Bent over to get something from my purse, hanging on the coat tree…bam! right into one of the metal arms. That hurt. A lot. I don’t quite have a shiner, but I do have a very red eye.
Did I mention bashing myself in the eye?
by CJ | May 1, 2016 | Journal | 29 comments
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Oh no! Treat yourself nicely… Or make the most of it costume-wise, accessorize as an Axe-Murderer or some such similar motif and explain to everyone that you had an extra-exciting Walpurgis Nacht.
I think the Eye of Sauron…
Ouchy. Hope it gets better soon.
And watch out for hobbits!
…nasty little hobbitses…
I am doing the Dr. McCoy toe-bounce right now, because I have gotten the trickiest part of next year’s vacation settled. We will be staying in Yellowstone National Park to see the solar eclipse that will cut a swath across the continental US. Hmmm… maybe the salads should consider a road trip for ShejiCon next year?
@chondrite: I’d love to do that road trip for ShejiCon, but many of our associates decide at the last minute and I fear lodgings will be slim pickings… My plan to hand over control to some other Associate would also go by the wayside I fear. If you could recommend a location within a six-hour drive of Yellowstone either for three days before or three days after the eclipse, maybe we could set things up.
Do you have a map showing the path of totality for that eclipse. I just love Bozeman, MT and Buffalo, WY would be a good place as well, but since I don’t know where to look for accommodations I’m stuck.
Here is the link to all things solar eclipse 2017 related:
http://www.eclipse2017.org/eclipse2017_main.htm#
The eclipse happens on August 21, 2017, and starts just off the Oregon coast, then cuts diagonally across the US down to the east coast in South Carolina. Idaho Falls is only a couple of hours from Yellowstone, but there are many cities in and close to the path of totality that may be more convenient for associates.
I have no wish to open a logistical can of worms for anyone, it was merely a suggestion for pondering.
Just can’t leave you alone for a minute, can we? If’n it ain’t one thing it’s another, three or five. The spirits don’t seem to be pleased with all the work on the house.
Ow! I hope you’re better soon.
Co-workers are going to Hopkinsville, KY for the total eclipse. I wouldn’t want to get in the crowd.
BTW this Saturday is Derby Day and I avoid that crowd like the plague! Two week festival for a 2 minute horse race.
Ow! That had to hurt a lot.
Total eclipse in Yellowstone sounds neat. I’ve been trying to get DH interested in going to Yellowstone for years, but so far no luck. I’ll have to see if that conflicts with Worldcon in Helsinki in 2017 – he is interested in going to Helsinki.
Yellowstone is amazing. I think the concept of “ten places/wonders/Xs you simply must see” is highly over-rated. After having been there (my brother lives in nearby Jackson Hole), I now say “Yellowstone is one of the wonders of the world for geology and animal life and utter differentness. You deserve to experience it.”
Ouch! Aïe! — I hope your eye is better soon. One suggests a piratical eye patch. Aarr!
— I’ve just watched an old Nova special, listed as Season 9, Episode 9, “Ancient Computer,” from 2013, on the decoding of the Antikythera Mechanism by an international team. They’re attributing it to Archimedes himself as the designer, and say the ship carrying it and a lot of other treasures, was under orders of General Marcus Gaius Marcellus, circa 70 to 50 BCE. The show goes into a lot of detail on how they worked out the mechanism’s functions, which is brilliant and enigmatic, getting into all sorts of history and tech, math, and astronomy, and curiously, lots of prime numbers. The show also says the Roman General gave orders to capture Archimedes alive. But a Roman foot soldier gave orders to “an old man drawing circles in the dust,” and when the old man ignored him, the soldier ran him through with his sword, thus killing Archimedes. I’d never heard the story. (My formal education didn’t include classical antiquities, sadly.) I was very impressed with the special. This was available on iTunes, and is likely available on Amazon Prime and possibly Netflix and Hulu, wherever the Nova TV series is available. — For non-US viewers, “Nova” is a long-running TV series, science-oriented, from PBS, the Public Broadcasting System, which is a great source of programs on adult and children’s education and fine dramas.
Ah, during the special, they also show how they obtained 3D imaging of the device interior and surface detail enhancement to read the inscriptions (in ancient Greek, Corinthian month-names) and worked out the majority of the device. There was also a very good hunch by a Greek archaeologist, who searched through the cases of findings from the ship, and discovered additional fragments toward completing the puzzle. Very, very fine program; recommended. — The level of astronomical and mathematical and technical achievement is impressive by modern standards, more so by ancient standards; but it shows a few people had such specialized knowledge back then, and at least one man, Archimedes, with the genius to put it all together into “the first mechanical computer in history.”
