Quotulatiousness

December 26, 2020

The Matchbox Car Story

Filed under: Britain, Business, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Little Car
Published 27 Jan 2020

Matchbox is a popular British toy brand which was introduced by Lesney Products in 1953, and is now owned by Mattel, Inc. The brand was given its name because the original die-cast Matchbox toys were sold in boxes similar to those in which matches were sold. The brand grew to encompass a broad range of toys, including larger scale die-cast models, plastic model kits, and action figures.

During the 1980s, Matchbox began to switch to the more conventional plastic and cardboard “blister packs” that were used by other die-cast toy brands such as Hot Wheels. The box style packaging was re-introduced for the collectors’ market in recent years, particularly with the release of the “35th Anniversary of Superfast” series in 2004.

The script for this video comes from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbo…

If you find issues with the content, I encourage you to update the Wikipedia article, so everyone can benefit from your knowledge.

If you like these video and want to support me from just $1 or 80p a month at https://www.patreon.com/bigcar

#matchboxcars

QotD: British meals – fish, fowl, and vegetables

Filed under: Britain, Food, History, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There are not many methods of cooking birds which are peculiar to Britain. The British regard as inedible many birds – for instance, thrushes, larks, sparrows, curlews, green plovers and various kinds of duck – which are valued in other countries. They are also inclined to despise rabbits, and rabbit-rearing for the table has never been extensively practiced in Britain. On the other hand they will eat young rooks, which are shot in May and baked in pies. They are especially attached to geese and turkeys, which (at normal times) are eaten in immense quantities at Christmas, always roasted whole, with chestnut stuffing in the case of turkeys, and sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce in the case of geese.

Fish in Britain is seldom well cooked. The sea all round Britain yields a variety of excellent fishes, but as a rule they are unimaginatively boiled or fried, and the art of seasoning them in the cooking is not understood. The fish fried in oil to which the British working classes are especially addicted is definitely nasty, and has been an enemy of home cookery, since it can be bought everywhere in the big towns, ready cooked and at low prices. Except for trout, salmon and eels, British people will not eat fresh-water fish. As for vegetables, it must be admitted that, potatoes apart, they seldom get the treatment they deserve. Thanks to the rain-soaked soil, British vegetables are nearly all of excellent flavour, but they are commonly spoiled in the cooking. Cabbage is simply boiled – a method which renders it almost uneatable – while cauliflowers, leeks and marrows are usually smothered in a tasteless white sauce which is probably the “one sauce” scornfully referred to by Voltaire. The British are not great eaters of salads, though they have grown somewhat fonder of raw vegetables during the war years, thanks to the educational campaigns of the Ministry of Food. Except for salads, vegetables are always eaten with the meat, not separately.

George Orwell, “British Cookery”, 1946. (Originally commissioned by the British Council, but refused by them and later published in abbreviated form.)

December 25, 2020

“Swedish Pagans” – Vikings & The Russ – Sabaton History 099 [Official]

Filed under: Europe, History, Media, Religion, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 24 Dec 2020

It was a sword-age, a spear-age — an age when fearsome Northmen, savage Vikings, and mysterious pagans from across the sea haunted the shores of northern Europe. The Swedish pagans, believing in the fate of the old Norse gods, traveled south across the Baltic Sea and deep into modern-day Russia. With their sleek longships, they sailed along the big rivers, ever southwards to reach Miklagard. Miklagard — the Great City — that was Constantinople, where the Swedish Pagans sold slaves and goods from the north for silver and coin. Those who made the long hazardous journey and survived the treacherous country were to be rich men.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to “Swedish Pagans” on the album The Art of War: https://music.sabaton.net/TheArtOfWar

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Editor: Karolina Dołęga
Sound Editor: Marek Kamiński
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory
Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.com

Sources:
Swedish National Heritage Board
Kulturhistorisk museum
Museum of Cultural History, part of the University of Oslo, Norway
Pictures of Runestone courtesy of: Berig, RJürgen Howald & Bjoertvedt from Wikimedia
AU Library, Campus Emdrup, http://galleri.au.dk/aul/#14891850309…
Longship sketch with a keel courtesy of Cornelis from Wikimedia
Map from 878 courtesy of Hel-hama – from Wikimedia

All music by: Sabaton

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

Bonus QotD: Modern services in church

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Quotations, Religion, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I remember when Christians used to actually believe in Christianity. Those were the days. (Some still do, but their numbers are shrinking.)

