[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
Imagine how differently WW2 would have gone if France had focused their military efforts on advanced airplanes and tank warfare throughout the 30s instead of static defenses
The nazis still would have won but they would have taken a hell of a beating
French tanks were actually more advanced than German Panzers at the time, and France had more of them.
The problem was doctrine, not technology. France split up its tank forces to support infantry formations along the front, while the Germans concentrated their armor and used infantry as support for it.
It was already touched on, but one of the big reasons for the Maginot line was that to call the French population decimated after WW1 is an understatement. They simply didn't have the manpower to hope to match most European powers in an army-on-army clash. They had to rely on making attacking France a really unappealing option. The designers of the Maginot Line knew that if they built the wall properly it would be used only as a deterrent, the thing was just insanely fortified - as well as being heavily automated. It's really a pretty darn cool bit of engineering.
The hope was that forcing Germany to attack through the low countries would A - guarantee that England would have to enter the war, B - Delay the invasion long enough for them to counter in force wherever the attack came from, and C - keep the bulk of the fighting in Belgium, where France could make the most of their limited but superior quality tanks and cooperate with British forces.
The alternative is not really that appealing if you're a French staff officer trying to plan this shit out. Without the Maginot Line the Germans can attack France directly, so even if the Brits do come in they'll still have to get to France. The French will almost certainly get crushed by a German army spearhead before reinforcements arrive, and then everyone will fight it out in the middle of France a la the Great War. Which would basically just be planning your war to be catastrophic.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
I need to do a write-up about Michelangelo (the artist, not the turtle) and him giving the finger to the Church, but in a covert way so he still got paid.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
I got exposed to the Voynich manuscript at a young age via an Indiana Jones paperback. The book tied it to the Philosopher's Stone, ancient Druids, Hermeticism, and ended up in a reverse pyramid. Since then I've been checking out actual info regarding the stuff, so this development is really cool!
I need to do a write-up about Michelangelo (the artist, not the turtle) and him giving the finger to the Church, but in a covert way so he still got paid.
Someone remind me to do this tomorrow.
You need to do this today.
My personal favorite quark of Mike and his work is the fact that outside of rare exceptions (Pieta, etc...) all his models were male. Makes a lot of his paintings hilarious to look at. Anyone curious about what he liked in the bedroom need only feast their eyes on the riot of bodybuilders in dresses.
BlackDragon480 on
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
The U.S. just plain hasn't fought a whole hell of a lot of wars. The total of U.S. combat deaths in 200 years is roughly equal to the Battle of Leningrad by itself.* Soldiers in wartime are something rather uncommon in the American experience as a whole, so maybe they're seen as particularly special just for that.
Europe kind of warred itself out in the last century, so I guess they just don't find uniforms something to get quite as worked up about.
*the total number of U.S. soldiers killed fighting a foreign enemy is about the same as British casualties at the Battle of the Somme
I have to object to the whole The US just plain hasn't fought a whole hell of a lot of wars statement.
America gets into a major multi-year military engagement every twenty years on average.
You want to know why America does not have a lot of soldiers killed fighting a foreign enemy? Because usually we have been fighting people who we MASSIVELY OUTCLASS
Generally, throughout our history, the US people have broken with the idea of war before the military did. WWII was the exception that proves the rule.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
The Vikings told people about their adventures?
I find the idea of Vikings stopping to admire sunflowers hilarious.
"Sven, is this not tbe most beautiful thing you have ever laid eyes on?"
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
The Vikings told people about their adventures?
There's an even simpler explanation: the illustrations are not scientifically-accurate, whoever drew them took a lot of artistic liberties (hence the "it's alien" crackpot theories and the "it's a fraud" theory, as well as a lot of the difficulties in translating it). Any anachronistic resemblance to New-World plants could simply be coincidences.
I need to do a write-up about Michelangelo (the artist, not the turtle) and him giving the finger to the Church, but in a covert way so he still got paid.
Someone remind me to do this tomorrow.
Mostly it was giving the finger to the guy who covered up all his dicks.
[Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire] has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic.
[...]
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax. “The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.
[...]
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.”
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
The Vikings told people about their adventures?
There's an even simpler explanation: the illustrations are not scientifically-accurate, whoever drew them took a lot of artistic liberties (hence the "it's alien" crackpot theories and the "it's a fraud" theory, as well as a lot of the difficulties in translating it). Any anachronistic resemblance to New-World plants could simply be coincidences.
I need to do a write-up about Michelangelo (the artist, not the turtle) and him giving the finger to the Church, but in a covert way so he still got paid.
Someone remind me to do this tomorrow.
Mostly it was giving the finger to the guy who covered up all his dicks.
I'm pretty sure the dicks got covered up after he died. The Renaissance was pretty okay with dicks. It was visible public hair on females that bothered them. Or visible lower genitalia on females. Or anything that involved female sexuality without there being an "excuse" for her behavior (such as being asleep or preparing to get dressed).
Then when things started moving towards the baroque era, you started seeing less dicks and more females being obviously sexual.
Sorry. This is my area of study and I get kinda excited about it...
The "fig leaf" campaign happened after his death, but Michaelango did do things like paint Biagio de Cesena (a strident papal critic of his) with donkey ears and serpant biting his dick in the "Last Judgment".
It's not as obviously a "F-you," but Michelangelo also got progressively sloppier while he painted the Sistine Ceiling after he realized nobody would be able to see if he was using the guidelines he'd put in the plaster. The sections of the Ceiling get progressively simpler in composition, with larger and larger figures who are more and closer to proto-mannerism than High Renaissance.
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Mainly I was going to write about David.
