Will there be an "Et tu, Brute" moment ?

Oh my intertwingled mind.

I have the news channel blathering away in the background, and again I hear about Donald Trump's latest shenanigans, aside from vengeance on witnesses in his impeachment: now he is throwing his weight around to influence the sentencing of his criminal buddy Roger Stone.

Listening, I start thinking: it sure seems like Trump is behaving like an undemocratic tyrant, like a king anointed by God; when will cowardly Republican politicians finally step up and protect their own constitution?

Every one of us have a breaking point that pushes us into action.  What happens when we don't act by that breaking point?  How long can Republican politicians keep hiding behind the words "Donald Trump has learned his lesson?"

The more Trump gets away with deconstructing the judicial and political institutions and norms that have made America the beacon of democracy, the more he consolidates his personal power and neuters this concept of co-equal branches of government.  Checks and balances: nice knowing ya.

I can't help but think of ancient Rome, and how all empires eventually fall.

And it all got me thinking of Julius Caesar's assassination.  From Wikipedia's "Assassination of Julius Caesar" article:

In January 44, Caesar—who was already dictator—was named perpetual dictator by the Senate. This declaration made many senators of the conservative Optimates faction fear that Caesar wanted to overthrow the Republic and establish a monarchy; they thus decided to kill him to save the Republic. 

Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic, and the ramifications of the assassination led to the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.

1888 painting by William Holmes Sullivan is named Et tu Brute and is located in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
(edit of original image from Wikimedia Commons)

BTW: that scene, to me, is just a very brutally figurative way of expressing: when things go too far, things can get really ugly.  Maybe Donald Trump's Brutus in an "Et tu, Brute" moment will be his own senators, or an ego-driven mistake, or his supporters at the ballot box.  A plethora of Brutus possibilities ...

Eventually, the Roman Empire fell.  When the decline of ancient Rome started (during the republic? the empire?), whether or not Julius Caesar's assassination started or precipitated things, whether or not it made a difference, and any other questions: who knows?

Maybe once the wheels of destiny are put into motion, there is no turning back?

Here's hoping that the Americans (well, the world) is just experiencing a temporary freak show ...

Now, that aside, I want to brush up on my history of the Roman Empire.

Too many interests, not enough lifetimes...

And that, my friends, is my intertwingulitis of the day.

About Transclusion (part 2)

About Transclusion (part 1)

What better way to show transclusion in action but with a simple recipe with:

• Deeply intertwingled flavour !
• i.e has my five food groups: sweet, salty, spicy, fatty-ish, tart
• An intertwingularity of recipe tweaking possibilities !

I've added a "Mum's BBQ Sauce" "page"  (well, "tiddler" in TiddlyWiki speak) to my Intertwingularity Slice'n Dice Wiki:

Mum's BBQ Sauce

In that tiddler, you'll find two references to a "Frying Onions to Translucence" tiddler: one reference is a hyperlink reference to the tiddler, and the other reference is a transclusion of the tiddler.

Aside, in TiddlyWiki...

• a tiddler hyperlink reference is created by placing the tiddler's name within double-brackets, like this: [[Frying Onions to Translucence]]

• a tiddler transclusion reference is created by placing the tiddler's name within double-curly-brackets, like this:  {{Frying Onions to Translucence}}

While surfing the web, there are times when I appreciate jumping from one page to another, particularly when I want to consume completely unrelated/distinct content (or, content I want to singularly focus on without distraction).

Often, though, I like to see extra content shown "right there", embedded within the context of a greater whole.  When that greater whole, the context, disappears upon click of a hyperlink, that more often than not drives me into intertwingulitis by browser back and forward buttons.  Arg!

I have some serious transclusion appreciation because it facilitates:

• the creation of content once ("Frying Onions to Translucence")
• a single-source of content to maintain, enhance, and always be "current"
• the easy/quick inclusion of content anywhere needed as a component of any other content (any bigger recipe, like Mum's BBQ Sauce, or a burger recipe, a casserole recipe, etc. etc. etc.)

In some future part 3, I'll show another (possibly more practical?) use case.

Cheers !

About Transclusion (part 1)

Transclusion.

To me, the ultimate software feature, the single best medicine, for intertwingulitis sufferers.

High time for me to slice'n dice the daylights out of the topic.

Better in very small drips, for fear of getting overwhelmed by the tsunami of intertwingled thoughts related to everything transclusion.

So to keep it simple, lets start with a very basic definition, to be followed slowly and surely by other blogular nibblets, tying all things "transclusion" together, as I muddle along, in my Intertwingularity Slice'n Dice Wiki.

Let's start things off with a fairly simple definition of transclusion:

Paraphrasing Wikipedia's Transclusion article:

• In the digital world, transclusion is the inclusion of an electronic document into one or more other documents.

• Transclusion is performed, automatically and transparently, upon display of the referencing document.

• The result of transclusion is a single integrated document made of parts assembled dynamically from separate sources.

• Transclusion facilitates modular design: a resource is stored once and distributed for reuse in multiple documents.

• Updates or corrections to a resource are then reflected in any referencing documents.

BTW:  the word "transclusion" is yet another great word coined by Ted Nelson.

Let's stop there for now, before I start going down a whole mess of intertwingled rabbit holes.

Planned for the next nibblet, a nice and tidy example of transclusion in action.

Pretty sure it will involve BBQ sauce and fried onions.

Stay tuned !