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Nessus posted:I know that there are some Native groups who press against implications that they did not in fact arise in America as per their original legends because they do not want to buy into a narrative of "we're just the latest conquerers, maaaan". I was just thinking the obvious potential minefield of telling student volunteers, "Well we didn't find any signs of that Cherokee princess you mentioned, but we did find about 9% African Y-group tags!" yeah, there's a whole lot of pitfalls and mine fields in genetics work. It all gets even dicier when you start talking about testing human remains
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Jul 9, 2020 01:33
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Mr. Nice! posted:The Polynesian form of navigation is the best form of open ocean traveling short of modern technology. European open ocean navigation was pretty much drive straight north-south and then east-west and vice versa prior to the marine chronometer (which came after the colonization of the Americas). This is because you can trivially determine your latitude using astronomical bodies, but determining longitude is not possible without some sort of assistance. Although dead reckoning will get you so far, people had no real way of knowing how far east or west they had gone once they got out into the open ocean. This is a big part of why even in the mediterranean sea, sailors stuck close to shore when traveling. Here is a nice TedX aboit the subject: https://youtu.be/m8bDCaPhOek
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Jul 9, 2020 02:51
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Nessus posted:e: Oh, and the uh, risk of discovering infidelity in the students' parents. Or serial killers! Mr. Nice! posted:European open ocean navigation was pretty much drive straight north-south and then east-west and vice versa prior to the marine chronometer (which came after the colonization of the Americas). [...]Polynesian navigators, on the other hand, observed waves and ocean currents to determine where islands and land were so they could sail directly to them. They essentially drew accurate charts of the entire pacific ocean using straw as they were sailing. Polynesian navigation was amazing, but what you're saying about the Europeans isn't true at all. You can't just sail in a compass direction because pf winds and currents. European sailors were using the currents to move across the oceans way back in the 1490s. The Portuguese worked out the volto del mar and Columbus used the prevailing winds to sail across the Atlantic faster both ways. E: That's a really exciting article! Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jul 9, 2020 |
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Jul 9, 2020 02:54
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OTOH the Spanish never found Hawaii despite sailing two ships a year from Acapulco to Manila for more than a century, so they must not have been doing everything right
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Jul 9, 2020 03:05
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skasion posted:OTOH the Spanish never found Hawaii despite sailing two ships a year from Acapulco to Manila for more than a century, so they must not have been doing everything right That's actually possibly not true  !There are maps made by the Spaniards dating to the 17th century that depict an island chain on the same latitude as the Hawaiian archipelago but with the longitude off by 10 degrees. They never landed on the islands as the trade ships wanted to get to Manila as fast as possible, and the trade routes were kept a secret to make sure no one else could try and muscle in on the Spanish hegemony.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:38
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After following the Cleveland Museum of Art's Greek and Roman twitter I have come to the conclusion that there are Too Many Tetradrachms.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:42
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Arglebargle III posted:The (number of) Tetradrachms is too drat high
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Jul 9, 2020 03:44
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The blown off course thing makes a lot of nautical fictional tropes make subtly more sense. The mental image I had had was more along the lines of "blown to Isla del Bullshit in a single vast gale!" whereas in fact if it was more like the anomalous gale moved you around or left you uncertain of where exactly you were, you would plot a course, and if that course was fifty miles off the course you would have followed - which everyone had followed for centuries - perhaps you'd find something previously unsuspected.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:47
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Safety Biscuits posted:Or serial killers! I’m not saying that they were exact, but that’s the general method of travel because they could not tell how far they had gone east or west. Of course compass heading does not equal course over ground. They would adjust based upon currents/winds to make sure they were traveling in the direction they wanted. Taking advantage of currents isn’t out of line with this, but that isn’t what the polynesians were doing. Polynesian people were actively charting the entire pacific based upon currents. Prior to the chronometer, sailors only had an educated guess via dead reckoning about how far east or west they had actually traveled.
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Jul 9, 2020 12:00
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Mr. Nice! posted:Prior to the chronometer, sailors only had an educated guess via dead reckoning about how far east or west they had actually traveled. Ehh they could do things like count knots and keep a record over a whole day. But that stuff is really hard to do well and one would have to be really practiced to be good at it.
