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Kajehase wrote:
Aberzombie wrote:
New York was once called New Amsterdam.
And the York part is after the Duke of York, who would later become King James II of England, until he was deposed in The Glorious Revolution for being Catholic and having a son.

Tiny rant about the Stuarts:
He was Catholic, he did have a son, but he had, by that point, also managed to piss off all the influential supporters he'd had when he succeeded to the throne (he was a pretty popular king at the start of his reign) by forgetting that he wasn't the absolute monarch of a Catholic country. All the Stuarts were colossal twits, but at least Charles II preferred shagging actresses to throwing his weight around.

And there are people who worship Charles I as a saint.

No comment.


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Kajehase wrote:
Aberzombie wrote:
New York was once called New Amsterdam.
And the York part is after the Duke of York, who would later become King James II of England, until he was deposed in The Glorious Revolution for being Catholic and having a son.

There was some reasonable and genuine fear (and a lot of plain hysteria) that James II, who was already pretty autocratic, would give way to a son that was both autocratic and inclined to resume persecution of England's Protestants.

Who had, of course, dutifully persecuted England's Catholics. Who had, of course, dutifully persecuted England's Protestants. Who would continue to persecute England's Catholics, if with somewhat less vigor, for a good century and change more.

Also James II was the son of Charles II and grandson of Charles I, the dude that got shortened by a head. He was also James VII (of Scotland) and James II again (of Ireland). These were all separate nations until 1707, when England and Scotland merged into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Ireland remained separate from then until 1800. Prior to the Acts of Union, all three had their own more or less independent governments that just happened to be headed by the same monarch, like one person DMing for three different groups running three different campaigns.


Limeylongears wrote:
Kajehase wrote:
Aberzombie wrote:
New York was once called New Amsterdam.
And the York part is after the Duke of York, who would later become King James II of England, until he was deposed in The Glorious Revolution for being Catholic and having a son.

** spoiler omitted **

And there are people who worship Charles I as a saint.

No comment.

There has been some discussion in the Russian Orthodox community about sainting Rasputin because, among other things, they consider him a devoted foe of the Jews.

Yeah.

Scarab Sages

There is an estimated 200 times more gold in the world's oceans than has been mined.


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Bears don't technically hibernate. They just sleep all winter if given the choice. This is why they can wake up so quickly if disturbed. This extremely long nap is referred to as winter lethargy, characterized as different from true hibernation primarily in that the body temperature of the animal does not lower significantly, and the drop in heart rate is far less.

On a related note - creatures that actually hibernate tend to wake up every few weeks during the winter for frenzied periods of eating and passing waste, during which they use up most of the stored energy they've allotted for the winter. Creatures with winter lethargy, on the other hand, will sleep through the entire season if left undisturbed.


-Costa Rica does not have a standing army. Armed forces where abolished in 1949.

-Though less famous than the Black Death, Justinian's Plague in the VI Century AD is considered one of the worst epidemics in human history, starting in China and spreading as far as Ireland. Only in the Byzantine Empire, estimates put the daily death toll at more than 5,000. It is thought nearly 40% of the entire population of the Empire, by then the largest nation in Europe, died as result of the plague.

-Justinian's Plague kept returning generation after generation, until finally fading out in the VIII Century AD. Somewhere bewteen 50 and 100 million people are thought to have died as direct result of it.

-The best possible title anyone could have in the Byzantine Empire was that of Porphyrogennetos, or "Born in the Purple". It was a very exclusive title that could only be attained if: A) You were the son of a Byzantine Basileus, B) Your mother must have been married to the Basileus at the time of conception and birth, C) Your mother must have previously been titled Augusta through a complex ceremony, and D) You must have been born inside the Purple Chamber of the Great Palace of Constantinople. Only a handful got the title throughout the 1,000 years the Empire lasted, and it was seen both as a great source of prestige and legitimacy.

Silver Crusade

I find the Byzantine Empire fascinating.

If I had to live somewhere during the Dark Ages, it would be there.

As long as it wasn't during a plague.


I often play as byzantine empire in medieval total War.


My favorite Byzantine emperor is Basil II, the Bulgar-slayer. Guess what he is famous for.

