Obdicut posted:

I've seen this guy referenced all the time, and it never explains how. I wish there was an illustration of him holding a gun so we could see how the gently caress he pulled it off. Or some description at all of how he could do poo poo.

Gabriel Pope posted:

Did you not see the poster with all the sweet action shots

System Metternich posted:

Alkydere posted:

I like how he mentions if he put it on a piece of ice it would spin the other direction. Stirling engines can literally work off of a source of cold, it just needs a temperature difference, which is pretty loving cool from an engineering standpoint.

System Metternich posted:

Matthias Buchinger was a German quadriplegic who was born in 1674 as the youngest of nine children. Normally this would mean that a short and hard life would be laid in front of him, if even that at all. But Buchinger persevered, and even more: he proved to be one of the most talented artists, magicians and even illustrators of his age, touring at first Germany and then even Europe. In the 1720s he moved to Ireland, where he soon become famous and well-respected. Buchinger was not only a talented showman and artists (some of his illustrations are extremely detailed, which becomes even more remarkable when you remember, well, no arms) but reportedly also a great marksman and musician. Besides his work he had two hobbies: building ships in bottles, and loving. He had at least 14 children by four different women (all of them, especially the last one, beat him up on the reg though) and may have had even more, noone knows for sure. In 1726 a poem was written about him and his exploits, titles "The Greatest German Alive" . Buchinger died in 1740 after a long and eventful life. It doesn't get much more badass than this, imo.


Buchinger in a 1705 self-portrait.


A 1709 portrayal pf Buchinger along with various pictures showing off what he could do, e.g. "woodcutting", "shaving himself", "reloading a gun", "playing dice" etc.


Another self-portrait made in 1724. Do you see something special with his hair? Let's zoom in...


Oh my God, it's full of psalms!

Gabriel Pope posted:

The word "barbarian" is technically onomatopeia: it was what the Greeks thought those dumb foreign peoples sounded like, walking around making dumb "bar bar bar" noises in their unintelligible bushit languages.

sout posted:

what about barbers?

Gato posted:

Don't know if you're being serious, but I was curious so I looked it up. I always assumed they were from the same root, which made sense in my head because the stereotypical Roman is clean-shaven versus some big bearded Germanic barbarian, but apparently they're separate - barba, the Latin for beard, is thought to be from Proto-Indo-European bhardh-a while barbarian is indeed from Greek onomatopoeia and seemingly unrelated.

However, barb and barber are related - the barb on an arrowhead is supposed to be like a beard.

As for a cool historical thing to contribute, I've always been fascinated by sweating sickness. It's a disease that used to kill thousands of people in England on a regular basis, and we have no idea what caused it, or why it disappeared.

Alhazred posted:

Dujiangyan

Richard A. Goldthwaite posted:

In 1417 Antonio di messer Francesco Salutati, at the time an employee of the bank of Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici in Florence, copied out a merchant manual of an earlier date in which exchange is treated extensively, and at the very end he added his own comment that “he who deals in exchanges and he who deals in merchandise is always anxious and beset by worries. I will instead give you a recipe for lasagna and macaroni.” He proceeds to do so and then concludes: “Let him who wants to draw on Bruges and remit to Paris do it. I, for my part, prefer to enjoy supper with my companions. Amen.”

Ichabod Sexbeast posted:

So what's the recipe?

Alhazred posted:

The symbolism of viking weapons:
The sword: The Norse word for sword, sverð , literally means penis. It was connected to Freyr who amongst other things was the god of fertility. It was believed that sword amulets improved your virility.
The ax: The ax symbolized strength and health. It was connected with Tor.
The spear: It was believed that Odin started the first battle by throwing a spear. The spear was therefore considered a royal weapon and vikings would often start the battle by throwing a spear.
The shield: The shield was considered a bit feminine because its connection with Freya. Like a mother protecting her child the shield would protect the warrior.

Humboldt Squid posted:

Vikings (and probably other groups) would also take the swords of defeated enemies and bend them before burying them, to prevent their ghosts from taking revenge

Jaguars! posted:

Some vaguely early rock and surf music related factoids:

When the Ventures recorded Walk, don't run in 1960, their drummer, one Skip Moore, chose to be paid a lump $25 (About $200 today) instead of royalties, and left the band. (I Imagine him being all smug and buying a nice radio or something with the proceeds of a weekend's work on a doomed single) The song was a million seller and the band later sold over 100 million records. Another early drummer eventually became a general in the USAF.

Gato posted:

Don't know if you're being serious, but I was curious so I looked it up. I always assumed they were from the same root, which made sense in my head because the stereotypical Roman is clean-shaven versus some big bearded Germanic barbarian, but apparently they're separate - barba, the Latin for beard, is thought to be from Proto-Indo-European bhardh-a while barbarian is indeed from Greek onomatopoeia and seemingly unrelated.

