TIL: Today I Learned

[Birdjaguar]

I'm ready to donate $10 to the nameless entity that gets all the money.

 

[HoloDoc]

Today I learned about exploding head syndrome. It's considerably less mindblowing (sorry...) than you'd expect. It's just hearing loud noises when falling asleep or waking up.

This is also known as parenthood.

Well, he can mention Poland without fear of the Mongolian Horde questionable use of DNA Haplogroups to demonstrate a point nobody cares about and might be a bit racist ruining the thread.

What's weird is that I was just a lurker for a long time, but there are enough bumps from time to time in World History that I know exactly who you're talking about.

Yes - the Orleanists, the Legitimists and the Bonapartistes.

I knew a guy once who was descended from Napoleon. Canadian guy.

 

[Cutlass]

TIL that there are 43,000 buildings in Manhattan. 3/4 of the square footage of buildings was built between 1900 and 1930. And 40% of buildings could not be built today because of current zoning codes.


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html?_r=0

 

[The_J]

I just did the math.

The average expected return on every $2 ticket is higher than $2

But the median isn't ^^.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

TIL that there are 43,000 buildings in Manhattan. 3/4 of the square footage of buildings was built between 1900 and 1930. And 40% of buildings could not be built today because of current zoning codes.


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html?_r=0

Given the number of buildings that are in the neighborhood of a hundred years old I'm astonished that only 40% don't meet current codes. Due to being a Californian I am pretty much accustomed to building codes having gone through such extensive upgrades that anything more than about twenty years old will be almost impossible to push through as 'existing structure,' much less rebuilt as is.

 

[Cutlass]

Given the number of buildings that are in the neighborhood of a hundred years old I'm astonished that only 40% don't meet current codes. Due to being a Californian I am pretty much accustomed to building codes having gone through such extensive upgrades that anything more than about twenty years old will be almost impossible to push through as 'existing structure,' much less rebuilt as is.

Generally they aren't going to make you make structural changes in the East unless you're repurposing the building. Electrical would have been upgraded, and plumbing. The rest, it's generally fine so long as the building is sound. You don't have to upgrade the structure because it's not a natural disaster zone that has to be defended against.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Generally they aren't going to make you make structural changes in the East unless you're repurposing the building. Electrical would have been upgraded, and plumbing. The rest, it's generally fine so long as the building is sound. You don't have to upgrade the structure because it's not a natural disaster zone that has to be defended against.

Yeah. Developments in engineering for seismic effects have come fast and furious, and no one can really find a good justification for "we can just hold off until an earthquake knocks it down and then build something better engineered in its place."

 

[Birdjaguar]

TIL: Henry II of France introduced the concept of publishing the description of an invention in the form of a patent. The idea was to require an inventor to disclose his invention in exchange for monopoly rights to the patent. The description is called a patent "specification". The first patent specification was submitted by the inventor Abel Foullon for "Usaige & Description de l'holmetre" (a type of rangefinder) in 1551.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL: Henry II of France introduced the concept of publishing the description of an invention in the form of a patent. The idea was to require an inventor to disclose his invention in exchange for monopoly rights to the patent. The description is called a patent "specification". The first patent specification was submitted by the inventor Abel Foullon for "Usaige & Description de l'holmetre" (a type of rangefinder) in 1551.

It is older
This below is on the Patent Law of Venice of 1474
But I remember from some long discussions with an Arab hotel night receptionist, that something similar was there in the Golden Period of Arab inventions. Never checked that.
(the West claimed many inventions that were already done by Arabs in their golden days and their intercontinental trade with Asia AND with Venice. This guy was a walking encyclopedia)
Patent laws had differing motives and were a hybrid of those with other balances in varying countries. From seeing more wealth coming from general access to all, by paying an individual inventor, to break the guilds protection.... from protecting the economies against other economies/empires.... towards an ordinary way to leverage tax by the government on techs and commodities since centuries known.

The dominant view among historians and legal scholars is that the Venetian Patent Act provides the legal foundation of the modern patent system.[4][need quotation to verify] Meshbesher observing "the impact of the Venetian patent law and practice on the history of patent law has been studied by several authors and is well-recognized, hence the first patent statute [author's emphasis] is usually considered to be the one was enacted (sic) in the Republic of Venice in 1474".[5]

The most widely accepted[6] translation of the old Venetian dialect original is reproduced below.

