tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75069180676794366262024-02-07T03:44:26.053-05:00Holy Shit, That's InterestingSometimes I'm so interested in something that I swear aloud. When that happens, I take to the web and share, so that others may swear as well.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-775204706111021132016-05-18T13:14:00.000-04:002016-05-18T13:14:26.795-04:00Holy Shit, Hachikō!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhjVAN5cb_ejxwgRhZyd_4c7JcCmxipbpENqsp_GUhTdctC0uqq4JuuB4ZEyxbgCGAL1EOiFJbZpCX9wS8NwdZX4xGws0MgNcCdlDfDdIK6iQB8Yv-hHk6eV1evpYNTOWiezxQJP9eP0-/s1600/Hachiko.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Hachiko" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhjVAN5cb_ejxwgRhZyd_4c7JcCmxipbpENqsp_GUhTdctC0uqq4JuuB4ZEyxbgCGAL1EOiFJbZpCX9wS8NwdZX4xGws0MgNcCdlDfDdIK6iQB8Yv-hHk6eV1evpYNTOWiezxQJP9eP0-/s1600/Hachiko.jpg" title="Ah, the canine stoicism" /></a></div>
Way back in 1924, a professor of agricultural studies named Hidesaburō Ueno at the University of Tokyo adopted a dog named Hachikō. Hachikō was a golden brown akita inu and, like many dogs, was reportedly a good boy, yes he was.<br />
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Ueno and Hachikō quickly developed an adorable daily routine. Every day, Ueno would say goodbye to Hachikō at his front door and go to work. Every evening, Hachikō had worked out, Ueno would arrive at the exact same time on a train at the nearby Shibuya Station. So Hachikō decided that Shibuya Station was a great place to be in the evenings. He showed up precisely when Ueno's train was due every single day, then excitedly greeted his master and walked him home.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTvhtWMU0TbhmLyyox68dZsby-WzEcLWS-VbrDfvMjPec3jZdQFGCjy5L2-pHPKYwIS9MyHizeFIuU4lja3mQQ8VHyW5bjedmSHZQYJbYFIeayJPxyz5OgkTAqvDH_N47v0rqJvUg0OM1/s1600/Shibuya_Station_in_Pre-war_Showa_era.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pre-war Shibuya Station" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTvhtWMU0TbhmLyyox68dZsby-WzEcLWS-VbrDfvMjPec3jZdQFGCjy5L2-pHPKYwIS9MyHizeFIuU4lja3mQQ8VHyW5bjedmSHZQYJbYFIeayJPxyz5OgkTAqvDH_N47v0rqJvUg0OM1/s1600/Shibuya_Station_in_Pre-war_Showa_era.jpg" title="But hey, dogs is smart" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shibuya Station looks like a dangerous spot for a dog to wait</td></tr>
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Tragically, the budding familial relationship between Hachikō and Ueno was cut short in May of 1925, only about a year after it began. Professor Ueno suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage while at work and would never return to Shibuya Station. Hachikō waited for him for some time, then went home alone and presumably full of concern. The next day, he went back to the station at the same time, waited, and went home alone again.<br />
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He did the same thing the next day. Then the next day. Then the next. Somewhere along the way, Ueno's gardener adopted the dog as his own, but it did nothing to stop its routine. Every day, at the moment the evening train was due, Hachikō would appear at Shibuya station to wait for his old friend. <i>Every. Single. Day.</i><br />
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Seven years later, Hirokichi Saito, one of Ueno's former students, recognized the dog when he happened to be at the station at the right time. He tailed Hachikō (no pun intended) to his home, where he met the gardener, who explained the whole story. Saito, deeply moved, published several articles about the dog's loyalty, holding it up as an example for all citizens of Imperial Japan to emulate.<br />
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One of these articles caught on in a big way, and suddenly Hachikō was a national sensation. Daily commuters brought treats for Hachikō, and people came to Shibuya Station specifically to see the famously loyal dog. All told, Hachikō visited the station every day for <i>nine years, nine months and fifteen days</i>. Finally, in March of 1935, Hachikō succumbed to cancer.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO_5Ff6mSIXFeFFayVMCcQxjwS4MV-kHhKr3-AZ9Pnu5SRBWTWCZMH5CRgb3ZSqqmYltS7AKg-y-AxnmE5g4dL71letCCLX5kjjU-e9_RJeG02OYH8xkHpZ360fbgDUcv8em9LF29HU9by/s1600/Hachiko_funeral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Hachiko's funeral" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO_5Ff6mSIXFeFFayVMCcQxjwS4MV-kHhKr3-AZ9Pnu5SRBWTWCZMH5CRgb3ZSqqmYltS7AKg-y-AxnmE5g4dL71letCCLX5kjjU-e9_RJeG02OYH8xkHpZ360fbgDUcv8em9LF29HU9by/s1600/Hachiko_funeral.jpg" title="With Officials and everything!" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And yes, he had an actual funeral.</td></tr>
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Hachikō was buried next to his master, and his fur was stuffed and made into a display for the National Science Museum of Japan. Even before his death, his loyalty was commemorated by a bronze statue of his likeness at the station; he was present for its unveiling. Though it was recycled for materials during the Second World War, a recreation was built in 1948 that remains standing today.<br />
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If this story sounds familiar to you, it's probably because there was a Richard Gere movie called <i>Hachi</i> and <i>that episode </i>of <i>Futurama</i> that always makes you cry, both of which took their inspiration from Hachikō. To this day, we recognize a little dog from Tokyo with statues, films and TV shows, all because he just couldn't stop loving someone, even after almost a decade of not seeing him.<br />
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Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-49127780011688603442015-11-18T10:17:00.001-05:002015-11-18T10:17:14.289-05:00Holy Shit, the Speed of Light!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1gGIYHVye44skH1fl0BPg7loyJLRB638Qn0q8L93fyeZVrkDNwqZGkQQrrahMo1MLR-ldohPlYjd0AuSa4QEEx7EaQadD5hYmiRw6_S9yDTPSDeCQ3xhkYK8KOzuSQHnHfwFDP3r-GZS/s1600/Earth_to_Sun_-_en.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1gGIYHVye44skH1fl0BPg7loyJLRB638Qn0q8L93fyeZVrkDNwqZGkQQrrahMo1MLR-ldohPlYjd0AuSa4QEEx7EaQadD5hYmiRw6_S9yDTPSDeCQ3xhkYK8KOzuSQHnHfwFDP3r-GZS/s640/Earth_to_Sun_-_en.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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If you know a little bit about physics, you know that the speed of light is around 300 million meters per second. If you know a bit more, you know that the exact figure is 299,792,498 meters per second. If you know just a bit more, you know that <i>neither of those are necessarily true</i>.<br />
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Here's the problem: "The Speed of Light" is a bit of a misnomer, which is probably one of the reasons scientists tend to just call it <i>c</i>. A more accurate definition of <i>c</i> would be "The Speed Limit of the Universe," because 299,792,498 meters per second is the fastest that any energy, matter, or information can possibly travel. It so happens that light is the only thing we know of that can reach that speed.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWpLk-hyboaV95tk3cFLvIvlmkGMtneEdUA9YNPgX_CBJ7nAEnRhQxlxMtkSNQ42LmCGlUbbMFiNzT33HdC4seuitkM5_j0GJyTKlKjU65C_XXTaIPUHUSxZfumZ3eK-ozyBDoGf6GQyyh/s1600/Bolt200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWpLk-hyboaV95tk3cFLvIvlmkGMtneEdUA9YNPgX_CBJ7nAEnRhQxlxMtkSNQ42LmCGlUbbMFiNzT33HdC4seuitkM5_j0GJyTKlKjU65C_XXTaIPUHUSxZfumZ3eK-ozyBDoGf6GQyyh/s1600/Bolt200.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are contenders, but we haven't quite gotten there yet.</td></tr>
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What that doesn't mean, however, is that light <i>always</i> travels at <i>c</i>. In fact, light only travels at "light speed" in a vacuum. You'll note that the entirety of Earth is <i>not</i>, to our great benefit and relief, a vacuum. We have a whole atmosphere that lets us breathe and stuff.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDrHcaNOMuyZROQIvbPcZiByv-0TLA1sTVS3REnoCilo8BDpI5ovGpMEzk8upXI7jLzjSP4QExTwQjHPUpKMKjeTnvrjmX3kzheq1WH1hsE6o_617UwwpbnVqYjnjsU4TprZNj0kgpfNwP/s1600/%25D0%25A0%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B1%25D0%25BE%25D1%2582_%25D0%25BF%25D1%258B%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D1%2581%25D0%25BE%25D1%2581_Roomba_780.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDrHcaNOMuyZROQIvbPcZiByv-0TLA1sTVS3REnoCilo8BDpI5ovGpMEzk8upXI7jLzjSP4QExTwQjHPUpKMKjeTnvrjmX3kzheq1WH1hsE6o_617UwwpbnVqYjnjsU4TprZNj0kgpfNwP/s1600/%25D0%25A0%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B1%25D0%25BE%25D1%2582_%25D0%25BF%25D1%258B%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D1%2581%25D0%25BE%25D1%2581_Roomba_780.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's not to say we don't have some perfectly nice vacuums <i>on</i> Earth</td></tr>
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The effect of the atmosphere on light is relatively small. It shaves off about 90,000 meters per second from light speed, which is a drop in the bucket. "So what's the big deal," you might say, "that's more or less the same. What's the difference?" To which I'd respond, "Are you inside?"<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvGdh7mb77UhsdDPzGBuWy8tHGgZN00AkzHzyS_uGw_-ETJ5iRm9r1pjiJ_yx_oGdeqRMYKV2gCWLY5NlOPfOr5Jd9m6RJEuga2G_nrcoEng9U2-SS3uQw4hxAGyz14hL0HryfLpzPaMA/s1600/Sacrumi.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvGdh7mb77UhsdDPzGBuWy8tHGgZN00AkzHzyS_uGw_-ETJ5iRm9r1pjiJ_yx_oGdeqRMYKV2gCWLY5NlOPfOr5Jd9m6RJEuga2G_nrcoEng9U2-SS3uQw4hxAGyz14hL0HryfLpzPaMA/s640/Sacrumi.gif" width="419" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<i>Always.</i>"</td></tr>
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Because if you <i>are</i> inside, the light you're seeing is traveling <i>significantly</i> slower. Even if it's natural light coming through a window. Glass alone will slow down light by almost <i>a third</i>. These are just natural processes that slow light down. If you put some effort into it, you can make light practically <i>crawl</i>. <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html" target="_blank">Physicists at Harvard University</a>, led by Lene Hau, used a bizarre state of matter with densely packed, super-cold atoms to slow light to <i>17 meters per second</i>. That's 38 miles per hour. That's like you're morning commute, if you don't take the highway. You could beat light to work, depending on the traffic.<br />
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A few years later, those same physicists succeeded in <i><a href="http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=28520" target="_blank">turning light into matter</a></i> and making it just <i>stop</i>. They then revived it and started it moving again a short distance away. So, congratulations. Any time you move, you are travelling faster than light...given the right conditions.<br />
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Holy shit.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Bolt200" by Jmex - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Робот пылесос Roomba 780" by Nohau - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Sacrumi". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikipedia - No offense intended :-)</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-31691890400371122252015-11-04T09:25:00.000-05:002015-11-04T09:25:04.644-05:00Holy Shit, James Harrison!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCgCF9RJUwtdxFRfoqjZlW8P9HYtw3HQfwm_kLbRf4bbiCIcgYNP8DAWgub4q8AdmAyTOU6K-_SZ5n3ZQXHCYhVFMUy3xPcQG7t_LOXFYGtbNuY_rDfVrKkaxjKnHvnwbTyiJ30McOHfh/s1600/james-harrison-001-today-150612-tease_68dade8c48717996bc148070cee86672.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="James Harrison with two babies" border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCgCF9RJUwtdxFRfoqjZlW8P9HYtw3HQfwm_kLbRf4bbiCIcgYNP8DAWgub4q8AdmAyTOU6K-_SZ5n3ZQXHCYhVFMUy3xPcQG7t_LOXFYGtbNuY_rDfVrKkaxjKnHvnwbTyiJ30McOHfh/s640/james-harrison-001-today-150612-tease_68dade8c48717996bc148070cee86672.jpg" title="If anyone deserves a baby photo op, it's this guy." width="640" /></a></div>
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In 1951, a 14-year-old Australian kid named James Harrison underwent major chest surgery. There were no major complications, and he ended up fine, but it struck him as incredible that he required almost 3.5 <i>gallons</i> of donated blood in order to survive the ordeal. From that moment, he made a personal vow to donate as much blood as he possibly could once he had fully recovered. As soon as he turned 18, he started giving plasma every 2-3 weeks.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsMU4iWaN6PMInIbi4odbnsfqPGGqnEnuVAn4gbEK1_l_oY60OxnfPAk7D3xROolA3FHv5SzWvA5VHw3A75NMosRJ8Ecsgh8XnzWIBri71_SHWrD09ZqnD-IxGPsrhAwXB9uBka0Rpm9K/s1600/Blood_donation_pictogram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsMU4iWaN6PMInIbi4odbnsfqPGGqnEnuVAn4gbEK1_l_oY60OxnfPAk7D3xROolA3FHv5SzWvA5VHw3A75NMosRJ8Ecsgh8XnzWIBri71_SHWrD09ZqnD-IxGPsrhAwXB9uBka0Rpm9K/s640/Blood_donation_pictogram.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which I guess was exhausting? This pictogram is weird.</td></tr>
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Once he had one or two donations under his belt, there was an interesting development. It turns out James Harrison's blood contained an antibody called Rho(D) immune globulin. That probably doesn't mean much to you, but to OB/GYNs and medical researches, finding this antibody in someone who was vowing to donate as much blood as humanly possible was like planting a garden and finding <i>El Dorado</i> in your backyard as a result.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio2wWmOBx62zog8rutqiSo5kdJF6n0P4bByU8IV0IAf4UcIZ3vo46WrfzM9RXR9HcahILq-PFyzq2U3VO_OOdYrm6YxFSFq-GAXNgKMrZqQywCRKa0eeEDx5VAREeIID4mGogElOxZtNtb/s1600/Muisca_raft_Legend_of_El_Dorado_Offerings_of_gold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Muisca Raft Legend of El Dorado" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio2wWmOBx62zog8rutqiSo5kdJF6n0P4bByU8IV0IAf4UcIZ3vo46WrfzM9RXR9HcahILq-PFyzq2U3VO_OOdYrm6YxFSFq-GAXNgKMrZqQywCRKa0eeEDx5VAREeIID4mGogElOxZtNtb/s1600/Muisca_raft_Legend_of_El_Dorado_Offerings_of_gold.jpg" title="Gardening is not usually so shiny" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I have a sudden urge to start gardening...in November.</td></tr>
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To understand why, you need to know a bit about blood types and pregnancy complications. If a pregnant woman has a negative blood type but the fetus is positive, the mother's blood often treats the baby as a disease. The medical term for that situation is Rhesus Disease, but it's also known as "Bad News Bears." In the best case scenario, the baby is born anemic. More often than not, it could cause miscarriage or stillbirth.</div>
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Rhesus Disease used to be one of the most common causes of pregnancy and birth complications. But then James Harrison came around. When his fancy-pants antibody is given to pregnant women, it essentially hides the part of the baby's blood that causes the mother's body to treat it as a parasite. Thousands of babies were born and <i>lived</i> because Harrison was constantly donating. It wasn't long before researches developed RhoGAM, which is essentially a vaccine that protects at-risk pregnancies from Rhesus Disease.</div>
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James Harrison is still around and donating, and he's become a major voice for blood donation. He currently holds the world record for lifetime blood donations -- which, by now, is well over 1,000. It's estimated that his blood has saved over 2.4 <i>million</i> babies.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2zeD2zs9sR8N1jMjXrlUuHn6BxTbwMb-G4m7aXVUQ3CAl8FVSeQj2CZuE3XJcX7q8W0DvudMSYoKt3I3k5fRxPG4MApG60wJycHZCw8-D8pQe9duN7QPVFYSzbKU9y-28oHhAY4skF4T/s1600/Human-Male-White-Newborn-Baby-Crying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Crying newborn." border="0" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga2zeD2zs9sR8N1jMjXrlUuHn6BxTbwMb-G4m7aXVUQ3CAl8FVSeQj2CZuE3XJcX7q8W0DvudMSYoKt3I3k5fRxPG4MApG60wJycHZCw8-D8pQe9duN7QPVFYSzbKU9y-28oHhAY4skF4T/s640/Human-Male-White-Newborn-Baby-Crying.jpg" title="Being one or two days old is no excuse." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well that's just ungrateful.</td></tr>
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I don't usually get personal on this blog, but in this case I'm going to make an exception. My daughter is quite possibly alive today because of James Harrison. Her blood type is Rh positive and her mother's is Rh negative. My daughter is easily the single best thing that's ever happened to me. She's brought immeasurable happiness into my life, and I owe that happiness, in part, to James Harrison.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6al2I3cUd0YcdLjvdCk7THb59j3mjbmnywAOYuZGAVuaQp1x6plKQ24iClXqumQvkyr-31zB6cwoHNY3uMzMVDzaLuTfeecKlF7ZDuXi6tw7ZeFD1DiLGklt0GaL6Laq7x6pud0a8TB3L/s1600/Hs0DJT2t_400x400.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="My foot and my baby's foot" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6al2I3cUd0YcdLjvdCk7THb59j3mjbmnywAOYuZGAVuaQp1x6plKQ24iClXqumQvkyr-31zB6cwoHNY3uMzMVDzaLuTfeecKlF7ZDuXi6tw7ZeFD1DiLGklt0GaL6Laq7x6pud0a8TB3L/s320/Hs0DJT2t_400x400.jpeg" title="Her feet are bigger now." width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is nothing like this.</td></tr>
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Holy shit.<br />
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By the way, you ought to consider donating blood yourself. You've got a ton of it, and it's not like you're using it all. Might as well, right? The <a href="http://www.redcross.org/blood" target="_blank">Red Cross</a> is a good place to start, but a quick Google search for "donate blood" should show you what your options are.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">James Harrison with two babies. Australian Red Cross.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Muisca raft Legend of El Dorado Offerings of gold" by Andrew Bertram - World66. Licensed under CC BY-SA 1.0 via Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Human-Male-White-Newborn-Baby-Crying" by Evan-Amos - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-10191191639462708312015-10-28T09:04:00.000-04:002015-10-28T09:04:35.051-04:00Holy Shit, the Battle of Hastings!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitn7bm0WO0gRHj8haV2LbUGKiT17ff8w3cqADT-Izkqcg7TlDqWbb4WuUiYlKo5Za6TkQpv11kn9wCJHmmrVfJcjadUNJtIqgQftdGq9rygJUbVz-ZH2De6pboSWAin1ZvAx8YBK3ouwE0/s1600/Harold_dead_bayeux_tapestry.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Harold's Death, Bayeux Tapestry" border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitn7bm0WO0gRHj8haV2LbUGKiT17ff8w3cqADT-Izkqcg7TlDqWbb4WuUiYlKo5Za6TkQpv11kn9wCJHmmrVfJcjadUNJtIqgQftdGq9rygJUbVz-ZH2De6pboSWAin1ZvAx8YBK3ouwE0/s640/Harold_dead_bayeux_tapestry.png" title="SPOILER ALERT" width="640" /></a></div>
