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Well, Hoxha was a dictator and those are never really short on money. Aust otoh worked as an apprentice clerk in a bank before he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, and after the war he worked as a journalist for a number of communist periodicals. From 1968 on he was paid by the KPD/ML which officially financed itself via membership fees and donations and unofficially received some degree of financial support by the government of Albania. So, either become a dictator or get paid by one? 
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Feb 23, 2018 16:32
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I will ... really your message to ... my friend.
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Feb 23, 2018 17:08
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Thx Metternich, that was super interesting! It's completely nuts how comprehensive the Stasi were, and even though they started to burn as much as possible when the wall fell, the remaining archive is apparently 300+ kilometers of documents. I've always wondered what it would be like to read about yourself in an internal government record. I do genealogy and churn through tons of papers and read deep dark secrets about people who lived and died a hundred or more of years ago. It's fascinating as heck, and as thrilled I am that so much is preserved, I am possibly the more frustrated when something isn't. Still I try to balance my want for preserval of archival data for future genealogists & historians with my own and others' need for privacy & protection. It's a balance, to be sure.
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Feb 23, 2018 17:39
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Krankenstyle posted:Thx Metternich, that was super interesting! In Norway during the sixties the government kept socialists under surveillance and to make amends for this you could apply for your government records and if you were kept under surveillance you were eligible for compensation. My grandfather did this because he was prominent member of Socialistic Left and regularly received mail from North Korea (his government record was empty).
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Feb 23, 2018 19:22
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When I was in the army in Norway my security clearance was withheld for six months due to my paternal grandfather being labelled a communist for fleeing Spain during Francos regime. I was told this by my CO in 2007.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:31
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Alhazred posted:My grandfather did this because he was prominent member of Socialistic Left and regularly received mail from North Korea (his government record was empty). My takeaway from this is that the Norwegian secret police ain't doing poo poo.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:32
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Trabant posted:My takeaway from this is that the Norwegian secret police ain't doing poo poo. They are indeed very bad.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:37
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Trabant posted:My takeaway from this is that the Norwegian secret police ain't doing poo poo. Or that they immediately started to burn the records the moment the government voted over weather or not people could look into their files.
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Feb 23, 2018 19:45
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I know that in general terms we are able to freely request copies of any & full records about ourselves in Denmark, but I'm not sure how that intersects with "state secret" records. There's definitely no compensation available. There was a recent case in the Danish supreme court re this, journalist Jørgen Dragsdahl sued historian Bent Jensen who accused him of being an agent of the KGB, based on sealed intellige documents. I believe I read somwhere that some of Dragsdahl own contemporary diaries are still sealed in the Danish PET archives but I can't find a source atm. Since I know you read Danish, here's the wiki: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragsdahl-sagen fwiw, the Danish PET are currently entirely free to record whatever they want. There was an oversight board but it's been powerless for a couple years: https://politiken.dk/indland/art6319420/Kontrollen-med-PETs-registreringer-er-reelt-sat-ud-af-kraft e: oh poo poo you can request your file, but lol I doubt youll get anythint unless you're like "i literally have photos of you bugging my apt you fuckers": https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/art6321328/Politikere-Brug-din-ret-tjek-selv-om-PET-har-registreret-dig-ulovligt
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Feb 23, 2018 19:47
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I know you can request whatever documentation the government has on your relatives from the nazi occupation of Norway. Theres apparently a whole archive and you can apply for it and theyll send it. Like my ex who found out that her great-great uncle or whatever had his hair salon confiscated by the government for collaborating with the nazis. Which might not be as bad as it sounds because apparently a lot of poo poo was outright stolen under dubious legal circumstances in the immediate aftermath of the war. https://www.arkivverket.no/ if anyones interested.
