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Am I the only one who's thinking about how this reads like the alcohol industry got in a panic about this new competition to their trade and bankrolled a pamphlet to try and put people off of coffeeshops?
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Mar 26, 2017 19:14
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Have a question for someone regarding ancient armor. Lots if sources I've read about late antiquity early medieval warfare suggest that armor such as mail coats were very expensive to own and only the wealthiest warriors could afford them. How does that stack up against the Romans ability to outfit hundreds of thousands of legionaries with their standardized equipment? I know Roman successor kingdoms didn't have the immense infrastructure to equip everyone the same way, but if armor was so widespread, why does their appear to be a major drop off in its usage in the following centuries?
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Mar 27, 2017 18:49
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Oooh! Good question! I don't know the answer (and I would like to) but I wanna guess! 1: Slaves. Rome had more slave labour, and, I think, better trained slave labour than most of the later kingdoms. Maybe a slave can't forge a breastplate, but I bet you can teach one to rivet chainmail rings. 2: Organisation/taxes. Rome was (at its height) a very well administered empire, and the tax income was (AFAIK) pretty damned good. Perhaps the government could afford to buy expensive armour for its legionaries.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:22
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Didn't the Romans mostly wear chainmail, especially by the later Western Empire? And wasn't chainmail the default in Europe throughout the Middle Ages? I'm guessing plate mail is what was incredibly expensive and that wasn't invented until the late Middle Age. The Greek bronze muscle cuirass wouldn't be easy to replicate with iron. It doesn't matter how expensive something is if it hasn't been invented yet. The warhorse and the high backed saddle probably figure into this equation too.
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Mar 27, 2017 21:41
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I'm talking early medieval, from the immediate post roman period to the viking age. Mail, shields and helmets, since plate armor hadn't been developed yet. Mail in this time period is described as being very expensive to create and relatively rare, despite the Romans using mail centuries earlier in massive quantities.
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Mar 27, 2017 21:46
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Roman armor was simpler to make I would think. It's strips of metal bent in a curve and riveted together. Chain armor isn't difficult to make, but it's very labor intensive. Luckily, the Romans had a lot of cheap labor. Labor was cheap in the middle ages too, but then it's a question of who's paying for it. The Romans had a standing army, equipped by the state (not universally true I know), where many armies in the middle ages and in to the Renaissance where raised by individual lords (aside from professional companies for hire) who didn't want to spend any more then they had to. Later plate armor is expensive, difficult and time consuming to make. You had to be pretty well off to afford it, and nobody was going to buy it for a conscript army. Later, you see troops being issued a basic breastplate, maybe with matching back, but if you wanted full plate you were buying that yourself.
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Mar 27, 2017 21:48
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Romans had industrial scale factories manufacturing massive amounts of armor. But the cost was still enormous, and military expenses were always a crucial topic in Roman politics. Anyway, lorica segmentata was indeed only prominently used for something like a century.
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Mar 27, 2017 21:50
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It's generally attributed to the loss of the massive infrastructure of the Roman Empire. Not just slave labor but EVERYTHING about the infrastructure -- sources of metal, sources of workers, ability to transfer materials over long distances so you can take ore from over here and have it forged into iron over there and then send it to the mailworkers over there to get it turned into armor, all on the massive scale necessary to support the Roman legions. Think about that versus the available supplies and labor to a guy who's in charge of a small parcel of land full of peasants and a single castle in Northern Europe during an age when brigandage and the atomization of authority make travel and such relatively difficult, and it doesn't seem like much of a mystery to me
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Mar 27, 2017 21:51
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Scale armor owns
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Mar 27, 2017 21:57
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In the late Roman Kingdom/early Roman Republic, a legionary would need to buy their own gear (armour, weapon, etc), but the smiths who made them did so from standardised patterns for the legion.
