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One-star reviews can be discounted as "mindless trolling" whereas a two-star review suggests that there's some merit there, but it's overall weak. Harder to make the case that there's just some internet mob going around voting one without having read the work when they put effort into explaining just why it's mediocre.
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May 21, 2015 23:01
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I uh, found more of Tom Kratman. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/vox-plays-chicken-with-worldcon/ quote:Tom Kratman says: quote:Tom Kratman says: quote:Tom Kratman says: Just for the record, I can't really parse what is going in that link. Edit: quote:Tom Kratman says:
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May 21, 2015 23:04
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:I uh, found more of Tom Kratman. Jesus Christ. someone buy him an account here 
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May 21, 2015 23:12
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HEY GAL posted:meltdown may shaping up nicely Guys like this along with all the other bullshit you get with Milhist really just make me so tired. I just want to like neat old guns and uniforms and vehicles and stuff  .
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May 21, 2015 23:16
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SeanBeansShako posted:Guys like this along with all the other bullshit you get with Milhist really just make me so tired. I just want to like neat old guns and uniforms and vehicles and stuff edit: a good friend of mine in reenactment is a former antifa street brawler, apparently there's convenient skill transfer between that and pikes
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May 21, 2015 23:20
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HEY GAL posted:many of the irl milhistorians i know are women, and i have never gotten poo poo in person from professionals or hobbyists gently caress the Regimentspolicey
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May 21, 2015 23:28
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ArchangeI posted:gently caress the Regimentspolicey
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May 21, 2015 23:37
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Gervasius posted:Not really milhist, but couple of weeks ago we were laughing at the author of those terrible germanwank novels, Tom Kratman. So after reading that exchange I went and looked up what that "Puppies/Not Puppies" business was about and I'm kinda depressed now. Short version - conservative sci-fi authors were convinced that there was a small liberal clique in charge of the Hugo Awards (a prestigious sci-fi literary award) who were blacklisting conservative authors. To retaliate/compensate, they went and stuffed the ballot for the Hugos so that only authors they approved of were on the ballots. The people in charge of the Hugos responded by trying to figure out how to exclude said conservative authors from future ballots. No prizes for guessing where in that debate Kratman stands.
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May 21, 2015 23:41
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Tomn posted:No prizes for guessing where in that debate Kratman stands. quote:Kratman is a real honest-to-badness warrior. It would be frightening if he understood today's twisted version of feminism. I'm not a warrior and I don't, either. He writes in complete and complex sentences, presenting an insurmountable challenge for many of today's readers, that's all.
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May 22, 2015 00:07
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Gervasius posted:Jesus Christ. Don't do this.
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May 22, 2015 01:16
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Klaus88 posted:Don't do this. Like he could refrain himself from posting in DnD, he'd be banned within 24 hours.
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May 22, 2015 01:20
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HEY GAL posted:many of the irl milhistorians i know are women, and i have never gotten poo poo in person from professionals or hobbyists Holy cow. Can you get them to post here? I wanna learn more about riot tactics from the opposition.
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May 22, 2015 01:21
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ArchangeI posted:Like he could refrain himself from posting in DnD, he'd be banned within 24 I think you're giving Tom's self-control *waaayyyy* too much credit there.
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May 22, 2015 01:22
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Holy cow. Can you get them to post here? I wanna learn more about riot tactics from the opposition. (2) he never responds to emails and is consistently late for everything, so he'd probably just wander off or something (3) would you want your friends to know you're a goon?
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May 22, 2015 01:24
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ArchangeI posted:Like he could refrain himself from posting in DnD, he'd be banned within 24 hours. Do you still wanna deal with 24 hours of Kratman style wheraboo posts?
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May 22, 2015 02:21
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Klaus88 posted:Do you still wanna deal with 24 hours of Kratman style wheraboo posts? I like the idea of watching a literal nazi have a hate aneurysm.
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May 22, 2015 03:03
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ArchangeI posted:I like the idea of watching a literal nazi have a hate aneurysm. Riso does post in here you know.
