|
Does anyone have the text by the Frenchman who was fed up with his country in the mid-19th century, so he said "gently caress it! I'm moving to Russia where people are cool!"? And then he came back from Russia with a diary full of anecdotes about how apocalyptic and depressing Russia actually was?
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 01:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:11 |
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:Does anyone have the text by the Frenchman who was fed up with his country in the mid-19th century, so he said "gently caress it! I'm moving to Russia where people are cool!"? And then he came back from Russia with a diary full of anecdotes about how apocalyptic and depressing Russia actually was? You're probably thinking of the Marquis de Custine (France's "most distinguished and notorious homosexual"), who went to Russia to prove how great absolute monarchy was compared to totally lamo republican democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Custine http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/weekinreview/word-for-word-marquis-de-custine-long-ago-look-russia-so-what-else-new.html?pagewanted=all quote:In Russia, the government rules everything and vitalizes nothing. The inhabitants of this vast Empire, though not calm, are dumb. Death hovers over every head and strikes at random -- it is enough to make one doubt divine justice. Mankind there has two coffins: the cradle and the tomb. Mothers must weep for their children at birth as much as at death. quote:Whenever your son is discontented in France, I have a simple remedy: tell him to go to Russia. The journey is beneficial for any foreigner, for whoever has properly experienced that country will be happy to live anywhere else. Needless to say, his sick-rear end burns hurt the feelings of the Tsar, and his writings were banned/suppressed, not being fully published in Russia until 1996.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 02:09
|
|
|
I'm afraid most of the letters are about pretty mundane stuff: sailors telling about their journey, people inquiring about each other's health, financial talk and random family matters. There are some nice tall tales though, mostly about storms so bad that entire castles and cliffs crumbled into the sea, sinking ALL the ships in the fleet while the writer's ship was at sea in the storm for 8 whole days and lost only 2 men. Instead, some gossipy grandma talking to her son. I left out a lot because there is way too much gushing about how cute her grandson little Piet is and how posh the neighbour's new carriage is. The letter is basically the 18th century version of your mom meeting an old friend at the supermarket. Deborah van Spall-Rademaker, 1780 posted:Maybe Carly will take 2 little dogs next time if your father can get them, we already saw them but didn't buy them, they ask for 10 ducats for both but that is nothing if we can have them. That Jan is still alive but is getting old, madame Bertrant is dead, Mie is married and is already in poverty -that's what you get when you don't listen to advice. Piet, you should just marry a rich lady who makes good little Piets, do you get it my boy dearest? Your brother and mr. Dierks will tell you it's a good idea. J.D. Piest to his nephew Jan, 1780 posted:[...] I will answer little on some of them, such as the post "Klaas hit his wife on the buttocks", what you mean by that isn't clear to me or Schröder to whom the missive was intended unless the intended target was Kaatje Hartman, so I'll let this lie for now. Steven de Vries, 1780 posted:It hurts my soul that I didn't send a letter to my beloved wife before sailing. I hope and wish that she will not blame me because I know she'll think that I did that because you sent me that letter about those cucumbers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 13:42
|
|
|
PiratePing posted:From a collection of letters by written in the 17th to19th century by Dutch sailors that were confiscated by the British High Court of Admiralty. Imagine 300 years later all of your whining about being a Men's Rights Activist and telling women online to stop friendzoning them gets compiled and put into an archive for future historians to read to get an idea of 21st century American society.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 13:53
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Imagine 300 years later all of your whining about being a Men's Rights Activist and telling women online to stop friendzoning them gets compiled and put into an archive for future historians to read to get an idea of 21st century American society. It'd be spot on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 21:30
|
|
|
Itd be more like a collection of weebs writing about their time in Japan.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 21:58
|
|
|
PiratePing posted:From a collection of letters by written in the 17th to19th century by Dutch sailors that were confiscated by the British High Court of Admiralty. Out of curiosity, do you have the untranslated version of "you never get run over by a cleaning wagon, but by a poo poo cart" at hand? It would be perfect as the dutch version of "it never rains; it pours."
