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J. Ott

@john-ott.bsky.social
133 followers 95 following 85 posts

Self-employed. Opinions do not reflect those of my employer.

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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
1597. Queen Elizabeth assigns William Shakespeare an impossible task. His solution is to invent a new form of comedy. Literary critics HATE this one weird trick! worldwarzero.substack.com/p/book-revie...
worldwarzero.substack.com
Book Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor
How Shakespeare’s “Worst” Play is Secretly His Finest
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It's hard to pick a first domino in the wars the lead to our modern world, but a case can be made for Isabella I of Castille. I've done a revision of this article, especially the opening, continuing to refine the voice for the podcast. worldwarzero.substack.com/p/she-was-ne...
worldwarzero.substack.com
She was never supposed to be queen
The origins of Isabella of Castile
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
The Spanish Conquest wasn't fully Spanish, nor was it fully a conquest... open.substack.com/pub/worldwar...
open.substack.com
The Spanish Conquest was neither Spanish nor a conquest
Discuss.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
All teenagers rebel in one form or another. Louis XI had the most literal teenage rebellion. He tried to overthrow his own father, the king of France. It did not go well.
open.substack.com
The Universal Spider
The origin of Louis XI
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Native Americans quickly figured out that telling Europeans you knew where gold was was a great to control them. 🧵
Epenow points the way (detail from an engraving)
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
“On August 7, 1789, Congress approved the Lighthouse Act—the first public works program undertaken by the new federal government—which established and supported lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers.”
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Brian Schmid @schmanthonyp.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
It’s so wild that the face of the organization that defiantly proudly said they would never accept colorization and ran a piece for decades about how pan and scan ruins the art of cinema is just doing this
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
A young girl stolen from one man by another; political and criminal consequences ensue. I’m speaking of course of Achilles and Agamemnon in The Iliad.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
People who say “do your own research” are badly misjudging the average person’s research skills.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Today in History
Hitler’s “Night of the Long Knives”
and 
Eugene V Debs
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
The show POKER FACE is metaphor for the life of an actor. Each week a new role to inhabit; an obsession with the truth; the mystery to solve of how a body ended up where it is.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
I had a dream I got a job writing for Nathan Fielder. He started a film school where weird professors gave incomprehensible lectures, we made TV ads that toed the line between real and surreal. The whole thing culminated in a recreation of a small town that had to fight off mutant CGI alligators.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
I've joined the new Blogger worldwarzero.substack.com?r=w32j&utm_c...
worldwarzero.substack.com
World War Zero | J. Ott | Substack
The world war before the world wars. Click to read World War Zero, by J. Ott, a Substack publication.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
I don't see how Henry, pried open for all the world to see, survived. poets.org/poem/dream-s...
poets.org
Dream Song 1
Huffy Henry hid the day,
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
The most valuable Substack would be one that posts essays challenging the core beliefs of its subscribers. It would also be one that generates maximum unsubscriptions.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
“Who can possibly stop this?!?” cried everyone who could stop this.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
I complain about the size of the Harvard endowment. But dey do got dat F U money doe.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
The number of people on here preaching to the choir is maxed out. Like Mormon Tabernacle levels.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Brody winning for The Brutalist has an appropriately long speech. Brutalist was my pick from the Best Picture nominees but Anora is also very deserving. Indie film ascendant?
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
I’m not saying he’s a Nazi but he enjoys the “Tomorrow Belongs to Us” sequence of Cabaret unironically.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Passage from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
I can’t wait for Summoning Salt’s video on this speedrun of Constitutional Crisis.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 29/01/2025
OpenAI right now
Scene from The Princess Bride where Vizzinni says "You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen"
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
This book was recommended by a Mexican in a thread about the clumsy portrayal of Mexico in Emilia Pérez. Translated in 2022. This needs more coverage. harpers.org/archive/2023...
harpers.org
Do Cartels Exist?, by Rachel Nolan
A revisionist view of the drug wars