He was humiliated in his first battle against the Bulgarians so after he won the second, he took 15,000 Bulgar prisoners, blinded 99% of them and left every hundredth man with one eye to lead the others home. The Tsar of Bulgaria died of a heart attack upon seeing the prisoner returning.

Then Basil traded his sister for Viking Mercenaries because he couldn't trust any of the Greeks to guard him and everything just goes better the more vikings you have working for you apparently.

Celestial Healer wrote:

If I had to live somewhere during the Dark Ages, it would be there.

As long as it wasn't during a plague.

You have some stiff competition in the "best place to live" department during that era from Tang and then Song China.

Scarab Sages

The moon orbits the Earth every 27.32 days.

Scarab Sages

More than 75% of all countries are north of the equator.


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-The largest cemetery in the world is the Wadi-us-Salaam in the iraqui city of Najaf. It measures over 6km2 (about 1,500 acres) and received over half a million dead per year. No one truly knows how many people are buried there, but even the most conservative estimates speak of tens of millions.

-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.

-A Micromort is a measure of the statistical chance of someone dying. It represents a 1 millionth chance of dying, and is used to measure risk. For instance, travelling 1 hour on a canoe measures 10 Micromorts, while eating 500 bananas has a Micromort value of 0.5 (surprisingly, not because of an eating-related dysfunction, but because of the chance of developing cancer due to the radiation exposure caused by the banana's potasium). A single Micromort has an estimated value of 50 USD, based on the average amount of money people pay for such services as life insurance.

-Related to the aforementioned death cause, BED, or Banana Equivalent Dose, is the amount of radiation exposure you get from eating one banana. 1 BED equals 0,98µSv. As reference, the workers exposed to the Fukushima accident received about 68,000 Banana Equivalent Doses.

-A container full of bananas can trigger false alarms in the radiation detectors of ports.


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Sudden Onset Temporary Dyslexia (or D.O.T.S. for short) hit me briefly, and didn't ease up until halfway through Klaus' post. By then the seed had been planted...

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

blah blah blah...

-A Microhulk is a measure of the statistical chance of someone becoming the Hulk from exposure to radiation. It represents a 1 millionth chance of Hulking-out, and is used to measure risk. For instance, travelling 1 hour on a canoe measures 10 Microhulks, while eating 500 bananas has a Microhulk value of 0.5 (surprisingly, not because of an eating-related dysfunction, but because of the chance of developing Hulkiness due to the radiation exposure caused by the banana's potasium). A single Microhulk has an estimated value of 50 USD, based on the average amount of money people pay for such services as life insurance.

-Related to the aforementioned Hulk causality, BED, or Banana Equivalent Dose, is the amount of radiation exposure you get from eating one banana. 1 BED equals 0,98µSv. As reference, the workers exposed to the Fukushima accident received about 68,000 Banana Equivalent Doses.

-A container full of bananas can trigger false alarms in the radiation detectors of ports.

Woo-hoo! I'm gonna be the next Hulk! {gorges on bananas, sits too close to the TV, deliberately eschews sunscreen, and plays with numerous rolls of Scotch tape}


Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.

Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.


meatrace wrote:
Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.
Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.

i thought that her family had bred with the peple there for many years, including kushites and nubians.


Freehold DM wrote:
meatrace wrote:
Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.
Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.
i thought that her family had bred with the peple there for many years, including kushites and nubians.

The thing about the Roman was, they held the Greeks in no high regard to begin with, ditto the Carthaginians. The Kushites and Nubians, though, those would have been civilized people.

(Bringing a modern conception of race to the issue just muddies the water.)


Freehold DM wrote:
meatrace wrote:
Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.
Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.
i thought that her family had bred with the peple there for many years, including kushites and nubians.

Her family mostly bred with her family, if my memory's correct.

Other than that, though, how many generations does it take for someone to stop being a Greek and becoming an Egyptian?


Kajehase wrote:
Freehold DM wrote:
meatrace wrote:
Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.
Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.
i thought that her family had bred with the peple there for many years, including kushites and nubians.

Her family mostly bred with her family, if my memory's correct.

Other than that, though, how many generations does it take for someone to stop being a Greek and becoming an Egyptian?

See, that's a matter of citizenship; say what you will about the Romans (and there's plenty to be said) they had one developed legal system.

