Today I Learned #2: Gone for a Wiki Walk

[Ajidica]

Some people even like authors who have died.

Several of my favorite authors are dead, so, checkmate?

 

[Traitorfish]

Some people even like authors who have died.

Several of my favorite authors are dead, so, checkmate?

Not me, if I find out an author is dead I have to flush all of their books down the toilet. I pay thousands in plumbing repairs every year, but it's the principle, y'know?

 

[Hrothbern]

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


nice.

Yeah... the Law of small numbers

 

[BenitoChavez]

TIL that the stigmas of 70000 crocus flowers yields 1 pound the spice saffron.

 

[Takhisis]

I once watched a documentary that followed actual saffron flower pickers in IIRC Morocco. What a life.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that to get more sustainable peace agreements you need more women as negotiators: "the chance that they will last for at least two years increases by 20 percent and the chance that they will last at least 15 years increases by 35 percent"

She [Kaag, Dutch politician] cited the International Peace Institute, an independent think tank with offices in New York, Vienna and Bahrain, that studied 182 peace agreements signed between 1989 and 2011. What seems? If women are involved in the peace negotiations, the chance that they will last for at least two years increases by 20 percent and the chance that they will last at least 15 years increases by 35 percent.

Here a shortcut to a world with less bloodshed revealed itself. But, Kaag said: "This truth is both obvious and discouraging. It makes sense, of course, to have representatives of half the population around the negotiating table. And yet it is clearly the exception rather than the rule. "What a missed opportunity, she argued:" Excluding women from peace processes means conflicts around the world last longer and peace is more likely to fall apart. "

She called it "unfair", a "waste," and more concisely, "just stupid." And she stays with that, even months later when we speak to conclude the series "Women at war" in De Groene Amsterdammer, in which women's rights activists from Yemen, Sudan / Uganda, Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have their say. "From the politically correct point of view, it is not inclusive to keep women out of peace processes, but it is also not smart," says Kaag.

https://www.groene.nl/artikel/stop-niet-sta-op-en-spreek-luider

 

[Birdjaguar]

[Kraken]

Released: A Beast of The Sea, Movies and Elections

WHEN MERRIAM-WEBSTER and Dictionary.com announced their selections for Word of the Year on Monday, it wasn’t terribly surprising that both selected “pandemic” as the word that best summed up 2020, based on search traffic of their online dictionaries. But the runners-up include some more unexpected items. One word highlighted by Merriam-Webster is especially intriguing: “kraken.” How did this name for a mighty, mythical Scandinavian sea monster become one of the most significant terms of 2020? The answer has to do with movie memes, professional hockey and electoral conspiracy theories.

Stories of the “kraken” originated in the tall tales told by sailors of a gigantic creature living in the waters off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. The word itself can be traced back to the Old Norse “kraki,” which became “krake” in Norwegian and Swedish, referring to something twisted or crooked. (“Crooked,” in fact, comes from the same source.) In the form “kraken,” the word got applied to twisty underwater animals both real and imagined. The kraken of Nordic legends was likely based on actual sightings of giant squid and octopuses, but folklore embellished it into a monstrosity capable of creating massive whirlpools and swallowing up even the largest ships.

The word “kraken” entered English in the mid-18th century thanks to translations of a natural history written by the Norwegian bishop Erik Pontoppidan, who described the beast in vivid detail. Stories of the kraken captivated the imagination of many writers, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, who titled an 1830 poem “The Kraken.”

Tennyson imagined the Kraken slumbering in an “ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep” before awaking with apocalyptic fury.

Tennyson’s poem helped in- spire a 1953 science-fiction novel by John Wyndham, “The Kraken Wakes,” about aliens from outer space who land in Earth’s oceans before launching attacks on humans. That same year, Captain Marvel battled a Kraken in an issue of Whiz Comics.

But the key pop-cultural appearance of the Kraken came in 1981, with the special-effects-heavy movie “Clash of the Titans.” Screenwriter Beverley Cross spruced up Greek mythology by fancifully adding the Kraken to the mix. Whereas the original myth has Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus, the movie has Zeus (portrayed by Laurence Olivier) issuing the command to Poseidon, “Let loose the Kraken!” Perseus then must battle the Kraken, “the last of the Titans,” memorably rendered in stop-motion animation.

When “Clash of the Titans” was remade as a big-budget 3-D movie in 2010, Liam Neeson as Zeus gave the dramatic order, “Release the Kraken!” Even before the film was released, the trailer inspired countless Internet memes mocking Mr. Neeson’s over-the-top reading of the line. Thanks in part to the success of those memes, the Kraken became such a prominent cultural icon that it beat out the competition as the name for Seattle’s new National Hockey League expansion team. When the franchise announced the team name of the Seattle Kraken in July, promotional materials connected it to the city’s maritime tradition and to the giant Pacific octopus species living off its shores.

JAMES YANG

The tale of the Kraken took another unlikely turn after the presidential election, as President Trump and his allies have continued to contest the outcome. Sidney Powell, a lawyer for former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, claimed in a Fox Business Network interview that she would “release the Kraken” by revealing evidence of widespread electoral fraud. Since then, the phrase has become a rallying cry for pro-Trump groups, including QAnon conspiracy theorists, who have adopted it as a hashtag on social media. In a series of failed court filings, however, Ms. Powell’s “Kraken” has appeared less mighty than in the original myth.

WORD ON THE STREET

BEN ZIMMER

 

[Hrothbern]

I once watched a documentary that followed actual saffron flower pickers in IIRC Morocco. What a life.