“ [T]here are in this city, and also there come temporarily by reason of its greatness and goodness, men from different places and most clever minds, capable of devising and inventing all manner of ingenious contrivances. And should it be provided,that the works and contrivances invented by them, others having seen them could not make them and take their honor, men of such kind would exert their minds, invent and make things which would be of no small utility and benefit to our State.Therefore, decision will be passed that, by authority of this Council, each person who will make in this city any new ingenious contrivance, not made heretofore in our dominion, as soon as it is reduced to perfection, so that it can be used and exercised, shall give notice of the same to the office of our Provisioners of Common. It being forbidden to any other in any territory and place of ours to make any other contrivance in the form and resemblance thereof, without the consent and license of the author up to ten years. And, however, should anybody make it, the aforesaid author and inventor will have the liberty to cite him before any office of this city, by which office the aforesaid who shall infringe be forced to pay him the sum of one hundred ducates and the contrivance immediately destroyed. Being then in liberty of our Government at his will to take and use in his need any of the said contrivances and instruments, with this condition, however, that no others than the authors shall exercise them.[6] ”
One leading patent scholar also stating that "the international patent experience of nearly 500 years has merely brought amendments or improvements upon the solid core established in Renaissance Venice".[7]

Some historians question this dominant view and claim that the Venetian Patent Statute of 1474 "functioned primarily as a codification of prior customs [and] did not introduce new principles.[3] "Neither did it mark the beginnings of the modern patent system."[3]According to Joanna Kostylo, "t should best understood as declaratory instrument codifying existing general principles and customs of granting patent rights for innovations in Venice".[3] Accordingly she states that the significance of the Venetian statute lies "in its broad and general character," in the sense that it attempted to "apply general rules to the granting of patents rather than conferring occasional individual favours (gratiae) in response to individual petitions."[3] It is also significant that the "legislation focuse[d] on protecting and rewarding individual inventors, in contrast to monopolies reserved to organized groups (guilds)."[3]

This alternative view is hard to reconcile with the large shift in patenting activity observed after 1474.[4][need quotation to verify] As observed by Allan Gomme former librarian of the UK Patent Office "there was, then, a regular practice of granting patents in Venice which began about 1475..".[8] See also Statistics, below. The majority view remains that the Venetian Patent Statute marked a watershed moment and was indeed the first basis for a patent system, notwithstanding earlier isolated patents having been issued.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Patent_Statute

EDIT:
I see here in that same article a kind of proto patent in 1421
The concept of getting benefits into the public domain was understood.

Filippo Brunelleschi, famous Florentine architect and engineer, who claimed ownership over engineering techniques against "corporatist interests and monopoly of the guilds." In 1421, he effectively obtained a patent for a cargo boat. The Republic of Florence granted him a three-year exclusive right on his invention in exchange for disclosing it to the public.[3] The cargo boat sank on its first voyage on the river Arno.[10]

 

[Hrothbern]

I checked on that IP protection in the Islamic Golden Age (750-1250 and surpassed by Europe in 1600).
The short conclusion: IP in the sense of patents with legislation, like Venice in the 15th century, was not there in the Islamic Golden Age.

If I believe a 389 page thesis on intellectual property law and Islamic Shari’a, the public domain interests, the sharing of knowledge did prevail over individuals, although individual authors and inventors were compensated by the state, taken care of financially and in terms of acknowledgement. The focus of the thesis how to handle IP and Shari’a, in todays capitalist environment.
I am not totally convinced yet about that conclusion for the early muslim period, because the conclusions of the thesis are conveniently conform with the current Islamic main stream convictions of scholars. It also focuses more more on scholar than engineering information.
Whereby noted that the current main stream convictions are the result of the past evolution within the Islam. The early Islam favored education, science and rationalisation leading to their Golden Age, until a more irrational and anti-philosophical religious conviction gained ground, actively attacking the value of education and science. This Ash’arism started already around 900 and is I think one of the main reasons of the final decline of Arab science.
From that thesis:

Authorship (page 55): https://eprints.qut.edu.au/76106/1/Ezieddin M. Jaballa_Elmahjub_Thesis.pdf
Since the pre-Islamic period, known as Jahiliyya, original authorship in literary works, specifically, poetry has been highly regarded. At that time, the emergence of a professional poet in a tribe was a matter of supreme importance. The words of the poet were considered to be the most effective weapon in defending the tribe against other tribes because a poem plays a role as a repository for recording the major events in a tribe. With the advent of Islam, poetry remained a matter of great social importance. Consequently, the Qur’an addressed it in a separate sura (chapter) titled ‘the Poets’ in recognition of its influence on various social affairs. In this sura the Qur’an classifies the types of poetry which are compliant with its teachings and those which are not. If a poet creates a poem, their work is transmitted to the public by recitation. Each time the poem is recited, the person reciting it must include the full name of the poet, and by putting his or her name over the poem a poet could claim ownership of it.
Due to the high status enjoyed by poets, some less creative individuals tried to ‘cash in’ by forging or plagiarising others’ poems. These practices were strictly monitored and harshly condemned, 37 and were punishable by banishing the wrongdoer from the community (among the most severe of punishments).38 Ibn Salam (d. 846 CE), in his highly acclaimed treaty Tabakat Fuhūl Ashu’ara (Classifications of Prominent Poets), referred to claims and counter-claims of poem thefts from the pre-Islamic period till his death.39

But aside of that, the big public libraries around 1000 AD, with massive state funding, also to pay new contributors to the knowledge, were aimed at spreading knowledge.

