Eric Michael Burke

Today I discovered that the newly minted Grokipedia cites my work multiple times in several relevant articles. At no point do these citations relate whatsoever to any argument actually made within the portions of my work which are explicitly cited. In fact, usually the opposite.

The practice of building a new encyclopedia by directly pulling entire articles from extant competitors is by no means novel (Wikipedia originally did the same with the 11th edition of Britannica). #Grokipedia may, however, be the first encyclopedia in centuries to include zero cross-referencing.

Can’t get enough of this girl of mine.
😍❤️🥰

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” - Jane Goodall

While I agree in principle, I think recent events (over the last half century) may challenge the “most people” assumption.

Also from Lincoln:

“The bottom is out of the tub.”

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

Although buried in the news cycle, this may be one of the most significant biological discoveries of our lifetimes. If the radical interpretation of the authors holds... I truly am speechless on this one.

Multispecies superorganisms, anyone? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

They are taught to be reflexively “apolitical” in the second sense, but in reality literally cannot be an officer of anything and be “apolitical” in either sense at the end of the day.

The key is managing and juggling both.

For what it’s worth, I’m very much of the opinion that officers learn far too late the difference between “politics” and “partisanship,” or what we might think of as “big P” Politics (all (re)organization of power dynamics on Earth) and “little p” politics (Washington).

It truly takes somebody with your first and middle names to be so humble and true to the principles of intellectual discourse.

On the other hand, I was probably half speaking out of my hindparts on that one, as so often.

#quincytype

As aforementioned, the only ACW RTS I’ve ever played that even came close (despite major flaws) to depicting the art of mid-nineteenth century command was the Take Command series. Especially with “Follow Leader” on so everything had to be done at ground level instead of overhead.

I get that the brigades(?) are supposed to be like avatars but even then. Like, what on earth is going on?

It’s not even that. It’s just the utter formlessness of anything. It’s just swarms of dudes at ludicrously close range.

Even the screenshots make me cringe so much…

Read Daddis instead.

I had big hopes for Grand Tactician but its battle RTS framework is just as unauthentic as the rest sadly. Even if the higher level stuff is very well done.

The Take Command series remains the only tactical-level ACW game worth anything despite all its flaws. The rest are absurd.

Really enjoyed sitting down with The Civil War Monitor’s new podcast to discuss some surprising ways the war connected with other contemporaneous conflicts as well as fielding several questions about 19C soldiering from the magazine’s subscribers! www.civilwarmonitor.com/podcast/epis...

ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study The study, from MIT Lab scholars, measured the brain activity of subjects writing SAT essays with and without ChatGPT.

Worth paying attention to, but it’s vital to emphasize that, as with all technology, it’s not the technology itself that poses problems: it’s how we use it. AI is a tool; just like the internet; just like a hammer. Use it as a tool. With purpose and intent, without letting it use you instead.

The Humility of the Page: The Lost Ethics of Deep Reading Why attention to words is attention to others and why it matters

#blueLZ #BayernEdu

Wahrscheinlich nicht.

a man wearing a blue hat with the letter j on the front ALT: a man wearing a blue hat with the letter j on the front

Iraqis rn.

Unfortunately I already had to leave (you probably saw me given how close the planes are flying over the #CEI-Iscte institute but my last service for #MHC2025 in Lisbon is telling you where a terrific closing panel will take place tonight:

👉C2 02👈

Very excited to be here in Lisbon at the Military History Consortium annual conference for a second year! I’ll be giving my talk on military encyclopedism in the Deutscher Bund on Friday afternoon.

If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend wandering aimlessly through southern Europe with your incredible wife who doubles as your best friend. 🇫🇷❤️

This weekend I found that the Great War isn’t really so far away.

More to the point though, the mafia was a big part of mid-century pop culture. It shouldn’t be surprising that in both these mid-century cases soldiers turned to that term to describe an informal network of influencers governing organizational transformation, should it?

I’m not sure two books constitutes a trope. “Way[s] of War,” “Hitler’s _____,” or “______ Victory,” are tropes. I’d encourage you to give this a read and see that it has nothing at all in common with Gladwell.

The title is a direct and contemporaneous reference to the particular cultural phenomenon the book explores. Not an attempt to be catchy. (Can’t speak to Gladwell’s case)