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In January of 1066, the King of England, Edward the Confessor, died. He had become withdrawn and indecisive in his latter days, which led to three separate claims on the English throne: Harold Godwinson (who was crowned), Harald Hardrada of Norway, and William, the Duke of Normandy. All three had fairly legitimate claims to the throne, but Harold got to it first.<br />
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Not to be deterred, both Harald Hardrada and William assembled expeditionary forces and planned an invasion of England. Hardrada was faster (maybe because he was a Viking). With 300 ships and about 9,000 men, he landed in the north and quickly took the city of York. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated Godwinson's resolve.<br />
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Harold (with an O) raced north, gathering an army along the way, and caught Harald (with an A) unaware at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge" target="_blank">Stamford Bridge</a> in September. The element of surprise was present to the extent that about a third of the Norwegian army only showed up after the rest of them were in full rout. Of the 300 ships that came to England, only 24 returned to Norway, and none of them carried Hardrada.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYQecUQm3o3QvhH7wDvspT2z8TseSihOs920c0AJOx3eSiUKFysWcFXyfGc5Pxwc0RFMC2IWNznSBGT1q4jYtWI31fNGzoBt7Q7N3rY0sRXyIBGt4Yf5TK2ThZBA7eIOJW2yOYRcUH6wYh/s1600/Arbo_-_Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge_%25281870%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Battle of Stamford Bridge, Peter Arbo" border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYQecUQm3o3QvhH7wDvspT2z8TseSihOs920c0AJOx3eSiUKFysWcFXyfGc5Pxwc0RFMC2IWNznSBGT1q4jYtWI31fNGzoBt7Q7N3rY0sRXyIBGt4Yf5TK2ThZBA7eIOJW2yOYRcUH6wYh/s640/Arbo_-_Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge_%25281870%2529.jpg" title="Anglo-Saxons are really sloppy with piercings, I guess." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's him in the blue. He just got a new neck piercing. Ill-advised, as it turns out.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Harold Godwinson felt pretty good about that victory. For all of three days. In his furious march north, he had brought with him most of the levies that were meant to defend the south from William, which meant that when William landed there was pretty much no opposition. He built a small wooden castle at Hastings and started raiding the surrounding countryside.<br />
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After a grueling march and gruesome battle, Harold once again drove his forces across the country to meet an invader. Many of the details are unclear, but it appears that he favored speed over replenishing his forces. By the time he reached Hastings, his men were exhausted and battle-weary, and Norman scouts had spotted them, eliminating the element of surprise.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PZLmIrs3q-Y832ZHrez1I1tysBAdFhS8xDhWJ-poiZ-846gY5FpqUX5kKsvHmUkwA7SclgldGQQB7aLPMYm1pmkwJE1MzRq0VSohLKOsz3rnsYEddIxxoBvFgUSn33nIDbjTA885jk88/s1600/A_small_cup_of_coffee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PZLmIrs3q-Y832ZHrez1I1tysBAdFhS8xDhWJ-poiZ-846gY5FpqUX5kKsvHmUkwA7SclgldGQQB7aLPMYm1pmkwJE1MzRq0VSohLKOsz3rnsYEddIxxoBvFgUSn33nIDbjTA885jk88/s640/A_small_cup_of_coffee.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And coffee wouldn't even reach England for another several centuries!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Even so, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings" target="_blank">the battle</a> was far from one-sided. The English set up defensively on a hill, and the Normans repeatedly failed to dislodge them. At some point, a rumor started that William had been killed. Norman soldiers began to panic and run, which was ironically the spark that led to their victory. Foreign butts were mighty tempting to English swords, so the warriors holding them started breaking formations to reach them.<br />
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When William turned out to be alive -- and noticing the buttstabby lack of discipline -- he started using fake routs to shake loose the shield walls. While this didn't get the English off the hill, it did get them to expose their flanks, to which the Normans applied a liberal amount of charging horse. Things cascaded from there. the cavalry charge opened a path toward the King and his retinue, which led to the King's death, which sent the English into a full panic and essentially ended the battle right then and there.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifRmjpYB6hEHFR4oWeGAiX2qKprNSV0Ur7Ej8-pr0QVJAvi3ZVwnD1pBAtOPXuthBMl3UZvDsBc7gEqfK_wNG3L32DRHMUc3nB5MAb37t06PzYA7cY_422HxOTvnTWvtwC9u7oFHDtGyT1/s1600/Bayeux_Tapestry_scene51_Battle_of_Hastings_Norman_knights_and_archers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cavalry Charge, Bayeux Tapestry" border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifRmjpYB6hEHFR4oWeGAiX2qKprNSV0Ur7Ej8-pr0QVJAvi3ZVwnD1pBAtOPXuthBMl3UZvDsBc7gEqfK_wNG3L32DRHMUc3nB5MAb37t06PzYA7cY_422HxOTvnTWvtwC9u7oFHDtGyT1/s640/Bayeux_Tapestry_scene51_Battle_of_Hastings_Norman_knights_and_archers.jpg" title="But seriously, the Bayeux Tapestry is one of my favorite things" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And look! There were only like six of them!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Two months later, the Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England and given the name William the Conqueror. There were a few years of resistance but after Hastings England simply couldn't muster the strength to shake off the Norman Invasion. The consequences were <i>staggering</i>. The English aristocracy was systematically and <i>thoroughly</i> wiped out, replaced by William's vassals. Massive waves of refugees left England and settled elsewhere in Europe.<br />
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Even the English <i>language</i> was effectively destroyed by the Norman invasion. The kings of England for centuries after the Norman invasion spoke an old form of French, which gradually merged with English into a new Anglo-Norman dialect. That brings me to one of my favorite little tidbits of tangentially related history: Richard the Lionheart, arguably the most iconic Medieval King of England, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England" target="_blank">never learned English</a>.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWWuRmvjg_CRjum-mGeqQnkcBUT8dZSVz7t8a0_kxy6_T1m7b37g7vceduz30CvwUN5GHKmECxKwIzvcd_mYHWl3V1fSZbn9M-NSqOWnfk2ZySBq8oLM3gyZwL3mCJhgrGhUzokDJ7oLoP/s1600/167000_full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWWuRmvjg_CRjum-mGeqQnkcBUT8dZSVz7t8a0_kxy6_T1m7b37g7vceduz30CvwUN5GHKmECxKwIzvcd_mYHWl3V1fSZbn9M-NSqOWnfk2ZySBq8oLM3gyZwL3mCJhgrGhUzokDJ7oLoP/s640/167000_full.jpg" width="520" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And he certainly never learned a Scottish accent.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Battle of Hastings is one of those rare moments in history where a few small decisions have a clear and massive impact on the rest of history for centuries to come. It was the deciding battle in the <i>last successful invasion </i>of England, almost a thousand years ago. It entirely <i>broke</i> England, reshaping it into something completely different, which has not been done to such a violent and rapid extent since.<br />
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Holy shit.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"A small cup of coffee" by Julius Schorzman - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Sean Connery in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" by Warner Brothers. Licensed under Fair Use</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-61602648123902428422015-10-21T11:21:00.000-04:002015-10-21T11:21:10.638-04:00Holy Shit, Stuxnet!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5fN1XqQmp3YUGQI2VoZvEb0sq5s_BZVyL2d522ESw7lwdaPLnTC5YzGboLezbo38HSFzXeRfQYk0BTy5CuACX1HZhXylY_boQr2llTEX992oPnfuSHG-FUVFQ01xF0LWUrJguHZv41XW/s1600/Gas_centrifuge_cascade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nuclear Centrifuges" border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5fN1XqQmp3YUGQI2VoZvEb0sq5s_BZVyL2d522ESw7lwdaPLnTC5YzGboLezbo38HSFzXeRfQYk0BTy5CuACX1HZhXylY_boQr2llTEX992oPnfuSHG-FUVFQ01xF0LWUrJguHZv41XW/s640/Gas_centrifuge_cascade.jpg" title="Uranium Enrichment. Now you know what it looks like." width="640" /></a></div>
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In June of 2010, researchers at a cyber security firm in Belarus called VirusBlokAda discovered a troubling bit of malware with a mysterious purpose. It used USB drives to transmit itself, bypassing Internet security. This was nothing new, nor was it overly troubling.<br />
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What <i>was </i>both of those things was the fact that this new malware was using multiple <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-day_(computing)" target="_blank">zero-day exploits</a>. That's what programmers call an exploitable bug that hasn't been discovered or patched yet. Which means a fully-patched, fully up-to-date operating system with cutting edge security would still be vulnerable to it.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_0WJfnq6e5txTJmupX5aIgIlFbxvjU5WitTZEFcq_PqriMf2KJyIqZ1aXZFYwiErAUyx4B4r5v8x3wH1T2Io3k9HV_knn-9u4pIT490Jn-Ks-ceybBHRZOkg3iipDep7G4No9YQib6HD/s1600/Bonzi_buddy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="BonziBuddy" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_0WJfnq6e5txTJmupX5aIgIlFbxvjU5WitTZEFcq_PqriMf2KJyIqZ1aXZFYwiErAUyx4B4r5v8x3wH1T2Io3k9HV_knn-9u4pIT490Jn-Ks-ceybBHRZOkg3iipDep7G4No9YQib6HD/s1600/Bonzi_buddy.jpg" title="I'm so thankful that this is no longer a thing." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So not like the malware you'd only find on grandma's computer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It takes an enormous amount of effort and resources to discover a zero-day exploit, largely because there are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)" target="_blank">legions of hackers</a> constantly working to do just that in the interest of proactively preventing security problems. This malware, which came to be known as Stuxnet, used <i>four of them</i>. No malware up to that point had ever managed such a feat.<br />
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Even more baffling, Stuxnet did not appear to cause any harm once it infected a new system. It just sat in wait until either it could infect a new computer or a specific piece of hardware was attached to it. By painstakingly reading through countless lines of code, security experts were able to determine that its target was specific PLC systems.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4xu4v8JUpjN5uckerz32E8RFZnWEE2svb618ms73JEs6W4h4QCCDLgiXin2vj70S67Yp5WTDb_zDhRmV2e8rPlmcekD4a1CsKrAOiY4KYIRwbbX7R8k6-o-KHdDxv8Qe5ea3E6kbLDvF/s1600/S7300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Siemens PLC" border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4xu4v8JUpjN5uckerz32E8RFZnWEE2svb618ms73JEs6W4h4QCCDLgiXin2vj70S67Yp5WTDb_zDhRmV2e8rPlmcekD4a1CsKrAOiY4KYIRwbbX7R8k6-o-KHdDxv8Qe5ea3E6kbLDvF/s640/S7300.JPG" title="Nobody ever suspects the unassuming little PLC." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which basically look like boxes of plastic with some wires and lights on them.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A PLC is used to automate industrial processes, which is where you might start to feel uneasy about this whole story. A bit more digging and the process of elimination revealed the bombshell. The PLCs that Stuxnet was intended to target were almost certainly used to regulate industrial centrifuges at a <i>nuclear facility in Natanz, Iran</i>.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5OHLHisYvXlIBZ3T0qGJrbaPaDlGFE2n6gNoMw9z7Rwitk9tQU_9f-WUwBR23u8P1K7LKi52WoP60ADKBSChdGg0vc6uaFwOp3jqWwjBXJ0l0-hBAbkZqkF-hO6ywouuqJEqZEgCMsga/s1600/Natanz_nuclear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5OHLHisYvXlIBZ3T0qGJrbaPaDlGFE2n6gNoMw9z7Rwitk9tQU_9f-WUwBR23u8P1K7LKi52WoP60ADKBSChdGg0vc6uaFwOp3jqWwjBXJ0l0-hBAbkZqkF-hO6ywouuqJEqZEgCMsga/s640/Natanz_nuclear.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The other ways in are well-guarded and way less subtle. So flash drive it is, I guess.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At this point, the perpetrator of the Stuxnet cyber attack has all but tacitly acknowledged its role. But I'll give you two guesses. Who would have a major interest in sabotaging a nuclear facility in Iran?<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggd_C8YxJq14ca_FfVmOPvBf7OS08Cvhb-ufLTwIlmjdfH0DkF7eVeuy2r_9oYXnCjp-OTobBUWCmMsXLwyra6E8mJKst_mlsxaxPDjyKFS5RgFjwhDnLSkNfqIEgrq1NseLXFyQ6lqoY5/s1600/Flag_of_Israel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Flag of Israel" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggd_C8YxJq14ca_FfVmOPvBf7OS08Cvhb-ufLTwIlmjdfH0DkF7eVeuy2r_9oYXnCjp-OTobBUWCmMsXLwyra6E8mJKst_mlsxaxPDjyKFS5RgFjwhDnLSkNfqIEgrq1NseLXFyQ6lqoY5/s1600/Flag_of_Israel.png" title="They're nearby and also are not fond of being blown up." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Certainly a motive there.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But who would have the resources to assemble the team of gifted programmers, industrial experts and spies necessary to pull off a feat like that?<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VOjoNzG66PBztfuRtBcTPcH-DKbdZ6-nVi5puLNF_RVcSl2QkSkOgjtwU66HaxrjjZV6dj7XZF7KaIIUTaVTdDFwiZi6K3j2SKnCXvEjxJSxvwfvUN3qLkzZw_82gZ6qGN9bkSL6VSty/s1600/640px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Flag of the United States" border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VOjoNzG66PBztfuRtBcTPcH-DKbdZ6-nVi5puLNF_RVcSl2QkSkOgjtwU66HaxrjjZV6dj7XZF7KaIIUTaVTdDFwiZi6K3j2SKnCXvEjxJSxvwfvUN3qLkzZw_82gZ6qGN9bkSL6VSty/s640/640px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png" title="What with being the only cyber superpower in the world and all" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spoiler Alert: it was probably both.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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And make no mistake. It worked. It's hard to say how well it worked since any official planning or execution documentation is certainly and highly classified, but <i>thousands</i> of Iranian centrifuges mysteriously failed before Stuxnet was discovered.<br />
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This is obviously a win for American espionage, but it has broader implications that are <i>staggeringly</i> bleak. At some point, this operation, (known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Olympic_Games" target="_blank">Operation Olympic Games</a>), and by extension the United States government, determined that there were <i>four</i> vulnerabilities which could potentially lead to industrial sabotage. Maybe even to catastrophic attacks on infrastructure. And rather than take defensive measures to fix the problem, they <i>used it against another nation</i>.<br />
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The use of zero-day exploits by nation states is potentially a Pandora's Box on par with the use of weapons of mass destruction. Stuxnet opened the box.<br />
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Holy shit.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Gas centrifuge cascade" by U.S. Department of Energy - Public Domain</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Bonzi buddy". Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"S7300" by Ulli1105 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">\</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Natanz nuclear" by Hamed Saber - http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamed/237790717. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-36813482714625312742015-10-14T09:18:00.000-04:002015-10-14T09:18:54.488-04:00Holy Shit, School Shootings!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKs8ubQGR7B7BXCZV690T9rCOxp-QzvLnf6zyRDQQVUmUFutr5SwGqqqNH2-_ngHZmNTac866FPvp0sDN71_jfCEcbXp_a2mYDBWj4q1cLK_MPhm75G9RioxqpAMKnkfKHGhkzFZMrnoO/s1600/MassShootings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Mass Shooting Timeline" border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKs8ubQGR7B7BXCZV690T9rCOxp-QzvLnf6zyRDQQVUmUFutr5SwGqqqNH2-_ngHZmNTac866FPvp0sDN71_jfCEcbXp_a2mYDBWj4q1cLK_MPhm75G9RioxqpAMKnkfKHGhkzFZMrnoO/s640/MassShootings.png" title="Well that's not very funny." width="640" /></a></div>
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Let me just say right off the bat that I agree, there is nothing funny or entertaining about school shootings. They are entirely tragic and horrific, and though I'm almost always going for entertainment on this blog, I called it "That's Interesting" and not "That's Entertaining" for a reason.<br />
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With that being said, recent research into the mentality of school shooters has opened up terrifying insights into why they're becoming more of a thing. Don't get me wrong. School shootings are not a completely new phenomenon. As long as there have been privately-owned guns, there have been those rare few who think it would be fun to use one in a place of learning.<br />
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But until fairly recently, the phenomenon was exceedingly rare. Thankfully, it still is relative to most other violent crime. But the numbers are starting to look disturbingly like rain in an oubliette. The water is rising and we haven't quite found a way to divert it yet.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_6MkUpqFrtpkpGRTaS9AOfkM3sX9lIUU2gkzEIme6_0yKVpF2jCAmQTyLBcZdaJL_F0NmswVU0fkA8_RX1DNxZ_KciksjWK0C4Rs5qXZ54QTAxsWelKnvhjg-V-wbMc8JDQIMh9suiZEx/s1600/oubliette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Oubliette" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_6MkUpqFrtpkpGRTaS9AOfkM3sX9lIUU2gkzEIme6_0yKVpF2jCAmQTyLBcZdaJL_F0NmswVU0fkA8_RX1DNxZ_KciksjWK0C4Rs5qXZ54QTAxsWelKnvhjg-V-wbMc8JDQIMh9suiZEx/s1600/oubliette.jpg" title="An oubliette, I mean." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a dungeon with a high hatch as the only entry point.</td></tr>