Perhaps also good to know that tribalism had to be overcome by the expanding Islam empire. Religion and language important.
And perhaps the religion needed to forge the conquered tribes into one empire, is the downfall at the same time, after the rise of Ash’arism, of the rational knowledge of their original open culture, affecting economy and power.

The rise to power of the Abbasid caliphate in the year 750 was, as Bernard Lewis put it in The Arabs in History (1950), “a revolution in the history of Islam, as important a turning point as the French and Russian revolutions in the history of the West.” Instead of tribe and ethnicity, the Abbasids made religion and language the defining characteristics of state identity. This allowed for a relatively cosmopolitan society in which all Muslims could participate in cultural and political life. Their empire lasted until 1258, when the Mongols sacked Baghdad and executed the last Abbasid caliph (along with a large part of the Abbasid population). During the years that the Abbasid empire thrived, it deeply influenced politics and society from Tunisia to India.
from a nice article on the rise and decline of science and the Islam
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thanks for adding to the topic!

 

[Takhisis]

Perhaps also good to know that tribalism had to be overcome by the expanding Islam empire.

Yes and no. The split between Shi'a and Sunna resulted from a dispute over succession to the post of Successor of the Prophet; Persians and Arabs clashed often, and in Spain a huge issue was the eternal strife between Berber Muslims and Arabic Muslims.

I'll also add that the author simplifies things when he claims the Abbasids had an empire that lasted for ~500 years. Abbasids were Caliphs (spiritual leaders) after the overthrow of the Umayyads but not always temporal leaders. They were a bit like the Popes and their realm in Central Italy. In fact, many Emirs and Sultans were nominally followers of one Caliph or another (Abbasids, or the Fatimids from North Africa, or the Umayyads in Spain) but were effectively independent. It's… complicated.

 

[Hrothbern]

Yes and no. The split between Shi'a and Sunna resulted from a dispute over succession to the post of Successor of the Prophet; Persians and Arabs clashed often, and in Spain a huge issue was the eternal strife between Berber Muslims and Arabic Muslims.

I'll also add that the author simplifies things when he claims the Abbasids had an empire that lasted for ~500 years. Abbasids were Caliphs (spiritual leaders) after the overthrow of the Umayyads but not always temporal leaders. They were a bit like the Popes and their realm in Central Italy. In fact, many Emirs and Sultans were nominally followers of one Caliph or another (Abbasids, or the Fatimids from North Africa, or the Umayyads in Spain) but were effectively independent. It's… complicated.

Ok,
Whereby noted that style differences need some breaking point that is easier to put on a banner when things polarise. You can describe the protestant conflict around predestination in theological terms, as was also done in the Low Lands, but that conflict was mosttly described during that bloody time for mobs and the elite, as the conflict between the "rekkelijken" and the "preciezen", the "elastic" and the "precise", or more tolerant vs more strict.

But the basic point regarding science, regarding the Aristotle embracing dominating school until 900, the emerging of the anti-rationalism, anti-Aristotle, anti-philosophy Ash’arism.
Do you think the same on that ?

 

[Takhisis]

I need to read more on Ash'arism and I'm not sure I'm up to that at this time of day night.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I learned this a while ago, but...

Not-so-fun fact: One of the side effects of levodopa is hallucinations.

 

[Commodore]

TIL: Incest is illegal in every state except New Jersey. Of course different states have different definitions on what constitutes incest, but New Jersey is the only state that says it is completely cool to get it on with your family.

What is wrong with New Jersey?

 

[HoloDoc]

TIL: Incest is illegal in every state except New Jersey. Of course different states have different definitions on what constitutes incest, but New Jersey is the only state that says it is completely cool to get it on with your family.

What is wrong with New Jersey?

Are you saying you wouldn't want to marry your cousin? They're so darned attractive.

 

[Takhisis]

I learned this a while ago, but...

Not-so-fun fact: One of the side effects of levodopa is hallucinations.

I've never met anybody whose levodopa made them have hallucinations.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I've never met anybody whose levodopa made them have hallucinations.

How many people do you know that take levodopa?

 

[Takhisis]

Parkinson's disease is relatively prevalent in one side of my family. The old-age variety.