However, barb and barber are related - the barb on an arrowhead is supposed to be like a beard.
e;f,b

AgentF posted:

What about Berbers?

AgentF posted:

What about Berbers?

Jaguars! posted:

Some vaguely early rock and surf music related factoids:

When the Ventures recorded Walk, don't run in 1960, their drummer, one Skip Moore, chose to be paid a lump $25 (About $200 today) instead of royalties, and left the band. (I Imagine him being all smug and buying a nice radio or something with the proceeds of a weekend's work on a doomed single) The song was a million seller and the band later sold over 100 million records. Another early drummer eventually became a general in the USAF.

Mans posted:

From what i heard the Romans got super salty for losing North Africa to the Vandals and locals so from the fall of Carthage to the Vandals they started calling that area literally "barbarian land".

Then the Arabs came, saw the name and kept calling them Berbers because isn't that what the Romans kept calling this area? Then let it be!

Kanine posted:

Haha this pretty much happens in "Inside llewyn Davis." I wonder if it's a direct reference.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

North Africa used to be home to elephants. It's where the Carthaginians got them.

They supposedly went extinct because Romans used them too much for bloodsports.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Romans actually drove a lot of things into extinction. Silphium was one of the most interesting, actually; it probably went extinct before 100 B.C. and is really a prime example of "loving humans never learn, do they?" Apparently it had a ton of uses. It was a spice as well as just plain edible by itself. It was used to treat all sorts of stuff from coughs, sore throats, and stomach maladies. It was also apparently useful as a contraceptive. A reliable contraceptive.

How much of it was true and how much of it was bullshit? All told we don't have a freaking clue beyond "it was used as medicine" and "Romans ate it." No traces of it have been found and nobody is entirely sure exactly what it was. The theory is that it was a large fennel related to some other plants that have traits similar to what was ascribed to it. There's a scientific suggestion based on studies that silphium existed and was at least close to what was recorded in usefulness but really it's impossible to be 100% sure because it just plain doesn't exist anymore.

There is a vague idea of what it looks like because it was so important to the economy in and around Cyrene they put that poo poo all over nearly every coin they minted at the time.

Over harvesting and over consumption are obviously at play but one of the big theories is that it declined suddenly because of livestock. Apparently feeding it to animals gave them some desirable trait or another which led to people grazing animals on the land which...hosed it up completely. Humans, being humans, wanted to keep consuming the stuff so it was eventually driven into nonexistence.

quote:

There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥).[17] Silver coins from Cyrene of the 6–5th century BCE bear a similar design, sometimes accompanied by a silphium plant and understood to represent its seed or seed pod.[18]

Contemporary writings help tie silphium to sexuality and love. Silphium appears in Pausanias' Description of Greece in a story of the Dioscuri staying at a house belonging to Phormion, a Spartan, "For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioscuri, a table, and silphium upon it."[19] Silphium as Laserpicium makes an appearance in a poem (Catullus 7) of Catullus to his lover Lesbia (though others have suggested that the reference here is instead to silphium's use as a treatment for mental illness, tying it to the 'madness' of love[20]).

Solice Kirsk posted:

When did "conservation" actually become a thing that the majority of people got behind? Was it sometime in the 1800's? I'd love to know when we went from "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals anymore.....pass me the rifle so I can shoot and eat it," to "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals around....we should stop shooting them."

Solice Kirsk posted:

When did "conservation" actually become a thing that the majority of people got behind? Was it sometime in the 1800's? I'd love to know when we went from "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals anymore.....pass me the rifle so I can shoot and eat it," to "Boy, you don't see too many of these animals around....we should stop shooting them."

Wikipedia posted:

The conservation movement can be traced back to John Evelyn's work Sylva, presented as a paper to the Royal Society in 1662. Published as a book two years later, it was one of the most highly influential texts on forestry ever published.[2] Timber resources in England were becoming dangerously depleted at the time, and Evelyn advocated the importance of conserving the forests by managing the rate of depletion and ensuring that the cut down trees get replenished.

The field developed during the 18th century, especially in Prussia and France where scientific forestry methods were developed. These methods were first applied rigorously in British India from the early-19th century. The government was interested in the use of forest produce and began managing the forests with measures to reduce the risk of wildfire in order to protect the "household" of nature, as it was then termed. This early ecological idea was in order to preserve the growth of delicate teak trees, which was an important resource for the Royal Navy. Concerns over teak depletion were raised as early as 1799 and 1805 when the Navy was undergoing a massive expansion during the Napoleonic Wars; this pressure led to the first formal conservation Act, which prohibited the felling of small teak trees. The first forestry officer was appointed in 1806 to regulate and preserve the trees necessary for shipbuilding.[3] This promising start received a setback in the 1820s and 30s, when laissez-faire economics and complaints from private landowners brought these early conservation attempts to an end.