different facts related?

3. What is the conclusion?

Europeans assume an opinion is correct IF the underlying facts and reasoning are correct.

For instance, you say "Gambling advertising should be banned"

A typical european will say "Explain your reasoning".

You will then give the facts ("gambling is extremely harmful to society") and the reasoning ("ads are designed to make gambling more attractive"). Finally, you reach the conclusion, ("Gamblings ads should be banned").

This is basically a form of mental retroengineering.

Americans operate on a completely different mental structure.

In american schools, children are taught that anything is possible in the world that we live. Every individual is important and has great potential. Be confident in yourself and your skills.

In order to reach a conclusion, american children learn a concept called the marketplace of ideas.

Basically, just like you go shopping at the market for food. Except it's for ideas.

The concept is that anyone can sell anything on the market of idea. Most americans assume that on the market of ideas, the best idea will naturally win customers.

When arguing for something ("I genuinely believe climate change is BS"), americans will rarely engage in mental retroengineering. They will state on the marketplace of ideas, their idea is as legitimate as any other.

As a consequence, when europeans and americans argue, they don't operate on the same mental model.

At first sight, the decision to insist on keeping a provision that benefits some of America’s wealthiest people seems a far cry from the concerns of voters in Sinema’s southwestern home state of Arizona.

However an FT analysis shows that the senator is a beneficiary of significant contributions from the private equity industry — whose lobbying machine and political influence have grown increasingly powerful over the past two decades.

Source: The Financial Times

Other sources:

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/kyrsten-sinema-private-equity-tax-loophole/

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/02/kyrsten-sinema-gets-wall-street-real-estate-support-ahead-of-2024-election.html

Anki is an open-source flashcard app for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX with versions also available for Android and iOS. Unfortunately, iOS version costs $25, but all other versions are free.

Anki is a self-graded flashcard program / app. This makes it a combination quiz-app + timer system. Unlike Duolingo or other programs, Anki entirely relies upon self-grading, but this is more than sufficient for study.

Anki grabs the top cards from a deck (defaulting to 20 new cards per day. Feel free to customize this to whatever fits your needs best). Then each day, it grabs "scheduled review" cards + shuffles in the new cards, and shows you them one at a time. Once a card is shown to you, you the user click a button to reveal the other side.

After the flip, Anki asks you to self-grade yourself on your performance. "Again" means you grade yourself as "incorrect", and Anki will remember this mistake. Because you were "incorrect" on this card, Anki will show you the card again very soon.

If you choose one of the three "correct" scores (labeled "Hard", "Good" and "Easy"), Anki remembers that you've answered correctly, and will schedule the card some time in the future. I'll get to the difference of the three scores later, but consider all three to just be "correct" for now.

The precise time is calculated based on how well Anki thinks you know the card. If you know the card well, "Good" might schedule the card to be reviewed 1 month from now, but if you've made a lot of mistakes with a particular card, then that card will likely be reviewed 1 or 2 days from now. Its all data collected on a per-card basis.

Above is an example screenshot of Anki's memory: every single self-graded score is remembered on every single card, as well as the date and time of each score.

As such, Anki is a system of spaced repetition. The "better" you are with some cards, the less you see them. The "worse" you are with other cards, the more Anki shows you those particular cards you keep making mistakes with. Timer + self-grading == you only see the cards you're doing bad with, while Anki hides the cards you are doing good with.

The Algorithm

FSRS is a new experimental algorithm Anki is using. There's been 6 versions (FSRS-1, -2, -3,... and of course FSRS 6 today). Fortunately, the overall gist has been the same for all 6 versions. Alas, its a lot of blogposts and technical math that's far too nerdy for most people https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm. For the math nerds who want to learn the algorithm, study away. But I'll attempt to do a simpler "translation".

Before we get started, click on your deck's preferences and scroll down to the FSRS button. Ensure it is on.

FSRS is simply three pieces of memory being applied to each and every "card" in your Anki decks. Every single card will try to figure out "R", "S" and "D". R is the probability that you've forgotten a card each day. The longer a card goes without being shown, the worse-and-worse "R" gets (this is the value Anki uses to determine when to repeat a card to you, it wants to show you a card before you've forgotten, but after enough time that you had a chance to forget, defaulting to 10% chance of forgetting).

Every single card tracked by Anki has this "forgetting" curve, primarily defined by the "R" aka Retention variable.