Whom until recently didn't realize that is was suppose to be David, you know, the original underdog, creator of the Head-Shot, and the man that stared down Goliath.
The old PBS documentary The Medici has a nice section on the Medici's patronage of arts in the Greco-Roman tradition. The church was most definitely not OK with male nudes, and generally considered them dangerously lustful, or even of Sodom. Donatello's bronze David was the first male nude cast since the ancient world and was most definitely controversial. And then Michelangelo's was very much a political symbol of his time, with his eyes facing Rome.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
So not the oldest history but we're cleaning out our house for a move and came across a bunch of old consoles and games. Shivahn and I are going to inventory it all tomorrow and make sure everything works appropriately but I am getting some crazy nostalgia. Especially happy to have found some original manuals.
The old PBS documentary The Medici has a nice section on the Medici's patronage of arts in the Greco-Roman tradition. The church was most definitely not OK with male nudes, and generally considered them dangerously lustful, or even of Sodom. Donatello's bronze David was the first male nude cast since the ancient world and was most definitely controversial. And then Michelangelo's was very much a political symbol of his time, with his eyes facing Rome.
I can't recommend that documentary enough. It's brilliant, and is what got me into the renaissance.
The Renaissance is FUN, although I very much prefer early cinquecento stuff to the beginning of the quattrocento. That's largely because I'm working on a paper about Lorenzo Lotto, though. (Painter from 1480-1557 Venice.)
Much alarm has been caused by the account published in the Southern Cross of the visit and proceedings of a Russian man-o'-war. We admit that in these politically uncertain times the sudden appearance in our port of sin by the monster, bearing the Russian flag, would of itself sufficient to earn serious apprehension, but we can assure our readers that there is no came for alarm, as the statements published being utterly untrue. We are surprised that the Southern Cross should publish such a Muncha'iscii-liko statement", calculated to alarm everybody, without first inquiring into their truth. We must confess to having felt some uneasiness at first sight of the huge ironclad, but we have now to congratulate our readers and the country on the deliverance from the threatened danger or It should be borne in rain t that no true Briton whatsoever should be afraid of ten " casks of whisky- •• We are authorised to note « that the sole object of the visit of the ' Kaskovrum' was to inspect the -well known Clothing Establishment of Samuel Coombs. No 80, QuLDn st set, the fame of which has reached the Emperor and Court of Russia
Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIX, Issue 4830, 18 February 1873
The above article is the followup to the original scare, but that article is linked below, not pasted into this story as the Archive website cannot easily convert the image text by OCR for some reason. Try the link below.
Right, so there were two main Russian Scares so far as New Zealand is concerned and probably four or five for parts of Australia (Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney) going back to before the Crimean War in 1853. If truth be told, it seems that these scares happened every couple of years and the “big” ones are notable only for actually resulting in spending, instead of angry newspaper stories.
The first in 1873, as a result of a hoax by an Auckland newspaper editor, David Mitchell, worried about the Russian Threat. The hoax was believed by many, in a War of the Worlds style manner. It sparked great debate, parliament issued a report on defences and a half hearted effort was made to build forts. It achieved the author’s goal of raising the issue. This followed an earlier scare in Victoria in 1871, which resulted in the purchase of an armoured ship.
The second was in 1885, after a serious incident in Afghanistan, where Russian forces seized lands and destroyed an Afghani army unit. Britain and Russia almost went to war on this and related matters, which frightened everyone in the Empire. This sparked the Second Scare, which resulted in parliament spending money on coastal artillery. The same is true in the Australian colonies. In NZ, most coastal defences started about this point. Over the next few years the government spend hundreds of thousands of pounds it could ill afford on importing often obsolete artillery from Britain.
Background
New Zealand and the various Australian colonies of Britain experienced several (at least 2 for NZ, more for Australia as it had been settled longer) panics about Russian raiding or invasion from the early 19th century onwards, this sparked the construction of coastal defence forts across the colonies.
Now this seems a bit mad, given just how far away Russia’s nearest ports were from either place. Vladivostok is about 6100 miles in a direct line from Auckland and at the time, there were very few non British ports anywhere near that a Russian ship or force could expect to resupply. However there had been a few Russian naval visits in that period, so clearly it was possible in the right circumstances. However during this period, the colonies very much saw themselves as British and indeed they were for most purposes, defence included. Up until the 1870s there were British soldiers* stationed in New Zealand for the Land Wars and naval forces** deployed from Britain until well after WW1, when local navies were created by first Australia, then New Zealand (sort of as part of the RN initially).
The fear was not as foolish as you might think either. Britain had a long period of time in the 19th century where Russia was the principal threat or enemy, despite only one major war occurring, the Crimean, in 1853.
For settler residents of NZ or Australia, they would have considered Russia to be their principal threat as well, alongside the French, just like British people in Britain would have. Given the slower pace of news at the time, the various diplomatic problems, or near wars would be debated at great length by people in the colonies too. Below is a letter to the editor of a Taranaki (NZ) newspaper in 1885 at the time of the Second Russian Scare (NZ).
In NZ’s case especially, most people at this point were immigrants or first generation, many of the former of which would have served in British forces at some point. All of whom would have some fear of Maori rebellion given the recent wars. So paranoia or fear of military action was rife.
Anyway, every few years a Russian naval ship would call at some of the ports of Australasia, if just to send a message. During the early to middle part of the century, as ownership and sovereignty of the various islands (NZ included) was still uncertain, Russia did make various moves to assert some interest, even though none succeeded. Russia was a long way from the area though, with the nearest ports being Vladivostok or the Chinese concessions, the Black Sea or Europe. All many thousands of miles from Australasia and with little in the way of neutral ports to resupply.
