You can't hit the breaks when you're going uphill.
After playing around with ChatGPT, I have decided to allow my history students to use AI. Working out ways to stop them from using it will only create more stress and work than it's worth. I have therefore included instructions in the syllabus about how they can and cannot use AI.
And so I set sail on uncharted waters towards the endless horizon, like generations of intrepid explorers before me.
This painting by Peter Cramer is rich in detail, dear #histodons - peppercakes, street selling activities in an early modern European urban setting, broadsheets glued to a wall, etc.
But what on earth is the highlighted child transporting on its shoulders? A wooden box full of what? Your help is appreciated! @histodons
@dbellingradt
Never mind the box. Until I zoomed in I thought it was a giant rat walking on its hind legs. That's a very ambiguous hat, kid. @histodons
On #NationalUnderwearDay I want to talk about the ancestor of the bra: the strophion!
In #GreekRomanArt the goddess #Aphrodite can sometimes be seen putting it on or taking it off but mortal women are depicted wearing it too.
It is uncertain what the Greek strophion looked like but the Roman adaptation, the strophium, was a breast band, a strip of cloth wrapped around the upper torso.
It was a normal but optional piece of feminine clothing.
@AimeeMaroux I do have an old linen skirt that I am planning to cut up and sew into a long enough strip next so I can compare the two. I'm surprised by just how comfortable this lycra one is though. I've been wearing it since 11 this morning and it hasn't moved or loosened and still feels supportive.
The bunching at the back just needs a bit more practice with getting the lycra wrapped so it's not all layered on top of each other in the same place. I can't see that it is particularly noticeable to anyone else - it doesn't look like I have a hunch under my tshirt - but I am aware of it when leaning back in a chair, for example.
I might try trying to tie it with one short end, wrapping the longer end around continually in the same direction to see if that lessens the bunching effect. I'll need to sew, rather than tie, the two lycra strips together first though, otherwise I can guarantee that central knot wil place itself somewhere uncomfortable 😂
It's fun experimenting though. Despite cursing awkward bras for years, I'd never thought to try actually making a historic alternative before. I'm going to try a few ways of tying this lycra one in the coming days, then get to work hemming the linen.
That's not true at all. I have long thought Margaret Beaufort had something to do with the disappearance and I only heard about Phillipa Gregory a couple of years ago. So, you know, thanks for assuming.
The anti-abortion crusade (because that’s what it is: a pre-modern overtly violent Christian campaign to conquer The Others™) is a vestigial throwback to ancient Roman policy of “partus sequitur ventrem” which became English common law, and the American colonies adapted it to weaponize sexual violence against people who were considered property (i.e. chattel slaves).
Christmas decorations are going up! You’ve got the tree, lights, asbestos… Wait, what?
For decades, asbestos was sold as artificial snow. It could be bought in boxes to be sprinkled onto trees, ornaments, nativity scenes, etc. It was so popular, many older ornaments still have traces of asbestos.
It was also used in film. The most famous scene with asbestos snow is in Wizard of Oz (1939), when snow falls on Dorothy and her friends, waking them up.
@synlogic@dirtysexyhistory@histodons it is unfortunate that you took it personally, but your blanket statement about regulation, corruption, the FDA and asbestos is unsupported by the facts. I happen to have substantial knowledge of the asbestos litigation and FDA regulation. Asbestos is the poster case for free markets with no government involvement. John’s Mansville went bankrupt and there is a fascinating contract law case on this with the insurer, CNA.
I'm sure you are familiar with this situation: you're shopping on a Saturday, and your shopping list is written on the back of an old paper copy of a once read article. My list today is on the back of Clyve Jones‘ „The Protestant Wind of 1688“. Fun fact: this copy was made around 2005 in Berlin, and moved with me through my career from Berlin to Erfurt to Nuremberg to Augsburg. I am living my best life, dear #histodons@histodons
CBI Image of the Day. It is 1984 & the Apple MacIntosh quickly stood out for its relative, small form factor, GUI, and ease of use--garnering substantial adoption in businesses, like this NYC office, schools, and homes.
The cityscape and office setting stand in contrast to the computer lib myth (more than a little irony to revolution myths presented in ultra-expensive Superbowl ads)
They had not known names of US #CivilRights icons A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marianne Anderson--yet presumed to understand the intricacies of one of the most tragic & intractable conflicts on earth
¯_(ツ)_/¯
It's less about what they believe (that's up to them) than about being able to explain why they believe it, citing their evidence; learning why others may read that evidence differently. It's what we do.
@worldhistory@histodons That's really cool, and took me on a little historical research trip that made me much more kindly disposed to the Jesuits in general, they seem much more beneficial than I supposed.
...and I've stumbled across so many great quotes now which could just as well have been written today and not in, like, 1970. I really feel the urge to start sharing some of them, because that groundhog-day experience I keep having is as entertaining as it is lowkey frustrating lol.😅 Also saw it's topical for some people so maybe it'd even be useful?!
Vern L. Bullough, 1967, "The Computer and the Historian: Some Tentative Beginnings" in: Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 61-64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30199211
@histodons This is a great and interesting read for the history of digital hisory in general, lots more quotable bits. Also one of the early and few genuine historians mentioning simulations, albeit a bit misguiding as "predictive history".
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: #Ashkenazi Jews 'are NOT Semites'
Zionist leader Arthur Ruppin: German #Jews are NOT Semites but Aryan.
Yet Abbas in an antisemite, even though this idea is not really new (research: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3543), while Israel is naming buildings after the #Zionist leader Ruppin, who personally met with Himmler's mentor, Hans F. K. Günther.
Arthur Ruppin's Concept of Race
In: Amos Morris-Reich, Israel Studies , Fall, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 1-3.
Exactly.
Had no choice.
I seemed like a paradise compared to what was before.
It’s easier to criticise retroactively what was wrong in the process.
Did they have the Palestinian people in mind when left their left their land?
Exactly.
Had no choice.
It seemed like a paradise compared to what was before.
It’s easier to criticise retroactively what was wrong in the process.
Did they have the Palestinian people in mind when they left Europe?
Now reading Figes’ The Crimean War and I did not expect it to start with accounts of a bunch of priests and good Christians murdering each other in their “holiest” churches in Jerusalem in the 1840s. That’s interesting
@alice@GrittyLipids@bookstodon@histodons@SusanHR One interesting thing about the case in this book: the author asked for names and dates, then traveled to investigate them. Some of the history was valid but the names did not exist.
If the entities can get facts, why did they lie, and then make excuses when he came back and confronted them?
Maybe they are forbidden from knowing certain things.
Or maybe they deliberately lie to drive off the skeptical, while recruiting the credulous.
@mike805@GrittyLipids@bookstodon@histodons@SusanHR It's a tactic used by 419 ("Nigerian") scammers and other fraudsters. Sure, the scam might sound flagrantly obvious to many but for the target victims, it's perfect. An intelligence test.
If they don't reject the scam out of hand, they're the most likely to fall for it. This optimizes the effort and attention of the scammer by not wasting time on bad marks.
On the painting with the title "The Alchemist" from the Flemish Mattheus van Helmont, circa mid seventeenth century, are many uses and abuses of #earlymodern paper products reflected in the details. I will address 7 of these paper issues in the thread. Bonus for #Alchemy friends: a large écorché figure, a distillation apparatus over a fire, and metal working assistants.
Enjoy.
A bit ironic given this is disseminated over the Internet...
The Internet would be far better if giant corporations didn't control platforms & endlessly surveille & profile & do so very unequally--to me that largely is a capitalism, governance & regulatory failure--power & control of infrastructure.