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 11:58
|
|
|
Sobatchja Morda posted:Out of curiosity, do you have the untranslated version of "you never get run over by a cleaning wagon, but by a poo poo cart" at hand? It would be perfect as the dutch version of "it never rains; it pours." Turns I made a mistake, it wasn't a "kuiswagen" (clean(ing)) wagon but a "koetswagen" (a carriage). Sorry! quote:geij wort noijt van gen kois waagen ofer reeden maar wel van een stront kar
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 17:03
|
|
|
PiratePing posted:I'm afraid most of the letters are about pretty mundane stuff: sailors telling about their journey, people inquiring about each other's health, financial talk and random family matters. There are some nice tall tales though, mostly about storms so bad that entire castles and cliffs crumbled into the sea, sinking ALL the ships in the fleet while the writer's ship was at sea in the storm for 8 whole days and lost only 2 men. What's up with the same letter talking about both ducats and guilders?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 18:48
|
|
|
PiratePing posted:Turns I made a mistake, it wasn't a "kuiswagen" (clean(ing)) wagon but a "koetswagen" (a carriage). Sorry! Much obliged! That sentence is going to go places...
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 18:52
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:What's up with the same letter talking about both ducats and guilders? They used both at the time. E: Besides, it wouldn't be uncommon for an international trader to end up with coins from several jurisdictions. It'd also be possible to exchange them in most major port cities. Carthag Tuek has a new favorite as of 20:17 on Jul 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 19:51
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:What's up with the same letter talking about both ducats and guilders? They used both until 1816. The metric system was adopted around 1800, so to match the new units of measurement they did away with the ducat and just set the value of a guilder to 100 cents. After that ducats were only used in trade, presumably because they contained a set amount of gold making them valuable anywhere. Sobatchja Morda posted:Much obliged! That sentence is going to go places... I'm getting visions of an American drunkenly slurring 18th century Dutch at some tourists in a bar. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 21:08
|
|
|
Snapchat A Titty posted:They used both at the time. Yeah, every single city and state would issue its own currency. The only way merchants would take that money is if that money were made from gold or silver. It doesn't really matter who's face is on the coin, so long as its mostly the metal that it's supposed to be.  Also, fun fact: The ridges on the edge of coins? Supposedly an idea thought up Isaac Newton, as a way to prevent people from shaving off gold from the currency without it being really obvious. Not really that important nowadays, but this was a Big problem in times when all currency was made of some valuable metal. The process is called 'reeding'.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 23:00
|
|
|
PiratePing posted:I'm getting visions of an American drunkenly slurring 18th century Dutch at some tourists in a bar. If spoken with a thick Flemish accent I doubt you'd be able to differentiate it from modern Dutch, it really surprises me how little has actually changed in two-hundred something years!
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 23:27
|
|
|
A White Guy posted:Also, fun fact: The ridges on the edge of coins? Supposedly an idea thought up Isaac Newton, as a way to prevent people from shaving off gold from the currency without it being really obvious. Not really that important nowadays, but this was a Big problem in times when all currency was made of some valuable metal. The process is called 'reeding'. Reminder that Newton’s position as Warden of the Mint was just supposed to give him a cushy salary, but he took the job seriously. There’s a 2009 book about this, Newton and the Counterfeiter.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 23:33
|
|
|
A White Guy posted:Yeah, every single city and state would issue its own currency. The only way merchants would take that money is if that money were made from gold or silver. It doesn't really matter who's face is on the coin, so long as its mostly the metal that it's supposed to be. That was actually the original point of currency; it chunked the gold apart into much more manageable pieces than like a bar or something. In a lot of places if you had a blob of some precious metal you could have it minted into coins. It wasn't the coin that was valuable it was what it was made from. This is also why merchants tended to have scales; X number of coins may or may not weigh a pound consistently but a pound of gold is a pound of gold. That's also what led to the obsession with alchemy. Lead was pretty worthless so everybody said "hey can we turn this into something less lovely?" Alchemy led to chemistry and also influenced metallurgy a lot. People kept trying to mix different metals together to get gold (or, in some cases, something that looked like gold) out the other end. This is also why counterfeiting was a huge problem and why you ended up with things like trifle pewter. You could cut certain metals with other metals and it would be barely noticeable or even not at all. Now your 10 pounds of silver is 12 pounds of silver! Huzzah! A city that had a good reputation for minting very good coins that weren't cut (or outright fake) could become quite wealthy as their money, and those their bank notes, were valuable basically everywhere. A fun fact that people don't know is that precious metal coins weren't the only thing that was effectively currency. Grain comes to mind; properly stored wheat could keep for a rather impressive amount of time and would be traded around basically like a currency. After all, everybody eats bread, right? Food is pretty much always in good demand and at the time was pretty hard to overproduce and devalue.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 23:40