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Feb 23, 2018 20:14
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Ya, I think the inter-/post-war extradjudicial stuff was generally aimed at actual collaborators, but there are a large number of cases that were obviously someone carrying out a grudge. Sometimes just destruction of property, other times in fact liquidation. Post war, basically all crimes by the resistance were pardoned & retroactive death sentencing was established for collaborators. Afaik though, the government in exile required the resistance movement to prove their case for liquidations, so there exists an archive of those who were killed in this way. To reiterate; the vast majority of the resistance liquidations were imo just war casualties, but some that werent. My one grandfather was a courier for the resistance & did not participate in any actions; my other grandfather was 14 and literally gay. Also, you can get access to the Danish resistance archives too, if you're in them, or youre a provably direct descendant of a deceased person. That might be loosened up in coming years (the general law is free access after 75 years). Anyway if yall are interested in family stuff, check out the genealogy thread. We've got some pretty experienced peeps who can help: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3777244 Carthag Tuek has a new favorite as of 20:33 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 20:29
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Krankenstyle posted:Thx Metternich, that was super interesting! The British historian Timothy Garton Ash studied in East Berlin for a while during the 70s and 80s and was kept under Stasi surveillance, too. In 1997, he requested access to his file, analysed and researched it from the viewpoint of a historian (he even interviewed two of his former associates who had been secret Stasi informers) and published a book that's supposed to be really good (I haven't read it yet). I once dated a girl from East Berlin, and she told me that her parents had consciously decided against looking at their Stasi files, because they didn't really want to know who had been an informer and who hadn't.
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Feb 23, 2018 21:09
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it's pretty crazy to realize the current state security apparatus in place in the united states has more ability to spy than the stasi ever did and we have no actual clue how far it really extends
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Feb 23, 2018 22:38
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System Metternich posted:What I think is pretty interesting about past and present societies where literacy doesn't play a large role is how incredibly strong their oral tradition and culture was. It's been proven for example that members of those societies can memorise stuff way better than your average literate westerner. If we could pull a random medieval peasant into our times we would probably be amazed by the sheer amount of songs, poems and stories ha would be able to recount from memory. True, but I think people also discount the memory of normal people because we're exposed to a lot more and don't think about how much we know or need to know (a shitload). People are exposed to so much content. But if I were to point out how good my memory is, I wouldn't immediately go, "U-NI-TED FUR-NI-TURE WARE-HOUSE *boomp boomp*".
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Feb 23, 2018 23:14
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Re: historians' curiosity vs people's privacy, I personally feel like there is absolutely nothing about me that I wouldn't want some historian 150 years from now to find out. A person who I'll never interact with in any way can know my deepest darkest secrets for all I care. Examining my teenage missteps and mental neuroses may tell them some interesting thing about our time, so have at it. Privacy is for people who might actually affect me in some way. That said of course not all people feel like that. I think we should respect people's wishes insofar as they have stated them, but most people haven't really given much indication of what they want to happen to their memory when they're long dead so that doesn't get us very far. And then there's people who are in the "public interest", where we feel perfectly justified to analyse every aspect of their personal life and ignore their stated preference, like breaking up old graves that have inscriptions saying "please stay out" or publishing the most prurient gossip about some 20th century head of state's sex life. Historians are pigs is what I'm saying.
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Feb 24, 2018 20:22
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Pyrrhus of Epirus, one of the few foes to pose an existential threat to Rome, died because an old lady in Argos chucked a ceiling tile at his head during a parade.