Back then, you could still visit an average (Protestant) church and hear a pastor actually teach real doctrine and share authentic insights. You could hear his thoughts on how to live an upright Christian life, or on why bad things might happen to good people, or how Christian marriages might be improved. And you could hear it all supported by actual Bible passages.

After the sermon, you could hear the congregation sing hymns affirming the importance of obedience, humility, faith, courage, or some other Christian virtue. They were something, the old hymns: bold, clear, impactful, sometimes even militant, like “Onward, Christian Soldiers” or “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand”, or particularly thoughtful, like “How Great Thou Art”.

Things are different now. Wander into a typical Christian church these days, and, far from hearing a sermon challenging you to live an upright life, you’re more likely to hear an unsuccessful attempt at a Jeff Foxworthy-style stand-up comedy routine, Hallmark-style stories of dubious veracity, and utterly vacuous “praise songs” which all sound like U2 album rejects from 1986. (They even feature the thumping eighth-note bass parts, echo-drenched guitar, and melodramatic vocal performances.)

Oh, and I forgot: At some point, you’re also going to see the pastor dutifully hand the mic over to his overly-assertive, overly-eager, overly-made-up wife (presumably on pain of divorce, or possibly even death), who will then speak loudly and rapturously — all about herself — for the next half hour.

Not all Christian churches are like this, of course. The problem is, too many are. As the years roll by, contemporary Christian churches increasingly abnegate their scripturally-prescribed role as fortified beacons of divine truth, and instead transform themselves into vehicles for a social justice pseudo-gospel completely incompatible with Christian (or Jewish, for that matter) scriptural teachings.

Tal Bachman, “Christians, Come Back”, Steyn Online, 2020-09-03.

Repost – “Fairytale of New York”

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Time:

“Fairytale of New York,” The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl

This song came into being after Elvis Costello bet The Pogues’ lead singer Shane MacGowan that he couldn’t write a decent Christmas duet. The outcome: a call-and-response between a bickering couple that’s just as sweet as it is salty.

Update: Looks like the video I’ve linked to has been taken down, so here’s a more recent version on the “official” Pogues YT channel.

QotD: Christmas movies

Filed under: Humour, Media, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

At which point, Sylvester the cat looks up from his long fruitless vigil outside the mouse hole in the baseboard and sighs with feeling to the narrator, “You’re not jutht whithlin’ Dickthie, brother.”

“Gift Wrapped” is like every Looney Tune or Merry Melody — a mere six minutes long. But with Christmas movies that’s a good thing. The western and the musical may be dead, but the charmless Xmas movie is now a genre all of its own and doing gangbusters. Do they teach it in film school? In fact, it’s really two genres: there are intentionally charmless Christmas movies like Bad Santa 2, and then the accidentally charmless ones, like that Ben Affleck flick where he’s some heartless yuppie who rents a bluecollar family for the holiday season so he can enjoy the authentic down-home Yule he’s never known. In such pictures, the great American Christmas, once the ne plus ultra of e pluribus unum, appears on celluloid an utterly exhausted seam.

So, besieged by such horrors, I thought I’d retreat to short-form holiday entertainment, or alternatively short-form holiday entertainment within long-form non-holiday fare. Any thirty seconds of “Gift Wrapped”, for example, is more rewarding than all three-and-a-half hours of Bad Santa 5 or whatever it is: six minutes of pure Looney Tunes pleasure in which Sylvester determines to land the only Christmas present he really wants — Tweety. The film opens with Granny slumbering upstairs and the impatient cat sneakily unwrapping his gift. It’s a rubber mouse and he’s not happy about it. “Why couldn’t I get thumthin’ practical?” he complains. “Like a real mouse.”

Mark Steyn, “A Frizzy Christmas”, Steyn Online, 2018-12-15.

December 24, 2020

Straighten Rough Wood with the Roubo Winding Sticks

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Rex Krueger
Published 23 Dec 2020

Give your winding sticks a homemade upgrade with this diy Roubo design.

More video and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger
Get the plans!: https://www.rexkrueger.com/store/plans-frenchroubo-winding-sticks
(more…)

Repost – Hey Kids! Did you get your paperwork in on time?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

If you hurry, you can just get your Santa’s Visit Application in before the deadline tonight!

Saturnalia – Rome’s Awesome Pagan Christmas

Filed under: Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Invicta
Published 23 Dec 2020

Celebrate an awesome pagan Christmas with the Roman Saturnalia! The first 100 people to go to https://www.blinkist.com/invicta are going to get unlimited access for 1 week to try it out. You’ll also get 25% off if you want the full membership.