They give an outline of how they think portions of knowledge related to the device were passed down through history, from Syracuse, Corinth, and Roman, then to the Byzantine Empire, then to Arab and Moorish scholars, then to European Renaissance scholars and inventors, down to clockmakers today. Also interesting.
All in all, a great, highly compact hour of video. Great stuff.
Archimedes may have designed a similar device, but this one couldn’t have belonged to him.
Cicero says that Marcellus brought back to Rome (in or shortly after 212 BC) two astronomical devices made by Archimedes, one of which was kept in his family as an heirloom, and one was donated to the Temple of Virtue.
Also, coins recovered from the same wreck were dated to between 76 and 67 BC, so it couldn’t possibly be earlier than that. The vessel was also carrying vases in the style made in Rhodes, suggesting that it may have come from there.
The story about the death of Archimedes, in various versions, dates from antiquity, but it’s the kind of semi-mythological story that was was often told about philosophers, and is unlikely to be literally true.
Plutarch gives a more plausible version: “Others again relate that, as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Certain it is that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer; and that he sought for his kindred and honoured them with signal favours.”
@GreenWyvern — Thanks, I’d mangled the dates, hadn’t retained them properly after watching the documentary. But yes, that matches what the team presented. The Nova narrator gives the bit about the “old man drawing circles in the dust,” without citing a specific source. The documentary does cite Cicero’s commentary itself, though, elsewhere in the show.
From the documentary, they seemed to be of the opinion that the Antikythera Mechanism was, yes, dated from around 70 to 50 BCE, the same as the bronze and silver coins and the amphorae of oil and wine found at the site of the wreck. Unless I missed it, they were saying the device was not from circa 212 BCE.
Hmm, now I want to watch again to see what I didn’t absorb properly the first time.
It’s a very, very curious thing that all the numbers are reduced to prime numbers.
The special gets into how the ancient Greeks had worked out lunar and solar cycles to such precision, and how someone like Archimedes was able to build a mechanical computer model so precisely in those times.
Wonderful stuff.
BCS, I tried to drop you an e-mail but got no reply. Is the address I have for you still functional?
This is what I get for not checking my Yahoo account for an embarrassingly long while. :-/ It should still be fine. Hang on! 🙂
I trust you’ve heard about TRAPPIST 1 and its three small presumedly rocky planets? The star is class M8, a very small, cool red dwarf. The third planet may be at the far side of the habitable zone. Somehow it’s got to be named “Darkover”!
If it had four planets almost certainly. Darkover was Cottmann IV if I recall correctly. (Don’t force me to actually go and do the research)
@Teasel, No need. You are correct.
Oh, I do think so.
“The Force is strong with this one.”
This morning, as I was listening to my local classical music radio station (streaming at allclassical.org), twice the immediately recognizable Star Wars theme interrupted for several seconds. Shortly after they did play a Star Wars medley that was queued up and waiting. (They must use Windows to run their music-playing app!)
May the 4th be with you, all day. 😉
I heard the Star Wars theme on the radio around noon today, briefly wondered why and then realized, “Duh… May the Fourth be with you!” Surprisingly, the three other people with me had never heard of this. Happy Star Wars Day!
If you’re interested in Roman history, Mary Beard’s new BBC TV series Ultimate Rome is being broadcast weekly in the UK. Mary Beard is, of course, professor of classics at Cambridge.
The first episode can be found on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYjnRAFFy4g
It’s worth watching because Mary Beard always has her own interesting take on things, and most of the show is shot on location at a variety of historical sites and in museums.
In the first episode, she gives a broad overview from the foundation of Rome to Augustus.
I’m streaming Acorn. It might be there. I’m still learning to navigate that site–
Thanks, GreenWyvern. 🙂
Thank you, GreenWyvern! Part I has a lot more detail than I recall from Durant so many years ago. The program might over-apply modern standards, but the visuals are great. My father took a circum-Italy cruise, and that seems very attractive to me now.
Episode 2 of Ultimate Rome can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urJbBsdvjKU
Enjoy! 🙂
Fantastic and exciting. — How strangely modern and yet so different and so much the same, all at the same time.