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:A fun fact that people don't know is that precious metal coins weren't the only thing that was effectively currency. Grain comes to mind; properly stored wheat could keep for a rather impressive amount of time and would be traded around basically like a currency. After all, everybody eats bread, right? Food is pretty much always in good demand and at the time was pretty hard to overproduce and devalue. Compressed tea worked well for this.  Rai, from Yap, are probably the strangest form of currency I’ve seen.  Pictured: a metric tonne of money
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2016 23:51
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:
I remember reading a few years ago that the ancient roman legions would regularly use salt for the same reason. Preserving food through winter is almost as good as being able to make more during the winter. Can't verify the veracity, but it also suggested that this is where we get the term "salary" and "worth it's salt." That could all be pop-history nonsense though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 00:13
|
|
|
Sorbocules posted:I remember reading a few years ago that the ancient roman legions would regularly use salt for the same reason. Preserving food through winter is almost as good as being able to make more during the winter. Can't verify the veracity, but it also suggested that this is where we get the term "salary" and "worth it's salt." That could all be pop-history nonsense though. Salt in that time period was actually crazy valuable and traded extensively so yes you are correct. It's been an important food preservative for basically ever. You also need a certain amount of salt to, you know, not die so it's...kind of a big deal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 00:18
|
|
|
The word salary is believed to come from salt, but nobody knows exactly how.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 00:20
|
|
|
Aphrodite posted:The word salary is believed to come from salt, but nobody knows exactly how. the truth is out there... hopefully someday we find it
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 00:24
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Salt in that time period was actually crazy valuable and traded extensively so yes you are correct. It's been an important food preservative for basically ever. You also need a certain amount of salt to, you know, not die so it's...kind of a big deal. Yeah, parroting this. Trade routes through the Sahara actually traded gold from Western Africa for salt. The salt would be mined in what is today Southern Morocco, and then be traded to caravans that would bring gold, spices, and a variety of goods northward. While you'd think that salts(which is a freakishly common substance in the world) would be easy to acquire, it turns out that it's really difficult to get any substantial amount from evaporating sea water, unless you're evaporating millions of gallons a day. That's why, in a lot of culture, there's usually some culinary tradition of drying things/smoking things, because it doesn't require salt if you do it correctly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 00:48
|
|
|
Sometimes when I'm preparing dinner I'll take a second to reflect on what a broke-dick 13th century dirt farmer would think of my utterly profligate use of salt and pepper, to say nothing of my cupboard shelf full of spices that would have beggared his city-state
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 03:40
|
|
|
Aphrodite posted:The word salary is believed to come from salt, but nobody knows exactly how. I thought the going theory was that Roman soldiers were regularly allotted a ration of salt. Given salt's value at the time, the ration was as good as a second payday. It also fed the "worth your salt" phrase as poor soldiers wouldn't get their salt ration.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 04:14
|
|
|
A White Guy posted:Yeah, parroting this. Trade routes through the Sahara actually traded gold from Western Africa for salt. The salt would be mined in what is today Southern Morocco, and then be traded to caravans that would bring gold, spices, and a variety of goods northward. . Not only was it traded for gold, but in some places it was traded at a 1:1 ratio. Speaking of African gold, when Musa I, the ruler of the Mali Empire, went on pilgrimage to Mecca, he gave away so much gold that it destroyed its value in the region for the next decade.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 07:16
|
|
|
I don't think it was the scarcity of salt that made it a valuable commodity, but because it was so sought after in areas not near a coastline. I'd imagine areas with a high salt concentration would significantly devalue it compared to sub-saharan nations too far inland.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 07:24
|
|
|
I always wondered why people didn't just cook with seawater if they lived anywhere near the coast
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 11:17
|
|
|
"TIME, 7 September 1953 posted:Science: Problem Child I came across this cited in the Wikipedia article on the history of the transistor. Alas, I do not have access to the full text. I’m surprised Google couldn’t find it transcribed elsewhere on the web, like in a university professor’s course pages. Fink was no Luddite. It’s funny to think that people like that had serious doubts about the transistor in 1953. What if the transistor had been a dead end? It’s almost unimaginable today.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 11:48