The theory is: if you show a card too often, you never really test your long-term memory. Furthermore, its too much extra work to review so many cards. By waiting days, weeks, or months before showing you a card again, Anki saves you time by not overly-reviewing cards you already know the information of. Furthermore, studies have shown that showing you information "right as you are forgetting about it" is the best way to remember (!!!). Any sooner, and you really aren't learning too well, but instead just temporarily holding things in your short-term or medium-term memory.

"S" stands for Stability. The more "stable" a card is, the longer Anki-FSRS thinks it can stay in your memory memory without review. Most "new" cards are assumed to be forgotten about within a day by default. However, as you get the card "correct" over-and-over again, Anki-FSRS will increase stability, thereby causing the longer review intervals. (Maybe showing you a card once every 3 days, then 7 days, then 1.5 months, then 3 months....).

"D" stands for Difficulty. The more times you get a card wrong (ie: when you click the "Again" button), the worse Difficulty gets. Anki-FSRS remembers that some cards are harder for you to remember... in particular the ones you keep getting wrong.

Even if you get a high-difficulty card correct multiple times, Anki "remembers" that you have been forgetting this card, and will show it to you again sooner. Ex: by default Anki will mature a card within 7x correct answers in a row. However, if a card is "difficult", Anki will keep showing you that card 10x, 15x or more, knowing that you need the extra practice.

Or in more math-nerd terms, "Difficulty" is the derivative of stability. The change-of-stability is determined by the "Difficulty" of a card.

Hard / Good / Easy

Hard / Good / Easy all count as correct (ie: increases the stability of Anki-FSRS), but will do different things to your Difficulty score.

"Good" is the default, and Anki recommends that users hit the "Good" button 80%+ of the time. Lets pretend that a particular "Good" answer will result in 1-month timer for a particular card...

"Easy" basically is telling Anki that you don't want to practice with this card anymore (ie: low-difficulty card). After clicking "Easy", instead of taking a 1-month timer... Anki will likely choose a 1.5-month or 2-month timer on the card.

"Hard" is telling Anki that you want extra practice with this card. It increases difficulty, despite increasing stability. You'll see this card again more-and-more in the future. Instead of 1-month timer, Anki might show you the card again within 2-weeks.

Where Anki fits in language learning

Anki was originally developed to help its original programmer learn Japanese. Its not an end-all be-all app however. Anki is only a piece of any language-learner. You must also buy grammar / theory books, as well as write regularly in the new language... speaking and listening and more.

Nonetheless, "Anki" is your cudgel. A brute-force method to try to force vocabulary words into your brain through raw force. You'll likely never gain mastery of the words through Anki... but you can at least become a beginner and learn how to start reading. There's literally thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of words you must learn to become proficient in a language. And that's spelling, grammar usage (gender / der/das/die in German, or maybe conjugation rules and pluralization rules), definitions and more!!

In all cases, Anki can be used as a way to force this information into your brain, getting it ready so that those words can "begin to be learned" when you watch TV, listen to a foreign language podcast or hear those words in a song.

Yes, Anki isn't enough. But Anki is a great tool to get you started. And getting started is sometimes the hardest step for many people.

Remember: 1000 words is beginner level (near 1st grade level understanding), while 10,000 words is roughly high school level. If you wish to be seen as a competent adult in a new language, you must figure out a system to reach those 10,000+ words known. 10,000 words sounds like a lot in isolation... especially because true mastery of 10,000 words includes spelling, grammar (pluralization/conjugation/gender), meaning, and pronunciation. But think about it: 10,000 words is merely 14 words per day for 2-years. Plenty of people have used Anki to jumpstart that kind of long-term forced-learning of words.

My Anki routine

My current Anki deck is the 4000 German words/phrases by frequency (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/653061995). Anki decks vary in quality but this is one of the better German decks.

Despite that, this deck starts out-of-order. I had to reorder the first 200 words into the correct order (for some reason, words #1 through #200 were actually the least frequent words). After reordering, I hit the "FSRS" button, signed up to AnkiWeb.com and synchronized my Desktop + Phone to this deck through the web-account.

I currently keep the defaults of Anki-FSRS at 90% retention and 20 words per day. I roughly have 80 review words per day + 20 new words, or 100 flashcards to review (front and back). I hit "good" or "again" most often, though some very easy words (ex: "Ich") I do hit the "easy" button on. I rarely hit "hard" at all.