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Mar 27, 2017 23:03
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Einstein had a daughter whose life was recorded up to age 2, then promptly vanished. There are dozens of conspiracy theorists who claim relation to Einstein via her supposed existence today, the story being that instead of dying of the scarlet fever she contracted, she was adopted by another family, as was (supposedly) the Serbian custom of the time for illegitimate children. (Einstein's first wife was Serbian but Lieserl was born before they married.) A big reason there even is a conspiracy is because in 1935, when Einstein was writing letters of safe conduct for fleeing Jews who petitioned him for help, a woman named Grete Markstein, by all appearances an out-of-work actress from Vienna showed up at the door of a friend of Einstein's in Oxford claiming to be the long-lost daughter--decades before it was public knowledge that Lieserl ever existed, as the letters that attest to her birth and early life were in his safekeeping. She wanted her own way out, of course. The Oxford professor bought the story, apparently, but Einstein was skeptical. Not too skeptical, however, as he hired a private inspector to check into Markstein; what investigation was possible at the time turned up her 'accepted' backstory, though it is suspect and untraceable today. This is what the conspiracy hinges on: If Lieserl really did die of Scarlet Fever, then Einstein theoretically wouldn't have felt the need to investigate. Even if Grete Markstein was a hoaxer who made an immensely lucky guess--and not a friend of the real Lieserl's who was entrusted with her history for whatever reason--the idea that Einstein found his daughter's survival plausible enough to get the background check done implies to the people claiming descent today that she did live and was simply abandoned. I feel like the idea that the kid died and was simply never brought up again because of the tragedy is more plausible, but there's no conclusive evidence either way. Mister Olympus has a new favorite as of 01:02 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 00:52
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Why wouldn't Einstein just have wanted to know more about who was scamming him, and how she knew about the daughter?
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Mar 28, 2017 01:15
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Subjunctive posted:Why wouldn't Einstein just have wanted to know more about who was scamming him, and how she knew about the daughter? He wasn't a very inquisitive man.
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Mar 28, 2017 01:18
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Solice Kirsk posted:He wasn't a very inquisitive man. Maybe he was working on a special theory of relatives.
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Mar 28, 2017 01:21
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Subjunctive posted:Maybe he was working on a special theory of relatives. Damnit! I was trying to come up with something like this. Well done sir. Well done. 
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Mar 28, 2017 01:23
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Subjunctive posted:Why wouldn't Einstein just have wanted to know more about who was scamming him, and how she knew about the daughter? I never said conspiracy theorists came to reasonable conclusions. e: I can't find it now, but I swore there was an article somewhere from a crank in (Poland? Czech Republic?) who claimed he was Lieserl's grandson and was on the verge of a unified field theory. Mister Olympus has a new favorite as of 03:48 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 01:25
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Sabien, the cymbal company, was founded in 1981 by a younger son of Avedis Zildjian III, when III snuffed it and left the Zildjian cymbal company to his oldest son. The brothers had a falling out, and lil' bro went and started his own cymbal company (no word on whether it had blackjack and hookers, but being 1981 and in the music business, probably involved a hell of a lot of cocaine.) The Zildjian cymbal company was founded by the first Avedis, an Armenian emigrant in Constantinople in 1618. Dude was an alchemist who hit upon (pun intended) the perfect alloy for what would later become cymbals while trying to transmute base metals to gold, figured that selling noisemakers to the Sultan to terrify the enemies of the Ottoman Empire in battle was more lucrative (and the Sultan Osman III gave him his surname -- it's Turkish for "cymbal-smith" with the "-ian" to make it sound Armenian -- and presumably a hefty government contract), and they moved into music in the 19th century.
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Apr 4, 2017 00:03
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Why did Turkish need such a concise word for cymbal‐smith? Or more specifically, cymbal (zil). A two‐letter word for smith is reasonable. e: Okay, it applies to bells in general. That makes somewhat more sense. Platystemon has a new favorite as of 00:08 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 00:06
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Similar story to Adidas and Puma: Rudolf and Adolf "Adi" Dassler made sports shoes together since the mid-1920s under the name "Sportschuhfabrik Gebrüder Dassler", based out of their native Herzogenaurach in Germany. Their personalities were quite different and frequently clashed. After WW2, it all came to a head and Rudolf went to start his own business in 1948 (similarly to the Zildjan story there's no word whether blackjack and/or hookers were involved). He named it "Puma Rudolf Dassler Schuhfabrik". Orginally, Rudolf had planned to name it "Ruda" (taking the first two letters of his first and last names), but eventually decided the similarly sounding word "Puma" sounded far more dynamic and fitting for sports shoes. Meanwhile, Adolf Dassler also renamed his company (in 1949) and also smashed his nick- and last names together and went with his nickname "Adi" and an equal number of letters from his last name. And thus "Adidas" was founded.