In this history documentary we cover a very special Roman Holiday, the Saturnalia. It was a hugely popular winter festival which dominated the ancient world and in many ways created the Christmas that we celebrate today!

We begin the episode with a discussion about the origins of Saturnalia as a harvest festival. In these early years it was celebrated whenever the last of the crops was brought with a special thanks being offered to the God of harvest, Saturn. The Romans did so at the temple of Saturn by offering a procession of bulls and hosting a grand feast. Over the years however the traditions would grow by importing Greek customs, pinning the date to December 17th and extending the holiday to a full week!

We then cover the history of Saturnalia at its full glory by recreating the experience. This begins with the traditional parade and feast on the first day after which all work was banned. The following days were filled with endless parties and feasts. These featured all kinds of familiar staples of Christmas like gift giving, hat wearing, and singing. However there were many more, wilder traditions as well. IO SATURNALIA!!!

We finally conclude with the rise of Christianity and the history of Christmas which coopted this popular pagan holiday. Stay tuned for more How They Did It episodes on the history of daily life in the past.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading:
Daily Life in the Roman City by Gregory Aldrete
Popular Culture in Ancient Rome by Jerry Toner
As the Romans Did by Jo-Ann Shelton
Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic by H. H. Scullard
The Roman Community at Table During the Principate by John Donahue

#Saturnalia
#Rome
#History

Repost — The lousy economics of gift-giving

Filed under: Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Tim Worstall explains why gift-giving at Christmas is so economically inefficient:

Christmas gifts under the tree.
Photo by Kelvin Kay via Wikimedia Commons.

The point being made is dual, that individuals have agency and that utility is entirely personal.

To unravel that jargon.

Individuals, peeps, are able to make choices. We delight in making choices in fact, “agency” is the opposite of “anomie”, that feeling that society determines what we may or can do that so depresses the human spirits. We get to choose to get up at 6 am or 8. Have coffee or tea when we do. Go buy the latest platters from the newly popular beat combo, pay the ‘leccie bill or have the coffee out at an emporium.

Having choices, making them, makes people happier.

Secondly, utility. The result of those choices, which of them will maximise happiness, is different for each and every individual. Sure, we can aggregate some of them – food is usually pretty high up everyones’ list, that first litre of water a day tops most. But the higher up Maslow’s Pyramid we go the more tastes – and thus happiness devoured – differ.

So, we make humans happier by their having the choice to do what they want, not what others think they should want or have.

Thus, give people cash at Christmas not socks.

Balancing that is the obvious point that the care and attention with which a present is considered is part of that consumption of happiness. The boyfriend who actually listens to the type of clothing desired and goes gets it provides that joy that a bloke has, for once, been listening. Or the book that would never have been individually considered but was chosen because it might – and does.

Sure.

But the point isn’t about Christmas at all. That’s a way of wrapping the point so it can be left underneath the tree of knowledge.

Why Christmas Should Be ILLEGAL

Filed under: History, Humour, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 23 Dec 2019

The Witchfinder General of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New-England preaches against the heathenry of the Pagan Carnival known as Christmas, and exhorts Good Christians to Ban it by Law; together with, a Testimony against the Authors of that most vile and deplorable Pamphlet, r/christmas, and irrefutable Judgments upon them, drawing from the Word of God, and the Puritan Laws of this fair Commonwealth.

Support Atun-Shei Films on Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/atunsheifilms

#Puritan #Christmas #WitchfinderGeneral

Watch our film ALIEN, BABY! free with Prime ► http://a.co/d/3QjqOWv
Reddit ► https://www.reddit.com/r/atunsheifilms
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/atun_shei
Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/atunsheifilms
Merch ► https://atun-sheifilms.bandcamp.com

QotD: Guinness

Filed under: Humour, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

A reader, who is a home brewer, immediately asks if my objection to Guinness is to the “stout flavour” or to the “water.” Assuming it is to the water, he then asks if I would condemn all light-bodied beers? Ignoring the first question, I reply, that I do not object to small beers, designed and labelled as such, for consumption by children (before we send them to work in the fields). But the idea of a “light stout” is a perverse contradiction of terms and an outrage.

David Warren, “On beer consumption”, Essays in Idleness, 2018-09-07.

