Charity/NGO donations up to 2019

I realized that I have never kept track of charitable donations of any kind over the years. I don't consider myself especially philanthropic, but I also try to donate at least a few times a year. I generally donate "small" sums to a few organizations that inspire me that given year, but a trend has included carbon offsets.

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Before 2017
I sponsored two children for roughly 3 years (1 in the US, 1 in the Phillippines) via Save the Children

2017
2x 20,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($76 total)
$50 SPLC
$50 ACLU
2 EUR Wikimedia

2018
2x 20,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($76 total)
350 HRK (roughly 50 EUR) SOS Children’s Village Croatia
$50 ICAN (for the 1000 day action fund)

2019
$50 Ploughshares Fund
$50 Union of Concerned Scientists
$50 Arms Control Association
$50 Global Zero
10 EUR Wikimedia
$50 Freedom from Religion Foundation

40,000 airline miles CO2 offset at Carbonfund.org ($80)
$25 OSA Foundation

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Some thoughts:
-based on some examples of the SPLC making outrageous claims (especially against Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz), I don't consider them a good place to donate anymore.
-Some carbon offsets were for me and my wife, hence x2.
-I want to look in to doing carbon offsets with other organizations to try to "diversify".
-In 2019 I went on a bit of a nonproliferation streak, which will probably continue.
-This isn't meant to shame anyone who can't afford to donate, and isn't meant to garner praise. I just think we should be more open about how and where and why we donate, and try to keep track of it.

The ASJP and Afrikaans in Patagonia

I read two amazing articles about language today.

From the first: The Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) can actually assign a single number to the difference between two defined languages. Apparently, there are mostly two dinstinct groupings when comparing all languages/dialects. This means that given the score between two languages/dialects A and B (a number between 0 and 1), it can be deduced with this simple number whether A and B are different languages or simply different dialects of the same language.

The second article I read was about the study of Afrikaans speaking people in Patagonia. To me it is so interesting and mystifying that such communities exist, and the things we can learn from it are numerous. The Afrikaans language is already that of a group of people who left the Netherlands and settled in South Africa, whereby the language slowly changed from Dutch to Afrikaans. And then some of those Afrikaans speaking people ("Boers") left after losing their territory to the British. They settled in Patagonia and continued to speak their language at home, while also learning Spanish to integrate in the local communities. The youth now are mostly speaking Spanish and therefore the Afrikaans spoken there is dwindling.

Now I must ask, how do Afrikaans and Dutch score on the ASJP? And what is the score when comparing the Afrikaans spoken in Patagonia to the Afrikaans spoken in South Africa?

Eggnog Recipe

I took four eggnog recipes I found online and "averaged" them to find something that made sense for me. That means: in metric, with round numbers, and corresponding roughly to the average of the recipes I found. They deviated a lot on some ingredients, so that's why I thought this was necessary to begin with.

"Spencer's eggnog"

For 12 servings:

Eggs: 10
Milk: 1 L
Cream: 500 ml
Sugar: 250 g
Alcohol: 500 ml (1/2 bourbon, 1/2 rum)

Per serving values:

Eggs: 0.8
Milk: 83 ml
Cream: 40 ml
Sugar: 20 g
Alcohol: 40 ml (1/2 bourbon, 1/2 rum)

Directions:

-Separate the egg yolks and egg whites
-beat egg yolks with sugar until smooth
-Add milk, cream, and alcohol
-(let age in fridge for ~3 days if possible)
-beat egg whites with a spoon of sugar until creamy
-spoon in and mix egg whites with other mixture
-serve in small glasses with a dash of nutmeg on top