Silver Crusade

Kajehase wrote:
Freehold DM wrote:
meatrace wrote:
Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
-Cleopatra was not Egyptian; she was Greek, specifically of the Ptolomei dynasty, which had been ruling the region for 13 previous generations.
Which is why I laugh extra hard when Cleopatra is portrayed as a black woman in fiction. It's like, yes, Egypt is in Africa but you're clearly missing the point.
i thought that her family had bred with the peple there for many years, including kushites and nubians.

Her family mostly bred with her family, if my memory's correct.

Other than that, though, how many generations does it take for someone to stop being a Greek and becoming an Egyptian?

Yep. Lots of brother-sister stuff going on to keep the Ptolemaic line "pure".

*shudders*

And now we now. Cleopatra was Greek and inbred.


And hawt...

NSFW


Samnell wrote:

and

Limey wrote:

I was very excited to visit the Worcester Public Library and find a copy of Christopher Hill's Puritanism and Revolution for 25 cents!

I also found a hardback of Foner's The Story of American Freedom but that was much more expensive at a whoopin $1.75.

God only knows when I'll get a chance to read them, though...

Vive le Galt!


Musical History Lesson


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Orson Welles's last movie was the 1986 Transformers cartoon.


Celestial Healer wrote:
And now we now. Cleopatra was Greek and inbred.

To be fair, marrying your sister was what Pharoahs did. Of course, the Habsburgs managed to reach impressive heights without marrying many siblings to one another. Charles II of Spain was, genetically speaking, more inbred than the product of brother-sister fun times. The last time new genes could have entered his line was 110 years before his birth. He, and the country in general, attributed his numerous afflictions to sorcery.

Scarab Sages

The Dead Sea is actually an inland lake.

Liberty's Edge

The Inner Sea, on the other hand...


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When taking a motion picture appreciation class in college, I saw "Citizen Kane" on the day Orson Welles died. Not an anniversary, but the actual day of his death. The syllabus had been made out weeks in advance, so that was kinda spooky. The instructor knew him personally, and she came in the lecture hall drunk as hell and sobbing to tell us the news. She said there'd be no lecture that night and we were welcome to just stay and watch the film. Then she took another hit on the bottle of Beefeater she was carrying and walked out.

Scarab Sages

There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
When taking a motion picture appreciation class in college, I saw "Citizen Kane" on the day Orson Welles died. Not an anniversary, but the actual day of his death. The syllabus had been made out weeks in advance, so that was kinda spooky. The instructor knew him personally, and she came in the lecture hall drunk as hell and sobbing to tell us the news. She said there'd be no lecture that night and we were welcome to just stay and watch the film. Then she took another hit on the bottle of Beefeater she was carrying and walked out.

Orson would have approved.


Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Scarab Sages

Dirty snow melts quicker than clean snow.


On 29 September 1950, a landslide in the Swedish town of Surte (located a few kilometers upstream of Gothenburg) moved tens of houses, as well as ten million metric tonnes of clay dirt, 150 meters and left 450 families homeless. Amazingly enough only one person died during the event.

Liberty's Edge

According to Memory Alpha, 'Star Trek Nemesis' director Stuart Baird did no research whatsoever before directing the film, and had never seen an episode of the show. Apparently, he thought that the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi LaForge were aliens, and referred to actor LeVar Burton as "Laverne" throughout production.


The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
According to Memory Alpha, 'Star Trek Nemesis' director Stuart Baird did no research whatsoever before directing the film, and had never seen an episode of the show. Apparently, he thought that the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi LaForge were aliens...

That one might be worth seeing, then!

Liberty's Edge

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Kirth Gersen wrote:
The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
According to Memory Alpha, 'Star Trek Nemesis' director Stuart Baird did no research whatsoever before directing the film, and had never seen an episode of the show. Apparently, he thought that the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi LaForge were aliens...
That one might be worth seeing, then!

It's an astonishingly bad movie.


The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
According to Memory Alpha, 'Star Trek Nemesis' director Stuart Baird did no research whatsoever before directing the film, and had never seen an episode of the show. Apparently, he thought that the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi LaForge were aliens...
That one might be worth seeing, then!
It's an astonishingly bad movie.

nothing is quite as bad as insurrection. But nemesis deserves a smack for SPACE SUVS!!!