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Feb 24, 2018 21:41
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pidan posted:Historians are pigs is what I'm saying. Hey!  This is something I often think about : how do we decide what is of more importance: an individual's personal rights vs the collective right and desire to attain knowledge. For historians this becomes especially delicate in matters of archaeological digs at burial sites, because I'm pretty sure that eg all those ancient Egyptians that now adorn various museums as mummies wouldn't have wanted that. What do we do with their right to have their religious wishes do we do when for example Native Americans refuse archaeological digs to be carried out at their sacred grounds and demand that skeletons unearthed at earlier digs be returned? Or for a more western example: when they found the bones of a Medieval English king some years back who had died at some battle, there was a lively discussion about if he should be reburied at all, and if yes, if the ceremony should be Catholic (seeing as he had died long before the Reformation) or Anglican (he was a king, after all, and his successors had instituted Anglicanism as the English state religion)? They settled on the former, for what it's worth. I remember reading about a peculiar difficulty that may arise when you're a historian working in the archives of the Roman Inquisition. In some especially difficult cases, it might have been necessary for the investigators to record knowledge that had been given under the seal of the confessional, which by ecclesiastical law demands absolute secrecy - breaking this seal is among he worst things you can do as a Catholic priest. There are still some case records in the archive where parts of the files are forever sealed, because they contain things told to a priest of the Inquisition under the seal of he confessional, and now that both the person who told those things and the confessor are dead, no one will ever be able to read them again.
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Feb 24, 2018 22:11
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System Metternich posted:There are still some case records in the archive where parts of the files are forever sealed, because they contain things told to a priest of the Inquisition under the seal of he confessional, and now that both the person who told those things and the confessor are dead, no one will ever be able to read them again. Perhaps a dumb question, but why bother keeping an archive of documents no-one will ever be able to read?
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Feb 24, 2018 22:51
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Mr. Flunchy posted:Perhaps a dumb question, but why bother keeping an archive of documents no-one will ever be able to read? Well, it's just a tiny number of files compared to the entire vast archive, and you probably would have to find out where all those files are hidden first  also perhaps out of a wish to not harm those centuries-old documents, and because "Roman Curia destroys old inquisition files researches weren't allowed to read" probably doesn't make for good optics? But tbf I don't know.
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Feb 24, 2018 23:21
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System Metternich posted:Hey! I would read them oiut loud to the priests 
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Feb 24, 2018 23:29
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System Metternich posted:Hey! This is something I often think about : how do we decide what is of more importance: an individual's personal rights vs the collective right and desire to attain quality brown paint. 
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Feb 25, 2018 00:43
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Kanine posted:it's pretty crazy to realize the current state security apparatus in place in the united states has more ability to spy than the stasi ever did and we have no actual clue how far it really extends I think that kind of undersells the extent of the human intelligence side of the Stasi. The extent to which they had people informing on each other is mind boggling.
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Feb 25, 2018 00:46
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Biplane posted:When I was in the army in Norway my security clearance was withheld for six months due to my paternal grandfather being labelled a communist for fleeing Spain during Francos regime. I was told this by my CO in 2007. The Fox News crowd will have you know thats because he wasnt communist enough
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Feb 25, 2018 13:11
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Trauma Dog 3000 posted:This is something I often think about : how do we decide what is of more importance: an individual's personal rights vs the collective right and desire to attain quality brown paint. Oh sure, they say the new synthetic pigments are just as good, but you don't get the same warmth that you do from the finely powdered remains of ancient Egyptian monarchs. Alas, poor Amhotep IV, you were truly the only colour fit for the trunks of cedar trees!
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Feb 26, 2018 15:08
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The guy who (allegedly) invented the sandwich got demolished by an actor.quote:In a famous exchange with the actor Samuel Foote, Sandwich declared, "Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the pox, or the halter." "My lord", replied Foote instantaneously, "that will depend upon one of two contingencies; -- whether I embrace your lordship's mistress, or your lordship's principles."