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May 22, 2015 03:04
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Taiping Tianguo Part 1  Christianity was not actually new to China. Nestorian Christianity had come to China as early as the 7th century. While it eventually died out several centuries later, the monuments left behind would be used by later missionaries to argue that it was not in fact a new alien faith, but a revival of a Chinese religion and as such should be free from suspicion. The next go around for the faith came via Catholic missionaries in the 17th century. The Jesuits, Mateo Ricci most famous among them, were initially welcomed by the court, where their talents for mathematics and astronomy were greatly appreciated. Their initial strategy was to work from the top down and target the educated elite of China. This required an approach that was very respectful of Confucianism and Chinese tradition. Christianity was presented not as an alternative but as a metaphysical complement to the worldly ethics of Confucianism. The Christian God was identified as Shangdi, with the idea that Christianity was actually a way to reclaim the ancient religious practices of China before the influence of Buddhism and other faiths had distorted them.  The Vatican, however, would be more influenced by ongoing slapfights between the Jesuits and the Dominicans than by the opportunity to convert the world's most populous nation. The "Rites Controversy" would resolve with the ruling that ancestral shrines and Confucian ceremonies were not acceptable to Catholics (even as passive observers) and furthermore that God could no longer be described as Shangdi (high emperor) or Tian (heaven) but only as Tianzhu (heavenly lord). With the faith now more or less incompatible with traditional Chinese beliefs, and imperial proscription following in 1724, Catholic Christianity ceased its growth, but left a tiny but stable population behind. The "Heavenly Lord religion" would remain obscure for the next century. If Chinese were aware of it at all, they would often see systems of holy ghosts and heavens and hells, and conclude that it was just another of the myriad variants of Buddhism. The main contribution Chinese Catholics made to the Taiping rebellion was to be unfairly blamed for it. The trail that led Hong Xiuquan to Christ was forged instead by Protestant missionaries. The pamphlet that would have such a strong effect on Hong, Good Works to Admonish the Age had been assembled by Liang Fa. Liang was a Chinese convert who had been introduced to the faith by Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to come to China.  Protestant missionaries would like their Catholic predecessors debate the appropriateness of identifying the Christian God with the Chinese Shangdi; with no pope to settle the matter for them, multiple translations would appear. Liang's text would use the name, and the Taiping religion would be based on the assumption (shared by some of the Protestant missionaries) that China in ancient times, before the imperial system, had worshipped Jehovah/Shangdi as the one true sovereign and the one true God. While consisting mainly of out of context excerpts from the old and new testaments, "Good Works" was sufficient to nevertheless make an immediate impression upon Hong. Hong and Li Jingfang baptized each other, and then, apparently being proto-goons, commissioned replicas of the sword Hong had used in his vision. At nine pounds in weight, and 3 feet in length, these swords were either inaccurately documented by history or incredibly lovely. Hong began to preach like the literal madman he was, and soon had his first converts among his own relatives, Feng Yunshan (冯云山) and Hong Rengan (洪仁玕). Remember these names, these guys will be pretty important. Feel free to forget about Li Jingfang, he apparently didn't do much besides having a lovely sword. These two new converts were also failed examination takers and schoolteachers. The three continued to study the texts and soon had begun to convert others of their clans and even spread the teachings to other villages. The time eventually came to move from words to action, and the schoolteachers decided that, as the worship of graven images was unacceptable*, it was time to remove the tablets honoring Confucius from their schools. (Part of Hongs visions had also included the Heavenly Father rebuking Confucius for his errors.) Naturally, disrespecting Confucius was a poor business move for a Confucian school, and as students disappeared, Hong and his companions were forced to close up shop and take their preaching on the road. in 1844 Hong and Feng Yunshan (Hong Rengan's dad wouldn't let him go) traveled throughout Guangdong and Guangxi, making converts and refining their theology. In what would be a fateful turn of events, Hong, mistakenly informed that Feng had already left ahead of him, begins his journey home alone, abandoning Feng to his own devices in the area near Guiping. While Hong manages to get teaching work again and return to a more normal existence, Feng stays in Guangxi for several years and gathers converts, including some wealthy and influential families. It is Feng, not Hong, who founds the first formal organization in the history of the Taiping movement. In Guangxi, in the shadow of Thistle Mountain, the God Worshipper's Society (Bai Shangdi Hui) is born. *The ten commandments were not included in Liang's tract. It is possible that Hong inferred this proscription from context, or he may have encountered other Christian documents prior to his first definitively recorded meetings with western missionaries and their complete versions of the old testament. Next update will have triads and pirates and military history and less theology, I promise.
