December 5
The Soldier in later Medieval England is a historical research project that seeks to 'challenge assumptions about the emergence of professional soldiery between 1369 and 1453'. They've compiled impressive
databases of tens of thousands of service records. These are perhaps of interest only to specialists; but the general reader may enjoy the
profiles of individual military men: these run the gamut from regional non-entities like
John Fort esquire of Llanstephan ("in many ways a humdrum figure" though once accused of harbouring a hostile Spaniard!) to more familiar figures such as rebel Welsh prince
Owain Glyndŵr, who began his soldiering,
as did many compatriots, in the service of the English king. Between such extremes of high and low we find, for example,
Reginald Cobham, who made 6,500 florins ransoming a prisoner taken at
Poitiers and rests eternal in a splendid tomb; and various
men loyal and rebel who fought at the bloody
Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.
posted by Abiezer at 10:41 AM - 4 comments
(American) Football
trick play video roundup: the
Statue of Liberty,
Fumblerooski (
2), the
Puntarooski, the
Hook and Lateral (
2), the
Flea Flicker (
2), the
End Around (
2), the
Double Pass, the
Fake Punt (
2) (
3), the
Fake Field Goal (
2) (
3),
Fake Field Goal/Fake Punt, the
Swinging Gate, and the
Bouquet Toss.
[more inside]
posted by starman at 9:38 AM - 16 comments Forecast calls for cold and warm. On January 22, 1943 in Spearfish, SD: The temperature rose 49 degrees in two minutes, from – 4 to 45; later the same morning, it dropped 60 degrees in 27 minutes, from 56° to - 4°. Plate glass windows cracked as a result of the wild fluctuation in temperatures caused by Chinook winds. The greatest 24- hour U.S. temperature difference in one place was set January 23- 24, 1916, in Browning, MT, at 100 degrees when it went from a low of -56° to a high of 44°.*
Snow eating is one way it's been described,
old tales too.. It's a seasonal wind, like the Mistral.
There is some overlap in the definitions but the Chinook can safely be labeled a Foehn wind. A Foehn wind is "a generic term for warm strong and often very dry downslope wind(s) that descend in the lee of a mountain barrier". That is the one illustrated above. My favorite wind though, is the katabatic. A downhill wind.
Cold and dense it blows here on
Earth especially in the
Antarctic, and there on
Mars too. (page 9 of 14.)
[more inside]
posted by vapidave at 4:07 AM - 22 comments
He was elected at the nadir of the worst depression in history; 25% of the workforce was unemployed, two million were homeless. Yet in the face of this, he made us an optimistic and far-reaching New Deal, creating among other programs a federal minimum wage, social security, and the FDIC. He pulled us out of dire financial straits and, when our country was called upon to fight in World War II, he brought us to the cusp of victory. In his unprecedented thirteen years in office, he cemented his undisputed legacy as one of the greatest presidents in American history. But before he could achieve any of this, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a promise to keep — a promise to the "wet vote," whose indispensable support he had
called upon in 1932 during his first presidential campaign when he promised to repeal the
18th Amendment and end
Prohibition. And thus, as legend has it, immediately after his
first fireside chat from the White House in March 1933, Roosevelt turned to his two top aides and said, "
I think it's time for a beer." And
yes, indeed,
it was.
[more inside]
posted by churl at 2:14 AM - 23 comments December 4
Beer Calculus is a freely available homebrewing recipe generator, which allows you to easily create, save and share your own beer recipe(s). The calculator includes hundreds of malt, hop and yeast varieties, adjuncts and other ingredients, different mash processes, and fermentation and storage variables, and can toggle between US and metric units. Also, if you associate your recipe with a
BJCP-recognized style, the calculator will give you guidance regarding your recipe's adherence to the style's
guidelines. Homebrewers, have at it!
posted by cog_nate at 12:26 PM - 20 comments
African Remix!
Put A Ring On It and
Lollipop have both been covered by the Naija Boyz who appear to be a couple of Nigerians living in America with dreams of home, hence the remixed lyrics, "...shorty I'm a fan of your super pounded yam...."
posted by pick_the_flowers at 11:56 AM - 10 comments Tim Perlich was the senior music writer for Toronto's
NOW Magazine for 20 or so years. The two parted company for unexplained reasons earlier this year. For those who love or hate him (and there are plenty in both camps), he's now blogging about all things music at
The Perlich Post.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:27 AM - 17 comments December 3
“Uhh,” he stuttered, “wait. Are you delivering… coal? To… uhh, us?”
“Well, yeah! Twenty-eight thousand tons of the good ol’ black gold!” The workman sarcastically furrowed his brow adding, “I mean, we did get the right address, har har. This is Æxecor? And this is Pier 53? And you are Brad, the fella who ordered it, right?”
It was that moment that Brad’s palm almost immediately made contact with his forehead. He realized that something must have really gone awry: instead of virtually trading 28,000 tons of coal, Brad had somehow ended up with 28,000 tons of real coal.
posted by empath at 9:07 PM - 59 comments Secrecy Jurisdictions: Mapping the Faultlines highlights research on 'the jurisdictions and mechanisms used to facilitate illicit financial flows worldwide, including especially flows from developing countries. Those flows, from developing countries alone, are estimated at $850 billion - US$1 trillion per year. At the core of this project is the
biggest survey of tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions as we prefer to call them, that has probably ever been undertaken.' A project of the
Tax Justice Network.
posted by Abiezer at 3:58 PM - 5 comments
Tokyo Blues is a photography book about taking a closer look at the ordinary, in this case an omnipresent blue construction tarp which shows up just about everywhere in Tokyo. This is the first book in an apparently planned series by
Do Projects. The book is available for sale or as a
free PDF under the CC license.
posted by malphigian at 2:16 PM - 16 comments
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