|
|
|
Mark Kurlansky has a whole book on the history of salt. It's pretty good. His book on cod is another good history of something that was a very valuable trade good and strategic asset for centuries that we don't really think twice about today. https://books.google.com/books/about/Salt.html?id=xNEaD1g7XScC
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 11:51
|
|
|
Cumslut1895 posted:I always wondered why people didn't just cook with seawater if they lived anywhere near the coast Salt was used to preserve food, not flavor it. Brining meat to cure it requires about 1/3 of a pound of salt for every quart of water in the brine. Seawater is about 2 tablespoons per quart.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 14:18
|
|
|
Preindustrial salt extraction from seawater on a large scale was an enormous pain in the rear end (at least in the UK) . To make it viable you needed to be on the coast, have the right geography (flat areas near the sea) and a tonne of space. You also had to pretty much employ the whole village to do it (or order around a load of monks). Most villages stuck to fishing and saved themselves the trouble. Priories tended to do better at it. Necrothatcher has a new favorite as of 14:30 on Jul 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 14:28
|
|
|
It is possible to cook with seawater, it’s just that that doesn’t solve the curing/inland trade problem. It does help conserve fresh water, so historically it’s been done aboard ships and in coastal communities with limited fresh water sources. In general, it’s easier to mine fossil salt deposits than to evaporate seawater.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 14:42
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:I came across this cited in the Wikipedia article on the history of the transistor. Alas, I do not have access to the full text. I’m surprised Google couldn’t find it transcribed elsewhere on the web, like in a university professor’s course pages. Silicon's likely on its last legs now, I'll be interested in what ends up supplanting it if anything. But there's been a lot of things that didn't seem sure until we did them. Just as an example, finfets and double patterning are both crazy and yet they've become doable and affordable.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 16:09
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I don't think it was the scarcity of salt that made it a valuable commodity, but because it was so sought after in areas not near a coastline. I'd imagine areas with a high salt concentration would significantly devalue it compared to sub-saharan nations too far inland. It was the differing local scarcity that made it valuable. This is why trade networks happened; salt flats, dried lakes, and the places that rock salt can be mined are useful for gently caress all other than salt. However, salt was literally impossible to get in some places. Others it was prohibitively costly to get locally. Everybody needed salt but few people had an easy supply. Of course you can't catch fish on a salt flat soooooo if you want fish you gots to trade but hey that one culture that has good fishing water can't make enough salt to preserve it. This other culture makes pots good for storing stuff in so hey let's each do our thing, trade the results, and we'll all have long term stores of salted fish.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 17:40
|
|
|
I wasn't able to get an answer from another thread, so I was hoping someone in here might notice. What exactly would have been the historical price of arrows in, say, medieval England when the longbow was still a major force? I was looking at some hunting arrows and even the cheapest stuff goes for $4.00 or $4.50 per arrow. I know they're more advanced than something made of carved wood and feathers, but you'd think that mass production and modern technology would allow prices to be comparable. What would the relative cost be back then? I know there's no direct inflation calculator between modern British pounds and money back then, but even just a relative idea (like we do with the price of a loaf of bread or grain) would help give perspective to the amount of money spent arming and equipping archers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 17:51
|
|
|
Money didn't work quite the same way in the middle ages. There is a discussion about this question on Reddit that goes into it a bit. https://m.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e7xa3/how_expensive_were_arrows_and_how_many_did_your/c9y4lls
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 18:40
|
|
|
This is a total guess, but presumably you either made arrows yourself (if you were poor) or hired a fletcher to do it (if you were rich). There wasn't a sizable middle-class yet in the middle ages, so there wasn't really a market for a lot of things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 18:45
|
|
|
Fletcher's guilds were big business because it was the purpose of government was to wage war and munitions are an important part of that, see the discussion of economics at agincourt.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 18:50
|
|
|
Shbobdb posted:Fletcher's guilds were big business because it was the purpose of government was to wage war and munitions are an important part of that, see the discussion of economics at agincourt. Well yeah, I just mean that there wasn't really such a thing as buying "20 arrows" or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:11 |
|
|
Snapchat A Titty posted:Well yeah, I just mean that there wasn't really such a thing as buying "20 arrows" or whatever. Yeah, but wouldn't the government still need to pay the fletchers for the arrows they produce on contract?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2016 19:07
|
|