The Khitan were an ancient ethnic group who lived on the upper course of the Liao River located in Manchuria, exactly in the basin of the modern Shira Muren and Laoha Rivers. The earliest records on the Khitan in the Chinese historical sources can be traced back to the beginning of the Northern Wei in the second half of the 4th Century. Through more than half a millennium development the Khitan people ultimately founded a very strong empire, which lasted over two hundred years (907-1125). They alternatively used "Khitan" or "Liao" as their state name.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Historical Development Of The Pre-Dynastic Khitan
http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/hum/aasia/vk/xu/historic.pdf
The Khitan were an ancient ethnic group who lived on the upper course of the Liao River located in Manchuria, exactly in the basin of the modern Shira Muren and Laoha Rivers. The earliest records on the Khitan in the Chinese historical sources can be traced back to the beginning of the Northern Wei in the second half of the 4th Century. Through more than half a millennium development the Khitan people ultimately founded a very strong empire, which lasted over two hundred years (907-1125). They alternatively used "Khitan" or "Liao" as their state name.
The Khitan were an ancient ethnic group who lived on the upper course of the Liao River located in Manchuria, exactly in the basin of the modern Shira Muren and Laoha Rivers. The earliest records on the Khitan in the Chinese historical sources can be traced back to the beginning of the Northern Wei in the second half of the 4th Century. Through more than half a millennium development the Khitan people ultimately founded a very strong empire, which lasted over two hundred years (907-1125). They alternatively used "Khitan" or "Liao" as their state name.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Longest Serving Politicians
William Morris Hughes was Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister until 1957 when Robert Menzies overtook Hughes’ record term from 1915 to 1923. Hughes’ other record still stands: no parliamentarian has surpassed his 51 years and 7 months of continuous service as a member of Australia’s House of Representatives – from the 1st parliament in 1901 to the 20th in 1952.
John David Dingell, Jr. (born July 8, 1926) is an American politician who has been a member of the United States House of Representatives continuously since entering Congress on December 13, 1955. He is a member of the Democratic Party. On June 7, 2013 he reached 20,997 days of membership, surpassing Senator Robert Byrd as the longest-serving member of Congress in history.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Culhwch and Olwen
Black your head, Black your cloak
Black your horse, Black yourself
Black skull. Is it you oh Frenzied One?
Black your horse, Black yourself
Black skull. Is it you oh Frenzied One?
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Tricks the Dead Have Played Upon the Living
Rodney Stark has written extensively on the myth of a Dark Ages in Europe. Whilst his explosion of the myth should be of interest to all historians of the West, it is of particular interest to Christians because of the widespread hypothesis that the Dark Ages existed due to the influence of Christianity in Europe, which ignorance and superstition throughout the Continent. The sub-thesis is that since Christianity is a religion of superstition and ignorance were it to become culturally dominant again, a new Dark Ages would descend upon the land.
This hypothesis and its sub-theses were advanced successfully by the philosophes of the Enlightenment. Voltaire, of course, had observed that "history is a trick the living play upon the dead"; he was in no doubt that "meaningful" history existed only as a useful tool to illustrate selectively his preferred narrative of the times. In his day, the preferred narrative was to assert that human reason was sovereign over superstition, and that the Christian religion was primarily a superstition that held the unenlightened in thrall. Thus, Enlightenment propagandists glorified the ages of Greece and Rome and denigrated the age of Christian ascendency in the West.
Voltaire (1694-1778) claimed that after Rome fell, "barbarism, superstition, [and] ignorance covered the face of the world." According to Rousseau (1712-1778), "Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest ages. The people in this part of the world . . . lived some centuries ago in a condition worse than ignorance." Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) also pronounced this era as the "triumph of barbarism and religion".
For three centuries this has been the received wisdom of the matter in the West. Most twentieth century historians simply accepted this narrative, or "trick played upon the dead" as true. Like the narrative of evolutionism, one had to espouse it in order to be respected in the academy. Here, for example, is Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress, writing in 1983, claiming that the Dark Ages began before the fall of Rome--sometime around the emergence of the Christian gospel. As it grew and expanded, so did a pervasive ignorance.
