Recent content by EWHM

Finland gave the Germans the perception that the USSR was a rickety house that would collapse if you kicked the door in. Romania gave the Germans the perception that they had to act quickly. Without those, Barbarossa might well have been delayed to 1942, and if the US got into the war, perhaps...

Don't invade Finland in the Winter war. Also don't get froggy with Romania. If you do that you might butterfly Barbarossa entirely, which was devastating to the Soviet Union.

The whole point of the naval treaties was to avoid extremely expensive arms races. What if this was taken to its logical conclusion and the signatory nations agreed on a maximum percentage of GDP or some other metric that was allowed to be spent yearly on things military, along with some rough...

I think whoever wins in 1992 is going to win in 1996 barring anything that's beyond stupid. The economic tailwinds during those years are humongous, winding down the Cold War. So my guess is that a Perot who won in 1992 would win in 1996.

I can just see the gamer's lobby now. You can have my +1 longsword when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

I don't think they'd have to withdraw from China. They could probably get away with digesting Manchuria and part of China. But they'd have to tone the atrocities down a good bit and not expand their wars in China much beyond its 1939 levels.

I'm sure they would oppose it, but if there were a real debate in the US as to what copyright terms ought to be, I suspect the answer would be closer to 25 years than to 75 years. Engineers, for instance would see no reason why it should be longer than the patents they get, and patents and...

You could consider another possibility. This one is inspired by game theory. Members of Congress decide to not only deny the 1998 Copyright Term Extension but to punish those interests that brought it. They know about how democracy favors concentrated interests over diffuse ones and want to...

I suspect you'd see oodles of these, especially with newer technology making it easier. Lots of 'alternate history' versions of older movies. Ironically in the D&D setting I run, the lack of a real hegemon means copyright is largely non-existent, so the movie equivalent art form (based around...

There'd be surprisingly strong support for this among black women I think. I recall quite a number of black female engineering students telling me how angry they were that the department head (who was a seriously good guy and a good engineer) had married a white woman lawyer.

Yeah, it might make Disney a little less lazy, and Hollywood in general, because they'd have to compete with easy reproductions or adaptions of movies that were 75+ years old. But I think the power of laziness is strong. Probably just knocks a few points off their stock.

My guess is that you'd see a lot more viewing of old movies from the public domain. You might even see quite a bit of minor 'refurbishment' of them, because when it's Public domain you can just do that. Secondly, you'd probably butterfly away a fair bit of hostility to Disney, that really to...

I wonder if the French and Russians would be more careful if they thought that Italy was pretty certain to honor its alliance with the Central Powers.

IMO, the best civil defense program in the US wouldn't be primarily focused on nuclear attacks. It would be focused on the vulnerability of key infrastructure and to mitigate the impact of a large array of major risks. It would includes stuff like this: Maintenance of a major food grains...

The thing about the Titanic is almost any change at all regarding it versus OTL likely makes it not sink. If the tug is a little faster at preventing the collision---the Titanic isn't in the right place at the wrong time for the iceberg. If the tug takes longer than OTL, same thing. If...