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Very recently, a new explanation has emerged to explain why this rare tragedy is starting to look more like a trend, and it's terrifying. It has to do with riots.<br />
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Mark Granovetter, a sociologist who studied paradoxical human behaviors about 40 years ago, set out to explain why people who are otherwise rational and peaceful will participate in a riot. What he eventually determined was essentially peer pressure. Any social process, he argued, is driven by thresholds. A threshold in this case is the number of people doing something, whatever it is, that we need to see before we define it as an okay thing to do.<br />
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So how it works is that someone with a low threshold -- a particularly hotheaded person, or maybe just someone looking for an excuse to cause some damage -- starts wrecking something. Someone else with a threshold of 1 joins in, because as long as someone else is doing it, it's probably okay, right? Then a few more join, and a few more, and pretty soon there are decent people surrounded by destructive frenzy, and everyone temporarily becomes willing to redefine what is <i>normal</i>, what is <i>acceptable</i>. The more it happens, the more it becomes normal.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr3EOEjph0dm73X76D7cb-XBKVqF3v2iSNKwsp935V7WksxD3RJ6b-bJWUn44RwYNKPEQHwC-NiE7q3F_rmqQ0tOygJLewFuDLAHMWTtXLNbdg4N-mXgDF4IqZzdFai75kFlBBsLfp6dXR/s1600/1200px-Riot_in_Vancouver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Stanley Cup Riot" border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr3EOEjph0dm73X76D7cb-XBKVqF3v2iSNKwsp935V7WksxD3RJ6b-bJWUn44RwYNKPEQHwC-NiE7q3F_rmqQ0tOygJLewFuDLAHMWTtXLNbdg4N-mXgDF4IqZzdFai75kFlBBsLfp6dXR/s640/1200px-Riot_in_Vancouver.jpg" title="As long as some other people nearby are doing it, I mean." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Normal.</td></tr>
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If you're thinking ahead at all, a sinking dread may be creeping up on you. Because Malcolm Gladwell recently suggested that this same principle can be applied over a longer period of time to explain the school shooting epidemic. The trend started, he argues, back in 1999. With Columbine. The shooters in that case were textbook psychopaths, but the media frenzy around their messages and preparations started a threshold. Since that time, people who commit mass shootings at school have slowly begun trending away from violent mental illness.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhswcAjapBGLoXbC207pZWrFJn08O44Gn93ZehH2axmRQ3_zhVD3grUktZRHAM0GuXTiuI-HmiFzuZNdyKkbj4eGrgjiAsP20_t1R5g6rqoW2q_H-DlSlFkSyEmsToqYOSUyBLp-W0nVewH/s1600/Columbinememorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhswcAjapBGLoXbC207pZWrFJn08O44Gn93ZehH2axmRQ3_zhVD3grUktZRHAM0GuXTiuI-HmiFzuZNdyKkbj4eGrgjiAsP20_t1R5g6rqoW2q_H-DlSlFkSyEmsToqYOSUyBLp-W0nVewH/s640/Columbinememorial.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the Columbine Memorial. I have no witty comments.</td></tr>
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The more it happens the more it becomes normal. We can reassure ourselves with the knowledge that people generally don't like to hurt each other, but if <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-violence" target="_blank">Gladwell's hypothesis</a> proves true then it's going to get worse before it gets better. As he puts it, "The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts."<br />
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Holy shit.<br />
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NOTE: I avoided using any mass shooter's name in this post because it may be a contributing factor to the normalization of mass violence.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Dalibor Tower Dungeon, Prague Castle by kitonlove. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Riot in Vancouver" by Elopde. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Columbinememorial" by Denverjeffrey. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-5251349856525466372015-10-07T09:18:00.000-04:002015-10-07T09:18:52.622-04:00Holy Shit, Fondue!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-iouoicsaFMWxYOOwOgMg63z9DiC9AosUBg-xWAliySoe0UTZNDA5U_1ASplr0SeD4Y_TO8U76FhAplk0nwxe2eqgadaYg4YjhuhTxAOg3Yg2yKZHGizOCgz9Q3DCNrpZsr1pVi7sMUhG/s1600/Swiss_fondue_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Fondue" border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-iouoicsaFMWxYOOwOgMg63z9DiC9AosUBg-xWAliySoe0UTZNDA5U_1ASplr0SeD4Y_TO8U76FhAplk0nwxe2eqgadaYg4YjhuhTxAOg3Yg2yKZHGizOCgz9Q3DCNrpZsr1pVi7sMUhG/s640/Swiss_fondue_2.jpg" title="Mmm, viscous corruption" width="640" /></a></div>
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If you're a middle- to upper-class American yuppie (or are friends with one), or are just some other type of foodie I haven't met yet, you know all about fondue. It's a bucket of melted stuff that you dip other stuff into. Traditionally, it's meant to be melted cheese and bread. Either way, it's kind of ridiculous when you think about it.</div>
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Who decided that dipping bread into a communal bowl of viscous cheese was a delicacy? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for jazzing up any dish with some cheese. But how did this become fancy? The answer, shockingly, has to do with war, corruption, and a veritable cartel dedicated to Swiss cheese.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpS6T7wwN18HYErFQSt9z_PyGpBiYK1rvDDFeRU78xQku9baZLaTtS8GXFX2ZVoLVqoNr_FfN4PwdK_yYcCPKngkln-XiQoAOrzM0z8pDmUhJkoD6lvwa5Z72H5VDi7WUIgdDSbI1wFc0/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Thug Life Cow" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpS6T7wwN18HYErFQSt9z_PyGpBiYK1rvDDFeRU78xQku9baZLaTtS8GXFX2ZVoLVqoNr_FfN4PwdK_yYcCPKngkln-XiQoAOrzM0z8pDmUhJkoD6lvwa5Z72H5VDi7WUIgdDSbI1wFc0/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" title="Although I have no proof that cows DON'T have a secret cartel" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As much as I'd like it to be, the cartel was not run by literal Swiss cows</td></tr>
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And I'm not making any of that up. The cartel was called the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/04/23/401655790/how-a-swiss-cheese-cartel-made-fondue-popular" target="_blank">Swiss Cheese Union</a>. It was founded in 1914 by Swiss dairy farmers in order to control cheese production and prices. You may recognize this as the exact principle behind OPEC. As an added bonus, the Swiss Cheese Union also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Cheese_Union" target="_blank">decided what cheeses dairy farmers were <i>allowed</i> to produce</a>. Only Gruyere, Sbrinz and Emmental were allowed, and farmers needed a license to make and sell any of them or they risked being blacklisted.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPgY3xBVvhSdODk0gsSj3hyphenhyphenWe_0lEk9o2ZdgpH_qp7XIAF-AUF-1PaXB7FS2MXJlN_j3_QXL0BRnwmL0cc5ymv0aWvLqSndiLUJEUxauKqQjyppgq_KIlKQ57YGlWIDzhoTFxXTGBKkl66/s1600/Mozzarella_cheese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPgY3xBVvhSdODk0gsSj3hyphenhyphenWe_0lEk9o2ZdgpH_qp7XIAF-AUF-1PaXB7FS2MXJlN_j3_QXL0BRnwmL0cc5ymv0aWvLqSndiLUJEUxauKqQjyppgq_KIlKQ57YGlWIDzhoTFxXTGBKkl66/s640/Mozzarella_cheese.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And before you ask, yes. There were cheese rebels.</td></tr>
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The cheese cartel gained significant prominence after World War I, owing largely to the fact that the infrastructure of other European nations had recently and literally been burned and blasted to bits. Which meant most cheese in Europe was coming out of more-neutral-than-beige Switzerland. That gave the Swiss Cheese Union an enormous amount of power, because it turns out people can get pretty serious about their cheese. With some bribes and favors, the Union was able to get a few politicians in their pockets, leading to huge subsidies for their industry.</div>
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Still, the cartel was unsatisfied. They had the supply side of the cheese market pretty much cornered, but their marketing arm decided they could do something about the demand side as well. Luckily, there was a regional dish in certain Alpine areas known as fondue that could literally have people eating <i>bucket loads</i> of their product. The Swiss Cheese Union <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondue#History" target="_blank">successfully lobbied</a> to have fondue made a national dish of Switzerland, and pounded the ever-loving cheese curds out of their marketing efforts. Your knowledge of fondue, whoever you are, is very likely a result of this marketing effort.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zzNh-HZSEgmBLNUXVpULrw4uY6m25sYHHg_egam7lz5MtyO49ZbEmhStHjE2YII81c_SOKVNOSR88c0JXbfvjqL5zVkFFthuSEJ2AV5P6LGNjHEcZQccq4ZTau8z9pDGGf-oLQ_z_QxL/s1600/Fondue2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Fondue Pot" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zzNh-HZSEgmBLNUXVpULrw4uY6m25sYHHg_egam7lz5MtyO49ZbEmhStHjE2YII81c_SOKVNOSR88c0JXbfvjqL5zVkFFthuSEJ2AV5P6LGNjHEcZQccq4ZTau8z9pDGGf-oLQ_z_QxL/s640/Fondue2.jpg" title="My goal in this post is apparently to insult my readers then make them feel guilty about enjoying things." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pictured: Corruption.</td></tr>
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Eventually, the people of Switzerland got wise to the corruption involved in the cheese cartel, largely because <i>what government spends so much money on talking about fondue?</i> Dirty laundry was aired, people were jailed, and by the 1990s the Swiss Cheese Union was a shadow of its former glory. By 1999, it was completely dissolved, and a new era of freedom dawned for Swiss dairy farmers. But the legacy of the Swiss Cheese Union lives on today in every pot of melted cheese you stick your comically long fork into.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31Evc5mFcqBj5vstGI3SI4tXzSMDV1HJjsimq0ZaJTiAEMmppYvOOC3MlvxKtc4pnuovtc86bnJtTrpKhZTzmiR0qKRpv81Kxgjk4hKD_5GRbfKJ9uDvSGqmRmwfDb4uxcG88ePL_g-kI/s1600/Fondue_fork.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Fondue Fork" border="0" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31Evc5mFcqBj5vstGI3SI4tXzSMDV1HJjsimq0ZaJTiAEMmppYvOOC3MlvxKtc4pnuovtc86bnJtTrpKhZTzmiR0qKRpv81Kxgjk4hKD_5GRbfKJ9uDvSGqmRmwfDb4uxcG88ePL_g-kI/s640/Fondue_fork.png" title="Except Ice cream. And Pizza. Maybe I'm just suspicious of fondue." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm suspicious of dishes that require a unique utensil to be eaten.</td></tr>
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So next time you visit your local quirky, atmospheric little hole-in-the-wall fondue place, just remember the enormous and corrupt cartel that brought it to your attention.</div>
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Holy shit.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Swiss fondue 2" by JHG (Julien29) - Licensed under Public Domain via Commons</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Mozzarella cheese" by Jon Sullivan - http://pdphoto.org/PictureDetail.php?mat=pdef&pg=8553. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Fondue2" by -jkb- Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Commons</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Fondue fork" by Vearthy - based on the shape in the PONS Picture Dictionary - Polish-German + free wood pattern from http://mayang.com/textures/Wood/images/Flat%20Wood%20Textures/wood_1163214.JPG. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-6126306640153539432015-09-30T09:14:00.002-04:002015-09-30T09:14:34.109-04:00Holy Shit, Chloroform!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJP8UPq8Gh85Ii1t-128ftT47AvtkyusFgeFxMokzT8fm7w9ePIG49miyzuT5m95NiKWitTu4-tnaPvbr7b2Gh-C7BwDKjoYxDN_QbbZMbQnHob75UC-0oFVflraSNA5HkLoI6HubFxAY3/s1600/Chickamauga_2009%252C_Chloroform.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJP8UPq8Gh85Ii1t-128ftT47AvtkyusFgeFxMokzT8fm7w9ePIG49miyzuT5m95NiKWitTu4-tnaPvbr7b2Gh-C7BwDKjoYxDN_QbbZMbQnHob75UC-0oFVflraSNA5HkLoI6HubFxAY3/s640/Chickamauga_2009%252C_Chloroform.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Despite being pretty much obsolete for its main intended use, chloroform maintains a solid foothold in our collective cultural awareness. And you know why. The trope of the chloroform-soaked rag has been so thoroughly woven into the fabric of crime fiction that it's the first thing we think of when we <strike>plan</strike> imagine a kidnapping.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlk_jroCqKLXtXpNiilus3PpEv3RRCo4SkYSLfyYIW-BoHqg7sSNDNijei3-LPcGRD1p2bRxcklmp04bLBaptsgnaBBHwamdBs4W1ah7OTFNYx5pRFV9BVQpFobcsmo1npJeVbx-Wa1oE_/s1600/Balaclava_3_hole_black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlk_jroCqKLXtXpNiilus3PpEv3RRCo4SkYSLfyYIW-BoHqg7sSNDNijei3-LPcGRD1p2bRxcklmp04bLBaptsgnaBBHwamdBs4W1ah7OTFNYx5pRFV9BVQpFobcsmo1npJeVbx-Wa1oE_/s640/Balaclava_3_hole_black.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What? There are perfectly legitimate reasons to wear a balaclava in late September.</td></tr>
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In fact, it's such an integral trope that most of us will never even think about chloroform in any other context. Admit it, when you saw the title of this post you thought it was going to be all about kidnapping, didn't you? Well, you're not entirely wrong, but if you look closer at the history of chloroform, you'll find yourself in one of those situations where the rug gets pulled out from under you.<br />
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The problem with our kidnapping imagery is that chloroform <i>doesn't work that way</i>. Well it does, but not <i>nearly</i> that fast. You can rest easy with the knowledge that, were a criminal to approach you with a chloroform-soaked rag, he would have to hold it up to your face for <i><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2044.1998.528-az0572.x/pdf" target="_blank">five to ten solid minutes</a> </i>before you became unconscious.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyehvHmis0BRFofYlz2Z3ksoBJ8nBHRSkiUCe9_cW0Pflezq0Jf-SVShUkpfVcdYQxlX59RMUQ2BdnaprpyQI4tHAJun-92NBo820FGV-CMs6PHk3oJL_h76WFAvFR5Bu8vUhm51wgwgph/s1600/6TGGBYM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyehvHmis0BRFofYlz2Z3ksoBJ8nBHRSkiUCe9_cW0Pflezq0Jf-SVShUkpfVcdYQxlX59RMUQ2BdnaprpyQI4tHAJun-92NBo820FGV-CMs6PHk3oJL_h76WFAvFR5Bu8vUhm51wgwgph/s1600/6TGGBYM.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which means this scene is just starting to get awkward.</td></tr>
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So where did the "Instant KO" myth come from? This guy:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HATIilTn5tOo1ABYOem_vj_dO1pqta_pjHEHegvELefbW7ZKtfb86FUklRmA7sFuq38Y_5TVyUFgbFupZvelQCbRosH2bXvyCqkwm-HfAe7l1PVal6_ph-t53cZ8GFLckZ5RsbuLd1iN/s1600/Simpson_James_Young_signature_picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HATIilTn5tOo1ABYOem_vj_dO1pqta_pjHEHegvELefbW7ZKtfb86FUklRmA7sFuq38Y_5TVyUFgbFupZvelQCbRosH2bXvyCqkwm-HfAe7l1PVal6_ph-t53cZ8GFLckZ5RsbuLd1iN/s1600/Simpson_James_Young_signature_picture.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Believe it or not, <i>not </i>a kidnapper.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
That's Sir James Young Simpson, a Scottish obstetrician known for innovating new equipment and treatments to help advance the medical field. Simpson had a couple of colleagues over one day and decided to do a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pYer05UwKBYC&pg=PA106&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">little experiment with some chloroform</a> he happened to have. To make a long story short, the gathering ended up being a bit of a rager. His two human guinea pigs got first loopy, then giddy, then unconscious.<br />
<br />
Simpson was thrilled with this discovery, and just three days later chloroform entered the medical scene as an anesthetic. His excitement at the relative speed with which his friends passed out led him to exaggerate a bit, which led the general public to believe that chloroform could cause instant sleepytimes. From there, writers (and disappointed criminals) took the ball and ran with it, and a trope was born.<br />
<br />
As for its medical use, chloroform lost a bit of favor when it turned out that 1 in every 3,000 patients dosed with the drug ended up <i>dead</i>. Safer methods arose, especially nitrous oxide, and chloroform dropped out of the real world, taking refuge in fiction. Today, it's mostly used in chemistry labs or as a solvent.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NJrPv-AHqA7rzXmYMp6dnw4kkTEGrmSXU-vVR6unecKlP1PCOfYuZ6gOKbkN7KWlGADO87sIXsE5y1QsnaJ-3plseQWvpjyvUVAxDGfMlYXBGZ5Luq0duNFfLyaApAfofa0gqlRo-lzB/s1600/Senior_chemistry_lab_at_Mother%2527s_International_School%252C_Delhi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NJrPv-AHqA7rzXmYMp6dnw4kkTEGrmSXU-vVR6unecKlP1PCOfYuZ6gOKbkN7KWlGADO87sIXsE5y1QsnaJ-3plseQWvpjyvUVAxDGfMlYXBGZ5Luq0duNFfLyaApAfofa0gqlRo-lzB/s640/Senior_chemistry_lab_at_Mother%2527s_International_School%252C_Delhi.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which is way less exciting.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So remember, if someone jumps from an alley and forces chloroform into your face, you're probably just going to end up a little frightened and a little high. At least from the drug, I make no further guarantees about the criminal.<br />
<br />
Holy shit.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Chickamauga 2009, Chloroform" by Kevin King - Flickr: Chickamauga 2009, Chloroform. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Balaclava 3 hole black" by Tobias "ToMar" Maier. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Still image from <i>Charmed</i>, S2E7: "Give Me a Sign"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Simpson James Young signature picture" by Henry Laing Gordon - Frontispiece of Sir James Young Simpson and Chloroform (1811-1870). Licensed under Public Domain via Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Senior chemistry lab at Mother's International School, Delhi" by Prateek Karandikar - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-29369978393195540802015-02-24T22:15:00.002-05:002015-02-25T07:02:38.890-05:00Holy Shit, Special Order 191!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZRToh9F72DabBUs0B0DJ4aCIW5uJfKCN-WJp2lTVkXmKroC8-P5RUxfBlEZg4-1KXl1BmChb5HJug05AAVsLpk2wlrW5cYZ_0LcBkdRmbpBUQXQE-KlaOG5LAboOTGy2Z2dkjnaT-4h7/s1600/1280px-LostOrdersCramptonsGap112611.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZRToh9F72DabBUs0B0DJ4aCIW5uJfKCN-WJp2lTVkXmKroC8-P5RUxfBlEZg4-1KXl1BmChb5HJug05AAVsLpk2wlrW5cYZ_0LcBkdRmbpBUQXQE-KlaOG5LAboOTGy2Z2dkjnaT-4h7/s1600/1280px-LostOrdersCramptonsGap112611.jpg" height="253" width="320" /></a></div>