"Christianity conquered the Roman Empire and most of Europe. Then we observe a Europe-wide phenomenon of scholarly amnesia, which afflicted the continent from A.D. 300 to at least 1300." This occurred because "the leaders of orthodox Christendom built a grand barrier against the progress of knowledge." And in the words of the distinguished historian William Manchester (1922-2004), this was an era "of incessant warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths, and an almost impenetrable mindlessness . . . . The Dark Ages were stark in every dimension." Ibid, p.66
Now the myth of the Dark Ages has been exploded in the mind of the academy--at least for the present.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
20,000 hexes under the sea
Today we will be descending into the Wargame Ocean. Using a submersible similar to James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger, we will plummet to an estimated depth of 120 hexes. Our craft, the HMAS Avalon Hill, will hopefully be able to survive the immense nerdiness that exists at the lower depths. For several years I have wandered the shores of the Wargame Ocean, reading accounts of those who have ventured out over the horizon to hunt down the strange, hexagonal creatures which live in these waters. Today, it is our turn. Leaving Civilization behind us, we strike out to go toe to toe with some of the larger beasts that swim in these parts.
Launching into water which is a lovely shade of Prussian blue, we descend a short way and pause. Contrary to popular belief, there are in fact many wargames which thrive in the warm, sun-lit shallow water close to the surface. These games have evolved to take advantage of the light found at this level and often have attractive user interfaces and graphics. For those consumers and publishers willing to fish in the Wargame Ocean, these are highly prized specimens. It is at this level we can see games such as the iPad Battles of the Bulge, Unity of Command and even Panzer Corps, flashing through the water. Depending on how close we are to the Tactical Straights which separate the Wargame Ocean from the Real Time Strategy Sea, we might also see some other light wargames, such as Graviteam Tactics, swimming around. It is interesting to note that many wargames at this depth, and lower down, come from the genus Bellum Orbis Terrarums, most notably the ‘Secundus’ branch of that family.
While these games are interesting, we are seeking larger prey today, and so we begin to descend.
Here in the murkier water, the light is dimmer. For a game to survive here, it needs to be larger and more complicated than games in shallower waters. User interfaces are less important than solid game mechanics. Although this environment is not conducive to many games, it is at this level that wargames thrive. Indeed, the variety of wargames which have evolved at this depth is truly astonishing. From Field of Glory to Rise of Prussia to Combat Mission, almost every historical age has had a wargame developed for it. To get hooked into one of these beasts however, takes some dedication. Like marlin fishing in the gulf stream, any gamer who wants to fish these depths needs find a comfortable chair together with a lot of spare time and patience to work the wargame in. However the struggle to land a wargame from these waters is often well worth the effort.
Unfortunately we do not have the time to catalogue this variety today. Our goal is greater, so we must continue downwards.
Going deeper, the light has now vanished. We are alone in the dark where some real monsters live. Few games can live at these depths, and to survive, they have had to evolve game mechanics so complex and intricate, barely any user functionality is left. Indeed, many would hesitate to even call these ‘games’ as such. They are more simulations that, left to themselves, have grown to an enormous size. The twin lords of this domain are from the ‘Grigsbius’ family - War in the East and its cousin, War in the Pacific. Behemoths that swim menacingly through the black water. The ASL whale also hunts these depths, and it is a brave wargamer who will descend to do battle here.
But we are not done yet. The abyss still falls away below us, and we must descend again, into the Stygian waste.
We hit bottom. Silt balloons up around us and it is here, the Grognard Deep, that we find the true leviathan wargames. No publisher will brave the crushing market pressures that exist at this level. This is a domain inhabited solely by the independents who labour over their creations out of passion for the subject. At this level, the user interface has all but been obliterated, minutiae and feature creep are all pervasive and the structure of the game can only be supported by manuals that are several hundred pages long. The floor of the ocean is littered with the scattered remains of release dates that expired many years earlier.
And there it is. A game so grognardy it has the word grognard in its title. In a place where no game should be able to exist, it exists. Histwar: Les Grognards. The scope of this project is enormous. A game of the Napoleonic Wars where the battles of Waterloo and Austerlitz, involving over 100,000 men, can be fought at a 1:1 scale. The difficulty level is ‘painfully realistic’. Orders to troops have to be given by way of messengers who might be shot or captured. This is a wargame to strike fear into the heart of even the most obsessive compulsive gamer. But watching the beasts’ ungainly progress through the water, it is clear why these monsters are an evolutionary dead-end for wargames. The specific niche that wargames fill in gaming taxonomy is to provide an interactive experience with particular points in history – particularly the pointy bits of history. The reason games higher up the food chain have survived is because natural selection has favoured titles that fulfil this role efficiently – usually through a degree of abstraction. The more efficient games have passed on their sale successes to the next generation to iterate upon. While the coelacanth from the time before computers eke out an existence on obscure forums in remote corners of the Internet. But it is comforting to remember that, like the coelacanth, these leviathan wargames have weathered the new era, while other genres have gone the way of the Dodo.