The physical and human geography of Australasia now and then pretty much meant that most people live in towns or cities around the coast of the various islands or continent. Before the rail & road networks, automobiles and aircraft were commonly available, this meant that most commerce and transportation went by sea. So any disruption of sea traffic would have a huge and immediate impact on most people’s lives.
The Forts
So, what did the NZ taxpayer get? 16 forts scattered up and down the islands, principally around Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin with about 43 heavy guns. These forts and guns were then modernised at least twice before /during WW1 and WW2, although they were really never used in anger. I guess the skipper of the fishing boat ‘Dolphin’, sunk accidentally in 1907 by a fort would disagree, given he was killed by the same.
Some of the forts have been restored for historical reasons too, which greatly impressed me as a small child.,
* This is a sad story. Not unlike the situation with the British American colonies in a previous century, the NZ colonial government was firmly in step with settler voters on the matter of the indigenous people and their rights (and land), whilst the British government in London was in some matters sympathetic to the Maori. London and indeed local British military commanders often strongly disagreed with NZ colonial government policy to Maori on both military and other matters (land alienation usually). So it soon became necessary for the colonial government to be rid of the Imperial forces so they could do what they wanted. Once the Army left, the colonial government only had to worry about what the Governor thought and as he had no soldiers, it was harder for him to change government policy, given that parliament and the elected premier ran that. To this day some Maori still see the Crown in London as the final guarantor of Maori rights.
**Amusingly my great great grandfather was a young sailor on one of these ships from where he deserted when in the port of Dunedin. The NZ police force had his name, along with his fellow deserters, listed at every station in the country
As an amusing follow-up for our American readers, it came out about 4-5 years ago that the US military had developed a plan to invade New Zealand about the time of the Great White Fleet's world tour. This plan principally was based around invading Auckland by sea. It is thought that the plan was pretty unrealistic and the coastal defences discussed above would have been effective.
The Great White Fleet off Auckland
The important thing to note here is that the US military has a long history of speculative war plans, with no real intention to act. I believe they had similar plans for Canada, Australia and others.
After World Ear One, The US drafted War Plan Orange, a plan of attack against Japan; and War Plan Red, against Great Britain. While Japan may have been an actual threat, Britain was not. The two countries were diplomatically closer than they ever had been.
The reasoning for the plan was that there was simply no one else in the world besides the Brits who could challenge the US.
I believe both plans were part of the so called "Rainbow Plans", due to the use of color. I also believe our plan to invade Ireland was called War Plan Green. Yeah....
Also interesting was that Kaiser Wilhelm II had his generals and adrimals draw up a plan to invade New York City.
The interesting thing about War Plan Red was that each part of the Empire given attention in the plan was sub-coloured: Britain Proper was Red. Canada (where the main action was anticipated) was Crimson, India was Ruby, Australia was Scarlet and New Zealand was Garnet.
The interesting thing about War Plan Red was that each part of the Empire given attention in the plan was sub-coloured: Britain Proper was Red. Canada (where the main action was anticipated) was Crimson, India was Ruby, Australia was Scarlet and New Zealand was Garnet.
But Ireland? She was Emerald.
You just can't escape stereotypes, can you?
It came up earlier in the thread. There were also color coded plans for Germany, France, Mexico and China ( fought with China against Japan, called War Plan Yellow, because reasons and horribleness).
We also had a plan drafted during the war to invade Iceland, not needed because the British did it for us and the Azores, which probably would have happened if Franco had joined the Axis (I cannot imagine an independent Portugal next to an Axis Spain).
It's also interesting to not that neither the British, nor the Canadians held any real hope of defeating America in a war and only drafted defensive plans against us; we just had too many people and resources to consider invading. The Canadian plan was to capture several major border cities to delay an invasion long enough for Britain to send relief. Notably, Detroit and Buffalo were not targets, as they wanted to draw us away from Toronto.
The British planned to reinforce Canada, but did not believe they could stop an invasion. Their goal was to keep the US focused on North America long enough to gather fleets in Caribbean and Canadian bases and strike the American navy before it was dispersed for commerce raiding.
The goal was similar to the Japanese plan; not an American surrender, but a negotiated peace dependent on American war weariness. Granted, the British never considered it as an offensive plan.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
As most of you probably realize, there is a subset of engineers and scientists out there who, upon seeing some new discovery, cannot help but immediately think of ways it might be used to go fast. So, naturally, once atomic weaponry was invented there were a number of attempts to propel spacecraft with it.
You might've heard of Project Orion--a hypothetical spacecraft propelled by a series of nuclear explosions arranged to occur behind it. Well, Orion never got off the drawing board. Even if you avoid the environmental/safety issues involved in taking off from the Earth's surface via nuclear explosion, you've got to deal with the political consequences of launching thousands of warheads into space.
There is another way to use the enormous enthalpy of nuclear fission for spacecraft propulsion, though--instead of an explosion, use the energy produced by a reactor to heat a working fluid and expel it through a nozzle. This is called a nuclear thermal rocket, or NTR for short, and in a little-known bit of history it turns out that NTRs were developed quite a bit further than the hypothetical Project Orion ever was.