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Feb 27, 2018 04:01
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One of my favourite history burns is someone joking that the Puckle gun (a primitive and unreliable revolving rifle) was only a danger to its investors.quote:A rare invention to destroy the crowd, It's apparently from a deck of satirical playing cards making fun of lovely 18th Century investment 'opportunities'.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:30
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One of the real people on whom Ebenezer Scrooge was based was John Elwes MP, a.k.a. "Elwes the Miser". Wikipedia reports: quote:The greatest influence on Elwes' life was his miserly uncle, Sir Harvey Elwes, 2nd Baronet, of Stoke College and MP for Sudbury, whom Elwes obsequiously imitated to gain favour. Sir Harvey prided himself on only spending little more than £110 on himself per annum. The two of them would spend the evening railing against other people's extravagances while they shared a single glass of wine. quote:On assuming his uncle's fortune, however, Elwes also assumed his uncle's miserly ways. He went to bed when darkness fell so as to save on candles. He began wearing only ragged clothes, including a beggar's cast-off wig he found in a hedge and wore for two weeks. His clothes were so dilapidated that many mistook him for a common street beggar, and would put a penny into his hand as they passed. To avoid paying for a coach he would walk in the rain, and then sit in wet clothes to save the cost of a fire to dry them. His house was full of expensive furniture but also moulding food. He would eat putrefied game before allowing new food to be bought. On one occasion it was said that he ate a moorhen that a rat had pulled from a river. Rather than spend the money for repairs he allowed his spacious country mansion to become uninhabitable. A near relative once stayed at his home in the country, but the bedroom was in such a poor state that the relative was awakened in the night by rain pouring on him from the roof. After searching in vain for a bell, the relative was forced to move his bed several times, until he found a place where he could remain dry. On remarking the circumstance to Elwes in the morning, the latter said: "Ay! I don't mind it myself... that is a nice corner in the rain!"
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Feb 27, 2018 23:56
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Wheat Loaf posted:His clothes were so dilapidated that many mistook him for a common street beggar, and would put a penny into his hand as they passed. You know he never corrected them. Gotta get those pennies.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:11
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Ariong posted:You know he never corrected them. Gotta get those pennies. Those "Financial Independence / Early Retirement" people are hardcore.
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Feb 28, 2018 02:51
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Wheat Loaf posted:One of the real people on whom Ebenezer Scrooge was based was John Elwes MP, a.k.a. "Elwes the Miser". Weird looking dude:  Kinda reminds me of a thrifty E.T. in a powdered wig.
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Feb 28, 2018 03:08
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Solice Kirsk posted:Weird looking dude: I was thinking “Alien”, but yeah.
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Feb 28, 2018 04:10
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Solice Kirsk posted:Weird looking dude: What does showing a picture of Tony Abbott have to do with any of this?
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Feb 28, 2018 04:19
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Solice Kirsk posted:Weird looking dude:
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Feb 28, 2018 09:38
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quote:Puckle demonstrated two configurations of the basic design: one, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round bullets, while the second, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets. The square bullets were considered to be more damaging. They would, according to the patent, "convince the Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization". I wonder if any of those square bullets have survived.
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Feb 28, 2018 13:39
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Kassad posted:I wonder if any of those square bullets have survived. The square bullet gun was never built, just proposed. Forgotten Weapons actually did a video showing how it operated, and it's a lot slower to shoot than video games would have you believe. It made about 9 rounds per minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPC7KiYDshw
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Feb 28, 2018 13:58
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Solice Kirsk posted:Weird looking dude: Mr. Burns.
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Feb 28, 2018 15:13
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https://twitter.com/weird_hist/status/968662581002100736
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Feb 28, 2018 21:54
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That guy with the paddle-unicycle must be so horribly unstable. Like, to float that high there must be some buoy or something under the water supporting his mass, but it really wants to float to the surface and flip the whole thing upside down. Plus he'd be splashing water all over his friends and especially that little kid there. This diagram is completely unrealistic. 
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Feb 28, 2018 22:20
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That guy with the paddle-unicycle must be so horribly unstable. Like, to float that high there must be some buoy or something under the water supporting his mass, but it really wants to float to the surface and flip the whole thing upside down. Plus he'd be splashing water all over his friends and especially that little kid there. This diagram is completely unrealistic. It’s a tandem penny–farthing bicycle. The kid gets the arse end.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:29
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That horse is dapper as gently caress
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Mar 1, 2018 00:28
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