Tag: Europe

Mapping Global Friendships and Rivalries: A Color-Coded Matrix Analysis | March 12 2026, 03:29

For fun, I decided to make a matrix of who is friends with whom and who is enemies with whom. For each country-country pair, I asked Gemini which of the five categories the relations fall into: “at daggers drawn” (purple), “predominantly unfriendly” (red), “neutral” (yellow), “predominantly friendly” (blue), “friends” (green). Lisa said that “neutral” should be purple. Overall, the quality of Gemini’s assessments is quite good.

Among all countries, three red lines stand out. These are countries that are on very bad terms with many others. Well, you guessed Russia right. And what is the second country? Israel? No, it’s Belarus and Venezuela.

In the top five countries that everyone is friends with and who have many friends themselves, LLM included the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany. There is an anti-rating – these are countries that have very bad relations (“at daggers drawn”) with many others. In this rating, Russia is in first place with 21 countries, and Israel is in second place with 18 enemies. Following them, with a significant gap, are Syria and the USA with 9 enemies each. There is also a separate Conflict Zone rating – this is the sum of red and purple. Russia, Venezuela, Belarus, Israel, USA, Iran, Ukraine.

There is a “pacifists’ club”. These are the ones who have no enemies at all, sorted by the number of friends. Rating: Bahamas, Vatican, Luxembourg, Angola, Singapore, Iceland, Jamaica, Tanzania, Zambia.

I was curious, what if I apply the formula: the enemy of my enemy is my friend? What would change? This led to new colors on the matrix – logic friends.

The most unexpected leader of the Master Pragmatists ranking was Taiwan (25 logical connections). Why so? In the logic of LLM, Taiwan is a country that is officially recognized by few, but because of its global opposition to China, it automatically becomes a “logical friend” for everyone who has strained relations with Beijing. This is confirmed in the Shadow Bridges section: Taiwan has 23 connections beyond its region. It literally “stitches” different parts of the world together through a common problem.

The report “Secret Partners” – a list of geopolitical oxymorons. These are pairs that are “at daggers drawn” in official news but are forced to be friends by Gemini’s calculation. For example, Afghanistan – USA/United Kingdom. Despite the status “rather bad relations”, Gemini’s logic sees them as “logical friends”. Possibly due to common regional threats (like ISIS) or dependence on humanitarian and back channels. Or here’s a strange alliance “Belarus — Hungary”. Nominal — different camps, factually — similar style of rhetoric and common “enemies” in Brussels. Eritrea — Ethiopia: Status “at daggers drawn”, but at the same time, they became logical friends.

In the report “Most Controversial,” the first places are taken by the USA, and then with a significant gap, Russia, and even larger – United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine. These are countries with the highest Love x Hate product value. That is, countries that have many friends and enemies at the same time.

Another report – the indifferent ones. About them, LLM couldn’t say much, apparently because they bother no one (both literally and figuratively). There are, for example, Madagascar and Haiti.

I also tried to cluster by the strength of friends and got four groups of countries.

The largest cluster. Core: China, Russia, Iran, India, and BRICS+ countries, as well as almost the entire African continent (from Egypt to South Africa) and a significant part of the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar).

The second cluster mainly included European countries. Core: France, Germany, United Kingdom. The algorithm determined Ukraine and Israel to be here. Logically: their survival depends on “predominantly friendly relations” with the European core. In this same club are Armenia, Georgia, and Serbia. Apparently, despite all the political swings, Gemini considers their ties to Europe more fundamental than any others.

The third cluster included the USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and, for example, Taiwan. Officially, it can be a “logical friend” to all of China’s enemies, but by “strength of friends,” it is permanently sewn to the American block. The Vatican also ended up here, which makes this club not only economic but also somewhat “values-based.”

The fourth cluster, the most compact and specialized, included countries of Oceania and Southeast Asia. Leaders: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore. This turned out to be a club of countries trying to balance in the most complex region of the planet. Here are almost all island states (Fiji, Samoa, Tonga).

What else could we extract from this information?

Exploring Redundancy in Toponymy: From European Rivers to the Hill of Hills | March 08 2026, 02:54

Reading Nabokov, there “…with the dash of the Danube in his veins…”. Turns out, Danube is Дунай. But that’s okay, trivial stuff, the interesting thing is something else. That Don, Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Donets, Dvina, and Disna essentially mean more or less the same thing – river. Apparently, the ancient people were not always rich in imagination when it came to toponymy. If you live by the water, you simply call it “River”. Over time, others came, heard this word, took it as a proper name, and altered it slightly to fit their accent. This way “River” (Danu) transformed into a dozen different names across the map of Europe.

The river Volga essentially is also just “river”. Okay, slightly different, “Volga” comes from the Proto-Slavic *Vòlga, which literally means “moisture” or “water”.

Also, it turned out that the Sahara desert is named so because Sahara (الصحراء) is desert. And the Gobi desert is called Gobi because Gobi in Mongolian is desert.

