The ancestors were weird
YAVB (yet another vampire burial). This one had a sickle buried over her throat business side down so she’d decapitate herself if she sat up. Spoiler: she didn’t.
Also, she had a padlock around her big toe. There’s a bit of vampire lore I didn’t know.
She was eighteen. She had a wonky front tooth, which might have contributed to her identification as a blood sucker. She also had a tumor under her breast bone that might have caused her to look weird, faint a lot and bleed randomly, which couldn’t have helped her reputation. Probably killed her.
She was found in a Polish graveyard but she was Scandihoovian. This was during a 17th C war between Poland and Sweden, so maybe that had something to do with it. It was also the century of Peak Vampire.
She was in a graveyard with 100 unmarked burials, 30 of which had bodies restrained in some way. This is now called the Field of Vampires, because Sky History is doing a two-part special and it sounds sexy.
I had to take minutes for two meetings today and I’m feeling crispy and put-upon.
Posted: November 4th, 2024 under archaeology.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: November 4, 2024, 6:57 pm
A thought just popped into my head (that happens a couple of times a year) about meeting minutes. Here’s a question you might pursue, Stoaty: Have AI tools progressed to the point where you could ask one to make a transcript from the audio feed (or a recording of same) and then to generate minutes. This is such a common (human) process I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been AIutomated.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: November 4, 2024, 8:44 pm
Have a gander at History Calling on the web and as YouTube entrepreneur. The Irish dialect and sarcastic humor are enough to entertain, without the history and facial reconstructions.
Highly recommend!
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 4, 2024, 10:50 pm
@Uncle Al—that’s a great idea. My DAR meeting is this Saturday and I think I will try using my phone to record the business meeting. I’m not the Recording Secretary, but I don’t think anyone will care. I frequently take my own notes just to help me remember particular things.
In the mid-80s I worked for a newspaper editor who took rapid-fire shorthand notes, which impressed me so much that I enrolled in a shorthand course at the local community college (which may have been the class of shorthand ever taught), but I wasn’t very good at it.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 4, 2024, 11:48 pm
I commit meetings to memory.
And then purge it.
I really like “feeling crispy” and
shall endeavor to use it.
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 4, 2024, 11:54 pm
JavaMan says Microsoft OneNote will record and transcribe.
Comment from Pupster
Time: November 5, 2024, 12:38 am
Mrs. Pupster uses an app called Audioshare to record meetings, but also has an iPhone which came with a program called Voice Memos which she uses sometimes too. She’s the secretary for a Board of Directors and has to do meeting minutes every month.
Comment from steve
Time: November 5, 2024, 12:33 pm
The worst thing about taking minutes for a meeting is that it forces you to actually pay attention….
…FOR THE WHOLE MEETING!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 5, 2024, 4:00 pm
Yes, but the best part about taking minutes for the meeting is that I can BEND REALITY TO MY WILL. By the time the minutes come out, nobody remembers what happened in any detail, so I can MAKE SHIT UP.
Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: November 5, 2024, 4:48 pm
Of course, I can’t find the case at the moment, but there was an American family that kept loosing children to TB.
The preacher convinced the parents that the first child to die was a vampire. They cremated her and the survivors ate the ashes.
Then they also died.
Of TB.
They don’t call it “consumption” for nothing.
Comment from Pupster
Time: November 5, 2024, 7:37 pm
Uhm…what?
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 5, 2024, 11:10 pm
@Pupster
“Back off man, I’m a scientist”
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