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Jul 10, 2020 00:52
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Ehh they could do things like count knots and keep a record over a whole day. But that stuff is really hard to do well and one would have to be really practiced to be good at it. It was really loving hard. The nautical chronometer changed the game completely when it came to sailing. Dead reckoning refers to a specific charting technique where you project where you should be on a chart based upon speed and heading. When you can take an actual fix using landmarks or celestial bodies, you compare it to your DR to determine your course over ground and direction/strength of currents.
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Jul 10, 2020 00:58
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Mr. Nice! posted:It was really loving hard. The nautical chronometer changed the game completely when it came to sailing. You are lecturing a merchant mariner who did SOLAS work for nearly 15 years. That said cel nav would be a weak area for me personally. The point is it was not impossible to do, but that it took a years of experience and intelligence and natural skill to do well. Small errors accumulate and build over time basically. The chronometer makes it much easier and opens up a much larger number of people capable of navigating well. Related a good read about a famous open boat journey and cel nav (post chronometer) https://www.canterburymuseum.com/assets/DownloadFiles/Navigation-of-the-James-Caird-on-the-Shackleton-Expedition.pdf
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Jul 10, 2020 01:39
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weren't the Polynesians making those elaborate wave charts that would allow them to figure their location based on the direction the waves were rolling?
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Jul 10, 2020 01:48
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Bar Ran Dun posted:You are lecturing a merchant mariner who did SOLAS work for nearly 15 years. That said cel nav would be a weak area for me personally. The point is it was not impossible to do, but that it took a years of experience and intelligence and natural skill to do well. Small errors accumulate and build over time basically. The chronometer makes it much easier and opens up a much larger number of people capable of navigating well. Definitely not trying to lecture. Didn't know your background and what you knew already. I'm a former navy SWO. Definitely not as much time at sea as you. I personally can't do any celestial nav, either, but I can use a stadimeter. One of our skippers was big on that and would have had us outside at night with a sextant if he could.
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Jul 10, 2020 03:01
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What I primarily know about is vessel stability (particularly related to grain) and cargo (especially haz, oog, and high consequence stuff). I’ve done flag state work for a couple of administrations too. These days I’m outta regulatory stuff and into the insurance side though.
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Jul 10, 2020 03:34
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I assume grain holds have baffles to slow the rate if shift?
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Jul 10, 2020 03:40
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This book has a good chapter on it and I used to work with the author. https://www.amazon.com/Stability-Trim-Ships-Officer-Original/dp/087033297X Edit goddamn it I wrote a bunch and the app ate it just a sec rewriting it. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 03:53
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The Lone Badger posted:I assume grain holds have baffles to slow the rate if shift? No they don’t use baffles. They used to strap but that basically doesn’t happen any more ever. Sometimes they will put bags (super sacks) on top. Nearly all ships that can load grain (to get a class grain loading certificate) have to have a grain stability booklet. This has the shifting moments for the holds, centers of gravity for all the holds and tanks, and tables of allowable moments. Along with the hydrostatics one uses this information to do a calculation to show that if the grain does shift the resulting list will be less than 12 degrees. Basically if shifting moments < maximum allowable moments then the ship passes. Generally speaking this is achieved by filling as many holds as possible completely full ( which reduces the moments for those holds) Usually a ship will leave two holds partially full to get a proper trim, even keel or a bit down by the stern by adjusting the balance between them. The complexity comes in, in that stowage factors vary (this is an ag product after all) so one has to plan for a final condition not really knowing how the grain will stow within a rough range for each different type of grain. It’s not hard for handy or Panamax ships. Small vessels with one or two holds, or movable hold bulkheads are where it gets harder. There are other ways to do it, the Russians had a probabilistic model. The model in SOLAS in the grain code is not a perfect model, but it is an effective one because of its conservative assumptions.
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Jul 10, 2020 04:12
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Since we are speaking of navigation: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/after-more-than-a-century-physicists-explain-why-ships-get-stuck-in-dead-water/ quote:In 1893, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen described what must have been a frightening phenomenon under the circumstances. His ship became trapped in the Nordenskiöld Archipelago off Siberia, barely able to move, yet its engines appeared to be working normally and he wasn't confronted by any known force. It's taken 127 years, but physicists think they finally have an answer to how this phenomenon operates. It's also possible a rare appearance changed the course of history.
