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History - Blog Posts
Scientist bakes sourdough bread with yeast derived from 4500 year old Egyptian pottery
i'm losing my mind @ this thread......historie......
St. Joan of Arc (detail, 1909) Paul Antoine de la Boulaye
What is a Rapier?
A Rapier is a one-handed, thrust-centric sword common to the Renaissance. The word first begins to be used in France in the late 15th century, referring to swords as an “Epée Rapiere,” and it continues to see common use into the mid 17th century, and even into the 18th century in countries such as Spain.
Common sub-types of Rapier include the swept hilt,
cup hilt,
pappenheimer,
and ring hilt (also called a seven ring, or some variation thereupon,)
and the rapier is likely the weapon which has the most manuals written on its use. Contrary to popular belief, Rapiers are not particularly light swords, sometimes weighing as much as longswords, up to 5 lbs/2.25 kg.
-mod Armet
Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence
I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.
I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.
I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.
How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.
Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.
Old Machine Guts
The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.
New Machine Guts
The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.
And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)
100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.
Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.
We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)
We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.
I just watched a video about arsenic green in the 19th century and it’s as bad as you can imagine and even worse. They didn’t use it only for clothes, wallpapers, books binding and children’s toys, but also as a FOOD DYE! There were arsenic-coloured candies on sale at your local shop. Arsenic. In. The. Food. Do I need to say more?
the passage of time is wack and i want to not think about it
I think one of the Worst Things about wanting to find period clothing from other cultures, is trying to find fucking casual/work clothes. Like no, I do not want to see all these fancy intricate kimonos, I want to see jinbei, and field work outfits so I don't put a damn obi on this poor boy so he has a belt to hang his knife from.
Call me Galen the way I do my exam about medieval medicine
(I have 300 + mistakes)
So, I'm getting more inconsistent with my posting ^^' but let's ignore that, I never forgor a post!
This one comes with a bit of ✨Lore✨ tho:
On May 24th, 2022, Ecuador celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Pichincha Battle, the final conflict that sealed Ecuador's (or well, the "Gran Colombia" at the time) independence from colonial Spain.
To celebrate it, the government decided to hire a spanish muralist (Okuda) who painted a giant Pikachu in the middle of the city, sparking outrage around the whole country. I, for one... Absolutely love it xD I mean, look at him! ❤️❤️
I unironically believe this is an amazing representation of our culture! But anyways, that's not the subject here!
Because atm it seemed relevant and funny, I chose to redraw an iconic art piece representing the Pichincha Battle with Pokémon! Here's the original art that I parodied:
I have tried to find the name of the author, but I barely could find a picture with more than 4 pixels in it (this one's kinda dark too).
Anyways, if you got this far, I hope you enjoyed the infodump! The story is really interesting and making it Pokémon themed was way too fun for me not to do it xD
Regret is stronger than gratitude
Anne Frank
call me monica lewinsky cause oh. oh jack. jack you beautiful specimen.
Happy Labor Day. Today I learned about probably the first strike to happen IN SPACE.
it's me and my two sources on medieval strap-ons against the world
Ahhhhhhh, the Roman Empire, one step in the right direction for the gays but 20 steps in the wrong direction for healthy masculinity.