MetaFilter posts tagged with frontier

You Win Fights By Being More Willing to Permanently F-Up The Other Guy*

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:44:20 -0800

"I would advise you when You do fight Not to act like Tygers and Bears as these Virginians do - Biting one anothers Lips and Noses off, and gowging one another - that is, thrusting out one anothers Eyes, and kicking one another on the Cods, to the Great damage of many a Poor Woman." Thus, Charles Woodmason, an itinerant Anglican minister born of English gentry stock, described the brutal form of combat he found in the Virginia backcountry shortly before the American Revolution. Although historians are more likely to study people thinking, governing, worshiping, or working, how men fight -- who participates, who observes, which rules are followed, what is at stake, what tactics are allowed - reveals much about past cultures and societies.

"Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch" The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry Cultured Easterners like Phillip Vickers Fithian and Europeans like Charles William Janson and Thomas Ashe often made note of what they considered shocking levels of brutal violence and disfigurement they encountered in brawls and public fights during their respective travels in the American South of the 18th and 19th C. In particular, the densely forested and mountainous backcountry, whose population drew heavily from the Northern border region between England and Scotland, and who maintained the requirements of Honor Culture: violence as response to perceived challenge to personal honor (no matter how petty or ridiculous the cause seemed to outsiders), risk-taking for its own sake, and emphasis on etiquette and propriety in social interactions. Where a gentleman’s duel was cool, civilized, structured, private, and reserved for the upper class, backwoods rough-&-tumble fights were boisterous (often drunken) affairs with howling boasts and an avowed lack of structure or rules, in the presence of a boisterous, howling (often drunken) audience. They existed in an alternate system of honor for those without wealth or property, but who were still white men in cultures that held black slaves. By the 1840s, the Bowie Knife became the popular option for ending rough-&-tumble fights, to be supplanted a little later by the revolver. In “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor” sociologist Peter Berger contrasts the demise of pre-modern honor with the rise of modern concepts of inherent dignity. Honor has no standing in most modern legal systems, and the ones that do are generally viewed as quaint medieval holdovers. As Gorn notes:

Honor is an intensely social concept, resting on reputation, community standing, and the esteem of kin and compatriots. To possess honor requires acknowledgment from others; it cannot exist in solitary conscience. Modern man, Berger has argued, is more responsive to dignity - the belief that personal worth inheres equally in each individual, regardless of his status in society... Naked and alone man has dignity; extolled by peers and covered with ribbons, he has honor.

___ *Warren Ellis (GRAPHIC comic book violence as demonstration of title quote)

Take Those Damned Goggles Off

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:37:39 -0800

Television Without Pity re-capper Jacob Clifton has written a short steampunk story for Tor.com. “There’s a level on which the story is an indictment of using steampunk as a fashion or trend. It came about because I wanted to see what would happen if you substituted Jane Austen for Jules Verne in the steampunk equation...” The Commonplace Book

Life On The Virtual Frontier

rageagainsttherobots — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:10:55 -0800

Douglas Rushkoff examines how technology is changing us in “Life On The Virtual Frontier”; a fascinating episode of Frontline.

Photos of the West, 1880-1890

The Whelk — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 09:33:09 -0800

Between 1887 and 1892, John C.H. Grabill sent 188 photographs to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Grabill is known as a western photographer, documenting many aspects of frontier life – hunting, mining, western town landscapes and white settlers’ relationships with Native Americans.

It's like Drug Wars in the Wild Frontier!

schyler523 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:30:27 -0800

Friday Flash Fun: Frontier is an adventure RPG with an economic bent, very similar to Caravaneer. You travel from town to town dealing in the goods available in each town. Spend some of the money you make upgrading your transportation and your companions. You can choose to join one of the two guilds opposing each other, the Buccaneers and the Enforcers. If you join a guild there are quests to complete which move you up the ranks. If you want a simpler, less time consuming game, try Mad Virus.