But, our air has expired, so we drop the wargame manuals we have been using as ballast and rapidly ascend back to the surface. Hoping to return one day to document the amazing variety of specimens that are found in this region.
Launching into water which is a lovely shade of Prussian blue, we descend a short way and pause. Contrary to popular belief, there are in fact many wargames which thrive in the warm, sun-lit shallow water close to the surface. These games have evolved to take advantage of the light found at this level and often have attractive user interfaces and graphics. For those consumers and publishers willing to fish in the Wargame Ocean, these are highly prized specimens. It is at this level we can see games such as the iPad Battles of the Bulge, Unity of Command and even Panzer Corps, flashing through the water. Depending on how close we are to the Tactical Straights which separate the Wargame Ocean from the Real Time Strategy Sea, we might also see some other light wargames, such as Graviteam Tactics, swimming around. It is interesting to note that many wargames at this depth, and lower down, come from the genus Bellum Orbis Terrarums, most notably the ‘Secundus’ branch of that family.
While these games are interesting, we are seeking larger prey today, and so we begin to descend.
Here in the murkier water, the light is dimmer. For a game to survive here, it needs to be larger and more complicated than games in shallower waters. User interfaces are less important than solid game mechanics. Although this environment is not conducive to many games, it is at this level that wargames thrive. Indeed, the variety of wargames which have evolved at this depth is truly astonishing. From Field of Glory to Rise of Prussia to Combat Mission, almost every historical age has had a wargame developed for it. To get hooked into one of these beasts however, takes some dedication. Like marlin fishing in the gulf stream, any gamer who wants to fish these depths needs find a comfortable chair together with a lot of spare time and patience to work the wargame in. However the struggle to land a wargame from these waters is often well worth the effort.
Unfortunately we do not have the time to catalogue this variety today. Our goal is greater, so we must continue downwards.
Going deeper, the light has now vanished. We are alone in the dark where some real monsters live. Few games can live at these depths, and to survive, they have had to evolve game mechanics so complex and intricate, barely any user functionality is left. Indeed, many would hesitate to even call these ‘games’ as such. They are more simulations that, left to themselves, have grown to an enormous size. The twin lords of this domain are from the ‘Grigsbius’ family - War in the East and its cousin, War in the Pacific. Behemoths that swim menacingly through the black water. The ASL whale also hunts these depths, and it is a brave wargamer who will descend to do battle here.
But we are not done yet. The abyss still falls away below us, and we must descend again, into the Stygian waste.
We hit bottom. Silt balloons up around us and it is here, the Grognard Deep, that we find the true leviathan wargames. No publisher will brave the crushing market pressures that exist at this level. This is a domain inhabited solely by the independents who labour over their creations out of passion for the subject. At this level, the user interface has all but been obliterated, minutiae and feature creep are all pervasive and the structure of the game can only be supported by manuals that are several hundred pages long. The floor of the ocean is littered with the scattered remains of release dates that expired many years earlier.
And there it is. A game so grognardy it has the word grognard in its title. In a place where no game should be able to exist, it exists. Histwar: Les Grognards. The scope of this project is enormous. A game of the Napoleonic Wars where the battles of Waterloo and Austerlitz, involving over 100,000 men, can be fought at a 1:1 scale. The difficulty level is ‘painfully realistic’. Orders to troops have to be given by way of messengers who might be shot or captured. This is a wargame to strike fear into the heart of even the most obsessive compulsive gamer. But watching the beasts’ ungainly progress through the water, it is clear why these monsters are an evolutionary dead-end for wargames. The specific niche that wargames fill in gaming taxonomy is to provide an interactive experience with particular points in history – particularly the pointy bits of history. The reason games higher up the food chain have survived is because natural selection has favoured titles that fulfil this role efficiently – usually through a degree of abstraction. The more efficient games have passed on their sale successes to the next generation to iterate upon. While the coelacanth from the time before computers eke out an existence on obscure forums in remote corners of the Internet. But it is comforting to remember that, like the coelacanth, these leviathan wargames have weathered the new era, while other genres have gone the way of the Dodo.
But, our air has expired, so we drop the wargame manuals we have been using as ballast and rapidly ascend back to the surface. Hoping to return one day to document the amazing variety of specimens that are found in this region.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Japanese Civil Code - 1898
1017.
