February 12, 2010
Eric Raymond finally “gets” the Vikings
I’m just as happy that my area didn’t receive any of the snow that’s been blanketing areas to the south of us. Eric Raymond wasn’t as lucky:
Now I understand the Viking Era
So I’m sitting here, looking out my window at the 3-foot snow and the 5-foot icicles, reverting to ancestral type. Thinking:“Fuck this. Let’s go sack Miklagard.”
And Ken Burnside points out even more opportunity for enriching historical knowledge:
The reason why Minnesota and Wisconsin were settled by Norwege and Swenske isn’t because the other cultures couldn’t hack the winters.
It’s because compared to 19th century Norway and Sweden, Upper Minneosta and Upper Wisconsin are *paradise*.
“Look! Farmland! Lakes for fishing! Timber and lumber to build from! And no morass of petty aristocracy to tell you no. And, hey, it only snows for five whole months here! They won’t believe THAT back in the old country!”
The only reason there weren’t more of them was because a lot of Norski STILL remember the marketing flimflam that was Greenland. They had a completely justified 900 year old mistrust of ANYONE telling them about ‘great farmland, only snows for five months of the year, plenty of timber…’
Careful wording of poll questions significantly influences responses
I know, “duh!”
But most people don’t know how much the choice of questions does influence the outcome of polling. This is a perfect example:
As the Obama administration proposes repealing the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.
There’s less support, however, for allowing homosexuals to serve openly.
Confused?
The results highlight the importance of wording on the issue. In a test, half of the poll’s respondents were asked their opinion on permitting “gay men and lesbians” to serve, and the other half were asked about permitting “homosexuals” to serve.
The wording of the question proved to make a difference. Seven in 10 respondents said they favor allowing “gay men and lesbians” to serve in the military, including nearly 6 in 10 who said they should be allowed to serve openly. But support was somewhat lower among those who were asked about allowing “homosexuals” to serve, with 59 percent in favor, including 44 percent who support allowing them to serve openly.
This is a very simple example. It can get a lot more sneaky:
Crash site of the USS Macon declared a National Historic Site
Like most people, I assumed that the crashes of various post-WW1 dirigibles had already ruined the future of lighter-than-air flight well before the Hindenburg caught fire. I had forgotten about the US Navy’s fleet, including the Akron, Shenandoah, and the Macon:
The US government has added the crash site of the most powerful flying aircraft carrier ever built to the National Register of Historic Places, 75 years after the event.
The airship USS Macon — comparable in size to the even more famous and equally doomed liner Titanic — suffered storm damage and crashed into the ocean off Point Sur, south of San Francisco, exactly 75 years ago yesterday. The huge dirigible’s remains and those of her embarked biplane fighters now lie 1500 feet below the waves in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. However, all but two of the 83 men aboard survived the crash and were rescued by responding waterborne ships.
“The USS Macon and its associated Sparrowhawk biplanes are not only historically significant to our nation’s history, but have unique ties to our local communities, where public museums highlight the airship’s history,” said Paul Michel, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary superintendent. “The National Register listing highlights the importance of protecting the wreck site and its artifacts for further understanding our past.”