On September 13, 1862, Barton Mitchell was moseying around a hilltop when he came across an envelope. Inside were three cigars wrapped in a single piece of paper. "Lucky me," Barton presumably thought as he unwrapped his prize, perhaps assuming the paper was a birthday card or something.<br />
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But then he saw the writing. It wasn't a pithy, jejune greeting. It was a thoroughly detailed ten point list...of orders. Confederate orders. Not just any Confederate orders, either. They were explicit movement orders for every high-ranking officer in the Army of Northern Virginia. And Barton Mitchell just happened to be a Union soldier. Naturally, he slackened his jaw, allowing the cigar to fall dramatically to the grass. Probably.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5lPwOXhcpShhBSy8cApj-tWIyiVKvW1dgv7a6QTMcr8vuhgXvL4Yk4sdt-n0HHxnitg4cPfWk52bRdSFCKeVTRhBBa3KNfg7RUNOrgQqi-k8zfqZh25dUvlvxBdwtGwHLfyLrHroPx0J/s1600/The_Scream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Scream" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5lPwOXhcpShhBSy8cApj-tWIyiVKvW1dgv7a6QTMcr8vuhgXvL4Yk4sdt-n0HHxnitg4cPfWk52bRdSFCKeVTRhBBa3KNfg7RUNOrgQqi-k8zfqZh25dUvlvxBdwtGwHLfyLrHroPx0J/s1600/The_Scream.jpg" height="640" title="NO, NOT REALLY, EDVARD MUNCH WAS NORWEGIAN" width="506" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist's Rendition</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then he took the orders directly to his commanding officer, who sent it up the chain, person by person, until it reached Major General George B. McClellan, who practically jumped for joy and said, "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home."<br />
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Two weeks later, largely thanks to the intelligence gleaned from Special Order 191, the Union won a strategic victory at the Battle of Antietam, which brought the Confederate offensive to a grinding halt and proved a significant enough turning point for Abraham Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation. While the war had always been about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation stated without question that freeing slaves in Confederate territory was now a strategic goal of the Union.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_CtzQP-As7gstN9BWMVAFJkv5gMy6dZg57qB-Xktk9GPBzuqsZ_tmi4HV1Q29HGafnwE2gAT4vWc1_uUEiTF-JAJn7cCcF_MOH1h2PIKbeNRTbKy6eRIMJPUft_kcOMixPL_BTN4yvoEZ/s1600/Lincoln_and_McClellan_1862-10-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Lincoln and McClellan" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_CtzQP-As7gstN9BWMVAFJkv5gMy6dZg57qB-Xktk9GPBzuqsZ_tmi4HV1Q29HGafnwE2gAT4vWc1_uUEiTF-JAJn7cCcF_MOH1h2PIKbeNRTbKy6eRIMJPUft_kcOMixPL_BTN4yvoEZ/s1600/Lincoln_and_McClellan_1862-10-03.jpg" height="512" title="And making McClellan look ever so slightly uncomfortable" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Along with posing in a most dignified manner.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Arguably, the Civil War could have gone differently if Barton Mitchell hadn't stumbled upon such a valuable piece of information. In fact, there's a lengthy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Victory_Series" target="_blank">series of alternate history novels</a> that base their point of divergence on that very event. The tiniest mishaps, like using the wrong paper to wrap your cigars and then leaving them behind, can be what Gandalf called "the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains."<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-TU2K5hhpzDqKSO0OE-NsThyphenhyphenMLAn-M0Ua_p7sVsqvdcuCeee234miVCh1mlvG7wNW7yhgwjWg81yYa04iR6YGRdGYX-egj8GIb1ZHxoMY1t5_7hyphenhyphen7z31ubcpnCbg5givgM8S9cRXcrIg/s1600/Gandalf600ppx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gandalf from The Two Towers" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-TU2K5hhpzDqKSO0OE-NsThyphenhyphenMLAn-M0Ua_p7sVsqvdcuCeee234miVCh1mlvG7wNW7yhgwjWg81yYa04iR6YGRdGYX-egj8GIb1ZHxoMY1t5_7hyphenhyphen7z31ubcpnCbg5givgM8S9cRXcrIg/s1600/Gandalf600ppx.jpg" title="I mean aside from being British. And gay." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He would actually fit in pretty well, given the facial hair.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Holy shit.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"LostOrdersCramptonsGap112611" by Wilson44691 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"The Scream" by Edvard Munch</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Lincoln and McClellan 1862-10-03" by Alexander Gardner - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpb.04351.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The Two Towers</i> still by New Line Cinema. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-70688704332130485352015-02-10T22:11:00.004-05:002015-02-10T22:11:50.078-05:00Holy Shit, Viktor Tsoi!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiKnhnh9GvuJF2TsInEiAyxeKp-XEEo-y7-aNNME7u6OC4dPFDR5Bti6n9IuCIBb3om_g0bHBfJsyVGUyG8OQ5zx-tgtSgzg-2lzNQCIsovvLGVsm_deL0zGcG2xbpBamWJT08f6-iW2S/s1600/tsoi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiKnhnh9GvuJF2TsInEiAyxeKp-XEEo-y7-aNNME7u6OC4dPFDR5Bti6n9IuCIBb3om_g0bHBfJsyVGUyG8OQ5zx-tgtSgzg-2lzNQCIsovvLGVsm_deL0zGcG2xbpBamWJT08f6-iW2S/s1600/tsoi.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">On August 15th, 1990, a man in Latvia died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel. Within hours, the story was all over the Russian media, and a message was spraypainted onto a Moscow wall in all black that simply read, "Viktor Tsoi died today." </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">Soon after, a separate message appeared, insisting, "Tsoi Lives!" The second message became something of a rallying cry for the Soviet and post-Soviet rock scene in Eastern Europe. Because Viktor Tsoi and his band, Kino, were the most important musical pioneers in Soviet history.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">Kino rose to fame at a time when it was suddenly possible to criticize the communist regime in the USSR. In the 1980s, Glasnost and Perestroika became a thing and censorship started to wane. Kino was at the forefront of the new wave of artistic freedom. They took their inspiration from Western bands like The Smiths, R.E.M., and The Cure. At the height of their popularity, they released an album called <i>Gruppa Krovi</i>, or "Blood Type." The title track goes like this:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i8K0sW8GX-4?rel=0" style="background-color: transparent;" width="640"></iframe><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">The chorus roughly means, "My blood type is pinned on my sleeve, and my number and rank. Wish me luck in the battles to come. Wish for me not to lay dead in the grass. Wish me luck in the battle." It's a protest song about the war in Afghanistan.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9x7dTxmxSo3-HOGpyaeXeDVg6BGaFpIW2bsobOEH0z_DEwUSmDrAg7G-lv02XaChGU5ZUY1Kp0pgdZ9VqFsdw11wZAzWRWgS-_wWBAe5pVxDKRuRd0Q8TJX5shfRdp1fcNk1-CgyQuGTv/s1600/Mortar_attack_on_Shigal_Tarna_garrison,_Kunar_Province,_87.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Mujahideen" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9x7dTxmxSo3-HOGpyaeXeDVg6BGaFpIW2bsobOEH0z_DEwUSmDrAg7G-lv02XaChGU5ZUY1Kp0pgdZ9VqFsdw11wZAzWRWgS-_wWBAe5pVxDKRuRd0Q8TJX5shfRdp1fcNk1-CgyQuGTv/s1600/Mortar_attack_on_Shigal_Tarna_garrison,_Kunar_Province,_87.jpg" height="457" title="I'm pretty sure Rambo was there and on Osama bin Laden's side" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The one where America was rooting <i>for</i> the Islamists</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">The band was just reaching its full potential when Viktor Tsoi died in the aforementioned car accident. Kino was in the midst of recording their highly anticipated eighth album. In fact, Tsoi was carrying a tape with him in the car that was the only copy of the recording of his vocal tracks for said album.</span></div>
<br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">The crash was horrific. His car smashed into a bus and was all but disintegrated, and he died instantly. The tape not only survived, but it was entirely undamaged. Four months later, the album was released. Its cover was a mournful black with its title (KINO) in small white letters at the center. The name was quickly disregarded by fans, who dubbed it "The Black Album."</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVamd-lLx5Gg1osCITiHW5D3nMzkDDW55_BxC3uSusMdRldbqZAsjulVKQRy9ULPMxobpn0tyJl1QmHvpEssxaJOFKVPNwPkwkuu7CfV6BSfNGp3VKbBl2gPV__8afAUkaXwTaW3f6opDA/s1600/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE,_%D0%A7%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BC_(Kino%2C_Chyorny_album)_(1990).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kino" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVamd-lLx5Gg1osCITiHW5D3nMzkDDW55_BxC3uSusMdRldbqZAsjulVKQRy9ULPMxobpn0tyJl1QmHvpEssxaJOFKVPNwPkwkuu7CfV6BSfNGp3VKbBl2gPV__8afAUkaXwTaW3f6opDA/s1600/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE,_%D0%A7%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BC_(Kino%2C_Chyorny_album)_(1990).jpg" title="Probably from the lead singer's hair. That's my bet." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where'd they get that idea?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">The wall where "Tsoi Lives!" was written became a major cultural landmark in Moscow, and the phrase itself was repeated as something of a meme throughout Western Europe. It meat defiance in the face of grief. Rebellion in the face of loss. It was the new Russia. Or at least what the new Russia was supposed to be.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wcWGJ9O7Hog3FdyI1KLCrKnsB7FVxLAL14u81lH83I02P0wz582QQXPzT38wWuYa9Ogj__1cQPVsjw0QjI7sCbPLHmihlY6mO-GL0nzstOkDMoWzawlU9SY-VZTTUNsHRtOt0l1hbpNy/s1600/262px-Tsoi_Wall_02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Tsoi Wall" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wcWGJ9O7Hog3FdyI1KLCrKnsB7FVxLAL14u81lH83I02P0wz582QQXPzT38wWuYa9Ogj__1cQPVsjw0QjI7sCbPLHmihlY6mO-GL0nzstOkDMoWzawlU9SY-VZTTUNsHRtOt0l1hbpNy/s1600/262px-Tsoi_Wall_02.JPG" height="480" title="I mean...it got painted over. But the fans did it all over again." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's still there, too.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">Holy shit.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Victor Tsoi 1986 cropped" by Victor_Tsoi_1986.jpg: Igor Mukhinderivative work: Beaumain (talk) - Victor_Tsoi_1986.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Mortar attack on Shigal Tarna garrison, Kunar Province, 87" by Erwin Lux - Private collection; apparently a crop of this image at Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Кино, Черный альбом (Kino, Chyorny album) (1990)" by группа Кино - Чёрный альбом. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Tsoi Wall 02" by Superchilum - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-2096422103125035312015-01-28T11:18:00.000-05:002015-01-28T11:18:23.704-05:00Holy Shit, Jellyfish!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjucHdVkJ0UrwPcpfujuecOqm6UCTKToy-Jak-YqLa57AfE0JDUVmO_pBJmxMNj_lifzCjfTVrNeweS8c0QMHpXIL3khHB3K2Bwe3R_UdKi_IMR2yxPnZC0rR09KQ-vSXUg9XlWxneDHzR/s1600/Jelly_cc11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jellyfish" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjucHdVkJ0UrwPcpfujuecOqm6UCTKToy-Jak-YqLa57AfE0JDUVmO_pBJmxMNj_lifzCjfTVrNeweS8c0QMHpXIL3khHB3K2Bwe3R_UdKi_IMR2yxPnZC0rR09KQ-vSXUg9XlWxneDHzR/s1600/Jelly_cc11.jpg" height="425" title="It's like a lamp that is kind of alive, but not really." width="640" /></a></div>
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I mean...look at that thing. What? Whose idea was it to make a living creature of the oceans of this Earth look like that? Why would you do that, nature? What's the deal? What happened here? Just for a start: depending on the species, jellyfish bodies are between 95 and 98% water. Plain old water, plus two percent fleshy, translucent membrane.<br />
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They have no brains. No specialized digestive system. No blood. No nervous system. No vascular system. Just a one-size-fits-all cavity where food meanders its way in and is passively digested. The gastrovascular cavity is basically a hipster nonchalantly swaying to the music at a Death Cab for Cutie show, because they're not as hip and unknown as they used to be and it doesn't want to look too enthusiastic.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Es_bVv4Fk89P3YfHAjcyPodIk1F6lOQkoswBPQwS9drBa7U6yx6wIl2UTudM627sKtnd6paOoIA_hLFGdz0gEHRCDfU1RNDkefGwpiummmLsxLp5xoDfrlUQ3F41fM296HFj3CqDK6th/s1600/Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ben Gibbard" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Es_bVv4Fk89P3YfHAjcyPodIk1F6lOQkoswBPQwS9drBa7U6yx6wIl2UTudM627sKtnd6paOoIA_hLFGdz0gEHRCDfU1RNDkefGwpiummmLsxLp5xoDfrlUQ3F41fM296HFj3CqDK6th/s1600/Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg" height="480" title="He is a jellyfish in this situation. So I guess tears and cheeks aren't really a thing for him." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Yeah, Ben Gibbard is alright, I <i>guess</i>," he said, tears glistening on his cheeks as "Transatlanticism" reached its climax</td></tr>
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The only thing jellyfish can consciously do (if you can even call it consciously, which you probably can't) is flex a single muscle that kind of, sort of, in a way, gives them control over their motion. Like spreading your arms and legs out to slightly alter your heading while you're falling from 20,000 feet without a parachute.</div>
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The way they reproduce is weird as hell, too. A bunch of them get together and basically make a big old cocktail of sperm and eggs, which eventually leads to mass fertilization. The eggs hatch into little larvae called planulae, which stick to a firm surface and grow into polyps. Polyps are essentially what you'd expect to get if you cross-bred a jellyfish with a sea anemone, and if there are any mad scientists reading this and thinking that sounds like a good idea, please don't. You are the most boring mad scientist in history. Stop it.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijC1DXpDXQzaqvxUO5IxhdLBMNs8OEm8oIj73LkdF2ssfUUoRYpBfMzMTGk13OgYsGRalWzGgIOgQEDnsEOtegXM7tmI6FdSfgNGHLJ4eKf3-S7edR3eZrkW8eWjc17hBsMgbikCO-lvfq/s1600/Schleiden-meduse-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jellyfish Reproduction Cycle" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijC1DXpDXQzaqvxUO5IxhdLBMNs8OEm8oIj73LkdF2ssfUUoRYpBfMzMTGk13OgYsGRalWzGgIOgQEDnsEOtegXM7tmI6FdSfgNGHLJ4eKf3-S7edR3eZrkW8eWjc17hBsMgbikCO-lvfq/s1600/Schleiden-meduse-2.jpg" height="640" title="If you're a regular scientist, though, this diagram is acceptable. Especially if you're a marine biologist." width="429" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If this diagram shows up in your plot to take over the world, there are several somethings wrong with you.</td></tr>
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So the polyp grows up a bit, and suddenly things take a turn. In many cases, the polyp will spontaneously just...clone itself. Because jellyfish are both sexually <i>and</i> asexually reproductive organisms. And then sometimes, just for kicks, a few polyps will decide they're not in a place right now where they can afford to live on their own, so they'll find some roommates and form a colony. Not to save on rent money, mind you. They share a <i>goddamn stomach</i>. Because of course they do.</div>
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Finally, they fly the coop to become an ephyra, which is more like what you imagine when you think of a jellyfish. Then it grows tentacles, and becomes a medusa. Then it haunts your nightmares and inspires Nintendo to design a creature that can literally suck your life force out of your upper torso.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXXt9mu7o0ENh8zz98zrDgaNWkY7CmRrdGk_HfQqrG11fRYh_FeUJ5C7AoJf-4COjYVcyemhSNS26NV2rMcksMKKhnmoN5KttAwYsoVXG1YEMn9jrrA7hMrzhaqKnHVK0MYTVhwcWpVJzP/s1600/Metroid-10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXXt9mu7o0ENh8zz98zrDgaNWkY7CmRrdGk_HfQqrG11fRYh_FeUJ5C7AoJf-4COjYVcyemhSNS26NV2rMcksMKKhnmoN5KttAwYsoVXG1YEMn9jrrA7hMrzhaqKnHVK0MYTVhwcWpVJzP/s1600/Metroid-10.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you played games in the '80s and '90s, you are now having PTSD-esque flashbacks.</td></tr>
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Holy shit.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Ben Gibbard 2" by Sharat Ganapati - originally posted to Flickr as Ben Gibbard. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Ben_Gibbard_2.jpg</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-89803374541633733932015-01-21T09:00:00.000-05:002015-01-21T09:00:23.780-05:00Holy Shit, Uhura!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7evpcqOnGhCp_Ohq4kBnGJiOM4UQOKyDFa8FgdpsxX_2l0uNzKVyz6xYyh9vWceoo_963tJorR4Xoa8i8geN_mhFxlXOV9rY6HpriCILueEwkk0_fKGVAqucJebosRSSpNsI_A9bV3kOz/s1600/250px-Nichelle_Nichols,_NASA_Recruiter_-_GPN-2004-00017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7evpcqOnGhCp_Ohq4kBnGJiOM4UQOKyDFa8FgdpsxX_2l0uNzKVyz6xYyh9vWceoo_963tJorR4Xoa8i8geN_mhFxlXOV9rY6HpriCILueEwkk0_fKGVAqucJebosRSSpNsI_A9bV3kOz/s1600/250px-Nichelle_Nichols,_NASA_Recruiter_-_GPN-2004-00017.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The woman in the above photo is Nichelle Nichols, in character as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on the set of <i>Star Trek</i>. It's easy to forget (which is encouraging to me) how groundbreaking this character was for American fiction, and particularly for network television. She debuted with series opening episode, "The Man Trap," which aired in 1966.<br />