It began officially in 1955 at Los Alamos with Project Rover and a test engine called Kiwi (named, of course, for the flightless bird) was soon firing out in the desert. The project was successful beyond expectation, and in 1961 NASA created a development program using one of the Kiwi series engines with the intent of building a flight engine. This project was called NERVA, and two engines were produced. Project Rover continued in parallel and produced the Phoebus and then Pewee engine series, which focused on higher power rather than flight-readiness. One of the Phoebus engines was run up to a power level of 4 GW, which made it among the most powerful reactors ever built. Meanwhile the latest NERVA engine achieved its program objectives, including a demonstrated specific impulse of 850 seconds. For comparison, the most advanced chemical rockets (the space shuttle main engines) would, decades later, achieve an Isp of 453 seconds. None of the NERVA or Rover engines achieved a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1, meaning that they'd still be useful exclusively as upper stages on conventional rockets or on vehicles assembled in space. However, they had vastly more thrust than any technology with a comparable specific impulse (either then, or since), which is of course a huge advantage when attempting gravity assists. There was also a bit of a problem with fuel elements being corroded by the hydrogen reaction mass (which made the exhaust radioactive, since part of the core was dissolving into it), but this was reduced considerably with later design improvements to the reactor materials. You still wouldn't want to be standing nearby during an engine test, though.
Here's one of the Kiwi engines:
And a test-firing of one of the NERVA designs built on it:
Of course, you might wonder why we aren't using these today. In the end, NASA did believe that NERVA derivatives were ready to be included in working vehicle designs. Variants of the Saturn 5 were drawn up using nuclear thermal upper stages to take humans to Mars or beyond, and NTRs were planned for use on various unmanned deep space probes. Unfortunately, this happened right as Nixon came into office and brought the hammer down on space exploration in general and on a manned Mars mission in particular. NERVA was a target since it both enabled a manned Mars mission (using 1970s-era technology and mission architectures) and was itself expensive. Meanwhile, public opinion was gradually turning against anything containing the word "nuclear".
The rest is history--we never went to Mars, and we no longer have nuclear rockets or serious designs that call for them. The NERVA data are still around, of course, but the engineers and scientists who worked on those programs are slipping (or have already slipped) into retirement.
Some of the off-spring from these designs ended up inspiring Project Pluto. Project Pluto used the heat of a nuclear reactor to create a nuclear powered ramjet. This would be mounted in a primitive cruise missile. The problem was a major issue in that enough they could never generate enough power to carry the nuclear warheads and shielding from the reactor. So they omitted the shielding. Which means that it was going to give an extremely dangerous dose of radiation to whoever it flew over. To this day it's one of the few project that was scrapped because it scared the shit out of the Pentagon. By the time they got the power levels up high enough ICMBs had replaced them as a design.
Speaking of Project Orion, many people aren't aware that in a last-ditch effort to obtain funding, it was proposed to the Air Force as a weapons platform:
Of which there are not only drawings, but these days also some small models by enthusiasts as well:
The specifications of such a vessel, which reads like something out of a scifi game manual are as follows:
Mass: 4000 Tons Number of Stages: One Diameter: 184 feet Length: 280 feet
Crew Complement: Fifty
Armament:
Numerous 20mm cannon emplacements
Three 5-inch naval gun turrets
Six directed energy beam emitters powered by the ship's drive blasts
500 20 megaton warheads
Secondary Vehicles:
Six re-entry vehicles for crew transfer, resupply, escape, etc
I first learned about Project Orion from a sci-fi novel by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven called Footfall
book spoilers
They build basically the ship described here. I don't remember if it had the actual cannons, or just the a-bomb pumped x-ray lasers, but it was cool.
My mind was blown when I found out later it was a real thing someone had suggested. And until this post I had no idea there was a military version.
Well, you can only make cider out of apples, so it seems a bit redundant.
If you're using pears, it's perry.
Anything else is a filthy lie.
...This is just plausible enough to be true. Dammit.
*googles*
EDIT: No shit, it's actually a thing. How about that.
Yeah, those two are the only real varieties. You should try out some old-school cloudy cider and perry from Wales or West of England(scrumpies, as they're called). Good stuff.
Incidentally, cider is made thus:
Bags of apples are pressed for the juice, left to ferment, and then you drink it and achieve Applevana.
After beer, cider is also the oldest man-made beverage in Britain. The Romans observed Britons fermenting crabapples for a type of cider, and later when the Normans conquered Britain, more varieties of apples came to use. Historically, day laborers in parts of England were also paid a part of their wage in cider, like the Ancient Egyptians paid part of the laborers wages in beer.
Heading in to Dallas last Thanksgiving I heard a show on NPR where the guest wrote a book called The Drunken Botanist. It was basically the history of the use of various plants in booze. It sounded pretty interesting. One thing I learned from it, is that all apple varieties we eat are grown from grafts because apple seeds are wildly genetically variable. So if you grow an apple tree from a seed it's more than likely going to taste pretty bad. Or at least sour, not sweet. But! You can still make good cider out of it. So Johnny Appleseed probably contributed to far more kegs of cider than apple pies.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I'm almost positive that i've found the remains of the fort at Caster Bay.
There's a public park there now (like everywhere else in NZ) with some absolutely brutal stairs to get down to the beach. All along the cliff rising up from the shore, you can see what looked to me like concrete fortified lookout towers.
The top of the cliffs, where the park is, was definitely used for guns and defense, and that is fairly well-preserved and seen and honored. But the lookouts on the side of the cliff are crumbled, smashed and tagged with so much graffiti that it's hard to say exactly what they were.
But they are definitely concrete, and definitely look out over the water. I can't imagine them being anything other than look out towers.
It's really quite neat.
That same beach is also very cool because of the cliffs, they're open to the sea air and you can see everything geological with them. The striations, the jagged lines where the earth shifted, the subduction marks where one went under the other.
As an amusing follow-up for our American readers, it came out about 4-5 years ago that the US military had developed a plan to invade New Zealand about the time of the Great White Fleet's world tour. This plan principally was based around invading Auckland by sea. It is thought that the plan was pretty unrealistic and the coastal defences discussed above would have been effective.
