It is essential to the American myth that North America was wilderness when the European colonists began to arrive. Sure, there were people, but they weren’t ‘civilized’ and therefore didn’t count; they could be brushed aside.
Charles C. Mann’s 1491 [amazon] and its sequel 1493 [amazon] oppose that myth. He can only hint at the complexity of the politics of the era but it’s overwhelming. Of course it is, it’s people doing the things people do.
Warning: War, Death
Administrative note: I made an error attributing the movie and confused a different movie with a release of the same film under a different name. Explanation is [here] – in order to reduce confusion, I have done an edit-pass. If you see comments about how I am talking about the wrong movie, they are correct with respect to the initial version of this posting. Sorry about the confusion!
I don’t know if I have the necessary skill to convey how upsetting this topic is. I wish I could borrow the skills of Orpheus from somewhere, and get other people to watch it, get angry and scared, and – do something. I don’t even know what we can do, trapped as we are in the reality of nationalism and out-of-control militarism.
Threads is about the horrible deaths our political leaders have prepared for us.
If you don’t like spoilers, don’t read any further. But there’s really nothing to spoil. You already know roughly what happens.
I don’t have a lot of pictures to show for today because today was more refining and shaping. There’s a lot of that.
Why do steel sparks do this thing: they fly straight and seem to explode at the end of their trajectory. [Read more…]
There really isn’t any part of the forging process that is more important than any other; you don’t end up with a finished sword without executing the other steps correctly, too.
As I headed in to the workshop this morning, the big white bird was on station. I tried to get a picture and it flew away, complaining. We have established a routine.
One of the pleasant surprises is that forging is not anywhere near as kinetic as I expected it to be. There’s a lot of “wait for the metal to heat” then “find the right spot” and hit it a few times, followed by “figure out where to hit it next” and back into the heat. So you’re not emulating a trip-hammer and just wailing away at the metal, which means it’s not tearing up the wrists or elbows. Mostly you lift the hammer and let gravity do its thing.
My day began with a bit of panic. Where are my car keys?
It’s pretty out here.
Once upon a time, there was an old mother pig who had three little pigs and not enough food to feed them. So she hit on the idea of sending them off with a little capital (she kept 40% of the equity and a seat on the board) to go build successful websites and get rich and famous and support themselves.
[Read more…]