A salient reminder that engineering details really matter, from the august (and 141-year-old) pages of The Field Quarterly Magazine and Review: The Hindustani howdah often requires six men to place it on the elephant’s padded back. The Siamese “shing kha” can be easily lifted by two persons, and this while the elephant is standing—a great […]
Tags:British Empire·elephants·engineering·gadgets·Genghis Khan·howdahs·India·technology·Thailand·transportation
You might recall how a few years back, Britain’s anti-insurgency tactics in 1950s Malaysia were touted as a model for American forces in Iraq. That turned out to be poppycock, of course, since the British method involved tactics far too unpalatable for the post-colonial world to stomach. Among those tactics, as described in today’s edition […]
Tags:Britain·Communism·insurgencies·Iraq·Malaysia·military·Thailand
A lighthearted pox on Harry Truman for coining the phrase “The buck stops here.” Our problem isn’t the sentiment itself, but rather the way it’s been glibly abused over the years. Countless beseiged executives have uttered those four words, only to go right on scapegoating when their situations inevitably worsen. Ever the skeptic, Microkhan reaction […]