While googling, I stumbled upon another fun thing. There’s a place in England, Torpenhow Hill. The name is composed of four different linguistic layers: Tor — in Old English “hill”, Pen — in Cumbric “hill”, How — in Old Norse “hill”, Hill — in modern English “hill”. Result: “Hill-hill-hill-hill”. Likely, each new people arriving in this area didn’t understand that Tor, Pen, and How were already names for the hill, and added their variant of the word “hill”.

Redefining Third World: Beyond Cold War Labels | March 07 2026, 03:36

Today I read that the Third World countries were initially countries not part of NATO (First World) or the socialist bloc (Second World), that is, countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, and Austria. Some still use the term “developing countries,” where it is customary to include low-income countries, but, darn it, a developing country is actually a good definition. The one that has developed and stopped developing – that’s a signal. Incidentally, Qatar, which has the highest GDP per capita in the world, is formally considered developing.

CIS Headquarters’ Outdated Member List: A Curious Oversight | March 07 2026, 03:22

It’s funny, at the CIS headquarters in Minsk 1) they still think that the CIS is alive (joke) 2) they still think that Ukraine is still there (never was part of the CIS, but officially left the CIS governing bodies in 2018). By the way, Moldova started the withdrawal process this year.

The Lost Version of Repin’s “Unexpected”: A Revolutionary Woman’s Tale | March 01 2026, 23:59

It turns out that in the first version of the painting “Unexpected” the main character was a woman, a Narodovoltsy revolutionary! This was a smaller version, later Repin painted a larger one with a man – the one everyone knows.

And the first version is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery but it is not displayed.

Well, as everyone knows. In general, Russian and Ukrainian artists are hardly known outside their countries. There seems to be one painting by Repin in the Metropolitan Museum of NY and a few in the Orsay, but that’s almost nothing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are all in storage.

Here people know Rublev, the Russian avant-garde (Malevich, Kandinsky, Chagall), but nobody (except professionals) knows Shishkin, Levitan, Vasnetsov, Surikov, Savrasov. Despite the fact that many of them studied in Europe and worked from there. Remember Ivanov and his “The Appearance of Christ Before the People”.

Now I’m googling why. They write that the French considered Russian art of that era something akin to journalism in oil. Like, using the canvas as a platform to preach morals, tell stories, expose social injustices. Social drama, suffering peasants, harsh winter landscapes, and execution scenes – all this seemed frightening to Americans. Kind of like Dostoevsky in oil. How can you hang that above a fireplace?

From Camels to Bishops: The Fascinating Evolution of Chess Pieces | February 14 2026, 16:24

It all started with a question – why does the elephant ♗ have this notch? And in general, where is the elephant, and where is the bishop, and is this notch about the elephant or the bishop? Anyway, listen to what I dug up, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here.

Chess originates from India. There, this figure was initially called a camel. And their elephant was what we call a rook – which if you think about it, a rook is basically a boat – or in English, rook, which if you think about it in Persian, it means chariot.

The name “Tura”, which we often hear in colloquial speech, is a pure import from Europe. In French – tour. In Italian – torre. In Latin – turris. All of these mean the same thing: tower. When chess arrived in Europe, knights and monks didn’t really understand what a “battle chariot” was (they were out of fashion by then), but they knew very well what a siege tower was.

So, returning to the elephant and the notch.

The short answer – to distinguish it from a pawn. But there’s a long answer.

When chess came to Europe, the Indian camel was switched to the Catholic bishop, and thus the piece was named bishop. The notch supposedly symbolizes a miter – the high headgear of clergymen. That’s precisely why in English the piece is called bishop. Though to me, it’s just a mouth from the Muppet show.

Interestingly, in French, it’s le fou – the jester. In German, it’s Läufer – runner. In Greek – officer (Αξιωματικός). Why officer? I don’t know, but I dug up that in Chinese chess, xiangqi (象棋), the “elephant” piece is indicated and pronounced as xiàng (象). This character indeed means “elephant.” However, in Chinese history, there was a high state office called xiàng (相), usually translated as “chancellor,” “prime minister,” or “chief minister.” This is a different character, although the pronunciation coincides. Probably, the officer comes from here too.

The chess knight is almost a horse in all languages, only in English and a few others, it’s a knight (although, in German, for example, it’s Springer – jumper, and in Sicily – donkey).

So, in German, there is a jumper and a runner. And a little horse in German is actually a king.

I also learned that there are ready-made solutions for ANY chess endgame in which there are seven or fewer pieces on the board, regardless of the position, the composition of the remaining pieces, or possible moves. This information, known as endgame tables, currently occupies 18.4 terabytes.

from the comments: “The most interesting thing is that this week a multi-year work was completed, and there is now a ready solution for any position with 8 pieces or fewer (7 pieces was already about 12 years ago, but there’s a very big difference)”

Charming Mini-EVs of Europe: A Street-Side Review in Amsterdam | September 21 2025, 17:41

I found such little cars in Europe very charming. All from Amsterdam, there are many of them there. It seems there are none in the USA, not even on college campuses. I think if they ventured onto our highways, first, everyone would crane their necks, and second, they would be blown away by the wind. Among those shown, the most interesting is the Microlino, a little green one. It has a door literally at the front. Electric. 15-18K euros. Among the rest, Opel, FIAT, and Citroen also have nice designs.