Liberty's Edge

I also heard that they wanted Michael Shanks to play Shinzon, but he turned down the part.

Scarab Sages

The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
I also heard that they wanted Michael Shanks to play Shinzon, but he turned down the part.

But it went to Tom Hardy, which got his career started, so at least there's that.

Scarab Sages

Icelandic phone books are listed by first names (not surnames).


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Wouldn't surprise me if they can fit the whole country in one volume, as well. There's only just above 320'000 people living there. (And an unknown number of White Walkers.)


In the words of music journalist Tim Jonze, the British rock group Primal Scream "have done rather a lot of hard drugs in their time."

And lest this be taken as some drug-romanticism, here's a few more paragraphs from that article:

"Discovering Plant was a believer in the band helped them get over the heroin-plagued sessions for 1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up, which both Gillespie and Innes credit as being the band's worst recording experience.

'Put it like this,' says Gillespie, 'a couple of people around when we were making that record are dead now …

'A couple?" says Innes, eyebrows raised. "Nah, three of them. Four of them …'"


-Artichokes are classified as flowers (so you now know what to give to that girlfriend you really don't like that much).

-During the Napoleonic Wars, the entire Portuguese Royal Family moved to Brasil, and changed the seat of power to their american colony. For the first time in history, a European country had its capital located outside of Europe.

-Prior to this post, I had 1,080 posts. After this post, I have 1,081.

-Egyptians didn't get their pyramids right from the start. It is thought they developed as they experimented with adding new layers to mastabas (trapezoid-like tombs made from stone), and for a very long time they struggled with finding the proper method. Initially built in steps (sort of like Mesoamerican pyramids), they eventually went for the smooth faces we have come to known, though the first attempts were plagued with angles that changed mid-ways to the top, because the things kept falling appart. The first of those was the Pyramid of Meidum, which started out as a stepped mastaba and ended up as a smooth-face pyramid, with surprisingly -and infeasible- steep angles. No one really knows how tall it was (since half of it crumbled down), but estimates put it between 90 and 100 metres.

Scarab Sages

1 gigayear = 1,000,000,000,000 years.


Aberzombie wrote:
1 gigayear = 1,000,000,000,000 years.

Since the current estimated age of the universe is 13.772 billion (with a margin of error of ± 0.059 billion) according to Wikipedia, that translates into approximately 0.0138 gigayears. Not quite there yet.


Orthos wrote:
Aberzombie wrote:
1 gigayear = 1,000,000,000,000 years.
Since the current estimated age of the universe is 13.772 billion (with a margin of error of ± 0.059 billion) according to Wikipedia, that translates into approximately 0.0138 gigayears. Not quite there yet.

1 gigayear (1 Ga, for giga-annus) = 1,000,000,000 (10^9, or 1 billion) years. The age of the universe is estimated at 13.7 - 13.8 Ga.

1,000,000,000,000 (10^12, or 1 trillion) years would be 1 terayear (Ta, or 1,000 Ga).

Standard prefixes are standard.


Yeah I suck at math so I just presumed zombie had the proper number of zeroes and extrapolated from there.


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The Zombie is a very cool guy, but in many cases the sources he copies/pastes from range from unreliable to outright wrong. As he stated earliuer, he just posts the stuff for discussion; he doesn't do QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) on it.

Scarab Sages

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Orthos wrote:
Yeah I suck at math so I just presumed zombie had the proper number of zeroes and extrapolated from there.

It's all good Orthos. I like your presumption. When the zombiepocalypse happens, I promise we'll eat you last.


The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
According to Memory Alpha, 'Star Trek Nemesis' director Stuart Baird did no research whatsoever before directing the film, and had never seen an episode of the show. Apparently, he thought that the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi LaForge were aliens, and referred to actor LeVar Burton as "Laverne" throughout production.

This explains a lot.

Liberty's Edge

Aberzombie wrote:
The Eldritch Mr. Shiny wrote:
I also heard that they wanted Michael Shanks to play Shinzon, but he turned down the part.
But it went to Tom Hardy, which got his career started, so at least there's that.

Tom Hardy: yet another really good actor who keeps starring in s*%!ty movies.

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