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Uhura was Chief Communications Officer aboard the Enterprise. That makes her the fourth link in the chain of command. So,..a black woman, in 1966, held a position of considerable power in a network television show. That's a mere <i>two years</i> after the Civil Rights Act. Deep-seated institutional racism doesn't just taper off that quickly. Uhura wouldn't have existed if Gene Roddenberry hadn't held downright <i>shockingly</i> progressive views for a man of his generation from Texas.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3FINowkS5LL9bFlDzOJPMwFPKj82jwkEsCw2kHILUNmdCE-tpOSQi-yGYf6SXL_nIrFYyTSTe3dWrdpoiw9BekSCgYeD-vFeOhV2vkJde7A8TQkfhMTB6Rjj_atb7Js04iJMhaZnANs29/s1600/Gene_roddenberry_1976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gene Roddenberry" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3FINowkS5LL9bFlDzOJPMwFPKj82jwkEsCw2kHILUNmdCE-tpOSQi-yGYf6SXL_nIrFYyTSTe3dWrdpoiw9BekSCgYeD-vFeOhV2vkJde7A8TQkfhMTB6Rjj_atb7Js04iJMhaZnANs29/s1600/Gene_roddenberry_1976.jpg" title="Is it just me or does he look a little drunk here?" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You wouldn't have known it by his face.</td></tr>
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As a matter of fact, Roddenberry's original pilot featured a female <i>First Officer</i>, who was the intensely logical and level-headed presence on the bridge. The female character. In 1965. It goes beyond that, even. He stubbornly refused to allow any reference to organized religion as a going concern on the show. While working on <i>The Next Generation</i>, he told writer/producer Ronald D. Moore that he believed Earth's religions would taper out by the 23rd Century, to be replaced by personal spirituality.<br />
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But back to Uhura. At the end of the first season, Nichelle Nichols considered leaving to pursue a career on Broadway. One weekend, she went to a Civil Rights and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichelle_Nichols#Star_Trek" target="_blank">met a big fan of the show who changed her mind</a>. You may have heard of him, because he was <i>Martin Luther King</i>.<br />
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<i>Junior.</i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KjmFmlo_zdSFoPxO-ljLEHMlgSyfyVR8HyD488p0NlSMlxTtj8MD8qSsNtlKMTPZ-BR1k29mqXc2PsjrEX_4i3ABo-WizmvvszgMfPWy9Z0_EQ76tcHLuYqdAKSMCsOD18Vl4HdRON-E/s1600/Martin_Luther_King_-_March_on_Washington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his Dream Speech" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KjmFmlo_zdSFoPxO-ljLEHMlgSyfyVR8HyD488p0NlSMlxTtj8MD8qSsNtlKMTPZ-BR1k29mqXc2PsjrEX_4i3ABo-WizmvvszgMfPWy9Z0_EQ76tcHLuYqdAKSMCsOD18Vl4HdRON-E/s1600/Martin_Luther_King_-_March_on_Washington.jpg" height="640" title="The one we not-quite-coincidentally just had a holiday about" width="590" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah. <i>That</i> Martin Luther King, Jr.</td></tr>
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Dr. King told Nichols that <i>Star Trek </i>was the only show he and his wife allowed their kids to watch. He <i>begged </i>her not to leave, because he knew how important it was for black people in America, and in particular black women, to have a role model like Uhura. Someone who was not a servant of the heroes, but their peer. "Once that door is opened by someone," he said, "no one else can close it again.<br />
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So she stayed on for the duration of the series. It turns out, Dr. King was right on the money. Among those who called Nyota Uhura a major influence were Dr. Sally Ride, the first female astronaut, and Dr. Mae Jamison, the first black woman astronaut. Whoopi Goldberg, who played Guinan in <i>The Next Generation</i>, also looked up to Uhura. When she first saw <i>Star Trek</i>, she ran to her parents and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhura#Role_model" target="_blank">shouted</a>, "I just saw a black woman on television; and she ain't no maid!"<br />
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People make a big deal out of <i>Star Trek</i>, and we like to call those people nerds. But you can't deny the impact. It goes beyond launching a renewed interest in science fiction (and science in general). <i>Star Trek</i> played a crucial role in tearing down racist and sexist taboos, and it did so deliberately. Because Uhura's name? Comes from the Swahili, <i>uhuru</i>. Which means "freedom."<br />
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Holy shit.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">"Gene roddenberry 1976" by Larry D. Moore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gene_roddenberry_1976.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Gene_roddenberry_1976.jpg</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-25170085015264895912015-01-14T09:17:00.001-05:002015-01-14T09:17:49.415-05:00Holy Dog Shit!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTAwHVvSPHkvLK2iXr0VVpB_4qBIpEzvqpgSQwlf3voB5Isr1NKhD8b14pb8-z6ZH6DqagIz7UkFdb3a4gMa2t3S8vC7WSDKRStczXLD8nyrHyjMlj1KaeteWf7PVGEW3Iyx_H-EVHtfLB/s1600/1920px-Puppy_near_Coltani_-_17_apr_2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Puppy" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTAwHVvSPHkvLK2iXr0VVpB_4qBIpEzvqpgSQwlf3voB5Isr1NKhD8b14pb8-z6ZH6DqagIz7UkFdb3a4gMa2t3S8vC7WSDKRStczXLD8nyrHyjMlj1KaeteWf7PVGEW3Iyx_H-EVHtfLB/s1600/1920px-Puppy_near_Coltani_-_17_apr_2010.jpg" height="426" title="Potential Crime Stopper" width="640" /></a></div>
In the Fall of 2000, a group of four buddies decided to make a quick buck by robbing an upscale house in Lakeville, Indiana. What they didn't realize (until they were spotted) was that the property wasn't quite abandoned. There were three construction workers in a barn on the property. The jig was pretty much up...or it would have been if one of the burglars hadn't decided to do what is customarily referred to in Hollywood as "tying up loose ends."<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadPqeygKr3eA0v4RewJWiKtP8L0Thp6HGpnxly5DMh8J2s3tM5fhwEhaJbfqRAjyn25VoG6ZWnTNrYuI_hbfe6KyUe95U6abTZStUhDFS-qveDIf1rRqzAQtrazO9ILV9APgtpTJhZ5fw/s1600/Loose_ends_japan_jimi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Loose Ends Hendrix Album" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadPqeygKr3eA0v4RewJWiKtP8L0Thp6HGpnxly5DMh8J2s3tM5fhwEhaJbfqRAjyn25VoG6ZWnTNrYuI_hbfe6KyUe95U6abTZStUhDFS-qveDIf1rRqzAQtrazO9ILV9APgtpTJhZ5fw/s1600/Loose_ends_japan_jimi.jpg" title="I don't know why." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture unrelated.</td></tr>
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So he shot all three of the witnesses in the head, killing them all. The four criminals were apprehended, and their conviction on armed robbery was more or less in the bag. The trickier part for investigators was figuring out which of the four were involved in the actual murder. Juries like to take that sort of thing into account when deciding whether individual members of a criminal conspiracy should be locked up without parole and whatnot.<br />
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One of the four was a 21-year-old youngster named Phillip Stroud. He solemnly swore to the police that he was a mere lookout. That he had never left the car. That his involvement was minimal, and he would never have wanted anyone killed. Investigators may have believed him if it weren't for his shoes. Or, to be more accurate, the thing they found on his shoes.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcMhN5CfG0zKzPfu27w3xdE_PTxY4cgTCFPkVLEA8vAwsKx4Zf68ODZ6uY5ya-Lns5n-GifMRStStCjuHncuxqfrQYg6bbCUS_cAhku_QPHO75SJ_ulBY5aSxE0bgQu6iuuwl0Qtl78G-/s1600/poop-311256_640.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Poop" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcMhN5CfG0zKzPfu27w3xdE_PTxY4cgTCFPkVLEA8vAwsKx4Zf68ODZ6uY5ya-Lns5n-GifMRStStCjuHncuxqfrQYg6bbCUS_cAhku_QPHO75SJ_ulBY5aSxE0bgQu6iuuwl0Qtl78G-/s1600/poop-311256_640.png" height="600" title="Why does cartoon poop always look like ice cream?" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guess what it was?</td></tr>
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That thing was shit. Dog shit. The <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061212-animals-CSI.html" target="_blank">police sent a tiny scrape of dog shit</a> from Stroud's shoes to a Veterinary Genetics Lab at UC Davis, which is a <a href="https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/" target="_blank">thing that exists in our world</a> (thank god). They also sent a fresh poo from the dog who lived in the house where the whole thing went down. Turns out, they were a perfect match. And outside the crime scene, close enough to the barn for it to be suspicious, there was a nicely flattened turd that <i>someone</i> had stepped in.<br />
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Stepping in dog poo is enough to ruin anyone's day. For Phillip Stroud, stepping in dog poo led to his conviction, which led to his being sentenced to death. A few years later, the sentence was overturned and commuted to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. So if you're planning to murder anyone...well, first of all, don't. But watch for the telltale poo.<br />
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Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-63491563955814488432014-12-31T09:25:00.000-05:002014-12-31T10:15:12.789-05:00Holy Shit, the Walk to Canossa!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaKCsCneJqd61kkco56cPPO0aaV2zLRNfpbvXTnfDEvqvfg5sWvpKbU42SFWtf4FVUMxDiY4x3hGY8Zab9W3Jv1RuekihQlXmcBrwQATNUwon81YE1oqhO-sd5T9AQv203t84a4dPa1ID/s1600/Canossa-three.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Walk to Canossa" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaKCsCneJqd61kkco56cPPO0aaV2zLRNfpbvXTnfDEvqvfg5sWvpKbU42SFWtf4FVUMxDiY4x3hGY8Zab9W3Jv1RuekihQlXmcBrwQATNUwon81YE1oqhO-sd5T9AQv203t84a4dPa1ID/s1600/Canossa-three.jpg" title="Well look who came crawling back." /></a></div>
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Once upon a time, there was a Holy Roman Emperor named Henry IV. He wasn't a big fan of the Catholic Church having control over his business. In particular, he wanted to be able to assign his loyal subordinates as bishops within the Empire. Pope Gregory VII felt differently about the matter.<br />
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This all more came to a head when the two of them assigned separate candidates for the same position. Fuming, the Pope decided to push the big red button. The one marked "excommunicate." He notified Henry that he had exactly one year to prove that he's stopped being a dick about this whole investiture thing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJXWVloT-jcB-DfxG5XtcVe4PzggthI1BFKstoeb_6YCexLUKAE0fVIhUIlZfTb-vW4OSvehqpBmY3jBlzH7WyYNIDBJ1Fgi4qalLQNgTBPcCELmm2HvuZmbdrOvoe7MPriFPHhoVr8g4/s1600/Gregory_VII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pope Gregory VII" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJXWVloT-jcB-DfxG5XtcVe4PzggthI1BFKstoeb_6YCexLUKAE0fVIhUIlZfTb-vW4OSvehqpBmY3jBlzH7WyYNIDBJ1Fgi4qalLQNgTBPcCELmm2HvuZmbdrOvoe7MPriFPHhoVr8g4/s1600/Gregory_VII.jpg" title="More like Pope Sassory VII, amirite?" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All while giving the "Oh no you didn't" finger wag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This being the year 1076, being excommunicated was a much bigger deal than it is today. <i>Especially</i> for a Holy Roman Emperor. His right to rule was, in the public perception, a divine mandate from god. To have God's corporeal press secretary declare him unfit to be a member of the church was a huge blow to his authority. Rebellion sprouted up across the Empire. Rebellion that had been growing underground among the aristocracy for some time...but now it had a religious excuse, so it burst to the surface.<br />
<br />
So Henry had to do something. In the Winter of 1077, he got an entourage together in Speyer and headed South, away from Germany and across the Alps toward Canossa. Legend has it that he made the journey barefoot, wearing a cilice, braving frigid temperatures, snow, and ice the whole way. When he arrived, he found that the Pope ordered the gates closed. So he knelt in the snow.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xAUKpBynGNkHLTr_s9cozSMkXJRsqq8LID9DEshGUSNZ3VHC0Zn_S39dx0Z2d1RWF79L_CBSG6v_NvD8MfM8yIvLmkd93zuhYXrnaHg_VJOI9RoKIpINqFQa7Kj4UIBkUlynJJst3r0B/s1600/speyertocanossa.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Speyer to Canossa" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xAUKpBynGNkHLTr_s9cozSMkXJRsqq8LID9DEshGUSNZ3VHC0Zn_S39dx0Z2d1RWF79L_CBSG6v_NvD8MfM8yIvLmkd93zuhYXrnaHg_VJOI9RoKIpINqFQa7Kj4UIBkUlynJJst3r0B/s1600/speyertocanossa.png" title="I checked. It's a long walk." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And after the whole "uphill both ways" journey, too.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A blizzard raged outside, and Henry IV stayed. He ate nothing and wore little to ward off the snow. For <i>three full days</i>, he stayed outside the gate silently begging the church for forgiveness. It became clear to Gregory that to refuse Henry reconciliation with the church after that would be impossible. So he invited the Emperor inside, where they shared Communion.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiwP22lmLpNYhW_jmnjXctqHSOL_mGf5KuV60pTf1l2dRWVbgyJ3dIg2rDXtypyUokfnyVMPEXNCZuDM42hGJxiCqYw3hxEu8MfZqJdQAskxCiv5c6k7Gpi4w6fJ4PGW9eifwPP45Eutc/s1600/Canossa-gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Henry IV at Canossa" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiwP22lmLpNYhW_jmnjXctqHSOL_mGf5KuV60pTf1l2dRWVbgyJ3dIg2rDXtypyUokfnyVMPEXNCZuDM42hGJxiCqYw3hxEu8MfZqJdQAskxCiv5c6k7Gpi4w6fJ4PGW9eifwPP45Eutc/s1600/Canossa-gate.jpg" title="Geez, Pope. A little hospitality?" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I mean, how could you not?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Pope still didn't support Henry as Emperor, but the effects of the Walk to Canossa were long-term and far-reaching. During the Protestant Reformation, Henry's Walk was a rallying symbol for Protestants in Germany, who decided that their nation's rulers (and their nation itself) should never again have to face such humiliating submission to foreign powers, especially the Church. This same language was used by Adolf Hitler in his rise to power, against both the imagined conspiracy of the Jews and against government officials when the Nazi Party was banned.<br />
<br />
Even today, people of many countries refer to a humiliating apology as their "Walk to Canossa." Just goes to show that a little hiking can do a lot for history and colloquial language.<br />
<br />
Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-18714970793020046382014-12-24T10:31:00.000-05:002014-12-24T10:31:24.223-05:00Holy Shit, NORAD!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3EWuTs37S9eq_IF88T6sQxX9gC-sVKs5Sqd3oH-L3EFnBoNsbMTNrpQnNFfLAUIpbzCWjTNCImeq8dwhyV9yiBU5c92ACfi58vBDUocfQXzXFmx2nJVEBYEAaIY80JL2WT5ZN3Naf50-/s1600/Why_NORAD_Tracks_Santa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sears ad that got NORAD to track Santa" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3EWuTs37S9eq_IF88T6sQxX9gC-sVKs5Sqd3oH-L3EFnBoNsbMTNrpQnNFfLAUIpbzCWjTNCImeq8dwhyV9yiBU5c92ACfi58vBDUocfQXzXFmx2nJVEBYEAaIY80JL2WT5ZN3Naf50-/s1600/Why_NORAD_Tracks_Santa.jpg" title="Not at all irresponsible. Nope." /></a></div>
<br />
I've had this one in mind all year, specifically for today. Then <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport" target="_blank">NPR went ahead and did a story on it</a> last week. Thanks, NPR. Thanks a lot.<br />
<br />
For the uncultured rabble who don't follow NPR, I guess I can still give it a go. Around this time of the year in 1955, a local branch of Sears in Colorado Springs put an ad in the papers. The ad promised kids that they could get a hold of Santa Claus himself by calling a certain phone number. There was a bit of a typo, and when little Timmy picked up the phone on Christmas Eve to talk to Santa, a gruff military voice was on the other line. That gruff military voice belonged to a confused staffer of CONAD, which would be reorganized a few years later into NORAD. Nobody without security clearance was supposed to have that number.<br />
<br />
You know <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aerospace_Defense_Command" target="_blank">NORAD</a>, right? It's the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Aside from being terrible with acronyms, it serves the purpose of keeping unwanted visitors out of North American airspace. Unwanted visitors like Air Force planes that belong to nations who dislike America and Canada. Unwanted visitors like nuclear weapons.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNTkxOHB8tvMDF6gM2DNrIElcaPiXZxUiBt01wt9eDW4_v4iLxcMdaIvLU4-vrzQCzbll4WwJakZzy23r4JmVAFy9fwCHfPaEhcwN18IdOIx6CMfxjNZULyoHTaIFR6Pt3g7paRFIm0llS/s1600/300px-Nagasakibomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nuclear explosion" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNTkxOHB8tvMDF6gM2DNrIElcaPiXZxUiBt01wt9eDW4_v4iLxcMdaIvLU4-vrzQCzbll4WwJakZzy23r4JmVAFy9fwCHfPaEhcwN18IdOIx6CMfxjNZULyoHTaIFR6Pt3g7paRFIm0llS/s1600/300px-Nagasakibomb.jpg" title="Right below world-ending meteors" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which is pretty high on my list of things I don't want in my airspace.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's obviously pretty nice to have them around. You would expect them to be a no-nonsense outfit. Strictly business, right? Well, for the most part, they are. The officer in charge that night, Colonel Harry Shoup, had a soft spot for good little American boys and girls. Since the cat was pretty much out of the bag where the phone number was concerned, he issued a standing order: When a staffer answers the phone to hear a child asking about Santa Claus, they are to perform their regular duty and track the flying object in U.S. airspace. That is to say, our nation's first line of air defenses was ordered to <i>track Santa Claus</i> on Christmas Eve and share his location with the children.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTLop9TQaQDe7U6MoQGrmZAj_61-YvFbHw_OaThZr7uZFGaAeg0lmsR6e4WbPdSE6ftYcQYKMPd5m0wQ2lSN6MN7J7_GNgoR2Cm6bghqu21B9C9VMl5EFrhqUlb3iCpv-_VS63wybRo_R/s1600/NORAD_-_Canada_-_Santa_Radar_Tracking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="NORAD Tracking Santa" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTLop9TQaQDe7U6MoQGrmZAj_61-YvFbHw_OaThZr7uZFGaAeg0lmsR6e4WbPdSE6ftYcQYKMPd5m0wQ2lSN6MN7J7_GNgoR2Cm6bghqu21B9C9VMl5EFrhqUlb3iCpv-_VS63wybRo_R/s1600/NORAD_-_Canada_-_Santa_Radar_Tracking.jpg" title="Yeah, don't worry, the Canadians are involved, too." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Military Decorum.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The feeling in general about this incident within the armed forces was that it was adorable. Adorable, and a perfect opportunity for good publicity. What better way to connect with the people they protect than to indulge in their most innocent fantasies? So it became a Thing with a capital T. Every year since 1955, CONAD -- and then NORAD -- has tracked Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and shared his location with inquiring children. It's all on a volunteer basis now, and there's a hotline and website and everything.<br />