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Thinking about how so many voted for a cartoon villain and wondering… have I been watching cartoons all wrong?
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
It’s a good thing they have never invited me into the Criterion closet. The video would be 9 hours of me talking about why I love half the movies and half loading up a van with the ones I don’t yet have.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
The recent lesson for me is that true geniuses are far more rare than narcissists who can convince lots of people that they are a genius.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
I for one believed the people saying Dittmann was a Musk alt. So mea culpa on that.
archive.is
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
In honor of the passing of David Lynch, please let a weirdo in your life know that you love what a strange otherworldly creature they are.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
David Lynch has either died or pierced the thin veil of reality between us and eternity.
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Missy Baker @themissybaker.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
I never dreamed I would grow up to have 900 passwords.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
It would be funny if you were on a boat and it capsized and then you realized, hey wait, this boat is the size of a soda bottle cap, that’s why it capsized.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Reconstructing Shakespeare’s Accent
youtube.com
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
I asked Claude AI for a Seinfeld routine on LEGO: "What is the deal with LEGO? I mean, they sell you these bricks in a box with this beautiful picture on the front - a whole castle, a spaceship, whatever. But when you open it up? PIECES! Just... thousands of pieces!”
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Wilde Thingy @wildethingy.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Her: I don't believe in coincidences. Me: OMG! Me neither!
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
The term “sex cult” is kinda redundant, isn’t it? If you’re running a cult and not getting laid, you’re doing it wrong.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
I have an extremely loose theory that part of the success of SQUID GAME and SHOGUN is that by using subtitles they actually demanded that the audience pay attention in an age of distraction and TV shows made for people half-watching
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Can’t buy the premise here. Labor share of income will be a stable phenomenon… until it isn’t. www.maximum-progress.com/p/agi-will-n...
maximum-progress.com
AGI Will Not Make Labor Worthless
The discovery and use of machinery may be … injurious to the labouring class, as some of their number will be thrown out of employment, and population will become redundant.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Extremely unlucky that all our most powerful billionaires are having mid-life crises at the same time, like a group of girl BFFs who synchronized their periods.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Is there something in Claude’s instructions that makes it ask a question in every reply? Would find it more useful if chats were encouraged to be exactly as long as they need to be. Right now it feels like talking to my neighbor on the spectrum who doesn’t take cues for when conversations are over.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
You are the God of You.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Worried for my LA friends
thehill.com
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
My daughters got into Sonic. Trying to learn about the history of the characters brought me to this video, one of the best things I’ve seen in a while. Nonstop behind the scenes drama: youtu.be/xzor44qgKnA?...
youtu.be
I Interviewed the most HATED man in the Sonic Fandom
YouTube video by matttt - comic & manga history
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
As a fan of Roman history, I advise Mark Zuckerberg to look into the history of those who appeased Emperor Justinian.
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Mark Cuban @mcuban.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
x X has ~18m daily USA users. @bsky.app, ~1.5m. Is it worth 20 MINS a day to proactively recruit and bring your friends, neighbors,relatives, businesses, anyone who is or could be a user, to @bsky.app? If Bluesky ends up with more users than the others, you destabilize musk, zuck, trump.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
“He assumed countless Americans would respond with aggressive action, he said, and he wanted to be among them.” Wild story. www.propublica.org/article/ap3-...
propublica.org
A Mole Infiltrated the Highest Ranks of American Militias. This Is What He Found.
Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends....
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
What Good is Morality?
newyorker.com
Does Morality Do Us Any Good?
Our basic sense of right and wrong appears to be the product of blind evolution. The hard question is how unsettling that should be.
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J. Ott @john-ott.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Great. A new extinction risk I wasn’t even aware of: press.asimov.com/articles/mir...
press.asimov.com
The Dangers of Mirrored Life
Creating mirrored organisms using synthetic biology could seriously harm extant life, a 300-page report claims. While the risks from mirrored life are uncertain, it is best not to find out.
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