Today I Learned #3: There's a wiki for everything!

[Zkribbler]

And you learned this how?

The DVD had a making-of and a commentary features.

 

[Samson]

TIL that a cars price does not depend on its age much, once it gets over about 10 years old. Here are a couple of plots from the prices at the auction:

Some models that have been made for years:



All cars sold, by make:

 

[GinandTonic]

TIL where the British phrase "nonce" meaning sex offender comes from. Before dedicated prison wings for inmates who weren't safe to be in circulation with other prisoners NONCE was written on the cell door. Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise.

 

[The_J]

TIL that a cars price does not depend on its age much, once it gets over about 10 years old. Here are a couple of plots from the prices at the auction:

Some models that have been made for years:

I guess once you hit "pretty-much-worth-nothing", the change will not anymore be significant .

Unless you go back like 50 years, then it'll be the opposite again.

 

[Takhisis]

TIL where the British phrase "nonce" meaning sex offender comes from. Before dedicated prison wings for inmates who weren't safe to be in circulation with other prisoners NONCE was written on the cell door. Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise.

I have to quote Wiktionary on the issue:

1975. Unknown, derived from British criminal slang. Several origins have been proposed; possibly derived from dialectal nonce, nonse (“stupid, worthless individual”) (but this cannot be shown to predate nonce "child-molester" and is likely a toned-down usage of the same insult), or Nance, nance (“effeminate man, homosexual”), from nancy or nancyboy. The rhyme with ponce has also been noted.

As prison slang also said to be an acronym for "Not On Normal Communal Exercise" (Stevens 2012), but this is likely a backronym.​

 

[Broken_Erika]

TIL that Patrick Stewart lost his hair when he was 19

 

[GinandTonic]

I have to quote Wiktionary on the issue:

1975. Unknown, derived from British criminal slang. Several origins have been proposed; possibly derived from dialectal nonce, nonse (“stupid, worthless individual”) (but this cannot be shown to predate nonce "child-molester" and is likely a toned-down usage of the same insult), or Nance, nance (“effeminate man, homosexual”), from nancy or nancyboy. The rhyme with ponce has also been noted.

As prison slang also said to be an acronym for "Not On Normal Communal Exercise" (Stevens 2012), but this is likely a backronym.​

But ponce and nonce have completely different meanings, different registers etc. Bonus -

 

[PhroX]

TIL that in the US "cider" refers to cloudy apple juice and not the alcoholic drink.

 

[Gorbles]

TIL where the British phrase "nonce" meaning sex offender comes from. Before dedicated prison wings for inmates who weren't safe to be in circulation with other prisoners NONCE was written on the cell door. Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise.

Fun tangent, I'm Northern (capital N, lowercase n, not sure, whatever), and "nonce" meant "stupid / idiot" for me growing up. I never actually knew about it being used for sex offenders until I used it (as a pretty light insult) to some goon ranting about a TV show, and he threatened (well, "threatened") to sue me because I'd called him a child molester. Cue my complete bafflement and not a small amount of laughter.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that a Milanese friar wrote in the 14th century a chronicle on Markland, the land west of Greenland: North America.
Also mentioning that Vikings from Greenland came there to get slaves...
Only one copy of the unfinished chronicle is known.
A very long article and worth reading !

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792

Abstract
The Cronica universalis written by the Milanese friar Galvaneus Flamma (it. Galvano Fiamma, d. c. 1345) contains an astonishing reference to a terra que dicitur Marckalada, situated west from Greenland. This land is recognizable as the Markland mentioned by some Icelandic sources and identified by scholars as some part of the Atlantic coast of North America. Galvaneus’s reference, probably derived by oral sources heard in Genoa, is the first mention of the American continent in the Mediterranean region, and gives evidence of the circulation (out of the Nordic area and 150 years before Columbus) of narratives about lands beyond Greenland. This article provides a transcription of the passage, explains its context in the Cronica universalis, compares it to the other (Nordic) references of Markland, and discusses the possible origin of Galvaneus’s mention of Markland in light of Galvaneus’s biography and working method.

 

[GinandTonic]

This rather undermines the rebranding of the Vikings as not just rapists and pillagers, but as fluffy cuddly artisans. The mission to the Americas to get wood was also about slaving. Probably raping along the way, though doubtless with a unique and valuable cultural tradition.

 

[Takhisis]

If you've actually read their own tales about it (Grænlendinga Saga, Eriks Saga) the Norse went to Greenland for what they also went for anywhere else (as told in their many other sagas): trade and/or pillage. Soapstone, flour, metals, lumber, slaves, salt, fish, whale meat, honey, bird feathers, furs, cloth, and anything else of value. All freely tradeable with other peoples, too, which shows how brutal that age was.