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Jul 10, 2020 09:19
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Squalid posted:yeah, there's a whole lot of pitfalls and mine fields in genetics work. It all gets even dicier when you start talking about testing human remains eh, at worst we go back to the bad old times, when people had to conduct the study of human anatomy with a shovel just replace "shovel" with "secret lab" in this analogy
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Jul 10, 2020 10:21
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Dalael posted:Since we are speaking of navigation: I mean...Cleopatra did run away though. It’s not like she was so stuck in dead water that she couldn’t sail back to Egypt.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:21
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Apparently they are gonna turn the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque? Not sure what that entails to be honest but hopefully it's still in good shape if I ever take a trip. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/turkey-court-revokes-hagia-sophia-museum-status-200710131419431.html
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Jul 10, 2020 15:29
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quote:Shakespeare, never the most reliable historian, attributed the outcome to a loss of nerve on Cleopatra's part, but the researchers think it is possible her ships got caught in dead-water, rendering her unable to come to Antony's aid. Does this guy think that Shakespeare is a historian and the story came from him instead of Plutarch? That's pretty bad even for a journalist.
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Jul 10, 2020 15:44
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shirunei posted:Apparently they are gonna turn the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque? Not sure what that entails to be honest but hopefully it's still in good shape if I ever take a trip. That is unfortunate but not surprising given what's happening with Turkey's government. I wish I had gotten to see it. Many mosques are closed to non-Muslims, I hope the tourism greed makes them keep the Hagia Sophia open to visitors but no way to be sure. E: I guess I don't actually know how often mosques are closed to non-Muslims. Most of them were in Malaysia but I don't know if that's typical. Malaysia's government is pretty secular though. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 15:49
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Does this guy think that Shakespeare is a historian and the story came from him instead of Plutarch? That's pretty bad even for a journalist. no? it's just a way of saying that shakespeare's history plays don't tend to be historically accurate
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Jul 10, 2020 16:21
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It's kind of weird to say that Shakespeare attributed the loss to something when Shakespeare is taking the story straight from an ancient historian, and also to call him out as a bad historian when 1. he wasn't and 2. he lines up with how actual historians say it went down. Maybe it's an SEO thing, just seems completely out of nowhere.
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Jul 10, 2020 16:29
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Grand Fromage posted:That is unfortunate but not surprising given what's happening with Turkey's government. I wish I had gotten to see it. Many mosques are closed to non-Muslims, I hope the tourism greed makes them keep the Hagia Sophia open to visitors but no way to be sure. The Blue Mosque in front of it was open to tourists when I visited, so I guess you shouldn't worry.
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Jul 10, 2020 16:35
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Average Lettuce posted:The Blue Mosque in front of it was open to tourists when I visited, so I guess you shouldn't worry. That's good to know. Though with Erdogan in charge 
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Jul 10, 2020 16:38
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The article I read about the issue (in German) was extremely sceptical about the AKP following through, because "Turn the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque!" has been such a beloved rallying cry/wedge issue - to be trotted out whenever they need to distract voters from a scandal or the economy - that there are actual memes about it. Also, at one point the opposition apparently introduced a law about going through with it purely as a means of (successfully) trolling the AKP into voting against it to preserve their political tool.
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Jul 10, 2020 16:54
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The Hagia Sophia is the original Huge Religious Building and it's my favorite one that I've visited. Super cool experience, even including the sketchy guy outside who said he was from Florida and tried to sell me a rug. Seems like the big concern if they went through with it would be if they re-covered-up or destroyed the Christian artwork and Viking Graffiti and stuff? That would be awful and insane. Hopefully it's just a political stunt.
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Jul 10, 2020 17:05
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Archeology unites with history to solve a small mystery in the Romano-British countryside: https://threader.app/thread/1281534833320222721
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Jul 10, 2020 17:11
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Grand Fromage posted:That is unfortunate but not surprising given what's happening with Turkey's government. I wish I had gotten to see it. Many mosques are closed to non-Muslims, I hope the tourism greed makes them keep the Hagia Sophia open to visitors but no way to be sure. I went to the al-Aqsa mosque as tourist once, so it's something that isn't innately forbidden. Depends on the political situation of the people in control, I guess.