<br />
Because who says the people who watch the skies for nuclear missiles can't also get into the Christmas spirit?<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFa6sZM7Q8Dap9BQXJu4ey3PdVpIcpyMwI86peAaLtJW7ITIPThBGjq78Vrdb0XO1zvmM98Ze09fHAoLOeESFnwwUkVSfKiVXq-PzYamV8TpD8JRge_9C4r8gD9BGogsmNvO7fKhncrdbm/s1600/NORAD_Tracks_Santa.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="NORAD Tracks Santa logo" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFa6sZM7Q8Dap9BQXJu4ey3PdVpIcpyMwI86peAaLtJW7ITIPThBGjq78Vrdb0XO1zvmM98Ze09fHAoLOeESFnwwUkVSfKiVXq-PzYamV8TpD8JRge_9C4r8gD9BGogsmNvO7fKhncrdbm/s1600/NORAD_Tracks_Santa.png" title="I mean, honestly. This looks like it belongs on a Geocities page." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even if they could do better with the logo...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Holy shit.<br />
<br />
Also, happy holidays.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-43401634755159241842014-12-17T10:36:00.003-05:002014-12-17T10:36:52.284-05:00Holy Shit, Hessy Taft!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18RBP3jxLw_SbJP8zbxbnJrccu9CBnue4dpF-udS_y9niobJB9cYhyphenhyphenxV9rthXRPjHduRynFQcbzZ4eK2dSc1MVhwTwSFqYcdKdua39rSjCqeCCAb8m7wTcB3bKcR3Fq91fCCukN4tSzFX/s1600/Hessy_Levinsons_Taft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Hessy Levinsons Taft" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18RBP3jxLw_SbJP8zbxbnJrccu9CBnue4dpF-udS_y9niobJB9cYhyphenhyphenxV9rthXRPjHduRynFQcbzZ4eK2dSc1MVhwTwSFqYcdKdua39rSjCqeCCAb8m7wTcB3bKcR3Fq91fCCukN4tSzFX/s1600/Hessy_Levinsons_Taft.jpg" height="640" title="To be fair, she's a pretty cute baby" width="458" /></a></div>
<br />
The baby above is Hessy Taft. Cute little bugger, isn't she?<br />
<br />
Well, the Nazis certainly thought so. In 1935, the Nazi magazine <i>Sonne ins Haus </i>(<i>The Sun in the House</i>) had their own version of the "cutest baby contest" that magazines often have. Except they called theirs "The Most Beautiful <i>Aryan</i> Baby" contest. The chief judge was none other than Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbles.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2M_XarKcaBU0FnSLAPNQaRSQ3G1_-I6A0Fsh79uO2Ut4Dx1cMpDUZYu9OAYnKQMM2H1LPFqyQ5JmekTqc7-gG1juZ7_xkXZek5vbeuDC0bgOqN3mxoh6_W0PvwTmizlaUX9U-Ryms9Qz/s1600/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1968-101-20A,_Joseph_Goebbels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Joseph Goebbles" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2M_XarKcaBU0FnSLAPNQaRSQ3G1_-I6A0Fsh79uO2Ut4Dx1cMpDUZYu9OAYnKQMM2H1LPFqyQ5JmekTqc7-gG1juZ7_xkXZek5vbeuDC0bgOqN3mxoh6_W0PvwTmizlaUX9U-Ryms9Qz/s1600/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1968-101-20A,_Joseph_Goebbels.jpg" height="640" title="Also, a pro-genocide Nazi" width="457" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A considerably less handsome specimen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Baby Hessy was taken to a photographer when she was a mere six months old. Without telling the parents, the photographer submitted the picture to the magazine, confident that he had found the prettiest baby in all the Third Reich. Goebbles agreed with him, and soon little Hessy's face was on the cover of the Nazi Magazine and plastered all over shop windows, magazine ads, and postcards throughout Germany.<br />
<br />
You may already see where this is going. See, Taft is actually Hessy's married name. She was born Hessy Levinsons, and despite being renowned as a beautiful Aryan baby, she was, in fact, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessy_Levinsons_Taft" target="_blank">quite Jewish</a>. The photographer <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/07/the-perfect-aryan-child-the-nazis-used-in-propaganda-was-actually-jewish/" target="_blank">explained</a> to the family that he was ordered to submit his 10 favorite baby pictures to the contest, and he submitted the one he thought was most beautiful partly because he wanted to make the Nazi philosophy look ridiculous.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9YNotfCrstH7YP4YsreSTZX1_aEBadqxq4q_p0v_SlBVUQO79i4bU3OE0aBXm85tnWHgZ5z7rKpakM-W9b_svnXxp8oPFE1OmoKl34JIllmhed9uMZpb3Is1KUEYtGan56ptwt6OmYO7/s1600/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-04062A,_N%C3%BCrnberg,_Reichsparteitag,_SA-_und_SS-Appell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY9YNotfCrstH7YP4YsreSTZX1_aEBadqxq4q_p0v_SlBVUQO79i4bU3OE0aBXm85tnWHgZ5z7rKpakM-W9b_svnXxp8oPFE1OmoKl34JIllmhed9uMZpb3Is1KUEYtGan56ptwt6OmYO7/s1600/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-04062A,_N%C3%BCrnberg,_Reichsparteitag,_SA-_und_SS-Appell.jpg" height="640" width="445" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which, as you might imagine, was not as easy back then.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Luckily for the Levinsons, the Nazi Party never realized they picked a Jewish baby as an example of what all good Aryan babies should look like. Even luckier, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10938062/Nazi-perfect-Aryan-poster-child-was-Jewish.html" target="_blank">they escaped Germany</a> after Hessy's father was captured by the Gestapo then released thanks to a good word from a Nazi he knew.<br />
<br />
The cover photo of Hessy Taft is one of the most delicious pieces of irony I've ever seen. The Nazis were so authoritative, so certain of the pseudoscience behind their horrific racism...and yet here they were, failing at so basic a test of said pseudoscience as picking out a non-Jewish baby as a mascot.<br />
<br />
Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-89349765044644897752014-12-10T09:31:00.001-05:002014-12-10T09:31:45.120-05:00Holy Shit, the Gombe War!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN6u-f_h_hQebF-MiHj7SzVh18IM4wy2V9JUB0Bv1E3HEH_3QEtnccPEJV13gvvrumTU0uiiAfh7Ud-XgtfkyTaOFSnqExsh5zXtqprQ6xhA-1aeJD1nbNfYXPNWeA-d5AhpBZHCzLZbd/s1600/Gombe_Stream_NP_Fuetterungsstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jane Goodall's feeding station" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN6u-f_h_hQebF-MiHj7SzVh18IM4wy2V9JUB0Bv1E3HEH_3QEtnccPEJV13gvvrumTU0uiiAfh7Ud-XgtfkyTaOFSnqExsh5zXtqprQ6xhA-1aeJD1nbNfYXPNWeA-d5AhpBZHCzLZbd/s1600/Gombe_Stream_NP_Fuetterungsstation.jpg" height="426" title="This may or may not have been a key battleground." width="640" /></a></div>
As wars go, the Gombe War was fairly small in scale. Combatants numbered in the dozens, battles were sparse, and casualties came to a grand total of 11.What's really remarkable about the Gombe War wasn't so much how it was fought as who fought it. Because who fought it were these guys:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaINMRKzQfHefiDdjghd4BTQC_V_AFKNBkEP8O4zHZrAi-q2aV2RCDBJS98LnfMq4PSeTHHXEJA0CjxkTSpUzeSeWGADOfd8j58z9ZJbOQVqKBhhxFyDMtguI3lI0XgXhrGFkAA6qYhAPA/s1600/428px-Gombe_Stream_NP_Mutter_und_Kind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gombe Chimpanzees" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaINMRKzQfHefiDdjghd4BTQC_V_AFKNBkEP8O4zHZrAi-q2aV2RCDBJS98LnfMq4PSeTHHXEJA0CjxkTSpUzeSeWGADOfd8j58z9ZJbOQVqKBhhxFyDMtguI3lI0XgXhrGFkAA6qYhAPA/s1600/428px-Gombe_Stream_NP_Mutter_und_Kind.jpg" title="He's got murder in his eyes, though." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not specifically these two. I mean, one of them is a baby.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Chimpanzees. The full name of the conflict is the Gombe Chimpanzee War. The factions involved were once part of a larger community of chimpanzees. They were known as the Kasakela and Kahama groups, and they inhabited the Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Pretty much everything we know about this war comes from a single source, and she's always been one of my personal heroes: Jane Goodall, the famous ethologist, animal rights activist, and all-around awesome chimp lady.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3K_jC7DzOgVK1RJR3MOIth3YBi1epTHNf64nYkA3GGWDXAlQKXx8tHh4UvL-rz63WpBO96Zh-L1rD03rRdCgUGzfiFiqg2PpscqN1io0YOaN445xZSLdi1z0THWm9GQr_4tYNqS0h14uE/s1600/Jane_Goodall_HK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jane Goodall" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3K_jC7DzOgVK1RJR3MOIth3YBi1epTHNf64nYkA3GGWDXAlQKXx8tHh4UvL-rz63WpBO96Zh-L1rD03rRdCgUGzfiFiqg2PpscqN1io0YOaN445xZSLdi1z0THWm9GQr_4tYNqS0h14uE/s1600/Jane_Goodall_HK.jpg" height="640" title="Seriously though. Look up her speeches. She does that. Not in the TED one, sadly." width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hearing her greet a crowd by howling like a chimpanzee was a formative moment for me.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
She started noticing a rift in the chimpanzee community, which appeared to be driving the two sub-groups into different areas of the Park. One January day in 1974, the rift tore into open violence. A gang of six Kasakela chimpanzees surrounded a lone Kahama, brutally attacking and killing him. Over the next four years, the two groups were constantly at odds. Open conflict was relatively rare, but by June of 1978 every single Kahama chimpanzee had been slain. Only one Kasakela died.<br />
<br />
For Jane Goodall, this was one of the most horrific - and most important - events she witnessed in her time with the chimpanzees. She describes devastating nightmares that plagued her later in life, where she would relive the experience of seeing creatures she knew to be gentle in the midst of tearing one another limb from limb, literally drinking the blood of their fallen enemies. Enemies that had once been like family to them.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYuqdjlzBbaPpEw0zqiBa5CFVp2n5dxiBtpsDUHv67UoD_j3vGI87KZMMZFiPvNVkSwvZtFsosR3AOh2ZrcOA2tYkQWLzMGpg2VnQ2d_nZMQVhxg0n9_BJZuejr81XrLkV_UWXN16sFJI/s1600/2006-12-09_Chimpanzee_Gregoire_D_Bruyere.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gregoire" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYuqdjlzBbaPpEw0zqiBa5CFVp2n5dxiBtpsDUHv67UoD_j3vGI87KZMMZFiPvNVkSwvZtFsosR3AOh2ZrcOA2tYkQWLzMGpg2VnQ2d_nZMQVhxg0n9_BJZuejr81XrLkV_UWXN16sFJI/s1600/2006-12-09_Chimpanzee_Gregoire_D_Bruyere.JPG" height="480" title="Maybe it's the scraps of red watermelon." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For some reason this picture is suddenly chilling.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But it was important for the same reason it was important when she first witnessed chimpanzees using tools. Because chimpanzees are animals, and the suggestion that animals could engage in organized hostility - <i>warfare</i> - was so far-fetched at the time that many in the scientific community doubted her reports and wrote them off as anthropomorphizing nonsense. Further study with more rigorous methods have only underscored Goodall's work, though.<br />
<br />
So we just have to face the fact that we don't get to be the only ones who go to war.<br />
<br />
So...yay?<br />
<br />
Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-54697387596575770832014-12-03T11:31:00.000-05:002014-12-03T11:31:22.821-05:00Holy Shit, Deir el-Medina!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3sGDJslYmaWvqF6jIFv9z7loLvThD5qFQS5DdW2I-9AfdE6KtpCnguorRcqWye_-x9gFlzMK_A4vRX0MyWKpp2Xl_rYaFGtkXyCDsgLBm8OtDvhWgc1FlxKdzH4fhfTUDK7jx1c6j7nUE/s1600/Sfec-luxor-2010-03-_043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Deir el-Medina Site" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3sGDJslYmaWvqF6jIFv9z7loLvThD5qFQS5DdW2I-9AfdE6KtpCnguorRcqWye_-x9gFlzMK_A4vRX0MyWKpp2Xl_rYaFGtkXyCDsgLBm8OtDvhWgc1FlxKdzH4fhfTUDK7jx1c6j7nUE/s1600/Sfec-luxor-2010-03-_043.jpg" height="426" title="I mean...it's not THAT far from the fertile area...but..." width="640" /></a></div>
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You won't find much in the way of functioning society at Deir el-Medina these days. It's just Northwest of the city of Luxor, next to the famous Valley of the Kings, just past the area where the Nile makes the ground fertile. What you will find, though, is plenty of evidence that people used to live there.<br />
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Deil el-Medina was a workers' village in New Kingdom Era Egypt. In case that doesn't mean anything to you, let me point out that the New Kingdom Era was <i>1550 and 1077 BC.</i> Which is a hella long time ago.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAKnRIYb8-mhBvXlUBBgAk2N6p0aPZ-o-naJEoZx6sDe2BZ-uGQK9NQAYj7ydkDbpVDOCI2To3c92O5aNdVEkbvXKP-kwecGMEZAX0q_xRI2xzJCbWR_nhRzIkBk4vONWMCd_uYaI4jrq/s1600/Cleopatra_and_Caesar_by_Jean-Leon-Gerome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cleopatra and Julius Caesar" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAKnRIYb8-mhBvXlUBBgAk2N6p0aPZ-o-naJEoZx6sDe2BZ-uGQK9NQAYj7ydkDbpVDOCI2To3c92O5aNdVEkbvXKP-kwecGMEZAX0q_xRI2xzJCbWR_nhRzIkBk4vONWMCd_uYaI4jrq/s1600/Cleopatra_and_Caesar_by_Jean-Leon-Gerome.jpg" height="640" title="MY EYES ARE UP HERE, JULIUS." width="440" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As old to Cleopatra as Cleopatra is us. Seriously.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
It's placement was no accident. The workers who lived there were tasked with building the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. Thanks to painstaking excavations of the site during the 1920s, it's one of the clearest windows we have into the ancient Egyptian world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Crucially, the surviving documents from the village were not preserved for posterity's sake, but rather by happenstance. That means that instead of self-aggrandizing tales of historical significance, Deir el-Medina gives us a glimpse into the ordinary daily life of the Ancient Egyptian worker.</div>
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We know, for example, that the village was what we might consider "middle class," and that the laborers there were mostly skilled tradesmen.We know that people worshiped both the "official" gods and their own "personal" gods, and that was pretty much okay with the authorities. We know that they practiced an eight day work week followed by a two day weekend. We know that they were allowed days off for both illness and hangovers. During their time off, some workers would build their <i>own</i> tombs - since, you know...they were pretty good at it.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJt0c1FH_j1Bqvn1ccPWDKdt3lZGjl5RUv1D6yGLvfcdgeMUGy3PekTFh4Egy4_vweoNOr403_raIOiJTztAUEJaCOUaP6to_jqNmpeqGBoabrdJwnrUqrIzeWd6NCtypg2m6cRyIIOs0g/s1600/Pyr_shi02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Deir el-Medina worker's tomb" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJt0c1FH_j1Bqvn1ccPWDKdt3lZGjl5RUv1D6yGLvfcdgeMUGy3PekTFh4Egy4_vweoNOr403_raIOiJTztAUEJaCOUaP6to_jqNmpeqGBoabrdJwnrUqrIzeWd6NCtypg2m6cRyIIOs0g/s1600/Pyr_shi02.jpg" height="640" title="But seriously, this is a tomb that a guy just built for himself in his spare time." width="437" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sick tomb, bro! Can't wait to see you in it!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
Maybe the most interesting thing we know about Deir el-Medina, though, is something that occurred during the reign of Ramesses III. Things weren't so hot for the Egyptian Empire at the time. In fact, the economic turmoil the Empire was embroiled in during that era was a significant factor in the overall decline of Egypt's influence.</div>
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What this meant for Deir el-Medina was that their wages and rations were late. This was a <b>big</b> no-no. A <i>religious</i> no-no, in fact. So, for the first (known) time in history, the workers <i>went on strike</i>. They refused to do any more work until the Pharaoh or Vizier came to speak with them about their wages and rations. Eventually, the authorities relented, but the process played out several times before it became clear that the workers were holding a winning hand.</div>
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<div>
That, as far as we know, is the origin of organized labor. In Egypt, over 3,000 years ago.</div>
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<div>
Holy Shit.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-44431726599868204192014-11-26T09:11:00.000-05:002014-11-26T09:12:43.701-05:00Holy Shit, Turkeys!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT6a-EZwgSr7ZhNx43l6tEoTNDZAjOaCE-XDjdRhK2L_46kUhpmHe6SfpBYe-lmUrT45rVccL6JFF64-CY5b9pH636IHDZ5fwQSwPKnUuCJgN0z6TZuIwmpqQnmWSlySFtL6iCC4EhXwno/s1600/2006-ca-turkey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Turkeys." border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT6a-EZwgSr7ZhNx43l6tEoTNDZAjOaCE-XDjdRhK2L_46kUhpmHe6SfpBYe-lmUrT45rVccL6JFF64-CY5b9pH636IHDZ5fwQSwPKnUuCJgN0z6TZuIwmpqQnmWSlySFtL6iCC4EhXwno/s1600/2006-ca-turkey.jpg" height="424" title="Yeah, I know I just used this picture." width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm gonna make this short because I have been distracted recently by the birth of my newest niece. That guy up above, as you probably know, is a Turkey. Despite being thoroughly American, he's named after Turkey the country. The reasoning behind this is that it sounds exotic, and the European explorers who found him may have still been under the impression that America was part of Asia.<br />
<br />
Strangely enough, many other languages use country names for the turkey as well. In actual Turkey, they call it a "Hindi," suggesting that it's from India. That's surprisingly common. France, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, and several other countries also call it some variation of "India." In actual India, they call it a Peru.<br />
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In Cambodia, they call it a French Chicken. In Arabic, it's called either a Roman Chicken or an Ethiopian Chicken. In Malaysia, it's a Dutch Chicken.<br />
