What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire? | The New Yorker

One of the few things that Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918, had a talent for was causing outrage. One of the many things that Wilhelm was convinced he was brilliant at, despite all evidence to the contrary, was “personal diplomacy,” fixing foreign policy through one-on-one meetings with other European monarchs and statesmen. In fact, Wilhelm could do neither the personal nor the diplomacy, and these meetings rarely went well. The Kaiser viewed other people in instrumental terms, was a compulsive liar, and seemed to have a limited understanding of cause and effect. He was susceptible but never truly controllable. He asserted his authority unpredictably, as if to prove he was still in charge, staging rogue interventions into his own advisers’ policies and sacking ministers without warning. Sound familiar? Revisit Miranda Carter on the lessons of Kaiser Wilhelm II:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-happens-when-a-bad-tempered-distractible-doofus-runs-an-empire

RE: https://mastodon.social/@MozillaAI/116279201448628866

All we wanted was a browser. All you had to do was build a browser. You had one job.

Matin / Morning 👋

#matin #caféAnimé #monday #lundi

I've just been asked to "upgrade" a Perl project, last updated in 2012, to PHP 8

I'm not a #Perl expert

Or a #PHP expert

Current mood:

OK this is a stupid question, but why have Linux projects (apparently) fallen over themselves to comply with an age-recording statute in a single US state (albeit a large one), when those projects have been failing for decades to respect national and even international law regarding disability?

#accessibility #disability #linux #FreeSoftware #fascism #AgeVerification #infantilism

Microsoft in 2022: All your old computers are too unsecure to run our new flagship windows OS.

Microsoft in 2026: Vibecoded kernel & cybersecurity, YOLO!