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May 22, 2015 03:15
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Riso does post in here you know. He's not a Nazi, he's just an Austrian fascist
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May 22, 2015 03:20
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I wish I could see what those swords looked like, they sound pretty lovely.
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May 22, 2015 03:29
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SeanBeansShako posted:I wish I could see what those swords looked like, they sound pretty lovely. If I remember correctly, Hong got waylaid by bandits during one of his trips and his sword got jacked. :-(
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May 22, 2015 03:44
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P-Mack posted:If I remember correctly, Hong got waylaid by bandits during one of his trips and his sword got jacked. :-( Would have been a real sight to see him try to defend himself with a 9-pound sword. I once had an argument with a guy who claimed that medieval European swords weighed 25 to 50 pounds, although at the time I wasn't confident enough to laugh at him, instead I just said "I'm pretty sure that's high, I'll look it up later." People proudly spout "facts" they learned from D&D and video games. In Skyrim, swords weigh from 9 to 27 pounds.
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May 22, 2015 03:57
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ok we were asking about this a year ago and i think we finally found the gooniest general
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May 22, 2015 04:10
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Baracula posted:He's not a Nazi, he's just an Austrian fascist
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May 22, 2015 04:57
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Chamale posted:Would have been a real sight to see him try to defend himself with a 9-pound sword. I once had an argument with a guy who claimed that medieval European swords weighed 25 to 50 pounds, although at the time I wasn't confident enough to laugh at him, instead I just said "I'm pretty sure that's high, I'll look it up later." How much do swords weigh? A medieval European broad or longsword not a rapier or épée or something else really thin and narrow. Google says steel is .28 lbs per cubic inch. That would make a 3 foot bar 1 inch on a side about 10 lbs and that's without a grip pommel hand guard etc. I'm sure your guy arguing for 25 to 50 lbs was full of poo poo but 7 to 10 doesn't seem unreasonable just based upon n the math
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May 22, 2015 06:41
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One inch to a side would be absurdly thick though. I thought most broadswords were supposed to weigh in around the 4-9lbs.
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May 22, 2015 06:52
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Cyrano4747 posted:How much do swords weigh? A medieval European broad or longsword not a rapier or épée or something else really thin and narrow. A fleuret, one of those small weapons, was about one pound, with a maximum weight of 500 grams in modern sport fencing. Longswords ranged from 2.5 to 4 pounds. Two-handed swords could reach 7 pounds, but typically weighed 5. Steel swords are designed to be thin so they weigh much less than people expect.
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May 22, 2015 06:55
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'm sure your guy arguing for 25 to 50 lbs was full of poo poo but 7 to 10 doesn't seem unreasonable just based upon n the math
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May 22, 2015 06:56
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Baconroll posted:The Ethiopian/Eritrean war in 1999/2000 was meant to have some significant trench warfare - both sides being mostly infantry armies. This went uncommented 'pon many many pages ago, but I would like to add that the trench warfare stalemate was broken by Ethiopia employing a ww2 style large scale armored pincer action to cut off Eritrea's trench line. It was very cool stuff.
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May 22, 2015 07:14
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Cyrano4747 posted:How much do swords weigh? That's a sword taller than your average 16th century man and it still weighs in under 8lbs.
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May 22, 2015 07:50
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Chamale posted:A fleuret, one of those small weapons, was about one pound, with a maximum weight of 500 grams in modern sport fencing. Longswords ranged from 2.5 to 4 pounds. Two-handed swords could reach 7 pounds, but typically weighed 5. Steel swords are designed to be thin so they weigh much less than people expect. So the makers of Skyrim are full of poo poo when they force me to lug insanely heavy swords around? Fuckers.
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May 22, 2015 09:17
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100 Years Ago The Italian parliament passes an Enabling Act as its final business before war begins. However, the main focus of today is on two horrible events. The first is the worst railway disaster ever in Britain, which involved three trains, one of them a troop train taking men to Gallipoli via Liverpool. The second is what happens on the Eastern Front when the Friendly Feldwebel and some mates are detailed to confiscate some cattle from a farm. Reader caution is advised; they're both horrible, horrible events in their own ways.