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Bottom line: Turkeys are weird, people's names for Turkeys are weirder, and Happy Thanksgiving.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-4316976725518600422014-11-19T08:46:00.001-05:002014-11-19T08:46:32.940-05:00Holy Shit, Senses!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpgBC8w0O63dg9QlarXFd6anLQYT1Rj00gVhP-CGMqOTaXokA7gpzCakiAXfo3fv4e66C48iME8B2Pk5tIKyRPbP8fi15I-22iFBu7Khd-O1yxIN58em0WLKlVIvMe3QfZuVjx9bKUPPl/s1600/Claesz,_Pieter_-_Still-Life_with_Musical_Instruments_-_1623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Still Life by Pieter Claesz" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpgBC8w0O63dg9QlarXFd6anLQYT1Rj00gVhP-CGMqOTaXokA7gpzCakiAXfo3fv4e66C48iME8B2Pk5tIKyRPbP8fi15I-22iFBu7Khd-O1yxIN58em0WLKlVIvMe3QfZuVjx9bKUPPl/s1600/Claesz,_Pieter_-_Still-Life_with_Musical_Instruments_-_1623.jpg" height="348" title="It's an allegory for the five senses. Apparently." width="640" /></a></div>
Senses! Everyone knows we have five of them, right? Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, and Smell. We all learned that in Kindergarten, so why bother writing a whole blog post about it?<br />
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<div>
Well, one good reason is that <i>we all learned wrong</i>. There are more than five senses. I mean, it's not even close. There's not really a consensus on the exact number, either. The number doesn't really matter. Think of it like individual parts of your body. How do you define a "part?" Is your <i>fore</i>arm a different "part" than your whole arm?</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggW-YL4piX23elTLNwnwc_9P1DTH5Gqb8eaPq-zaVwyqp0khaGeN7pcgvjlCzDWJNphpS0gQMCPLaw9YPaPNORRlmlY-jBxYPSLVJn8qHPFdk2wKqA7sZ0bCdBi-IyO4MyETl08526Dun7/s1600/George_foreman_grill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="George Foreman Grill" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggW-YL4piX23elTLNwnwc_9P1DTH5Gqb8eaPq-zaVwyqp0khaGeN7pcgvjlCzDWJNphpS0gQMCPLaw9YPaPNORRlmlY-jBxYPSLVJn8qHPFdk2wKqA7sZ0bCdBi-IyO4MyETl08526Dun7/s1600/George_foreman_grill.jpg" title="And should save the dad jokes for the comic?" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And where does your Fore<i>man</i> come into play?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
That's how it is with sense. You've got your traditional senses, which the Elizabethans called the "Five Wits" (incidentally, that's where the phrase "keep your wits about you" comes from). Then you have things like thermoception. That's your ability to detect temperature. You could argue that it's part of your sense of touch, but when you shiver, is it really a response to touching something cold?</div>
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<div>
Then there's proprioception. That's your sense of where your body is. It's another one that's either ignored or thrown in with touch. We can demonstrate the issue with that by performing a ten second experiment. Put your hand behind your head. You can't see it. You can't feel it. But you <i>know where your hand is</i>. You <i>know what it's doing</i>. That's your kinesthetic sense, otherwise known as "proprioception." It's what lets you touch your nose with your finger even when you close your eyes.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13I9U0fBZQdjRJShLt-ZkkMpxXjb5CJZ8e3q40jM716EeP1ZoQFFjU9nxvccqWZjwUTsyaLThZ-oqOuvK68vgMuMY0zX_7LOA6D21OHJUsQkKh-Id96U-gG7kNHXevAxbWKMzuwLeePJf/s1600/img-ftn-nose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Field Sobriety Test" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13I9U0fBZQdjRJShLt-ZkkMpxXjb5CJZ8e3q40jM716EeP1ZoQFFjU9nxvccqWZjwUTsyaLThZ-oqOuvK68vgMuMY0zX_7LOA6D21OHJUsQkKh-Id96U-gG7kNHXevAxbWKMzuwLeePJf/s1600/img-ftn-nose.jpg" title="Try using the word proprioception when you're drunk and talking to a police officer. I dare you." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh...you know...in most cases.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
How about your sense of balance? Can't really call that one touch, can you? It's based in your inner ear, and I don't think anyone would argue that it's part of hearing, either. But you can stand on thin surface and innately know when you're beginning to tilt too far in any direction.</div>
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There are <i>tons</i> of sense that you use all the time without thinking about it. Knowing when you need to breathe, knowing when you need to empty your little bladder or evacuate your bowels, feeling the urge to vomit, and even recognizing the passage of time are all senses beyond the traditional five.</div>
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If that's not enough to get you excited, think of it this way: most people want to experience the world in ways they never could before. One way to do that is by consciously recognizing what our bodies are automatically doing for us. When you acknowledge that you know where your hand is because of a sense you never knew you had, you're paving a conscious road where there was once only a subconscious dirt path.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTEKuvOBMKn1mtI5WfRzrCfKNbcLQgBavcPYsP-ekqIBUkoRU_9vBGDUluJag7BSCUHq7H_sZ-Ngyq-4AuCptHl2Mz5f9lpXF48ztJqRKFJuY2f7RgXJ6MJug-KiuKWfAmEtxygM0RiJN/s1600/Road_building-Hungary-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Road Roller" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTEKuvOBMKn1mtI5WfRzrCfKNbcLQgBavcPYsP-ekqIBUkoRU_9vBGDUluJag7BSCUHq7H_sZ-Ngyq-4AuCptHl2Mz5f9lpXF48ztJqRKFJuY2f7RgXJ6MJug-KiuKWfAmEtxygM0RiJN/s1600/Road_building-Hungary-1.jpg" height="558" title="And the power lines are a symbol for runaway metaphors" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See, the road roller is a metaphor for thinking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
And <i>isn't that cool?</i></div>
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Holy shit.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-56563592202464968872014-11-12T11:27:00.000-05:002014-11-12T11:27:38.086-05:00Holy Shit, the Cuban Missile Crisis!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWMDaxNYoxImjfobuyG1-u_ghVQ5FvBByNR6nzp6dZYtpujF3aGzi24Qj-YOw33yIT50T98E_jD0hs_52ZsRmgiYfw9aOsQq_VsGLT3aLCFjy3tDTU7Rg3eTkuyFKq8vWTNQRRiT8EjV8-/s1600/McNamara_and_Kennedy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Kennedy and McNamara" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWMDaxNYoxImjfobuyG1-u_ghVQ5FvBByNR6nzp6dZYtpujF3aGzi24Qj-YOw33yIT50T98E_jD0hs_52ZsRmgiYfw9aOsQq_VsGLT3aLCFjy3tDTU7Rg3eTkuyFKq8vWTNQRRiT8EjV8-/s1600/McNamara_and_Kennedy.jpg" title="The best way to read their faces is to remember that they both thought nuclear war was imminent" /></a></div>
About a year and half ago, I shared <a href="http://holyshitthatsinteresting.blogspot.com/2013/05/holy-shit-stanislav-petrov.html" target="_blank">the story of Stanislav Petrov</a>, the Soviet Air Defense officer who saved the world by neglecting his duty...because at that moment his duty was to start a nuclear war. It may or may not surprise you to learn that, in the almost half-century time period where there was a terrifying standoff between nuclear powers, <i>that wasn't the only time someone almost pushed the big red button</i>.<br />
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In fact, there was one situation that was arguably a closer brush with the proverbial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock" target="_blank">Midnight</a>. That one you probably remember reading about. It involved Cuba. And missiles. And a crisis.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeD0kyMIm7PCMYReHl2_pj2d3KP-BPErZ0tBpKwgbZ0_USDKRKvtdkDqsJK9rPSbNJE6_vK-qsdozHBcixkf82GND7Xamw1Gil1naS6KC3LryrLII96koxgog5G5bNwEhkoU5_LoBiY_3u/s1600/U2_Image_of_Cuban_Missile_Crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="U2 Spyplane photos of the Cuban Missiles" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeD0kyMIm7PCMYReHl2_pj2d3KP-BPErZ0tBpKwgbZ0_USDKRKvtdkDqsJK9rPSbNJE6_vK-qsdozHBcixkf82GND7Xamw1Gil1naS6KC3LryrLII96koxgog5G5bNwEhkoU5_LoBiY_3u/s1600/U2_Image_of_Cuban_Missile_Crisis.jpg" title="I mean, there are some tubes of some persuasion. So that's something." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And aerial reconnaissance photos that mean nothing to the untrained eye</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The Cuban Missile Crisis started because Fidel Castro was sick of the CIA trying to topple his fledgling Communist nation, and Nikita Kruschev wanted to make the U.S. sweat. See, the so-called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap" target="_blank">missile gap</a>" was an actual thing. But it was a thing that almost <i>comically </i>favored America. The Soviet Union really didn't even have the capability to strike most of the United States from a distance, whereas the United States had both a wealth of ICBMs and missile sites in Turkey, close enough to nuke the baldness off of the Soviet Premier. <br />
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So Kruschev sent some nukes to Cuba. When the U.S. noticed, the world started to figuratively explode with the fear that it would soon literally explode. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff <i>unanimously </i>advised President Kennedy to invade Cuba. Let that sink in. Such a decision would absolutely, unequivocally <i>guarantee </i>that the U.S.S.R. would, at the very least, invade West Berlin. And <i>that</i> action would almost as certainly lead to a nuclear reprisal from NATO.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSFlQ5TPs-mrEQtIJ8rW1pZdDfIOQcOXbUQwALJyP_Dx87GhW5b4FpD7wQjJzxWTZTI6mMUFM4n4p5umxbHn1MqudUNgZd3tq8xK9hLmLdv60dflZ4P_57QByslZugIgkCDETfK3IsH2a/s1600/reaganboom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Reagan pointing at a nuclear explosion" border="0" height="423" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSFlQ5TPs-mrEQtIJ8rW1pZdDfIOQcOXbUQwALJyP_Dx87GhW5b4FpD7wQjJzxWTZTI6mMUFM4n4p5umxbHn1MqudUNgZd3tq8xK9hLmLdv60dflZ4P_57QByslZugIgkCDETfK3IsH2a/s640/reaganboom.jpg" title="Yo. (WHAT'S REAGAN DOING HERE? GO BACK TO HOLLYWOOD REAGAN!)" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shit. Is. On. Fire.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In short, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were, with one voice, telling Kennedy that it was <i>time to end the world</i>. Kennedy thought maybe we should try a few other solutions first. The compromise was a naval "quarantine," which is like a blockade but you get to not use the word "blockade," because that's defined as an act of war by international law.<br />
<br />
At some point, the ships of this blockade announced that they would be dropping practice depth charges on Soviet submarines. They weren't powerful enough to cause severe damage, but they would usually force a submarine to surface, negating its stealthy advantage. Somehow, the Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 didn't get the memo. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_T7vW5jP1npxW0tYLKCgVxmZ5b910ouPSQ0O1R9Lay8rhx1_lwJXoXNSlPPpSE9OVrSuDttUX4wiK0wkANv4vNxQOiqqYmxXyfZluuQJJpPy1YpCNdvwn311AdsB7iZO83GW1BWiZk5Dr/s1600/640px-Message_in_a_bottle_start.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Message in a Bottle" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_T7vW5jP1npxW0tYLKCgVxmZ5b910ouPSQ0O1R9Lay8rhx1_lwJXoXNSlPPpSE9OVrSuDttUX4wiK0wkANv4vNxQOiqqYmxXyfZluuQJJpPy1YpCNdvwn311AdsB7iZO83GW1BWiZk5Dr/s640/640px-Message_in_a_bottle_start.JPG" title="And yeah, I'm pretty sure that person is wearing a coat, sandals, and socks." width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I choose to believe it was the result of outdated communication methods.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
When the depth charges hit, everyone aboard was under the impression that the Cuban Missile Crisis - and by extension, the Cold War - had just gone hot. That's where Vasili Arkhipov comes in. He was second-in-command on B-59, and he was one of three officers upon whose shoulders fell the decision of whether to fire a nuclear torpedo. The two other officers voted an emphatic "YES."<br />
<br />
Arkhipov, thankfully, said "Well, I don't know." If he hadn't been a hero from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19" target="_blank">previous incident</a> involving a nuclear accident at sea, his words may have been drowned out. But he stood his ground, and he had a reputation for being heard. B-59 surfaced, and Moscow informed them of the situation. The very next day, Kruschev announced that the missile sites were being removed, in exchange for assurances that the U.S. would not invade Cuba and, secretly, the removal of missile sites from Turkey.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixMDMhisG2icKnDkMg9B7Wn-2MOmdvf5Oa-01K6H4fFxf0P8LTqoPC3jhShyphenhyphenQTBGYkJ0oImxOgsvezvwzwk9CaKEwSAvpRJNTY_jwzHmLk67WDWJtOtNdzWadT9VyMX5ATvTT7lRVFyJTf/s1600/2006-ca-turkey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Turkey" border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixMDMhisG2icKnDkMg9B7Wn-2MOmdvf5Oa-01K6H4fFxf0P8LTqoPC3jhShyphenhyphenQTBGYkJ0oImxOgsvezvwzwk9CaKEwSAvpRJNTY_jwzHmLk67WDWJtOtNdzWadT9VyMX5ATvTT7lRVFyJTf/s640/2006-ca-turkey.jpg" title="HAHAHAHA, GET IT?" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I mean, where were we even keeping them?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It's easy to think of the Cold War as a distant memory now. As a foregone conclusion. But we should remind ourselves once in a while that there were multiple occasions where a single voice of reason made the difference between continued detente and global annihilation. The Cold War was a game of Russian Roulette, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we ever came to pulling the trigger at the wrong time.<br />
<br />
Holy Shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-29587547978320587002014-11-05T11:40:00.000-05:002014-11-05T11:40:48.191-05:00Holy Shit, Onfim!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZ8-X_JDu7VMcxOWGklhWAlcx3TIzY0CMcV5Nzto8xylaaT93oxTwEHuKUPWF3I_fes0qnJhhkeiNxTZxfWmhOIhrv-dITEjUHel8Ow-ViJ7_f6Nuu8HQ6OS0nbWYREhP-wdUEOOAUbPj/s1600/Bb199.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Onfim 199" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZ8-X_JDu7VMcxOWGklhWAlcx3TIzY0CMcV5Nzto8xylaaT93oxTwEHuKUPWF3I_fes0qnJhhkeiNxTZxfWmhOIhrv-dITEjUHel8Ow-ViJ7_f6Nuu8HQ6OS0nbWYREhP-wdUEOOAUbPj/s1600/Bb199.gif" height="434" title="The one on the right says "I AM A BEAST"" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Remember when you were a kid, and you would fidget in all your classes and make weird doodles in your notebooks? Maybe you even still do it. It's a pretty common form of expression, usually reserved for when you can only spare about half your attention.<br />
<br />
Onfim was a kid from Novgorod, Russia who doodled a lot. By itself, that doesn't mean much. But when Onfim was a student, Novgorod wasn't in Russia. It was the administrative center of the Novgorod Republic, which hasn't existed since 1478.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguJvZLEMCCX69inhO_ozY7FsXGBmiQUnoBKvrhiyTAjqAxiYra2286o2jAP6KwScmXQVw23dOay941nbU8t9oQzgjQdc8zAJ_lbDbS8EQKfUAn6_9K1q9N9cD0GiaYmUrAFGCYst_BdjGH/s1600/Novgorod1400.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Novgorod Republic" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguJvZLEMCCX69inhO_ozY7FsXGBmiQUnoBKvrhiyTAjqAxiYra2286o2jAP6KwScmXQVw23dOay941nbU8t9oQzgjQdc8zAJ_lbDbS8EQKfUAn6_9K1q9N9cD0GiaYmUrAFGCYst_BdjGH/s1600/Novgorod1400.png" height="398" title="Probably because I was doodling in class that day" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I mean it was practically the size of Continental Europe. How am I just now learning about it?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We know about Onfim because he wrote his notes (and the aforementioned doodles) on soft birch bark. Before paper became a really big thing, birch bark was often used for that purpose. It's hearty and water-resistant, which is great for preservation since water is the mortal enemy of history.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitx6LmOt9I_eOCcmPSe09mUXHTuLi7P8JXenmJR4rHSrrNamu3IDVeFrfjFYie5TfPmqnoh0_hu9l8dvpEmXFGkL8lrfKO2diu9PoAt30eQrEvxlDpQYHaNF-FYmJ0lPwN6fgqNiMUnAQO/s1600/Turquoise_Water.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Water" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitx6LmOt9I_eOCcmPSe09mUXHTuLi7P8JXenmJR4rHSrrNamu3IDVeFrfjFYie5TfPmqnoh0_hu9l8dvpEmXFGkL8lrfKO2diu9PoAt30eQrEvxlDpQYHaNF-FYmJ0lPwN6fgqNiMUnAQO/s1600/Turquoise_Water.jpg" height="640" title="Stop looking so smug." width="478" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We'll beat you someday, water. You just wait.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Most of Onfim's writing involved practicing the Old Slavic alphabet and writing Psalms. The doodles, though, were likely not part of any assignment. He sketched portraits of himself, his friends, and his tutor. He drew fanciful monsters with arrows sticking out of them. He even drew pictures of knights in battle. I'm not sure which of those is the 13th Century equivalent of the Bond-Villain's-Underground-Bunker that every boy knows how to draw today, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ82M2h9AF_RjO7ms3ZoMln_aCwW39FgPq2u7SJkelrZQ7EyBU4SxYqLz9jxCh-HmK8gGcOojX4Ss8Zju6wvGQWhDlpzizdaamp6c_-78rUu4ZvaquWhVp3Fjma5KFKEUrf8pjNIGzBhtw/s1600/Onfim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Onfim's sketches" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ82M2h9AF_RjO7ms3ZoMln_aCwW39FgPq2u7SJkelrZQ7EyBU4SxYqLz9jxCh-HmK8gGcOojX4Ss8Zju6wvGQWhDlpzizdaamp6c_-78rUu4ZvaquWhVp3Fjma5KFKEUrf8pjNIGzBhtw/s1600/Onfim.jpg" height="392" title="I probably wasn't even as good at it, either." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm sure I've done something similar to this with helicopters instead of horses.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The great thing about Onfim is that he puts a human face on history. Not just a human face, but a face we all know. Because everybody doodles in school, and thanks to Onfim we know that we share that subtle desire to express ourselves with our ancestors going back at least 800 years.<br />
<br />
Holy Shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-64553801250136068042014-10-29T11:23:00.000-04:002014-10-29T11:23:25.025-04:00Holy Shit, the Third Punic War!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1HFB80gOFuEHKumxIeBFiyvslAVonSpc1xPf9-O_QLaJXBG_eIlnMW1SNFety6Qski_HSPZMLVok1UvhksTVXFnwaeVXDfhc_JSp9lQfxbVrpxCeEKGRX3-yDR7fa1v6IH7khw-_DixB3/s1600/Carthage_villas-romaines_1950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Ruins of Carthage" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1HFB80gOFuEHKumxIeBFiyvslAVonSpc1xPf9-O_QLaJXBG_eIlnMW1SNFety6Qski_HSPZMLVok1UvhksTVXFnwaeVXDfhc_JSp9lQfxbVrpxCeEKGRX3-yDR7fa1v6IH7khw-_DixB3/s1600/Carthage_villas-romaines_1950.jpg" height="438" title="Deletam Carthaginem" width="640" /></a></div>
