Topics

1

Questions and Suggestions - The High Court / Styling Blockquotes

« on: March 05, 2024, 04:33:22 AM »

Right now, blockquotes appear in smaller lighter text than the body.  So if the main text is readable, often the quoted text is not.  Could we change styling so that the blockquotes are in at least the same size and weight as the body text?

2

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Byzantium & its reception

« on: February 28, 2024, 02:17:08 AM »

A collection of short essays on the eastern Roman empire https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/what-do-we-get-wrong-about-byzantine-empire  I have to say that paragraphs like:

Emperors routinely announced that tax revenues would be used for the common good and public interest, not for private advantage. They made good on this by spending most of their money on a pan-Roman army for the defence of all provinces. Furthermore, they welcomed petitions and appeals from their subjects on matters legal and fiscal – and answered them. They issued laws that enabled those subjects to bring formal complaints against the abuses of officials. Emperors presented themselves as protectors of the weak and poor against the oppression of ‘the powerful’. Overall, I believe they persuaded their subjects of their sincerity. As a result, subjects paid taxes, generally followed the law, and did not seek to break away from central control.

make me think they should read some Achaemenid or Chinese history (ie. they are calling Central Casting, they make a request that they think is specific, and Central Casting puts down the phone and says "secretary, get five agrarian empires in for an audition").

3

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Cultures are Weird

« on: January 19, 2024, 07:12:50 PM »

I have not believed in the Canadian politics series for a few years now.  So in the year of the Black Pharaoh 2024 I have a thread of longform descriptions of cultures which don't slip in to telling you to be angry about them or scared of them.

Literary magazine The Paris Review on the CIA writers' club


Sleuthsayers with an article from 1991 which uses the trial of Lizzie Borden paints a word picture of WASP culture as the author imagines it (just note how much the author asserts purely on the basis of intuition, like 'who stole the family jewels before the murders?'

The History of William Marshall on the Battle of Lincoln (1217)

Edit: Leo Frankowski, of the Polish Engineer novels (modern person goes back to 1240 and saves Poland from the Mongols while acquiring lots of female companionship - yes, some of them were published with Baen Books), was the archetype of a right-wing American sci fi author from the 20th century as his story of how he acquired two Russian wives shows.  I hope his widow got something nice with his money!

4

General Gaming - The Arcade / Oakeshott Institute Talk on 3d Models of Real Swords in Video Games

« on: December 14, 2023, 01:20:51 AM »

https://www.arms-n-armor.com/blogs/news/real-antique-swords-in-video-games

5

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / The Zero Real Interest Rates Era in Retrospect

« on: December 10, 2023, 09:57:11 PM »

The period when most central banks offered loans at zero real interest rate (interest that just covers inflation) which ran from 2009 to 2021 is pretty clearly over.  In that period, anyone with a lot of money (like tens of millions and up) could borrow as much money as they wanted for free (they didn't have to pay interest for the privilege of using someone else's money, just more or less cover inflation).

How much do you think people who are more intelligent and curious than average are aware of what it did to housing prices or the Internet?  Or the likelihood that some mainstream financial institutions will be in trouble because they allocated money in ways that made sense when money was free but don't make sense now and when they try to sell everyone is trying to do the same thing?

6

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / The Great Plate Debate

« on: November 14, 2023, 07:36:01 PM »

This is a placeholder because an independent scholar and art restorer named Chris Dobson has brought up the problem whether much European plate armour was blued or blackened before the sixteenth century (that is, it was heated evenly until it was coloured, and then either organic material was burned on to it, or it was rapidly cooled by quenching to lock coloured oxides to the surface).  Almost all armour before that period has either been allowed to badly rust, or scrubbed back to bare steel, or both at some time after its working life.  Therefore, its almost impossible to determine the original surface finish by examining surviving armour from the fifteenth century or earlier.

Shiny surfaces are extremely hard to photograph or paint, and before about 1430 artists didn't really try to depict the outward surface of things as the eye would see them.  Many people say that by sometime in the fifteenth century, there are so many very detailed and lifelike pieces of art with dark armour that it was probably a common thing.  Earlier its hard to decide how to interpret the art because "this is an expensive painting, use lots of gold, silver, and precious colours" was a thing that patrons asked.  There is lots of medieval art where the artist clearly mixed up a small palette of colours and stuck with that so the work would go quicker. So when we see something like this:



its hard to make a convincing argument for why the first knight's surcote, the second knight's helm, the young man's tunic, and the old man's hair are all the same grey colour.  You can be more confident with someone like Hieronymus Bosch in the sixteenth century who really seems to want the head of the crossbow bolt and the mittens of plate to look different.



Since the argument is in an expensive book which arrives slowly by courier and has arguments which use a wide variety of evidence in ways that are sometimes convincing and sometimes not, the quality of the online discussion has not been the best (lots of comments by people who have not read the thing or have only read parts).  For example, Chris Dobson is very optimistic about seeing things as authentic which most people agree were made in the 19th or 20th century (occasionally by cutting up medieval armour).  I have to be careful how much time I put in so I don't get distracted from things that would pay in money or CV lines or get me out the door.

This thread is pretty good on polishing.

7

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Essay on Turkish Language and Themes in The Chronicles of Narnia

« on: September 12, 2023, 01:33:51 AM »

https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/finding-turkey-in-narnia/

It should maybe have talked about the orient-sterotypes in The Horse and His Boy.

