January 2026
Books/links/misc. from January 2026
How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Roots to Leaves by Tristan Gooley, a really wonderful pop science book.
The Wikipedia page of Kim Dotcom, AKA Kim Tim Jim Vester, founder of Megaupload, criminal, maker of dubious electronica music, and guy who really seems like he should have a Darknet Diaries episode but doesn’t. And I thought I had a good domain name…
This is the album cover of his only released record, Good Times This snippet by a German pamphleteer on controversies surrounding the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in the 1580s (H/T Futility Closet):
The old calendar must be the right one for the animals still use it. The stork flies away according to it, the bear comes out of his hole on the Candlemas day of the old calendar and not of the Pope’s, and the cattle stand up in their stalls to honor the birth of the Lord on the Christmas night of the old and not of the new calendar. They also recognize in this work diabolical wickedness. The Pope was afraid the last day would come too quickly. He has made his new calendar so that Christ will get confused and not know when to come for the last judgment, and the Pope will be able to continue his knavery still longer. May Gott him punish.
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, a charming novel about a spoiled young woman who moves to a rural farm to live with her relatives, and proceeds to fix all their silly problems using pragmatic good sense.
Who’s the Clown by Audrey Hobert
Bonus horse link: Pretty Derby, the video game where the horse girls are very literal.
A dispatch from under the local rock
The CIA captured Maduro.
In national news that also seems international, Danes are really really mad at Trump for talking so much about taking Greenland and threatening to put tariffs on Denmark in particular. The Red-Green Alliance and Conservative People’s Party agree that Denmark should station troops in Greenland to deter Trump. (I know it isn’t my place to comment on politics, but I think they may be suffering from some delusions about Danish military might.) Danish veterans from the war in Afghanistan have protested by the US embassy in Copenhagen after Trump (or someone else in his administration) made belittling comments about the Danish contribution to that conflict.
In national news that’s still international but doesn’t involve the US so it’s somehow less international, Denmark and Italy have announced a collaboration. They plan to reinterpret EU law such that you can be deported for crimes even if you have family legally residing in the country.
In miscellaneous news, there is a new governing coalition in the Netherlands, and the world’s first retirement home for people in their 20s/30s has opened in Malaysia.