The Great White Fleet off Auckland
The important thing to note here is that the US military has a long history of speculative war plans, with no real intention to act. I believe they had similar plans for Canada, Australia and others.
The US Military has invasion plans for everywhere. They serve two purposes. The first is that they make useful training for staff officers. The second is that if such an invasion becomes weirdly necessary they are available to work from. An example is that invasion plans for Grenada existed but were ignored during the invasion of Grenada.
I'm hoping to finish my next post for the lesbian history thing in the next couple of days. It's a bit tricky cuz I don't have a very good grounding on the late imperial period and there's a ton of debate over the cultural changes in the empire, so I have to like triple-check every damn thing.
Anyway, here's a bit of local Seattle gay history that I wandered across this morning:
Throughout the 20th century, one of the pillars of American gay culture has been the gay bar. Far more than just a place for gays and lesbians to get drunk and hook up, it was a place of relative safety that provided a sense of community and solidarity, and maybe most importantly just knowing that there were a lot of other people just like them.
One of the most important locations for gays on the west coast in the 1930s was The Casino Pool Room, located in Pioneer Square (AKA: "Fairyville") on the corner of 2nd and Washington. It was the first gay club to open in Seattle and had the reputation as being by far the most open.
A few years later a bar opened above the pool room, called the Double Header. Replacing a merchant marine bar, it was a bar for both gays and lesbians, who had their own sections to hang out at and separate male and female bathrooms - a novelty in the 1930s and the source of the bar's name. Men could openly dance with men downstairs, play cards or pool, and drink upstairs at the bar, as drag queens entertained or socialized.
"Two friends of mine [had] visited Seattle and raved about it. That's all I heard, Seattle, Seattle, Seattle and this fabulous place called the Casino and all the neat kids there. [Vilma decided to leave Minneapolis where he was born and move to Seattle.] We arrived in Seattle on June 15, 1930, and headed straight for the Casino. The Casino was in the basement below the Double Header. We could hardly wait to get down those stairs. It was a large basement without any decoration except a few signs for Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola and later when Franklin Roosevelt became president the managers, John and Margaret Delevitti, put up a picture of FDR which is still there today.
"When you came down the stairs from Washington Street, you'd find a small restaurant area and a long bar across the room where they sold soft drinks and near beer, which was one-half percent alcohol, the legal limit during Prohibition. But we'd go down to shacktown called Hooverville and buy a pint of whiskey and bring it back to the Casino and drink it there at the bar. The Casino had two pool tables and tables for playing cards. It was a crossroads. There were lots of gay kids at the Casino and we made friends right away.
"John and Margaret wouldn't let anyone mess with the queens. They protected us and we loved them for that. They'd do anything for you if they liked you, even bail you out of jail. The Casino was the only place on the West Coast that was so open and free for gay people. But John [Delevitti] paid off the police; he was good at working the payoff system."
Heading into the 40s and 50s vaudeville and burlesque acts grew more popular in the straight community, and Pioneer square was famous as both a gay oasis and an entertainment center for heterosexuals, especially military men on leave or returning home from overseas. The drag entertainers from the Casino moved into entertaining a mixed audience at the burlesque shows, an entertainment popular enough to draw the attention of military brass, who often threatened to ban servicemembers from "immoral" performances unless they cleaned up their acts.
The Casino closed sometime in the late 40s to mid 50s, but more gay bars filled Seattle's downtown, increasingly both gay owned and operated. The first lesbian bar, The Hub, opened in 1950 on Denny Way, and gay bathhouses and bars all continued to open - and to pay protection money for their ongoing existence.
Ironically it was ending police corruption that finally helped push the gay bars out of downtown. The Atlas Club, a gay bathhouse opened in 1964 on 2nd and University, paid 200 dollars a month to police to avoid harassment.
According to Heimbigner, Officers Joe Robinson and Don Kuehl approached him and demanded $200 per month. The police officers promised not to harass or intimidate the club or its customers if payments were made. The $200 was divided between the three shifts of beat officers that cover the area, the two night shifts receiving $75 each per month and the day shift receiving $50 per month. The payoffs continued until 1968.
Jack Heimbigner, owner of other gay establishments in Seattle, and James Barnett, manager of the Atlas Club, testified in a June 1970 trial that exposed the police protection payoff system. The trial led to convictions, forced resignations, and a reorganization of the Seattle Police Department, which ended the practice.
Throughout the 70s gay clubs were closed or forced out in urban renewal projects*, and the community began to shift eastwards up to Capitol Hill, where openly gay clubs and bars were able to open now mostly free of police harassment. Capitol Hill is still the center of the gay community in Seattle today (and iirc the largest gay neighborhood in the country).
Although the Casino closed decades ago, the Double Header is still in business, the oldest bar in Seattle and probably the single continuously-running gay bar in the world. It's still operated by the original owner's son. Although thanks to the baseball stadium opening up nearby, it's now more sports bar than gay bar:
*To be fair the urban renewal projects in Pioneer Square were desperately needed by then
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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Someone has broken the Voynich manuscript
This is significant. No one has been able to read a single word in the manuscript in 600 years. It has been the subject of a lot of linguistic study, which has been very controversial: on the one hand the text seemed to follow the statistical rules of ordinary natural languages, but on the other hand it was unlike any other text we have ever seen. The illustrations are as controversial; they seemed to divide the text in sections, with a set of pages having floral illustrations, another having astrological illustrations, but the plants and constellations represented were unknown. This led to many crackpot theories (it's alien! it's atlantis!) while the best intelligent theory I heard was that it was a very sophisticated forgery someone spent a lot of time refining and making realistic before duping a European king into buying it for a tidy profit.