I pay here 10 Euro per gram
A pound in one order would cost 2.800 Euro

 

[r16]

so ı learn the publishing date of a book ı read in the high school after borrowing it from the library . Quite good actually , but like ı was looking for missiles ...

 

[Synobun]

so ı learn the publishing date of a book ı read in the high school after borrowing it from the library . Quite good actually , but like ı was looking for missiles ...

I don't think you'll find many missiles in the library.

 

[r16]

the book Kraken Wakes in which aliens living in Jupiter come and invade Earth , you know , the lovely depths of the oceans with high pressure , and no date on the book cover or whatever because ı was reading it like it was a product of maybe 1970s .

 

[The_J]

TIL that Bhutan is slowy on the way to become Malaria free, but that one of the obstacles are bhuddist monks, who refuse to kill insects o_O.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...amp-out-malaria-along-the-bhutan-india-border

One interesting challenge in Bhutan was the Buddhist aversion, in this deeply religious country, to killing any life form, even a disease-carrying mosquito. Thus the officials spraying buildings with insecticide had to reframe this practice. Rinzin Namgay, Bhutan’s first entomologist, laughs when he remembers that they would tell anxious homeowners during IRS: “We’re just spraying the house. If a mosquito wants to commit suicide by coming in, let it.” Decades ago, some sprayers had to muscle their way into houses, accompanied by police.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that around 1200 BCE a wave of counterfeiting started with silver objects.
The supply of silver was disrupted because of the civilisation collapses starting 1200 BCE and some genius found out that when you added 20% copper to silver, it did not turn more reddish in color when you for example also also added 7% Arsenic.

Abstract
The study of silver, which was an important mean of currency in the Southern Levant during the Bronze and Iron Age periods (~1950–586 BCE), revealed an unusual phenomenon. Silver hoards from a specific, yet rather long timespan, ~1200–950 BCE, contained mostly silver alloyed with copper. This alloying phenomenon is considered here for the first time, also with respect to previous attempts to provenance the silver using lead isotopes. Eight hoards were studied, from which 86 items were subjected to chemical and isotopic analysis. This is, by far, the largest dataset of sampled silver from this timespan in the Near East. Results show the alloys, despite their silvery sheen, contained high percentages of Cu, reaching up to 80% of the alloy. The Ag–Cu alloys retained a silvery tint using two methods, either by using an enriched silver surface to conceal a copper core, or by adding arsenic and antimony to the alloy. For the question of provenance, we applied a mixing model which simulates the contribution of up to three end members to the isotopic composition of the studied samples. The model demonstrates that for most samples, the more likely combination is that they are alloys of silver from Aegean-Anatolian ores, Pb-poor copper, and Pb-rich copper from local copper mines in the Arabah valley (Timna and Faynan). Another, previously suggested possibility, namely that a significant part of the silver originated from the West Mediterranean, cannot be validated analytically. Contextualizing these results, we suggest that the Bronze Age collapse around the Mediterranean led to the termination of silver supply from the Aegean to the Levant in the beginning of the 12th century BCE, causing a shortage of silver. The local administrations initiated sophisticated devaluation methods to compensate for the lack of silver – a suspected forgery. It is further suggested that following the Egyptian withdrawal from Canaan around the mid-12th century BCE, Cu–Ag alloying continued, with the use of copper from Faynan instead of Timna. The revival of long-distance silver trade is evident only in the Iron Age IIA (starting ~950 BCE), when silver was no longer alloyed with copper, and was imported from Anatolia and the West Mediterranean.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440320301898

 

[Samson]

TIL that around 1200 BCE a wave of counterfeiting started with silver objects.
The supply of silver was disrupted because of the civilisation collapses starting 1200 BCE and some genius found out that when you added 20% copper to silver, it did not turn more reddish in color when you for example also also added 7% Arsenic.

Nothing new in this world...

I wonder though, it seems to say it stopped because they got more silver. This was however the start of the bronze age? So copper could be getting more valuable, perhaps that was more of the reason.

 

[Hrothbern]

Nothing new in this world...

exactly
After a while standards, regulations, certificates, etc were put in place to protect us.
Essentially a minted coin is nothing else than a piece of silver getting a certificate (that stamp).

 

[Hrothbern]

Nothing new in this world...

I wonder though, it seems to say it stopped because they got more silver. This was however the start of the bronze age? So copper could be getting more valuable, perhaps that was more of the reason.

The 1200 BCE collapse is also called the Late Bronze Age collapse. AFAIK Iron started to be used more for armor and weaponry. I guess there was enough supply of copper all the time.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The 1200 BCE collapse is also called the Late Bronze Age collapse. AFAIK Iron started to be used more for armor and weaponry. I guess there was enough supply of copper all the time.

Tin is rarer than copper, hence Carthaginian trade with Cornwall. Supposedly enough copper was mined at the Great Orme mine in wales to make 10 million bronze axes (most productive 1700-1400 BCE).

 

[Ajidica]

Tin is rarer than copper, hence Carthaginian trade with Cornwall. Supposedly enough copper was mined at the Great Orme mine in wales to make 10 million bronze axes (most productive 1700-1400 BCE).

Isn't copper also pretty rare? In that what prevented cultures from immediately jumping to Iron was not its availability, but the difficulty in working it?

 

[Hrothbern]

Isn't copper also pretty rare? In that what prevented cultures from immediately jumping to Iron was not its availability, but the difficulty in working it?

Iron is difficult, needing high temperature.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Isn't copper also pretty rare? In that what prevented cultures from immediately jumping to Iron was not its availability, but the difficulty in working it?

Its relatively common at least in the quantities used pre-modern era. 95% of copper mined has been in the last century.

edit: but iron ore is very common.