The Brotherhood of the Very Expensive Pants

1f2frfbf — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:02:44 -0800

"It's like I used to enjoy firecrackers, but now it takes dynamite to get me high." Brit Eaton takes Outside magazine on a safari for vintage clothing in the wild west. (via)

Space, to lick the very fuzzy navel of the heavens

oxford blue — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:59:43 -0800

Ever wondered what life is like on the International Space Station? Wonder no more. Excitement!

Yuri getting ready for velo and Sergei warming up TVIS. Got a master alarm and the red light for "other" (warning) on the caution and warning panel

Drama!

End of the workday. Disc 2 of Apocalypse Now. Found "Kurtz" .

International Intrigue!

Shep is in the habit of reading the form 24 to the last "bykvia" and this slows things way down. For instance, misinterpreted the English letters "st"on the form 24--thinking this meant the Russian word "stranitsa" (page) when it really stood for "step". (Too early in the a.m.)

High-tech thriller!

Attempted backup of SSC file server (20 minute procedure) Hardware configuration requires saving files and shutting down SSC2 to get at the PC extender. Extender won't go on File Server until hardware is removed, which requires shutting down FS, and removing PC card bracket and ethernet card. More restarts required to get things going. Backup procedure unexpectedly shuts down FS. When restarted, FS comes up but network is down. FS is down again. Sergei helping with the troubleshooting--already spent 2 hours on this and still not working. Something wrong with the power supply? We swap supplies with the router--FS is working. Then the suspect power supply starts working again. We're stumped. The good news is that the network is up. The bad news--we will probably see this again.

Even the quotidian, in space, takes on a different feel!

Dinner in the wardroom as usual. Decided not to go for the ham and smoked turkey--saving this for tomorrow.

And that's just for the first month... Of course, if being an astronaut doesn't tickle your fancy, there's always astronaut-herding opportunities.

The Klondike Goldrush

MetaMonkey — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:16:51 -0800

The Klondike Gold Rush, the last great gold rush of the 19th century.
On August 16, 1896 huge quantities of gold was found in the remote Yukon region of Canada. Word spread slowly, until eleven months later, the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle from Dawson with "more than a ton of gold". Within six months, approximately 100,000 gold-seekers set off on the perilous journey north to the Yukon. Only 30,000 completed the trip.
Resources: Eric A. Hegg's photograph's of the gold rush, stories from the gold rush, women of the gold rush, Klondike Gold Rush Historical Database, info and teaching resources (warning: annoying frames), links, Librarians' Internet Index.

Edward Curtis & Native American Photography

.kobayashi. — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:44:40 -0800

Selling the American Indian: The controversial work of Edward S. Curtis

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

LarryC — Sun, 29 May 2005 13:00:53 -0800

Sweeping out the Plains: "The great wave of population, which swept homesteaders onto the Northern Great Plains with the promise of free land and hope for a bright future around the turn of the last century, is sweeping back out again at the beginning of this one." This map of counties with 10% or more population loss in the last 20 years really highlights the phenomenon. A shorter version of this piece published in todays KC Star. (See also Endangered Historic Places: Prairie Churches.)

We'Wha: The Zuni Man-Woman

taz — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 15:36:57 -0800

Poppin' Fresh from the newly launched QueerMeta community weblog: We'Wha: The Zuni Man-Woman. How could a six-foot tall Indian man be mistaken for a "maiden" and a "princess"? This was no Pocahontas! Even more intriguing is the relationship between Stevenson and We'wha. According to one gossip, "she" regularly entered the ladies rooms and boudoirs of Washington. How could Stevenson not know that her intelligent Zuni informant was really, in the words of one gossip, a "bold, bad man"? More about the 'berdaches' of the Zuni [ 1, 2, 3]. Google cache of last (Geocities) link here.

'Suspected terrorist' removed from flight

cbrody — Sat, 19 Jul 2003 05:13:16 -0800

EFF co-founder John Gilmore was prevented from flying because he was wearing a button deemed to be in "poor taste" and refused to take it off. Seems he won't be flying anywhere for a while, unless he wins his court case. [Source: Boing Boing]