But someone being able to translate it means that it wasn't a forgery, it was a real document. It might have been written in an artificial language some group developed, or an otherwise unknown local dialect that has long ago died off. If it was a forgery that it was just created a short while before it appeared in the European courts; but if it is a real document then it was compiled by people over a period to time and study, and has an entire history before it showed up in Europe that we know nothing about, possibly in a society that we know nothing about no less! This makes me very excited
It was already touched on, but one of the big reasons for the Maginot line was that to call the French population decimated after WW1 is an understatement. They simply didn't have the manpower to hope to match most European powers in an army-on-army clash. They had to rely on making attacking France a really unappealing option. The designers of the Maginot Line knew that if they built the wall properly it would be used only as a deterrent, the thing was just insanely fortified - as well as being heavily automated. It's really a pretty darn cool bit of engineering.
The hope was that forcing Germany to attack through the low countries would A - guarantee that England would have to enter the war, B - Delay the invasion long enough for them to counter in force wherever the attack came from, and C - keep the bulk of the fighting in Belgium, where France could make the most of their limited but superior quality tanks and cooperate with British forces.
The alternative is not really that appealing if you're a French staff officer trying to plan this shit out. Without the Maginot Line the Germans can attack France directly, so even if the Brits do come in they'll still have to get to France. The French will almost certainly get crushed by a German army spearhead before reinforcements arrive, and then everyone will fight it out in the middle of France a la the Great War. Which would basically just be planning your war to be catastrophic.
Someone remind me to do this tomorrow.
Apologies! It is about half written but I'm still looking for more information on a couple of points.
I got exposed to the Voynich manuscript at a young age via an Indiana Jones paperback. The book tied it to the Philosopher's Stone, ancient Druids, Hermeticism, and ended up in a reverse pyramid. Since then I've been checking out actual info regarding the stuff, so this development is really cool!
You need to do this today.
My personal favorite quark of Mike and his work is the fact that outside of rare exceptions (Pieta, etc...) all his models were male. Makes a lot of his paintings hilarious to look at. Anyone curious about what he liked in the bedroom need only feast their eyes on the riot of bodybuilders in dresses.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
It also may redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere as well, as I pointed out earlier in this thread.
That would be surprising, unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning... the language the document is written in is completely obscure, so whatever culture produced it clearly did not have a major or lasting impact: it left no other artefacts (that we know of) and was in all likelihood very geographically and time limited. The information contained in the document itself is probably on par with other Medieval works of the same nature (which is part of the intuition that led to its translation). So while discovering a whole new (if very small and limited) civilization that we knew nothing about is exciting, saying that it will "redefine knowledge of the Western Hemisphere" is overstating things a bit in my opinion.
There are illustrations of plants that appear to be Western Hemisphere native (I posted a picture of a page earlier that has an image of what appears to be a sunflower.) If that is the case, then Old World contact with the Western Hemisphere happened much differently than we've thought.
The Vikings told people about their adventures?
Generally, throughout our history, the US people have broken with the idea of war before the military did. WWII was the exception that proves the rule.
I find the idea of Vikings stopping to admire sunflowers hilarious.
"Sven, is this not tbe most beautiful thing you have ever laid eyes on?"
There's an even simpler explanation: the illustrations are not scientifically-accurate, whoever drew them took a lot of artistic liberties (hence the "it's alien" crackpot theories and the "it's a fraud" theory, as well as a lot of the difficulties in translating it). Any anachronistic resemblance to New-World plants could simply be coincidences.
Mostly it was giving the finger to the guy who covered up all his dicks.
Shit, look at any medieval bestiary.
That's a leopard. Apparently.
I'm pretty sure the dicks got covered up after he died. The Renaissance was pretty okay with dicks. It was visible public hair on females that bothered them. Or visible lower genitalia on females. Or anything that involved female sexuality without there being an "excuse" for her behavior (such as being asleep or preparing to get dressed).
Then when things started moving towards the baroque era, you started seeing less dicks and more females being obviously sexual.
Sorry. This is my area of study and I get kinda excited about it...
It's not as obviously a "F-you," but Michelangelo also got progressively sloppier while he painted the Sistine Ceiling after he realized nobody would be able to see if he was using the guidelines he'd put in the plaster. The sections of the Ceiling get progressively simpler in composition, with larger and larger figures who are more and closer to proto-mannerism than High Renaissance.
Whom until recently didn't realize that is was suppose to be David, you know, the original underdog, creator of the Head-Shot, and the man that stared down Goliath.
Then the paint wore away and plain marble statues became the symbol of empire and prosperity.
I can't recommend that documentary enough. It's brilliant, and is what got me into the renaissance.
It's also on Youtube in its entirety, courtesy of the PBS.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Much alarm has been caused by the account published in the Southern Cross of the visit and proceedings of a Russian man-o'-war. We admit that in these politically uncertain times the sudden appearance in our port of sin by the monster, bearing the Russian flag, would of itself sufficient to earn serious apprehension, but we can assure our readers that there is no came for alarm, as the statements published being utterly untrue. We are surprised that the Southern Cross should publish such a Muncha'iscii-liko statement", calculated to alarm everybody, without first inquiring into their truth. We must confess to having felt some uneasiness at first sight of the huge ironclad, but we have now to congratulate our readers and the country on the deliverance from the threatened danger or It should be borne in rain t that no true Briton whatsoever should be afraid of ten " casks of whisky- •• We are authorised to note « that the sole object of the visit of the ' Kaskovrum' was to inspect the -well known Clothing Establishment of Samuel Coombs. No 80, QuLDn st set, the fame of which has reached the Emperor and Court of Russia
Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIX, Issue 4830, 18 February 1873
The above article is the followup to the original scare, but that article is linked below, not pasted into this story as the Archive website cannot easily convert the image text by OCR for some reason. Try the link below.