 

[Sofista]

This rather undermines the rebranding of the Vikings as not just rapists and pillagers, but as fluffy cuddly artisans. The mission to the Americas to get wood was also about slaving. Probably raping along the way, though doubtless with a unique and valuable cultural tradition.

At the time, everyone thought the Vikings were the Neighbors from Hell. It kind of paints a picture.

Once Leif and the gang realized the skraeling didn't have anything like easily-taken monasteries burgeoning with gold, but had plenty of arrows and spears instead, they simply left.

 

[The_J]

TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis
While having the body of Adonis is quite some compliment, I didn't know that he was a product of non-consentual incest between his mother and grandfather (the latter didn't consent). Now... that's not quite the compliment.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that the Maoris, when bringing NZ into culture to provide more food, burned down a tremendous amount of forest starting around the year 1297 (±30 s.d.).
Quite a devastating event and measurable in antarctic ice samples.
Estimated forest area before the Maoris is 90% and now after all the cultivation of land 25%.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03858-9

Abstract
New Zealand was among the last habitable places on earth to be colonized by humans1. Charcoal records indicate that wildfires were rare prior to colonization and widespread following the 13th- to 14th-century Māori settlement2, but the precise timing and magnitude of associated biomass-burning emissions are unknown1,3, as are effects on light-absorbing black carbon aerosol concentrations over the pristine Southern Ocean and Antarctica4. Here we used an array of well-dated Antarctic ice-core records to show that while black carbon deposition rates were stable over continental Antarctica during the past two millennia, they were approximately threefold higher over the northern Antarctic Peninsula during the past 700 years. Aerosol modelling5 demonstrates that the observed deposition could result only from increased emissions poleward of 40° S—implicating fires in Tasmania, New Zealand and Patagonia—but only New Zealand palaeofire records indicate coincident increases. Rapid deposition increases started in 1297 (±30 s.d.) in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, consistent with the late 13th-century Māori settlement and New Zealand black carbon emissions of 36 (±21 2 s.d.) Gg y−1 during peak deposition in the 16th century. While charcoal and pollen records suggest earlier, climate-modulated burning in Tasmania and southern Patagonia6,7, deposition in Antarctica shows that black carbon emissions from burning in New Zealand dwarfed other preindustrial emissions in these regions during the past 2,000 years, providing clear evidence of large-scale environmental effects associated with early human activities across the remote Southern Hemisphere.

 

[Birdjaguar]

TIL; I did not know this was a thing.

Where Was the Brunanburh Battle? 1,000 Years Later, It’s Still a Fight

Academics, amateurs clash over Britain’s ancient history; ‘How dare you Yank’
BY ALISTAIR MACDONALD

BARNSDALE, England—Over 1,000 years ago, vast armies from what are now Scotland and Ireland swept into a field here to be defeated by soldiers from the emerging nation of England. No they didn’t, says Michael Livingston, an American historian, who argues that the battle known as Brunanburh happened some 100 miles west, near Liverpool. Mr. Livingston is flat out wrong, says Damo Bullen, a British music festival organizer turned bookseller, who like many others says the battle happened somewhere else entirely.

In Britain, historians love to fight over battle sites, but few elicit such stridence and obsession as Brunanburh. There are more than 30 proposed locations for the battle, which took place in 937, and helped shape what would become England.

Brunanburh’s historic role, and a dearth of contemporary sources describing where it happened, have led people to war over its location for centuries, making it one of the fiercest battle battles. Traditionally the realm of bickering academics, the issue has grown more heated as social media gives a platform for amateur archaeologists and have-ago historians. Battle recommenced this year when Mr. Livingston, a professor at The Citadel, South Carolina’s military college, released a book pinpointing Brunanburh as happening on the Wirral Peninsula, near Liverpool. Mr. Livingston started delving into Brunanburh over a decade ago and has suffered vitriol for his views ever since, he said, including receiving a death threat.

“I started getting these communications that were strident and extremely angry,” he said. “It was: How dare you Yank, get involved in ‘our history,’ ” he said. Tensions are clear in polarized online reviews of the book, “Never Greater Slaughter,” where those critical talk of “shoddy research” and a “socalled historian.”

“It’s simple to say that social media and the internet have changed everything, but it’s also simply true,” said Mr. Livingston, who believes the opening up of academic debate is overall a good thing, even if he could do without the nastiness. His website asks that if people need to contact him: “Please send him a friendly email.”