An heir must within a period of three months after he has notice that succession in his favour has occurred accept it absolutely or qualifiedly or refuse it. Such period, however, may be extended by the court on the application of a person interested or of the public procurator. The heir has a right to investigate the condition of the estate before accepting or refusing the succession.
...
1023.
If the heir accepts absolutely, he succeeds to the rights and duties of the ancestor without limitation.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Toumani Diabate
Toumani was born in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in 1965 into a family of exceptional griots (hereditary musician/historian caste); his research shows 71 generations of kora players from father to son. The most notable was his father, Sidiki Diabaté (c. 1922-96), a kora player of legendary fame in West Africa - dubbed King of the Kora at the prestigious international Black Arts Festival Festac in 1977, and a continuing inspiration to all kora players to this day. Sidiki was born in the Gambia of Malian parents.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Midnight in Tangiers
and the hashish smoke hung like a fog in the old bathhouse. The yells of the men gathered in a circle in the largest chamber echoed off the tessellated walls. Without a word Muhammed had disappeared into the throng, leaving Gregor at the door, still reeling from the hit he had taken. Leaning back against the cool tiles, he slid down to the floor, closing his eyes.
Muhammed reappeared. ‘Sahib, getup getup. Do not sleep here. Bad bad idea.’
Gregor waved him away. But with a wiry strength Muhammed grabbed his arm and dragged him upright. Gregor’s droopy gaze met the fervent eyes of his guide.
‘Come,’ said Muhammed. ‘This is what we came to see.’
They merged into the heaving mass. Muhammed dragging Gregor past heavy set men, bristled beards, flared nostrils. The stink of sweat and hash and sweet tea. They came to the front of the ring and Gregor looked down. Below him lay one of the bathhouses large ornamental pools, designed for the elite of the town to soak in and swim around. Now it had been drained and all that was being soaked into the sawdust that carpeted the bottom of the pool was the blood from the torn throat of a macaque monkey. A second macaque sat a few feet away, nursing its arm.
A great cheer went up as two small handlers lept into the basin and scooped the two animals, one struggling, one passive, into their cages. Two more cages appeared.
‘Sahib, your money,’ said Muhammed.
‘No, Muhammed, this is. What is this?’
Muhammed winked at Gregor, dove his hand into Gregor’s pocket and took out his wallet before disappearing into the crowd. Gregor tried to turn but the wall of turbaned flesh was impassable. He was turned around to stare at the macabre sight below.
Both cages had opened and the two new macaque circled each other warily. Snarling at each other, exposing long canine teeth, they hurtled together into a screaming ball of claws and fur and blood. Then it was over. Another puddle of blood spilled out into the bath.
Muhammed tugged at Gregor’s sleeve and slipped a roll of banknotes into his hand. ‘You are very lucky Sahib. Good odds on that win.’
Muhammed reappeared and disappeared and reappeared again. Or was it Gregor’s brother? The room spun in circles of screams of dying primates. The crowd shifted and Gregor’s face was buried in the armpit of the man next to him. Then on the floor. Then up again. Muhammed’s crescent moon smile flashing across his midnight face. Blood splashed across Gregor’s face, the warm, salty liquid oozing between his lips. Telling Muhammed to bet on red. Now on blue. Gregor’s gaze was like the touch of death, whichever fighter he bet against would surely die. The feeling of power was intoxicating. You die. You die. You die. Gregor won every time.
The stars shone weakly in the lightening sky. Gregor sat in the gutter. The yells of the ring still drumming through his head. A stack of notes landed on the ground before him.
‘Not bad, eh sahib?’ smiled Muhammed.
Gregor vomited over the money.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
Pekingnese putdowns
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8261
I first heard the expression déxìng 德性 ("morality; virtuous / moral character" –> "disgusting; shameful") in the early 80s in a Beijing department store on Wángfǔ jǐng 王府井. A customer was trying to get a salesgirl to show her something (a purse, I think it was, maybe a pair of shoes) that was behind the counter, and the salesgirl couldn't be bothered. An argument ensued, which was brought to a screeching halt when the Pekingese salesgirl said to the customer, with the most condescending sneer I've ever seen in my life: déxìng 德性 ("morality; virtuous / moral character" –> "disgusting; shameful"), and with a very strong, drawn-out emphasis on the first syllable, a slight pause in the middle, and then a light dismissive, downward sliding second syllable: ´ `! The customer was apoplectically speechless.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Marcus Julius Philippus Augustus
Philip the Arab, the only Roman emperor bad enough to still be printed on currency after 2000 years.
