I have wondered why a historian's blog ends up being a regular favorite on Hacker News. I would imagine because it is nearly surgical in its descriptions of technical and mechanical processes. He goes into granular step-by-step detail about how things work, both at a low-level and at a high-level. Not unlike the work of a programmer!

I mean, when discussing archers, he actually brought physics, empirical studies, historical anecdotes, analyzed artwork, and compared to modern video games and TV.

The guy thinks and that's fun to watch.