The Third Punic War started in 149 BC, and by 146 BC, Cato the Elder saw <a href="http://holyshitthatsinteresting.blogspot.com/2012/10/holy-shit-cannae.html" target="_blank">his dream of a dead Carthage</a> fulfilled. If you were a Carthaginian at the time, the whole thing was just...such bullshit. You're sitting here in your utterly defeated country, doing whatever the Romans tell you to do because they could burn you and everything you love as easily as you could punch a rock.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQz21SHiOmWy-bSg2WC6IuShFn8fMF8yJezyMINgyNthYWa23ujFy3cGDvO_m06ru8fRbSM4csjDtAXlwJys09YLeun69SAlCUzR6ufBIM_PN74ndPZWAb6qwSbPhb0XUly1H5wwS6tlF1/s1600/Balanced_Rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Balancing Rock" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQz21SHiOmWy-bSg2WC6IuShFn8fMF8yJezyMINgyNthYWa23ujFy3cGDvO_m06ru8fRbSM4csjDtAXlwJys09YLeun69SAlCUzR6ufBIM_PN74ndPZWAb6qwSbPhb0XUly1H5wwS6tlF1/s1600/Balanced_Rock.jpg" height="480" title="Still...look at its smug rock face." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not that I'd recommend it. Rocks just aren't very good at dodging.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Then some foreign tribes started raiding Carthaginian territory. Carthage was bound by treaty to arbitrate all conflicts through the Roman Senate, but at this point they had paid off the war indemnity and considered the treaty dissolved. The Romans saw things differently.<br />
<br />
More importantly, the Romans were facing a huge increase in population and a huge staying-the-same of farm yields. So the Third Punic War, essentially, was Rome looking at Carthage and saying, "Hey, guys, we need your food...so..." then lighting North Africa on fire.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh184n3K9UXo37LGjcMsGNSn972c6MnJczwV-xo1i1xyUFVXVbvFXZ4ymTKpO8F-pprdzrD9wV-iV8QgSr4jDgp1dZbgCsV63NPvQn9-uhTYuQ-ffPqNICeXKANyh1IOVNBwVs0q_DCDnEb/s1600/Ariana_par_Catania.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Tunisian Painting" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh184n3K9UXo37LGjcMsGNSn972c6MnJczwV-xo1i1xyUFVXVbvFXZ4ymTKpO8F-pprdzrD9wV-iV8QgSr4jDgp1dZbgCsV63NPvQn9-uhTYuQ-ffPqNICeXKANyh1IOVNBwVs0q_DCDnEb/s1600/Ariana_par_Catania.jpg" title="No, just the city. And the people." /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the farms, though. Boy, would <i>that</i> have ever been awkward!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Carthage was destroyed. Utterly. It's buildings were burned and its people put to the sword or sold into slavery. Its territories were annexed by Rome, and the city itself would only be rebuilt (as a Roman city) a century later. Then it became a Vandal Kingdom for a while until it was conquered by an Islamic Caliphate.<br />
<br />
But here's the thing: when you completely obliterate a city, there's no one around to sign a peace treaty. In a weird but arguably (technically) legal way, the cities of Rome and Carthage remained at war after Carthage ceased to be part of the Empire. At least, that's how officials from both cities saw it in 1985, when the mayors of both cities signed a <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1985-01-20/news/mn-10468_1_ancient-carthage" target="_blank">peace treaty and symbolic declaration of friendship</a>.<br />
<br />
If you take that technicality at face value, the Third Punic War was the longest conflict in history, lasting <i>over 2,130 years</i>.<br />
<br />
Holy shit.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-11945720576211933372014-10-22T11:22:00.000-04:002014-10-22T11:22:05.326-04:00Holy Shit, The Cretaceous Coast!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNog8khrkRfuzRbReA4KhJmoDwwDzR6B4x3QvnMNneezWxgEfO2l1noGtXAJzEAyqBRQkL4GrkxwSRq7iCN8KLxBPKJV4_GDcdn9RAP7XwiUGEc4x0ZBSzJkA_cm9Jkz-rzoYb3SHR2dJ/s1600/Blakey_105moll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Early Cretaceous Eath" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNog8khrkRfuzRbReA4KhJmoDwwDzR6B4x3QvnMNneezWxgEfO2l1noGtXAJzEAyqBRQkL4GrkxwSRq7iCN8KLxBPKJV4_GDcdn9RAP7XwiUGEc4x0ZBSzJkA_cm9Jkz-rzoYb3SHR2dJ/s1600/Blakey_105moll.jpg" height="320" title="This is what Earth used to look like, so don't get too comfortable" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
We've got an election coming up in the United States. It's a midterm, which too many voters tend to think of like a bye week, but it's important. Go vote on November 4.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When you do, think about all the factors beyond your control that lead to the outcome of an election. Sometimes it's something stupid one of the candidates said or did to shoot themselves in the foot. Sometimes it's a wave of backlash against a single policy. And sometimes it's a 100-million-year-old geographic feature that used to be where you live.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqk_VOpvxwgGhB6E4U5jqFDfSkEk3QWGLQ8dQsIIQlofAbGpV8sFNdCKEKMr-I8VK2EotkiAChDhbg2fStVA3Ms9VpD0muMvBjCGi7ILGUlljbL3T-E1iBNanqFebxuW2vS2JkhzqlEGA/s1600/EOFU9ao.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Wait What?" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqk_VOpvxwgGhB6E4U5jqFDfSkEk3QWGLQ8dQsIIQlofAbGpV8sFNdCKEKMr-I8VK2EotkiAChDhbg2fStVA3Ms9VpD0muMvBjCGi7ILGUlljbL3T-E1iBNanqFebxuW2vS2JkhzqlEGA/s1600/EOFU9ao.gif" title="Minus the push pop. " /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I really hope some of you made this exact face.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's the case for people living on the Cretaceous Coast, anyway. The Cretaceous Coast is, for the most part, a decidedly non-coastal region that stretches from Mississippi to the Carolinas. It's not easily distinguished on a modern topographical map, but in the Cretaceous Period it looked like this:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0I5EIk07Mk5eLoJoog-4hvnrnHKuB2rxEomULBku03-Ws1Ks3yZZd5JSSazIr6nnLu5Jo-l6wMBdp6P4x3L_mjiQskB_pdU7MEzaXZXOAw_I5lzbQ-NxJUFJfpksYXTkE2deGRFRPzcf/s1600/late-cretaceous_custom-a0b7d2e18c29d2135d64ccfbc70b8faf015bd7eb-s40-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Late Cretaceous North America" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0I5EIk07Mk5eLoJoog-4hvnrnHKuB2rxEomULBku03-Ws1Ks3yZZd5JSSazIr6nnLu5Jo-l6wMBdp6P4x3L_mjiQskB_pdU7MEzaXZXOAw_I5lzbQ-NxJUFJfpksYXTkE2deGRFRPzcf/s1600/late-cretaceous_custom-a0b7d2e18c29d2135d64ccfbc70b8faf015bd7eb-s40-c85.jpg" height="617" title="Which is, like, nothing in geologic time" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This looks different from the one at the top of this post because they are millions of years apart</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Pretty easy to see right? Well, you can also see it on a county-based electoral map, like this one from 2012:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8axq16iwnVqMIl1xBAW3iKOLhC3tCDsmB6aa29ZoGHSBNMnSrAG9mz1sRndtgkEfG4rE9TeuR3pEPUBIDCtSWDD4ZCXDw3YDudLj5GLd4ltSXGxxSRJDXNhFexReloccsoCKRHiHhDJ4O/s1600/2012-usa-election-map-by-county-nyt.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8axq16iwnVqMIl1xBAW3iKOLhC3tCDsmB6aa29ZoGHSBNMnSrAG9mz1sRndtgkEfG4rE9TeuR3pEPUBIDCtSWDD4ZCXDw3YDudLj5GLd4ltSXGxxSRJDXNhFexReloccsoCKRHiHhDJ4O/s1600/2012-usa-election-map-by-county-nyt.png" height="418" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously though, look back and forth. It's eerie.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Correlation isn't the same as causation, dummy," you sneer smugly as you sip your venti pumpkin spice latte and pat yourself on the back. Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. But not today. Today you're going to spit that pumpkin spice right back out onto your keyboard, you pretentious hipster. Because the Cretaceous Coast is demonstrably responsible for that strip of blue counties in the South.</div>
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<div>
Here's how it works: between 129 and 65 million years ago, the Cretaceous Coast was, in fact, a coast. That meant it was a hotbed of aquatic life, like plankton. When the water started receding, that life stayed behind and died, leaving a <i>massive</i> deposit of organic material. If you know anything about agriculture (and why <i>wouldn't </i>you in this day and age?), you know that organic material leads to ideal growing conditions for crops.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoqIaTKZGN1dqc7LWqmr3Z_k78_YAWvZ7DNWu7TGT4uOCLOvWnX_nAaLv40ctIGTGWwTDnX2iFL-l-z0ts9UVd4I3sm1UwzZ1vzc2e_KOy0nkg6vr_0Rmsl4c4iAOen8XUJbbHg91V0AKl/s1600/Humanreaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Human Reaper Larva" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoqIaTKZGN1dqc7LWqmr3Z_k78_YAWvZ7DNWu7TGT4uOCLOvWnX_nAaLv40ctIGTGWwTDnX2iFL-l-z0ts9UVd4I3sm1UwzZ1vzc2e_KOy0nkg6vr_0Rmsl4c4iAOen8XUJbbHg91V0AKl/s1600/Humanreaper.jpg" height="359" title="It's a long story. Play Mass Effect." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It can also be used to generate a representative of your race while all the actual humans are systematically destroyed.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Fast forward about 64,999,800 years to the early 1800s, and you've got yourself an agrarian, slave-based economy with nutrient-rich soil and an unprecedented boom in a cash crop (cotton) thanks to new industrial advances. The former Cretaceous Coast was primo real estate for plantation owners because it had some of the most hospitable soil on Earth for the humble cotton plant.</div>
<span id="goog_767888008"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheIsy8vb5ax58hXb_ioWl6rvjTuO7uOQ03U9VxcyywTrVyjOJyyNtfuk2ps9z04-Vq8XCB5rZaT52hPSVB_Q-OH3BMzh_9r3N-Bztdk-myJGcFZNVfMbf8sCeDlmvR8nJGutuQES4mBPiW/s1600/Slavery_map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheIsy8vb5ax58hXb_ioWl6rvjTuO7uOQ03U9VxcyywTrVyjOJyyNtfuk2ps9z04-Vq8XCB5rZaT52hPSVB_Q-OH3BMzh_9r3N-Bztdk-myJGcFZNVfMbf8sCeDlmvR8nJGutuQES4mBPiW/s1600/Slavery_map.jpg" height="640" width="405" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not so hospitable for human rights, though</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span id="goog_767888009"></span>Now, I don't know if you were aware of this, but a lot of that cotton was actually picked by <i>slaves</i>. And at the time, chattel slavery was an institution that consisted almost entirely of white owners and black slaves. After the Civil War brought slavery to an end, most of those black slaves stayed where they were. Their families were there, and the only work many of them knew was there as well...and this time, they'd get <i>paid </i>to do it.</div>
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<div>
Eventually, those former slaves gained the right to vote. Some time later, they gained the actual ability to vote without being turned away at the polls or simply lynched for trying. Certain events transpired and certain party platforms were adopted, too complicated to go into here, that led to black voters almost universally voting for democrats in every election.</div>
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<div>
And that's how a geologic feature that hasn't been around since the dinosaurs continues to affect the political landscape of the American south to this very day.</div>
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<div>
Holy Shit.</div>
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And seriously, vote.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7506918067679436626.post-11442685990439766402014-10-15T11:21:00.000-04:002014-11-26T09:15:02.200-05:00Holy Shit, Gamergate!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignTguXSNgi64okiPSnsROHTmk_lWr5wlZ2xq44IjrvpL81Vn6sK9YaDupmiY0IKBQYLSkBYJVT2j-jtt-0ggl6ivpriKiYpQAQ48Rinmnf-pDuCDmjCONd2viUqrxF7R2l0lhtgCbYLXz/s1600/389px-ESRB_2013_Mature.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="ESRB M Rating" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEignTguXSNgi64okiPSnsROHTmk_lWr5wlZ2xq44IjrvpL81Vn6sK9YaDupmiY0IKBQYLSkBYJVT2j-jtt-0ggl6ivpriKiYpQAQ48Rinmnf-pDuCDmjCONd2viUqrxF7R2l0lhtgCbYLXz/s1600/389px-ESRB_2013_Mature.png" title="M for Misogyny is more like it" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If only.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
For as long as I can remember, "gamer" has been one of the main points of my identity. Gaming was a constant companion for most of my youth. Several of my strongest and most enduring friendships were formulated on the foundation of shared interest in games. Games were a comfort and a release when I was a morose teenager.</div>
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<div>
Recently, I've started to shy away from calling myself a gamer. There are several reasons for the change. I have newer, more important ways to identify myself these days -- like husband, and more recently, father. But it's not like I don't still play. I do. Every chance I get, even if said chances are few and far between.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The bigger reason is Gamergate. Gamergate is a movement that is ostensibly about corruption in the games journalism industry. That's a very real problem. There have been instances of <a href="http://kotaku.com/5893785/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores" target="_blank">journalists being fired</a> for writing honest reviews of games whose publishers were providing advertising revenue to the host site. That is all kinds of unethical, and it's not an isolated problem.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4q4_Bc18137vLumSnT9hEJSwYEOdSZSEmz-iNT2YEUpSFlICKnumYRoQNDEQFkPeLJHOq-AIh8GCBFOdTY78AMkMfVGA8NWezKA78TehUwDORmlJ2Tf9ALUSzgdXOaJr7xrefoXuWqHH/s1600/Giant_Bomb_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Giant Bomb" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4q4_Bc18137vLumSnT9hEJSwYEOdSZSEmz-iNT2YEUpSFlICKnumYRoQNDEQFkPeLJHOq-AIh8GCBFOdTY78AMkMfVGA8NWezKA78TehUwDORmlJ2Tf9ALUSzgdXOaJr7xrefoXuWqHH/s1600/Giant_Bomb_logo.png" title="But seriously, fuck Gamespot" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But we got these guys out of it. They're cool I guess.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
But that's not what sparked Gamergate. Gamergate started when the jilted ex-boyfriend of an indie game developer posted a video manifesto that aired all of their dirty laundry, including accusations that she had cheated on him and exchanged sexual favors for positive coverage of her game. The Internet exploded in the way it only does when there's a new woman to harass. Of all people, <i>Adam "Jayne from Firefly" Baldwin</i> coined the movement's title...in the midst of one of his bat-shit, right-wing Twitter rants. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsy54a3GI4owNdng47E2iKVkdipFiEDFfDoocuhlBl5X7j1wxGcPXqqf43N-HmhRcOI9gvBZhAgD1aafeHsCx0HO9w4XTgWv6D-M3_BANzFrEvvJ_EmGRgP5lvP7v7IJ3S42M6vOfAmPrP/s1600/tumblr_ndaqhh9jKx1qzrnsho1_1280.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="BUT OBAMA WANTS EBOLA AND WOMEN ARE SOMETIMES LESS HAVING SEX WITH ME THAN I'D LIKE" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsy54a3GI4owNdng47E2iKVkdipFiEDFfDoocuhlBl5X7j1wxGcPXqqf43N-HmhRcOI9gvBZhAgD1aafeHsCx0HO9w4XTgWv6D-M3_BANzFrEvvJ_EmGRgP5lvP7v7IJ3S42M6vOfAmPrP/s1600/tumblr_ndaqhh9jKx1qzrnsho1_1280.png" title="I mean...what?" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
It could have been a decent movement, to be honest. But from its inception, the people who were saying, "If that's true, it really says something about the state of games journalism" were <i>instantly </i>drowned out by the hordes of ignorant shits screaming, "It must be true! What reason would a <i>jilted ex-boyfriend</i> have to lie about his ex-girlfriend to her peers? Our only reasonable course is to <i>threaten to rape and murder her</i>."</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_mlP3BWtrFptrlJ18aEbrAaYYxTexw8oNV-NHsoYvN9zANDdLqVu2lrMi5sAnZgdGC2Tvht9MVFbSYlKx6Gey8usvsOSf1XXbF1oXx3B39oXch_63ytOOavQIXKVOp5WM4lqszjkOhd1/s1600/1x09_Storming_the_Castle_(28).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_mlP3BWtrFptrlJ18aEbrAaYYxTexw8oNV-NHsoYvN9zANDdLqVu2lrMi5sAnZgdGC2Tvht9MVFbSYlKx6Gey8usvsOSf1XXbF1oXx3B39oXch_63ytOOavQIXKVOp5WM4lqszjkOhd1/s1600/1x09_Storming_the_Castle_(28).png" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They're like this, but with death threats.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
And I am not fucking kidding about that. Zoe Quinn was driven from her home by threats of sexual violence and death, from people who had found and published all of her personal information, including her address. Anyone of any standing in the industry who spoke in her defense was given the same treatment, including Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist critic who had already seen her share of death threats because of her video series that asks the question, "Do the games industry and gaming culture maybe treat women poorly?"</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAIS__oee0S4YqHlUGD6jIzJVkfrTKq6Ks9oRNrQG05lBBgDzjGxThTrBAjuheEXsCGgVdUW5Vp-qX2S-E2iOeeYP5wDO4pGwuHKs-C9dr0Tp2beA706ZXEByBZjvttHT1xz3ZUlo1aKC/s1600/anita-threats.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Threats against Anita Sarkeesian" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKAIS__oee0S4YqHlUGD6jIzJVkfrTKq6Ks9oRNrQG05lBBgDzjGxThTrBAjuheEXsCGgVdUW5Vp-qX2S-E2iOeeYP5wDO4pGwuHKs-C9dr0Tp2beA706ZXEByBZjvttHT1xz3ZUlo1aKC/s1600/anita-threats.JPG" title="This is how "gamers" respond to academic criticism" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GEE I WONDER</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
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<div>
The movement is completely out of control at this point, and it might be the biggest threat to gaming since the industry crashed in 1983. A <a href="http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346" target="_blank">largely falsified</a> rumor about a woman's sex life has started a horrific campaign of harassment against women who are interested in games and want them to be a more inclusive medium. I mean, Jesus Christ, when I was a teenager my heart would have <i>burst with joy</i> if I learned that games were considered "art" enough where they could be subject to feminist critiques. I've always insisted that video games could be more than toys, and now that people outside of the traditional gaming demographic are acknowledging that, a bunch of <i>children</i> are trying to drive them away with <i>death threats</i>.</div>
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So as much as I'm not done with gaming, I'm done being a gamer. I know from the responses within the industry to Anita Sarkeesian and to the Gamergate lunacy that I can look forward to a richer, more diverse culture surrounding games. But gamers? I won't be a part of that world anymore.</div>
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<div>
Holy shit.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17810592897923505042noreply@blogger.com0