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=DSC18730217.2.19&cl=&srpos=0&e=
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The Scares
Right, so there were two main Russian Scares so far as New Zealand is concerned and probably four or five for parts of Australia (Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney) going back to before the Crimean War in 1853. If truth be told, it seems that these scares happened every couple of years and the “big” ones are notable only for actually resulting in spending, instead of angry newspaper stories.
The first in 1873, as a result of a hoax by an Auckland newspaper editor, David Mitchell, worried about the Russian Threat. The hoax was believed by many, in a War of the Worlds style manner. It sparked great debate, parliament issued a report on defences and a half hearted effort was made to build forts. It achieved the author’s goal of raising the issue. This followed an earlier scare in Victoria in 1871, which resulted in the purchase of an armoured ship.
The second was in 1885, after a serious incident in Afghanistan, where Russian forces seized lands and destroyed an Afghani army unit. Britain and Russia almost went to war on this and related matters, which frightened everyone in the Empire. This sparked the Second Scare, which resulted in parliament spending money on coastal artillery. The same is true in the Australian colonies. In NZ, most coastal defences started about this point. Over the next few years the government spend hundreds of thousands of pounds it could ill afford on importing often obsolete artillery from Britain.
Background
New Zealand and the various Australian colonies of Britain experienced several (at least 2 for NZ, more for Australia as it had been settled longer) panics about Russian raiding or invasion from the early 19th century onwards, this sparked the construction of coastal defence forts across the colonies.
Now this seems a bit mad, given just how far away Russia’s nearest ports were from either place. Vladivostok is about 6100 miles in a direct line from Auckland and at the time, there were very few non British ports anywhere near that a Russian ship or force could expect to resupply. However there had been a few Russian naval visits in that period, so clearly it was possible in the right circumstances. However during this period, the colonies very much saw themselves as British and indeed they were for most purposes, defence included. Up until the 1870s there were British soldiers* stationed in New Zealand for the Land Wars and naval forces** deployed from Britain until well after WW1, when local navies were created by first Australia, then New Zealand (sort of as part of the RN initially).
The fear was not as foolish as you might think either. Britain had a long period of time in the 19th century where Russia was the principal threat or enemy, despite only one major war occurring, the Crimean, in 1853.
For settler residents of NZ or Australia, they would have considered Russia to be their principal threat as well, alongside the French, just like British people in Britain would have. Given the slower pace of news at the time, the various diplomatic problems, or near wars would be debated at great length by people in the colonies too. Below is a letter to the editor of a Taranaki (NZ) newspaper in 1885 at the time of the Second Russian Scare (NZ).
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=TH18850606.2.25.1
In NZ’s case especially, most people at this point were immigrants or first generation, many of the former of which would have served in British forces at some point. All of whom would have some fear of Maori rebellion given the recent wars. So paranoia or fear of military action was rife.
Anyway, every few years a Russian naval ship would call at some of the ports of Australasia, if just to send a message. During the early to middle part of the century, as ownership and sovereignty of the various islands (NZ included) was still uncertain, Russia did make various moves to assert some interest, even though none succeeded. Russia was a long way from the area though, with the nearest ports being Vladivostok or the Chinese concessions, the Black Sea or Europe. All many thousands of miles from Australasia and with little in the way of neutral ports to resupply.
The physical and human geography of Australasia now and then pretty much meant that most people live in towns or cities around the coast of the various islands or continent. Before the rail & road networks, automobiles and aircraft were commonly available, this meant that most commerce and transportation went by sea. So any disruption of sea traffic would have a huge and immediate impact on most people’s lives.
The Forts
So, what did the NZ taxpayer get? 16 forts scattered up and down the islands, principally around Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin with about 43 heavy guns. These forts and guns were then modernised at least twice before /during WW1 and WW2, although they were really never used in anger. I guess the skipper of the fishing boat ‘Dolphin’, sunk accidentally in 1907 by a fort would disagree, given he was killed by the same.
RML 64 pounder 64 cwt gun
RML 7 inch gun
BL 6 inch gun Mk V
BL 8 inch Mk I – VII naval gun
Some of the forts have been restored for historical reasons too, which greatly impressed me as a small child.,
* This is a sad story. Not unlike the situation with the British American colonies in a previous century, the NZ colonial government was firmly in step with settler voters on the matter of the indigenous people and their rights (and land), whilst the British government in London was in some matters sympathetic to the Maori. London and indeed local British military commanders often strongly disagreed with NZ colonial government policy to Maori on both military and other matters (land alienation usually). So it soon became necessary for the colonial government to be rid of the Imperial forces so they could do what they wanted. Once the Army left, the colonial government only had to worry about what the Governor thought and as he had no soldiers, it was harder for him to change government policy, given that parliament and the elected premier ran that. To this day some Maori still see the Crown in London as the final guarantor of Maori rights.
**Amusingly my great great grandfather was a young sailor on one of these ships from where he deserted when in the port of Dunedin. The NZ police force had his name, along with his fellow deserters, listed at every station in the country
The Great White Fleet off Auckland
The important thing to note here is that the US military has a long history of speculative war plans, with no real intention to act. I believe they had similar plans for Canada, Australia and others.
The reasoning for the plan was that there was simply no one else in the world besides the Brits who could challenge the US.
I believe both plans were part of the so called "Rainbow Plans", due to the use of color. I also believe our plan to invade Ireland was called War Plan Green. Yeah....
