The Roman Army Knife

Post #321,765 by lincoln 2/20/10 11:44:12 AM Reply	The Roman Army Knife how the ingenuity of the Swiss was beaten by 1,800 years: http://www.dailymail...-1-800-years.html "Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow
Post #321,772 by Ashton 2/20/10 6:01:52 PM Reply	'After witnessing the princess use the fork, the church severely censured her, stating that the utensil was an affront to God's intentions for fingers." there are no words
Post #321,773 by Andrew Grygus 2/20/10 6:41:48 PM Reply	Indeed, the fork was condemned in France . . . . . as a decadent import from Italy. Of course someone should have pointed out to the good prelate that the heathens of India ate with their fingers, as did the infidels of Persia, and that good Christians should seek to become more refined than these barbaric peoples. The fork appeared in England in the late 1600s but was despised as "unmanly" and condemned by church writers as "insulting to God". It did not become common until the later 1700s. The modern curved 4 prong fork was invented in Germany in the mid 1700s.
Post #321,774 by Another Scott 2/20/10 7:16:39 PM Reply	Ob "On The Media" link. This was a good segment today - http://www.onthemedi...pts/2010/02/19/07 Future Shock, Past and Present February 19, 2010 Just about every week, a TV news segment or magazine cover scares us with the prospect that new media technology is damaging our brains, our social skills and our culture. But, says neuropsychologist Dr. Vaughn Bell, take a long look back and youÂll see that every new development Â from the printing press to radio to Facebook Â has been regarded with suspicion. (The link points to an article in Slate - http://www.slate.com...4198/pagenum/all/ ) Transcript available on Monday. The audio is 6 minutes (2.5 MB .mp3). Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,775 by Ashton 2/20/10 7:59:34 PM Reply	Why yes.. just look at what the deconstruction of one word, Certainty.. is doing for 'religion' in general, and Fundamentalism in particular, eh?
Post #321,781 by mhuber 2/20/10 11:25:59 PM Reply	Older than that Some of the older texts of the Greek philosophers complain about the new technology's effects on the young. The new tech being literature. A lot of literate kids can't memorize even the most basic epic poems. They were right, too. I'm a pretty smart guy, I love that epic poetry, and I couldn't recite more than a few lines of my favorite epics to get myself out of Hades. Paraphrase, sure. But not recite. I blame the written word. So seductive, so addictive. So brain-rotting. And yes, in a few minutes I'll be popping Quake II in the drive (and vodka in the glass) and rotting my brain even faster.
Post #321,784 by Another Scott 2/20/10 11:34:55 PM Reply	He mentioned that. :-) And I agree with you. Memorization used to be nearly a life-or-death skill. I have trouble remembering how old I am any more.... Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,796 by drook 2/21/10 10:04:32 AM Reply	Jut last night I had to do math to remember my age -- Drew

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