TIL China's first email to the internet was sent in 1987, with the message: 'Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner of the world.' This was 11 years before the development of the Great Firewall of China began. [Source]
I am a dull man by every measure. I don't have interesting hobbies, I am not an influencer, I don't post interesting posts on social media and I don't travel a lot, I don't do extreme things, I barely have any money at the moment, I bore others, in fact when I try to amuse my colleagues or the opposite sex, my jokes regularly fall flat and even my voice is dull I believe.
But after my kids were born I noticed something: my kids loved my voice, they listened to every sentence I made, they laughed at my quirky jokes I made and they loved when I sang to them or I brought them to the park or to the nursery and when I sat them on my neck. My wife took all that from me though, so now I need to fight to get my kids back.
But the moral of the story is: dullness is a matter of perspective. Even if you think you are dull, chances are you are not. It's just the world such a place now that the bar is raised too high that most ordinary people can't cross even by jumping over the moon.
So I don't care any more what others think of me. I came to accept my dullness and embraced it. If it bores others, I don't care.
🔖 How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming | Hacker News #pinboard#warfare
As an engineer, I am fascinated by it all. As a human, I am horrified that we democratized violence on this scale.
A missile worth perhaps a million dollars can kill maybe 12 or 20 people. But for one million dollars, you can buy 10,000 drones, put four grenades on each, and they will kill 1,000 or even 2,000 people or destroy 200 tanks.