sweasel.com

I dunno, the guy who chose the death of that dick deserves a dick, in gratitude for a job well-done!

The other two parts of your post were interesting, though. 🙂

I second Nina’s idea that StPatrick_TN – the chooser that dick Phelps – should get some kind of honorary or commemorative award. I’ll even go so far as to promise to forego any prize I might win in the future so as to make this possible.

As for the 500-year-old crap barrels, I appreciate the story, but am otherwise speechless.

Was the pollarding and coppicing link to the same article as the first link?

Yeah, the second link just went to the article for me too. This works somewhat though: http://bit.ly/OFXNYZ

Then there was this –

http://petapixel.com/2014/03/20/incredible-portraits-ornate-fowl-found-chicken-beauty-pageants/

Honey buckets, not mead?

Link fixed. I’m impressed. I always assume nobody clicka de links anyway.

It just goes to the Wikipedia article on pollarding. I try my best to dig up sources other than Wikipedia, but — gosh darn it — they almost always have the best succinct explanation of whatever I’m trying to describe.

I always follow your links, Stoaty. The article about pollarding and coppicing was fascinating. I’d read the word “coppice” before, but never looked it up. I just assumed from the context that it was an old word for a stand of trees. I didn’t know that pruning—pollarding—was so important. I thought it was just to force ornamental trees to produce more flowers (or make fruit trees more productive) but didn’t know it would extend the life of a tree, too. I’ve always detested what landscapers do to crepe myrtles, not considering that it was done to keep the trees smaller, too, in addition to forcing blooms.

And the Copenhagen Post. A Danish newspaper in English! I’m adding it to my newspaper bookmarks 🙂

Speaking of crap, I’ll be on a plane at 6pm WBT and will not be able to prove I need to get a life by fighting to be first in with my pick…rock on!

Isn’t WBT the same as GMT? “Zulu” time.

Although why the prime meridian isn’t in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I couldn’t tell ya. Brit arrogance, I assume.

What’s the use of Mercator’s
North poles and equators
Tropic zones and meridian lines?
So the Bellman would cry
And the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!”

Weapon making went the same route, which is why a lot of people thought European weapons and combat was crappy and a lot of banging on each other with poorly made trash. Research has proved that when armor and swords were the primary way of fighting (before guns), Europeans were at least the equal in crafting steel and combat skill of any Japanese Samurai.

The skills fell out of favor and weren’t used any more, so they were forgotten.

@mojo…I dunno about Brit arrogance, but the French, assholes to the core, abstained in the 1884 Meridian Conference and continued to use the Paris Meridian (Dan Brown’s infamous Rose Line) until 1911.

bj

Mojo, I think it was more a practical result of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich having been used by British sea-farers as a standard, and that standard having been used by other mariners, so that by the time there was an international conference to determine it (as BJM points out), only France wasn’t willing to agree on its use (thank you, Wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Conference)

“Other maps are such shapes,
With their islands and capes,
But we have our brave Captain to thank,”
So the crew would protest,
“That he’s bought us the best:
A perfect and absolute blank.”
From memory, so some words may be off, and the punctuation is almost undoubtedly so.
Nice to know another who enjoys Snark.

He had only one notion for crossing the ocean
And that was to tingle his bell

Beware of Boojums

The missus and I attend a weekly auction in SE PA. For the past four weeks there has been a glut of old woodworking tools, particularly planes, offered at auction. That, and broken and ill-cared-for firearms and parts thereof.

Either one person was an eclectic hoarder of the highest order or a methodical stalker is killing woodworkers in SE PA.

Grab all the planes you can, especially fillet planes and moulding planes! Priceless to a cabinet maker.