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May 22, 2015 10:43
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PittTheElder posted:One inch to a side would be absurdly thick though. I thought most broadswords were supposed to weigh in around the 4-9lbs. Yeah, to my knowledge most blades would be decidedly thinner. From what I've gathered, with an "average" (I'm aware that this is an incredibly broad term, expect to see plenty of variance in either direction on individual examples) arming sword, you'd have a blade length of about ~75cm, a width of about ~5 cm, and a thickness of about ~0.7cm (at the widest/thickest points each for width and thickness). That gives you a volume of ~260 cm³, which works out to almost exactly 2 kg = 4.4 lbs in weight, going off of the density of carbon steel. Note that this only describes a perfectly rectangular slab of metal, whereas in reality of course you'd have the blade tapering in thickness from the spine towards the edge/s and from the hilt towards the point, and depending on the blade type you might also see the width significantly tapering from hilt to point. There might also be a fuller ground into it which further reduces the actual amount of metal present. Tang, grip, and handguard would come in at maybe a hundred grams or three all told, so I'd feel pretty confident to say that many or even most swords would fall into a range of around 2 kg or less. Perestroika fucked around with this message at 13:19 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 13:07
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Gervasius posted:Jesus Christ. Over the years I have seen Tom Kratman banned from multiple websites I also happened to be a member of. He's notorious for googling himself then signing up at places to 'defend himself' if he doesn't like what he see's. Frankly I'm astonished he hasn't already joined up SA and been banned years ago.
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May 22, 2015 13:17
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Cyrano4747 posted:Google says steel is .28 lbs per cubic inch. That would make a 3 foot bar 1 inch on a side about 10 lbs and that's without a grip pommel hand guard etc. Swords don't have a 1" square cross section, they're usually a little broader and much, much thinner. Say it's a longsword, where the blade alone is 3' and the weapon overall is closer to 4'. In general terms the blade might be 2" wide where it meets the grip and tapers gently to a point; 1/4" thick by the fuller where it is thickest, but rapidly tapering down to be extremely narrow at the cutting edge. 2.5-4 lbs., including all the furniture. You can find these numbers by looking up surviving medieval swords on museum websites. For example, here's an exhibit at the Met of a 15th-century German longsword (aka hand-and-a-half sword). It's 124.8cm long and weighs 1560g. That bar contains enough metal for 3 or 4 longswords, depending on design. If you have a 3' sword that weighs 9 lbs. something went wrong.
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May 22, 2015 14:13
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EvanSchenck posted:Swords don't have a 1" square cross section, they're usually a little broader and much, much thinner. Say it's a longsword, where the blade alone is 3' and the weapon overall is closer to 4'. In general terms the blade might be 2" wide where it meets the grip and tapers gently to a point; 1/4" thick by the fuller where it is thickest, but rapidly tapering down to be extremely narrow at the cutting edge. 2.5-4 lbs., including all the furniture. You can find these numbers by looking up surviving medieval swords on museum websites. For example, here's an exhibit at the Met of a 15th-century German longsword (aka hand-and-a-half sword). It's 124.8cm long and weighs 1560g. Or a training sword? Like the Romans used?
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May 22, 2015 14:20
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Libluini posted:So the makers of Skyrim are full of poo poo when they force me to lug insanely heavy swords around? Fuckers. Yeah, but that's more of a gameplay consideration of "encumberance" since there isn't inventory Tetris. But yeah, blame video games and D&D for the whole "Weapons are Heavy" and "Lumbering around in heavy armor" Movies too I suppose for the latter.
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May 22, 2015 14:32
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topical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03HIYgLWGu0
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May 22, 2015 14:37
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Taerkar posted:Yeah, but that's more of a gameplay consideration of "encumberance" since there isn't inventory Tetris. To be fair, they needed some way to prevent people from just going nuts with carrying stuff around. It's funny enough my scrawny little cat-woman can carry gigantic pieces of machinery, several suits of armor and a ton of pots just because it weighs less than her carrying capacity. Nevermind, I just remembered you can carry as much as you want, you only get "slower" when you go over capacity. Once, when my companion died, I transported 600 pounds of stuff to safety. Soldiers in real wars wish they could do that. 
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May 22, 2015 14:44
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I'm a big fan of Mark Easton's videos. One question I'm not sure if I've seen him address - what is the point of curved weapons? I've heard it said that they cut better, but I don't see why it would be the case.
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May 22, 2015 14:44
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