When a card feels poorly made, I always go into "Edit" and improve the card. In most cases, the "English side" of this deck is lacking (ex: "because" either turns into weil or denn). In these cases, I add a German sentence to the English side with the German-word missing, so that the card can become "more fair" as study material. Anki Decks should always be customized to become your own notes.

If Anki gives me a new word, I also check Wiktionary for the proper pronounciation, as well as additional "example sentences" of that word. Anki is NOT a dictionary, its simply a notecard system, and you should rely upon good and proper dictionaries. In some rare cases, I go to German Language Discord and ask the community to help me understand a concept, but in most cases I do try to figure out the word myself.

I also use many songs, kids songs, Anime songs, pop songs and more as my primary source of "Practical German". (Ideally songs harder than Ramstein's "Du Hast", lol). I'm building an Anki deck out of these songs (ex: Backe Backe Kuchen, or "Bake Bake a Cake", a traditional German kid's song, has a list of common ingredients like sugar, salt, milk. Its good vocabulary practice... and also is a good source of practical words for an Anki deck). I also have a beginner German book ("Cafe in Berlin"), with a huge vocabulary list. Fortunately, the author for this book already made an Anki deck and I can just go to to the listed website and download the pre-made Anki.

https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/invention/stats.html

Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional "terroristic" activity and shot in 1938

Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed

Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.

Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.

General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.

General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.

Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.

Even the secret police themselves were not safe:

Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda

Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov

Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.

Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.

This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155

An alternate calendar system briefly used by republican France. It had 360 days per year with 5 or 6 "intercalary" or leap days between years. It had 12 months of 30 days, which were comprised by 3 weeks of 10 days. Every day of the year had a unique name: a common plant, animal, mineral, or tool/equipment (ie January 31 was "Broccoli" and May 4 was "Silkworm").

YSK because it's an interesting alternative to the Gregorian calendar and the occasionally-proposed 13 month calendar.

Though it did have some problems such as starting in late September (very unusual for a calendar) and not having a robust leap-year system.

Step 1: Boil a pot of water to a full boil, it should take about 8-9 minutes

Step 2: Use a spoon to put the eggs in one at a time, but hover each one just above the water for about 5 seconds before gently putting it in. This prevents the shells from cracking due to shock of the hot water.

Step 3: Set a timer for 8:30-9:00

Step 4: While the eggs are cooking, get a bowl filed with ice water

Step 5: When timer goes off, put the eggs but not the hot water in the ice water. Let them sit for about 45 seconds. This step will make sure the egg shells peel off of the egg without sticking

Step 6: Remove the eggs from the ice water. I like to do this before they cool down much, so they are still warm when I eat them.

I've looked at dozens of articles online that don't work. This combines two methods and adds some improvements. If you put the eggs in and then bring the water to a boil the shells stick when you try to peel them. If you don't hover the egg over the hot water for a few seconds some eggs will crack and raw egg fills the water. If you don't put the eggs in ice water they will be tough to peel. I like to eat boiled eggs with salt and pepper and I put mustard on the side of the plate to dip them in, tastes like a deviled egg.

enjoy

Why YSK: Because in this economy, "free" is the best four-letter word. Seriously, it's wild how many people don't realize their public library card gives them access to a treasure trove of digital content. We're talking apps like Libby, Kanopy, and Hoopla, which means free movies, documentaries, e-books, and audiobooks. You just need that little piece of plastic (or the digital equivalent). Think of all those subscription fees you could avoid. It's basically a life hack for entertainment and knowledge. Plus, you get to feel good about using a public resource. So yeah, before you drop another ten bucks on a service, check if your local library already has you covered. It's like finding money in an old coat, but instead, it's endless entertainment.

Why YSK: because no one likes stale snacks, and let's be real, those bag clips disappear into the void right when you need them. This trick works for pretty much any crinkly bag. Here's how: 1. Fold the top edges of the bag down into a small cuff. 2. Flip the bag over, so the bottom of the bag is facing you. 3. Roll the cuffed part down tightly, away from you, towards the contents of the bag. 4. Once you've rolled it down a few times, grab the corners of the rolled section and fold them in towards the center. 5. Then, flip it back over. The weight of the bag's contents should hold those folded corners in place, creating a surprisingly good seal. It takes a bit of practice but once you get it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Your chip consumption might actually go down because you'll stop stress-eating the whole bag to avoid staleness. probably not, but a guy can dream.