World Geography
Released World Geography v2.0: a brand-new New Zealand deep-dive deck covering a variety of features - Cities, Regions, Islands, Peaks, Lakes, National Parks, Rivers & Landmarks - built from real LINZ, Natural Earth, and Wikidata geometry.
- Added a playable New Zealand deck preview to this site.
- Card photos across all decks are now credited individually to the actual photographers.
- Added custom deck title-page styling to all decks.
- The Notable World Cities and World Countries look-and-feel overhaul from last month ships as part of this release.
- Quality improvements to all decks, including crisper map images.
The Everything App
The full project page is finally written up: what the app is, why I built it, and a proper look at each of the four features with new screenshots. Go and have a read.
- Fixed bugs and improved things that were bugging me across all four domains.
The History of Rome
Covered 85 out of 193 episodes so far. Coverage now spans from the founding of Rome (753 BC) up to AD 96: the whole Julio-Claudian dynasty, the Year of the Four Emperors, and the whole Flavian dynasty.
Last month I focused heavily on the World Geography project and building The Everything App, and this project took a bit of a back seat. That little break revealed a fundamental flaw in the current approach.
- Most cards were one paragraph per person or event, and nearly half the answers packed in three or more facts at once, which is too much.
- Every card should have one fact on it.
- I've gone through and split up almost every card into its key facts, roughly tripling the size of the deck.
- Every card should now be much more suited to spaced-repetition learning, and despite the increase in card count it should actually be faster to learn.
- Back to new content, as planned: added the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.
- Cards are now tagged by dynasty (Julio-Claudians, Flavians, and so on), so one stretch can be studied on its own.
- Succession cards now place each ruler within their dynasty, not just before/after their neighbours.
- Mini-timelines on the back of each card are now far more compact, and used more sparingly.
- Major updates to the Roman history timeline.
- Ordering within a year is now curated by hand instead of guessed. Turns out putting dates in order is harder than it should be.
- It's interactive now too! Click any entry to see a short summary, the people involved, and where it happened.
- Dark mode added, and it's actually readable on mobile now. Battles are colour-coded for Roman victories, defeats, and civil wars.
- Wars and crises that outlast an emperor, like the Great Jewish Revolt and the Year of the Four Emperors, now run across reigns instead of being chopped up.
Travel Blog/Guide Thing
- 25th September: Added a whole bunch more photos to the Beijing, Mongolia, and Seoul blogs, including our campsite beers across Mongolia.
Untitled Writing Project
- Still writing.