8

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / The Marriage and Family Program

« on: April 29, 2023, 02:13:30 AM »

Over on the monthly meetup, someone mentioned that he had found someone with a RationalWiki entry pushing a theory that western Europeans were bred for individuality by Catholic marriage laws.  Unfortunately, this comes from an actual paper by Joseph Henrich in Science (sigh), if you see history archaeology or linguistics in Nature or Science be prepared for disappointment) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau5141 summarized here

I think most of the criticism was on corporate social media where its hard to find again or may be deleted or hidden (double sigh) but it included things like "nobody in western Europe in the early Middle Ages had the power to control marriage across a wide area" and "the British upper class had a lot of cousin marriages in the 18th and 19th century."  And many people are highly motivated to reason why Catholic and Protestant Europeans were forordained to dominate the world.  I don't know of anyone who has looked into the authors or their footnotes.

Even in the second half of the Middle Ages, the western Church struggled to enforce the rule against clerics marrying.  When it stopped them from marrying in a church, it found a lot of clerks with friendly housemaids and neighbours-with-benefits.

So at first glance it seems like a thing which could have happened, but when you look at the history of similar theories and who gets excited by them, you realize you should be very careful.  Eg. the pioneering sociologist Max Weber decided that north-west Europe was rich in 1910 because Protestantism, then France and southern Germany got rich too, then Japan and South Korea, and the idea that the Protestant Ethic is the Spirit of Capitalism got hard to swallow.

Edit: its also worth saying that the authors and the people willing to speak kindly about this project come from disciplines such as business, economics, psychology, anthropology, human evolutionary biology (a whole department at Harvard!)

The ancient Greeks and Romans were very strong on monogamy: whoever people got naked with, they could have one and only one spouse at a time, and if powerful men such as kings tried to marry more than one person at a time that was a mark of the barbarian.  AFAIK the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians were basically monogamous too.

9

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / 7 Myths Everyone Believes About Druids (2014)

« on: April 13, 2023, 02:20:58 AM »

This blog post leans in to the True Neutral, battling-for-rank nature of Druids in 1e D&D and the possibility of Druids as major antagonists or villains rather than Radaghast figures.  Its take is one take!

https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html
https://www.xenograg.com/1158/role-playing/jealous-hoarding-of-magic-spells

10

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Designing Physical Zines

« on: April 12, 2023, 03:57:32 AM »

Over on the fediverse @cassey@urbanists.social asked:

Anyone have resource recommendations for designing better printed/physical #zines? I am familiar with 101 level stuff about zines and have made some before, but want to get better at making something that looks nice- really general design principles. Less "how to use [software] to make zines" and more "how to decide what to do with [software] to make zines"

That seemed like an Exilian kind of question?

11

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Sandra Tayler Workshops for Creators

« on: April 05, 2023, 09:43:01 PM »

Sandra Tayler of the Tayler family of webcartoonists is teaching two online classes in May.

Running a Successful Crowdfunded Project on Wednesday May 17, 6-8pm MDT.

Whether your planned project is small or dramatic in scope, you can plan for it and set it up in ways that, yes optimize for bringing in the funds you need, but also help you build a good working relationship with your backers, create a sustainable workflow for fulfillment, and establish a long-term strategy for creative success. Join Sandra Tayler for 90 minutes of lecture and 30 minutes of group discussion on the stages of running a crowdfunded project, best practices for each stage and ways you can set yourself up for physical, emotional, and creative sustainability with the project you have planned. Succeeding at crowdfunding is not just measured in dollars.

Building Creative Community on Wednesday May 31, 6-8pm MDT

Creative people who have communities thrive better, but how do you go about finding or building one? Whether you want to form a knitting circle at your local cafe, a writer's group in your home, or an online interdisciplinary Discord community, there are some principles and practices that will help your community to thrive. Come learn how you can set up a brand new community, join one that exists, rescue one that is faltering, or even repair one that has been broken. This class will have an emphasis on small-scale community building for creative people who want support with their own work and to support the work of others.

12

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Lackadaisy Animated

« on: April 04, 2023, 06:20:34 AM »

Webcomic Lackadaisy released a one-episode animated version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtnQ5cIHGHE (have you noticed that webcomics often don't have links to other comics on other sites any more?)

13

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Tempera Painting and Shield Making

« on: March 27, 2023, 07:23:18 AM »

There was a call for posts about creative projects on Exilian's social media

Over on Mastodon I am posting about my experiments in shield making and tempera painting (painting with powdered colours in water-based binders or tempers such as egg yolk, egg white, gum arabic, or hide glue).

If this is mentioned in a monthly update, please refer to me as "a member" not by my username.  Because I talk about a variety of things on here, I would like to keep it slightly separate from the Mastodon account which is theoretically professional (although has some bad mental health talk etc.)

14

Creative and Project Hub - The River Docks / CfP Save Ancient Studies Alliance Virtual Conference

« on: March 21, 2023, 01:16:02 AM »

The Save Ancient Studies Alliance Virtual Conference is looking for papers on the theme “Discovery, Science, and Technology in the Ancient World” (deadline 31 March). The conference will take place on 23 and 24 July 2023. You can find more about the conference on their website https://www.saveancientstudies.org/virtual-conference

15

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Leggings and Motion Capture

« on: February 10, 2023, 04:18:37 AM »

Stock photo provider AdorkaStock is trying an interesting approach to motion capture https://www.adorkastock.com/sketch/  She is trying spandex bodysuits with the joints and major axes of rotation marked.  Not sure how useful that would be for people who sketch a lot of people, but its an idea!