December 23, 2020

Kido Butai: Terror of the Pacific – WW2 Special

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 22 Dec 2020

Kido Butai was the fleet that launched the surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at anchor at Pearl Harbor and followed that up with a string of victories in 1942. But how was it commanded, both as a whole and in the high and even mid level command? Today we’ll look at that.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Markus Linke
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man), https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…
Norman Stewart, https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/

Sources:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Mitsubishi G4M bomber graphic, courtesy Kaboldy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Picture of Jisaku Okada, courtesy XxSuguxX https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 4”
Yi Nantiro – “Watchman”
Philip Ayers – “The Unexplored”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Mandala Dreams – “Pacific Shores”
Phoenix Tails – “At the Front”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Our “systemically racist and patriarchal society” which oppresses “people of color, women, and LGBT”

Filed under: Economics, Education, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

To hear some people (especially on social media in these locked-down pandemic days), there has never been a human society that more greatly benefits white heterosexual men and oppresses everyone else like the modern west. Here are some stats from Rav Arora to challenge that claim:

We are frequently told by commentators and theorists on the progressive and liberal Left that we live in a systemically racist and patriarchal society. The belief that Western societies privilege white men and oppress people of color, women, and LGBT citizens is especially popular within academic institutions, legacy media, the entertainment industry, and even sports. However, newly released statistics from the US Department of Labor for the third quarter of 2020 undermine this narrative. Asian women have now surpassed white men in weekly earnings. That trend has been consistent throughout this past year — an unprecedented outcome. Full-time working Asian women earned $1,224 in median weekly earnings in the third quarter of this year compared to $1,122 earned by their white male counterparts. Furthermore, the income gap between both black and Latino men and Asian women is wider than it has ever been. The income gap between white and black women, meanwhile, is much narrower than the gap between their male counterparts.

These outcomes cannot exist in a society suffused with misogyny and racism. As confounding to conventional progressive wisdom as these new figures appear to be, copious research finds that ethnic minorities and women frequently eclipse their white and male counterparts, even when these identities intersect. Several ethnic minority groups consistently out-perform whites in a variety of categories — higher test scores, lower incarceration rates, and longer life expectancies. According to the latest data from the US Census Bureau, over the 12 months covered by the survey, the median household incomes of Syrian Americans ($74,047), Korean Americans ($76,674), Indonesian Americans ($93,501), Taiwanese Americans ($102,405), and Filipino Americans ($100,273) are all significantly higher than that of whites ($69,823). The report also finds substantial economic gains among minority groups. Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute reports that from 2018 to 2019, Asian and black households had the highest rate of median income growth (10.6 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively) of all main racial groups (although she cautions that overall disparities remain “largely unchanged”). On a longitudinal scale, Hispanics, not whites, had the highest income growth in 2019 relative to the start of the Great Recession in 2007 (although many of these gains have been reversed by the pandemic).

Rapidly rising female economic success is partly a product of higher academic representation. 2019 was the 11th consecutive year in which women earned the majority of doctoral degrees. Women accounted for 57 percent of all students across American colleges in 2018 according to the latest US Department of Education figures and earned the majority of associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. According to University of Michigan economist Mark J. Perry, “By overall enrollment in higher education men have been an under-represented minority for the last 40 years.” Sex differences in cognition can help to explain differential performance along gender lines — although men typically perform better on quantitative and visuospatial tasks, several studies have found that on average women perform better in verbal and memory tasks and on reading and writing tests.

No, Console Scalpers Aren’t Ruining Christmas

Filed under: Business, Economics, Gaming, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Foundation for Economic Education
Published 22 Dec 2020

Support Out of Frame on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OutofFrameShow

Check out our podcast, Out of Frame: Behind the Scenes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiS5…

As we enter peak holiday season, most people have their shopping done by now, but as always, many are scrambling last-minute for their purchases. And if you aren’t one of those early-birds fortunate enough to procure a PS5 or Xbox Series X, you can guarantee that you won’t be able to find one unless you’re willing to pay $1,200 to a scalper.

Many are understandably frustrated. How is it fair for people to buy up the consoles at $500 and sell for nearly double or triple the cost? “There ought to be a law” against that kind of thing — right?

Well, in short, there’s nothing wrong with scalping — and a few economic lessons will help explain why.

Scarcity is real and so is time-preference. Scalpers (and even bots) show that demand for some goods is so high that people are willing to pay several times the list price — which could provide a lot of information to Sony and Microsoft on how many consoles to produce and in what parts of the world. They could factor that information into the future, so there would be less problems with availability, but most retailers make this information exchange impossible.

______________________________
CREDITS:

Produced by Sean W. Malone
Written by Jen Maffessanti & Sean W. Malone
Edited by Paul Nelson
Asst. Edited by Jason Reinhardt

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