One non-abusive adversary is Michael Wood. The lauded British historian and TV presenter thinks Mr. Livingston and others arguing for the same battle location are wrong, and says he’s been subject to hostility from “the Wirral lot” for saying that. “The whole thing is based on the interpretation of a single place name,” said Mr. Wood, referring to the town of Bromborough in the Wirral. Mr. Wood first got interested in Brunanburh over 50 years ago, when as a teenager he read a book on the battle. He has a long list of reasons why he believes it most likely happened in the area around Barnsdale, near the northern English town of Doncaster, including its location on a north-to-south thoroughfare and a nearby fort and spring, two things referenced in an account from the time.

Nonsense, says Mr. Livingston. The Wirral fits the logistics and politics of the battle, and is backed up by old sources and artifacts. Those artifacts are being dug up by Wirral Archaeology, a group of local history enthusiasts, who have found the remains of a belt-strap, weapons and other treasures on what they reckon is the Brunanburh battlefield. These have been sent to a university for testing that could show their age and where they originated.

One member, Peter Jenkins, blames “keyboard warriors” for the attacks against Mr. Livingston and others. Historians, amateurs and professionals alike, largely agree on this much: The battle happened when Ireland-based Vikings and two kingdoms from around what is now northwest England and Scotland came to destroy Æthelstan, a king who had consolidated his control of much of what became England. They were routed in a blood-drenched fight in which there were “never yet as many people killed before this with sword’s edge,” according to one contemporary account.

But where?

Mr. Bullen, the former music-festival organizer who now runs a bookstore in Scotland, says he often contacts supporters of the Wirral argument. “I said, ‘guys, I am sorry, but you are wrong,’” he said of heated discussions. The 45-year-old accuses his adversaries of arrogance. Mr. Bullen’s interest in archaeology was inspired by watching Mr. Wood’s TV programs as a child. But he dismisses the historian’s theory on Brunanburh as having no depth. “He is a good historian, but he is not a detective,” he said.

Mr. Bullen believes the battle happened near the northern English town of Burnley, pointing to a local hill fort and grave from that era among other evidence. He has written a poem to highlight his claims: Fathers & princes, kings & sons, All mingled for the fray, Death dips & darts, for many hearts This was their final day.

Britain is pockmarked with battle sites given its long, violent history but pinpointing where any fight happened hundreds of years ago is hard because accounts don’t dwell on location. Place names and topographies can also change, while battlefields were stripped of abandoned weaponry at the time. Historic England, a government- financed heritage body, has just 47 battlefields in its national register, which requires a site’s provenance to be “securely established.” Brunanburh is not one of them.

For decades historians were convinced where the Battle of Bosworth Field settled a bloody dynastic struggle in 1485, and a large heritage center was built at the site in England’s Midlands region. A recent, more comprehensive study suggests it took place elsewhere.

Mr. Wood says that local pride and the potential for tourism means everyone wants a battle to happen near them. At Barnsdale, Ashley Tabor was cleaning the gas station he works at when he learned that thousands may have fought and died nearby. “I’d love it to be local, yes,” he said, looking out across the area, where a busy highway, deserted motel and adult video store now stand.

 

[GinandTonic]

There is even a debate about where the battle of Hastings was. Despite overwhelming evidence. Though I think it was more of a desperate last ditch attempt to stop a bypass getting built.

 

[Hrothbern]

Captain James T. Kirk's actor, the 90 year old Canadian William Shatner, was this afternoon finally in the real Space.
On the second touristic flight of the Blue Origin.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

TIL that Patrick Stewart lost his hair when he was 19

Yep. I had to giggle the other day on the Star Trek forum when someone was carrying on about watching I, Claudius when Patrick Stewart still had hair.

Well, the real Lucius Aelius Sejanus had hair. But his portrayer in that series wore a toupee.

TIL that a Milanese friar wrote in the 14th century a chronicle on Markland, the land west of Greenland: North America.
Also mentioning that Vikings from Greenland came there to get slaves...
Only one copy of the unfinished chronicle is known.
A very long article and worth reading !

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792

O-kay... that doesn't mesh with what I was taught in history classes in junior high, senior high, and college.

Captain James T. Kirk's actor, the 90 year old Canadian William Shatner, was this afternoon finally in the real Space.
On the second touristic flight of the Blue Origin.

Well, at least he can now say he's been where no 90-year-old man has gone before.

I don't care if it was a marketing or publicity stunt. I'm happy for him. And a little bit jealous.

 

[Takhisis]

Captain James T. Kirk's actor, the 90 year old Canadian William Shatner, was this afternoon finally in the real Space.
On the second touristic flight of the Blue Origin.

The ship still looks like a dick when rising into space and like a sort of flying bra from Austin Powers when falling back down.