Also interesting was that Kaiser Wilhelm II had his generals and adrimals draw up a plan to invade New York City.
But Ireland? She was Emerald.
You just can't escape stereotypes, can you?
It came up earlier in the thread. There were also color coded plans for Germany, France, Mexico and China ( fought with China against Japan, called War Plan Yellow, because reasons and horribleness).
We also had a plan drafted during the war to invade Iceland, not needed because the British did it for us and the Azores, which probably would have happened if Franco had joined the Axis (I cannot imagine an independent Portugal next to an Axis Spain).
It's also interesting to not that neither the British, nor the Canadians held any real hope of defeating America in a war and only drafted defensive plans against us; we just had too many people and resources to consider invading. The Canadian plan was to capture several major border cities to delay an invasion long enough for Britain to send relief. Notably, Detroit and Buffalo were not targets, as they wanted to draw us away from Toronto.
The British planned to reinforce Canada, but did not believe they could stop an invasion. Their goal was to keep the US focused on North America long enough to gather fleets in Caribbean and Canadian bases and strike the American navy before it was dispersed for commerce raiding.
The goal was similar to the Japanese plan; not an American surrender, but a negotiated peace dependent on American war weariness. Granted, the British never considered it as an offensive plan.
- John Stuart Mill
I first learned about Project Orion from a sci-fi novel by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven called Footfall
book spoilers
Heading in to Dallas last Thanksgiving I heard a show on NPR where the guest wrote a book called The Drunken Botanist. It was basically the history of the use of various plants in booze. It sounded pretty interesting. One thing I learned from it, is that all apple varieties we eat are grown from grafts because apple seeds are wildly genetically variable. So if you grow an apple tree from a seed it's more than likely going to taste pretty bad. Or at least sour, not sweet. But! You can still make good cider out of it. So Johnny Appleseed probably contributed to far more kegs of cider than apple pies.
There's a public park there now (like everywhere else in NZ) with some absolutely brutal stairs to get down to the beach. All along the cliff rising up from the shore, you can see what looked to me like concrete fortified lookout towers.
The top of the cliffs, where the park is, was definitely used for guns and defense, and that is fairly well-preserved and seen and honored. But the lookouts on the side of the cliff are crumbled, smashed and tagged with so much graffiti that it's hard to say exactly what they were.
But they are definitely concrete, and definitely look out over the water. I can't imagine them being anything other than look out towers.
It's really quite neat.
That same beach is also very cool because of the cliffs, they're open to the sea air and you can see everything geological with them. The striations, the jagged lines where the earth shifted, the subduction marks where one went under the other.
It is absolutely breath-taking.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
The US Military has invasion plans for everywhere. They serve two purposes. The first is that they make useful training for staff officers. The second is that if such an invasion becomes weirdly necessary they are available to work from. An example is that invasion plans for Grenada existed but were ignored during the invasion of Grenada.
Anyway, here's a bit of local Seattle gay history that I wandered across this morning:
Throughout the 20th century, one of the pillars of American gay culture has been the gay bar. Far more than just a place for gays and lesbians to get drunk and hook up, it was a place of relative safety that provided a sense of community and solidarity, and maybe most importantly just knowing that there were a lot of other people just like them.
One of the most important locations for gays on the west coast in the 1930s was The Casino Pool Room, located in Pioneer Square (AKA: "Fairyville") on the corner of 2nd and Washington. It was the first gay club to open in Seattle and had the reputation as being by far the most open.
A few years later a bar opened above the pool room, called the Double Header. Replacing a merchant marine bar, it was a bar for both gays and lesbians, who had their own sections to hang out at and separate male and female bathrooms - a novelty in the 1930s and the source of the bar's name. Men could openly dance with men downstairs, play cards or pool, and drink upstairs at the bar, as drag queens entertained or socialized.
Heading into the 40s and 50s vaudeville and burlesque acts grew more popular in the straight community, and Pioneer square was famous as both a gay oasis and an entertainment center for heterosexuals, especially military men on leave or returning home from overseas. The drag entertainers from the Casino moved into entertaining a mixed audience at the burlesque shows, an entertainment popular enough to draw the attention of military brass, who often threatened to ban servicemembers from "immoral" performances unless they cleaned up their acts.
The Casino closed sometime in the late 40s to mid 50s, but more gay bars filled Seattle's downtown, increasingly both gay owned and operated. The first lesbian bar, The Hub, opened in 1950 on Denny Way, and gay bathhouses and bars all continued to open - and to pay protection money for their ongoing existence.
Ironically it was ending police corruption that finally helped push the gay bars out of downtown. The Atlas Club, a gay bathhouse opened in 1964 on 2nd and University, paid 200 dollars a month to police to avoid harassment.
Throughout the 70s gay clubs were closed or forced out in urban renewal projects*, and the community began to shift eastwards up to Capitol Hill, where openly gay clubs and bars were able to open now mostly free of police harassment. Capitol Hill is still the center of the gay community in Seattle today (and iirc the largest gay neighborhood in the country).
Although the Casino closed decades ago, the Double Header is still in business, the oldest bar in Seattle and probably the single continuously-running gay bar in the world. It's still operated by the original owner's son. Although thanks to the baseball stadium opening up nearby, it's now more sports bar than gay bar:
For more reading check out An Evening at the Garden of Allah: http://books.google.com/books?id=CU-9C9ubAK8C
*To be fair the urban renewal projects in Pioneer Square were desperately needed by then
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-24-2014/denunciation-proclamation
http://siberiantimes.com/culture/others/features/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos/
Those siberian tattoos are metal as hell
Abe Lincoln faked his own death in order to live life as a woman! How did we never see it before?