Why was the Roman legion able to decisively defeat the Hellenistic sarisa-phalanx?

https://acoup.blog/2024/01/19/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ia-heirs-of-alexander/

 

 

Man Creatively Sneaks Onto Delta Flight, But Gets Caught

https://onemileatatime.com/news/man-creatively-sneaks-onto-delta-flight/

The man reportedly intended to fly with Southwest to Austin. He had a “buddy pass,” which was presumably given to him by a Southwest employee, to be able to fly with the airline on a space available basis. So he cleared security with that standby pass, though unfortunately the Southwest flight was full, meaning he wouldn’t be able to take the flight.

Desperate to get to Austin, the man then used a different strategy. He went to the gate for the Delta flight to Austin, and used his phone to take pictures of the boarding passes of other passengers without their knowledge. No one noticed this at the time, but rather this was only uncovered using security camera footage after the fact.

He then boarded the aircraft using the barcode on another passenger’s boarding pass. Now, he did sort of think this through — he didn’t simply take the seat associated with that boarding pass, since he knew it would be occupied. Instead, he boarded and then tried to hide in the lavatory. The goal was to let everyone else board, and then take whatever empty seat was left.

The problem is, there were no empty seats on the flight. So when he emerged from the lavatory and the plane began taxiing, flight attendants realized something was wrong, and the plane returned to the gate. The aircraft was met by police, where the traveler “admitted he had made a mistake and was only trying get home.” Police say the man is being held on a federal detainer at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail. The flight ended up departing around 30 minutes late.

Inside North Korea's Forced-Labor Program

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/04/inside-north-koreas-forced-labor-program-in-china

In late 2023, an investigator hired by my team visited a Chinese plant called Donggang Xinxin Foodstuff. He found hundreds of North Korean women working under a red banner that read, in Korean, “Let’s carry out the resolution of the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party.” Soon afterward, the investigator visited a nearby plant called Donggang Haimeng Foodstuff, and found a North Korean manager sitting at a wooden desk with two miniature flags, one Chinese and one North Korean. The walls around the desk were mostly bare except for two portraits of the past North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The manager took our investigator to the workers’ cafeteria to eat a North Korean cold-noodle dish called naengmyeon, and then gave him a tour of the processing floor. Several hundred North Korean women dressed in red uniforms, plastic aprons, and white rubber boots stood shoulder to shoulder at long metal tables under harsh lights, hunched over plastic baskets of seafood, slicing and sorting products by hand. “They work hard,” the manager said. The factory has exported thousands of tons of fish to companies that supply major U.S. retailers, including Walmart and ShopRite.

Power Metal: is it really about dragons?

 https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html