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Apr 4, 2017 00:20
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frankenfreak posted:Similar story to Adidas and Puma: One of my favorite parts of the story is what caused it to come to a head: Adolf and Rudolf hid in the same cellar during the invasion of Germany, and Adolf said something along the lines of "Those bastards are back" as he went inside. He said he was talking about the Allies, but Rudolf was sure he was insulting him. When Rudolf got arrested because he was mistaken for an SS member, he was likewise convinced that his brother must have turned him in. The two still formed their factories in the same town on opposite sides of a river, and the town spent quite a while divided through their rivalry. Handymen going to Rudolf's house were known for intentionally wearing Adidas shoes to gently caress with him....whereupon Rudolf would tell them to go down to the basement and pick out a free pair of Pumas. When they died, they were buried in the same cemetery....in the graves furthest apart from one another.
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Apr 4, 2017 01:15
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That's sad and not a fun fact 
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Apr 4, 2017 01:28
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Being a handyman for the Dassler bros had to be a pretty sweet deal with the free shoes.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:04
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Bertrand Hustle posted:Being a handyman for the Dassler bros had to be a pretty sweet deal with the free shoes. 1960s Pumas were pretty sleek, too. 
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Apr 4, 2017 18:18
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chitoryu12 posted:1960s Pumas were pretty sleek, too. There's no dyma-cel technology or patented Ultra Boost soles. Might as well be jogging with bricks strapped to the bottoms of your feet.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:22
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chitoryu12 posted:1960s Pumas were pretty sleek, too. drat 
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Apr 4, 2017 19:15
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Arcsquad12 posted:I'm talking early medieval, from the immediate post roman period to the viking age. Mail, shields and helmets, since plate armor hadn't been developed yet. Mail in this time period is described as being very expensive to create and relatively rare, despite the Romans using mail centuries earlier in massive quantities. A lot of it also has to do with the luxury of time. Romans, even late Romans, lived much more relaxed lives than their counterparts in the Viking age. Mail takes one thing: time and when you're living in places like northern Europe where you survive by subsistence farming and logging the amount of time required to build mail becomes much much more valuable. Also the idea of the imperial Roman military as a universally armored and armed block is sort of a myth. Equipment varied a lot, especially by the days of the late empire, and soldiers were required to pay for and provide large amounts of their equipment. We also lack a lot of information, especially from these time periods, about common arms and armor. Essentially, due to the bias of history, well made things last and can be examined by historians and archaeologists, poor or common items rarely do. So there's probably a lot of cheap swords, armor and similar things that we really have no idea about because they didn't last long enough for us to find or they weren't good enough to end up in an important guy's tomb. We know leather armor existed for instance, but we know very little about it because surviving examples are exceptionally rare. Due to racism and cultural bias of contemporary historians we also don't know how much accurate information exists about the enemies of Rome and their weapons. We know a lot of Roman designs were based on early Iron Age Celt and Gaulish patterns, but those same groups are often depicted as naked savages by Roman record keepers.
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Apr 4, 2017 23:01
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chitoryu12 posted:1960s Pumas were pretty sleek, too. It's probably just my modern sensibilities talking, but those are bowling shoes.
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Apr 5, 2017 00:32
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frankenfreak posted:Meanwhile, Adolf Dassler also renamed his company (in 1949) and also smashed his nick- and last names together and went with his nickname "Adi" and an equal number of letters from his last name. And thus "Adidas" was founded. Didn't Jesse Owens wear Adidas or shoes they made (before creating the company) during the 1936 Olympics?
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Apr 5, 2017 01:52
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bean_shadow posted:Didn't Jesse Owens wear Adidas or shoes they made (before creating the company) during the 1936 Olympics? Yep! Here's the shoes themselves: 
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Apr 5, 2017 02:08
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bean_shadow posted:Didn't Jesse Owens wear Adidas or shoes they made (before creating the company) during the 1936 Olympics? Apparently.
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Apr 5, 2017 02:13
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bean_shadow posted:Didn't Jesse Owens wear Adidas or shoes they made (before creating the company) during the 1936 Olympics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jas9ff0hdFI Jesse Owens was really, really fast. The runner in the video, Andre De Grasse, won Bronze in Rio in the 100 meter at 9.92 seconds.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:03
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Arcsquad12 posted:Have a question for someone regarding ancient armor. Lots if sources I've read about late antiquity early medieval warfare suggest that armor such as mail coats were very expensive to own and only the wealthiest warriors could afford them. How does that stack up against the Romans ability to outfit hundreds of thousands of legionaries with their standardized equipment? I know Roman successor kingdoms didn't have the immense infrastructure to equip everyone the same way, but if armor was so widespread, why does their appear to be a major drop off in its usage in the following centuries? Are Romans definitely in the iron armor camp or is bronze a possible material? I imagine Bronze would be a lot easier to manipulate even if it's more prone to failure.