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Jul 10, 2020 17:57
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OctaviusBeaver posted:It's kind of weird to say that Shakespeare attributed the loss to something when Shakespeare is taking the story straight from an ancient historian, and also to call him out as a bad historian when 1. he wasn't and 2. he lines up with how actual historians say it went down. Maybe it's an SEO thing, just seems completely out of nowhere. he's not literally calling him a historian, it's a figure of speech. he's just expressing the completely banal point that shakespeare's history plays are not particularly reliable guides to the historical events they depict
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Jul 10, 2020 18:11
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Grand Fromage posted:
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Jul 10, 2020 18:38
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I think they were already using the Hagia Sophia for religious services on holidays/special occasions, so all the stuff that made it a mosque was permanently set up and part of the museum. There's also plenty of mosques open to tourists all over Turkey that are being used for regular services--it mostly just meant you had to go in during hours when people weren't actively praying. Even if Erdogan follows through, I'm not too worried. The muslim altar on the floor of hagia sophia is maybe ten degrees offset from the overall angle of the floorplan, because the building is almost but not quite pointing at Mecca. It's a really striking effect
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Jul 10, 2020 18:43
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Do they still perform worship services in the mosque-turned-church at the Alhambra? I remember reading something a few years back about some Muslim visitors getting kicked out for trying to pray there. The Alhambra and the Hagia Sofia are both definitely on my bucket list.
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Jul 10, 2020 18:49
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Kevin DuBrow posted:Do they still perform worship services in the mosque-turned-church at the Alhambra? I remember reading something a few years back about some Muslim visitors getting kicked out for trying to pray there. The Alhambra and the Hagia Sofia are both definitely on my bucket list. That's the Iglesia de Santa María de la Alhambra, and yes they do have regular Catholic services. As far as I know, while the church in Alhambra was built on the site of the mosque, the building itself was always a church. For that reason it isn't typically the target of Islamic evangelists. It is worth dropping by the current Mezquita de Granada, which has beautiful hilltop views and a lovely interior. They also perform services at the Mezquita de Córdoba (which was a massive mosque that only had its center replaced with a Catholic nave when it was converted, in order to maintain the beauty of the architecture). The Mezquita de Córdoba is much larger, retains its appearance of a mosque, and has a grand heritage, and so there's often a few Muslim evangelists trying to reclaim it in one way or another. There's been some discussion about secularizing the Mezquita entirely, but Spain is a very Catholic country and the locals have no interest in doing so (they typically refer to it as la Cathedral de Córdoba). Definitely add it to your bucket list, the way the architecture both combines and sharply contrasts Baroque and Moorish styles is amazing. The Hagia Sofia is a bit of a different story, since Ataturk's intentional secularization and modernization of Turkey has been such a point of pride for the country. It's part of the mythos, like Washington's two term presidency in the United States. If it's actually desecularized, it would be a real blow to that image. Regardless, I'm sure that the building will continue to be accessible to tourists. There's a bunch of nearby mosques in Istanbul that have a huge tourist audience every day, and it's a massive part of the economy. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 19:31
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Are there/have there been any historical church-turned-mosques or vice versa that allow both faiths to worship there?
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Jul 10, 2020 20:06
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sullat posted:I went to the al-Aqsa mosque as tourist once, so it's something that isn't innately forbidden. Depends on the political situation of the people in control, I guess. Yeah, I know it's not completely forbidden, there was one mosque in Kuala Lumpur that opened for tourists part of the day. All the other ones I wanted to peek into were not allowed. If they just have worship in the Hagia Sophia without otherwise destroying it, well, whatever I guess. I don't trust the Turkish government but I do sort of trust the desire for tourist dollars.
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Jul 10, 2020 20:11
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Are there/have there been any historical church-turned-mosques or vice versa that allow both faiths to worship there? The Temple Mount comes to mind. Muslims conduct services within, and Jews perform prayers at the adjacent Wailing Wall. It's all tricky business though, because the issue of cultural claimancy can be so personal. And Temple Mount, like any contested site, routinely fields accusations of "secret prayer" and other forms of religious reclamation.
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Jul 10, 2020 20:19
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