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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 26, 2018 12:45:36 GMT -5
For a long time it was assumed that beer was accidentally discovered by ancient people baking bread. Someone recently proposed that it was the other way around - they were making beer and accidentally discovered bread.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 26, 2018 13:16:27 GMT -5
For a long time it was assumed that beer was accidentally discovered by ancient people baking bread. Someone recently proposed that it was the other way around - they were making beer and accidentally discovered bread. The evidence for beer only goes back about 4,000 years though. And beer takes some time to make...bread not so much. The latter hypothesis seems unlikely. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 26, 2018 13:54:31 GMT -5
For a long time it was assumed that beer was accidentally discovered by ancient people baking bread. Someone recently proposed that it was the other way around - they were making beer and accidentally discovered bread. The evidence for beer only goes back about 4,000 years though. And beer takes some time to make...bread not so much. The latter hypothesis seems unlikely. They drank all the evidence. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2018 15:51:42 GMT -5
The evidence for beer only goes back about 4,000 years though. And beer takes some time to make...bread not so much. The latter hypothesis seems unlikely. They drank all the evidence. You have great humor! |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 4, 2018 9:53:18 GMT -5
I thought this historical photo from 1902 of a giant sea turtle was really interesting. Archelon Ischyros is believed to be the largest sea turtle to have ever existed and went extinct.  |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2018 10:49:08 GMT -5
That's a monsterous Turtle ...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2018 22:54:47 GMT -5
File under...mystery solved!  -M |
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 13, 2018 18:21:37 GMT -5
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 28, 2018 19:18:50 GMT -5
At the crossroads of history and science. Siberian "unicorn" lived into the time of modern man. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 28, 2018 22:37:47 GMT -5
At the crossroads of history and science. Siberian "unicorn" lived into the time of modern man. Shades of the Hyborian Age   |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 20, 2018 22:06:25 GMT -5
I'm reading a biography of George H. W. Bush. It's by Jon Meacham and it's called Destiny and Power, but I've nicknamed it Hypocrisy and Whitewash because it seems to me that it leaves out A LOT of important stuff.
For example, when it's covering the 1960s, it doesn't say a thing about what the elder Bush thought about young George avoiding the war by (supposedly) finishing his service in Alabama. And when he becomes ambassador to the U.N., the book mentions that he didn't have much experience with foreign policy except for a little bit of foreign travel when he worked in the oil business. But it didn't mention any foreign travel in the chapter about the oil business. So I'm wondering where George H.W. Bush went and what time period he was in whatever countries he visited.
But the first President Bush had his good points. He could sometimes tell when conservative policy was bad policy. And this is from his diary, from early in 1988 when he was campaigning for the GOP nomination for the presidency. He met a Pat Robertson supporter who wouldn't shake his hand.
But then he says stuff like this, right after he lost his attempt at re-election to William Clinton in November 1992. He was upset about losing to a draft dodger:
And he said this about the media when running against Michael Dukakis in October 1988. He was defending the use of the Willie Horton in GOP politicking:
Yeah. Because the John Birch Society is the conservative equivalent of the ACLU. To be honest, I don't think that makes conservativism look good.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 8, 2019 22:30:59 GMT -5
I'm currently reading a 500-page biography of Franklin Pierce. "Young Hickory of the Granite Hills." You can tell from the title that it's kind of old. First edition in the 1930s. Revised by the author for a second edition in the 1950s.
I'm about 150 pages into it and it's fascinating!
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Post by Hoosier X on Jan 10, 2019 11:28:33 GMT -5
Franklin Pierce was boyhood friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne. For a short time, his law partner was Mary Baker Eddy's father. When he was elected to the Senate in 1837, he was (at 33) the youngest person in the Senate at the time.
He was something of a tool for the Slavocracy. He is really harsh on the abolitionists. He repeats slave state talking points at the drop of a hat. Stuff like "The Abolitionists are causing the South to get defensive, and thus they are slowing down the progress of freedom for the slaves. It will happen naturally but not if they keep on agitating." (Not an exact quote.) And also "Imagine if the millions of uneducated helpless blacks are abandoned to the cruel state of freedom! They will freeze in the winter." (Also not an exact quote.)
I just read about Pierce's Mexican War experiences a few days ago. Very interesting.
I'm about 200 pages into it and reading about the period between the end of the war and the beginning of his presidency. It's presenting all the steps in how Pierce became president. (Although you have to take it with a grain of salt because the book is so old. It's probably reasonably accurate.)
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 13, 2019 13:16:28 GMT -5
Franklin Pierce was boyhood friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne. For a short time, his law partner was Mary Baker Eddy's father. When he was elected to the Senate in 1837, he was (at 33) the youngest person in the Senate at the time. He was something of a tool for the Slavocracy. He is really harsh on the abolitionists. He repeats slave state talking points at the drop of a hat. Stuff like "The Abolitionists are causing the South to get defensive, and thus they are slowing down the progress of freedom for the slaves. It will happen naturally but not if they keep on agitating." (Not an exact quote.) And also "Imagine if the millions of uneducated helpless blacks are abandoned to the cruel state of freedom! They will freeze in the winter." (Also not an exact quote.) I just read about Pierce's Mexican War experiences a few days ago. Very interesting. I'm about 200 pages into it and reading about the period between the end of the war and the beginning of his presidency. It's presenting all the steps in how Pierce became president. (Although you have to take it with a grain of salt because the book is so old. It's probably reasonably accurate.) I’m pretty well versed in US Presidents, but Pierce is one I don’t know a lot about. I’m always a bit skeptical of history books of that vintage. I’ll have to take a look at it. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 13, 2019 13:45:45 GMT -5
I’ve decided to try to watch Ken Burns’ various documentaries as I have access to almost all (possibly all) of them on one streaming service or another. I’ve seen quite a few of them, probably most of them, over the years. In fact my middle son, who got his degree in history, at one point desperately wanted to make Ken Burns style documentaries. His first documentary was The Brooklyn Bridge from 1981. The film is narrated by David McCullough and is based on his book about the building of the bridge. It’s Burns’ first film but you can already see the hallmarks of his style.
The first part of the film covers the planning and the building of the bridge. It was interesting stuff. I’m not an engineering guy, my science background was never practical, so I knew little about the engineering aspects. This was probably about the right amount of technicality for laymen. It was pretty cool that they got Chief Engineer Washington Riebling’s great-grandson to do his voice-overs. I would have liked a bit more on the political wrangling dealing with the Bridge...but it was okay.
The second half was a look at the cultural impact of the Bridge. I really hadn’t thought much about it, but it truly is an iconic piece of America. Heaven knows that there’s a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to the rubes.
It was disconcerting to see the World Trade Center towers in the frames so often.
Overall a good first film that was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. |
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