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Apr 5, 2017 08:08
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Maxwells Demon posted:Are Romans definitely in the iron armor camp or is bronze a possible material? I imagine Bronze would be a lot easier to manipulate even if it's more prone to failure. I think maille in particular didn't work well with bronze. While bronze is easy to cast into certain shapes, it's apparently really difficult to draw out into wire and then manipulate that wire without breaking it. Add to that that iron would just be plain cheaper while being similarly protective, and it just wins out in every aspect. That said, things like helmets and other larger segments might well have been made of bronze. Perestroika has a new favorite as of 11:29 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 08:28
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Maxwells Demon posted:Are Romans definitely in the iron armor camp or is bronze a possible material? I imagine Bronze would be a lot easier to manipulate even if it's more prone to failure. If we're talking Imperial Rome you're dealing with the Lorica Hamata which was made usually of iron but sometimes early steel or carbon treated iron. They were produced by slave labor because the pattern to make them is actually an extremely awkward and inefficient method for making chainmail and takes, to use a technical term "for loving ever". It is however extremely durable and effective compared to similar armor from the time period. It's also I guess notable because it uses a hybrid mail pattern which is fairly rare. Movies and art have sort of perverted our view of the what a Roman soldier looked like. We tend to think of the Lorica Segmentata which all things considered was in use for a pretty slim amount of time compared to the Hamata which spanned most of the popular periods of Roman history.
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Apr 5, 2017 11:20
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El Estrago Bonito posted:
Another reason why HBO's Rome is so loving good. Lorica Hamata is really nice looking mail.
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Apr 6, 2017 00:57
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El Estrago Bonito posted:If we're talking Imperial Rome you're dealing with the Lorica Hamata which was made usually of iron but sometimes early steel or carbon treated iron. They were produced by slave labor because the pattern to make them is actually an extremely awkward and inefficient method for making chainmail and takes, to use a technical term "for loving ever". It is however extremely durable and effective compared to similar armor from the time period. It's also I guess notable because it uses a hybrid mail pattern which is fairly rare. Where can I find details about this?
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Apr 6, 2017 01:09
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My fun fact is that if you actually read the first paragraph of the Daily Mail's infamous "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" article, they're accusing anti-fascists of being xenophobia who only oppose fascism because it's an Italian idea.
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Apr 7, 2017 17:53
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Perestroika posted:I think maille in particular didn't work well with bronze. While bronze is easy to cast into certain shapes, it's apparently really difficult to draw out into wire and then manipulate that wire without breaking it. Add to that that iron would just be plain cheaper while being similarly protective, and it just wins out in every aspect. That said, things like helmets and other larger segments might well have been made of bronze. I don't know about the difficulty of making bronze wire, but it certainly doesn't break easily. In present day it's used as armature wire for making sculptures. It actually is quite resilient to bending, when you manipulate a bronze wire into a shape it'll bend back to it's original form to some degree - which would make the production of thousands upon thousands of bronze wire rings even more frustrating.
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Apr 11, 2017 10:54
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Maxwells Demon posted:Are Romans definitely in the iron armor camp or is bronze a possible material? I imagine Bronze would be a lot easier to manipulate even if it's more prone to failure. What I have heard (someone else could correct me) is that bronze was easier to work than steel and of comparable strength, but incredibly expensive due to its rarity (tin, for example had to get shipped to the Med all the way from the British Isles). Iron was common as poo poo, so the extra labor cost in working it was canceled out by the significantly cheaper base material.
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Apr 11, 2017 13:33
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Grand Prize Winner posted:What I have heard (someone else could correct me) is that bronze was easier to work than steel and of comparable strength, but incredibly expensive due to its rarity (tin, for example had to get shipped to the Med all the way from the British Isles). Iron was common as poo poo, so the extra labor cost in working it was canceled out by the significantly cheaper base material. Basically the iron age happened because iron was easier and cheaper to acquire than bronze, rather than because iron was better. iron is the walmart of metals
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Apr 11, 2017 14:19
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