საქართველოს
I got back from Tbilisi a month ago and thought I’d share some facts about the country. Most people I meet confuse it with Georgia, unless they know me well, in which case the only thing they might know about it is that the capital is not Atlanta.
No one is really sure why it’s called Georgia. Georgia is transliterated as “Sakartvelo,” meaning the place of the Kartvelebi (what ethnic Georgians call themselves). Some people think it was named after their patron saint, St. George. Georgians are supposed to be descendants of a guy mentioend in the Bible. Regardless, the place has been inhabited since prehistory. It’s a little old.
Continue reading ‘[Transnational Geographic] Not the US State’
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Tags: საქართველოს, georgia, khinkali, rose revolution, tbilisi
Thanks, Greg!
Back in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII was fed up with the Easter holiday getting earlier and earlier every year. It was getting earlier because the old calendar that Julius Caesar introduced calculated a full year as only 365.25 days. Well the Romans were wrong and after realizing that a year was actually 365.2425, which is shorter by 10 minutes and 48 seconds, the Catholics finally fixed it. Thanks, Catholics!
The only real difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is that every 400 years, 3 leap days are omitted to correct the calendar year. That and the adoption of the new calendar shifted them 11 days into the future, from 5 October back to 14 October 1582, thus resetting the vernal equinox to its rightful place on March 21.
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Tags: gregorian calendar, julian calendar, leap day, pope gregory xiii
While my father’s side of the family boasts a strong Germanic lineage, my mother’s ancestors are a more varied lot. Her mother was the daughter of two immigrants, a man from Basque country and a Ukrainian Jew, but her father was an All-American Son of the American Revolution with generations of red blooded, sometimes to a fault, Yankees. And an enduring testament to that is the journal that has been passed down through the generations of my great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Thresher who relocated to Kansas from Massachusetts to put in his two cents to the Slave versus Free State fight. He admits that he was late to all the good action that is described as “Bloody Kansas,” but it’s fun nonetheless to read his memoirs about settling the state and living next to some of the great towns that the Great Plains came to bear.
I have transcribed (the nearly impossible to read handwriting of) his journal here for all to share. I’ve done all the hard work but it’s worth noting a few important transcription edits. Anything in [square brackets] is my edits to make a word intelligible and I’m 95% confident it’s what he intended. If something is in {curly brackets} it’s my best guess what he wrote. I’ve also included links to anything that might be an obscure reference that I was able to clarify with this magic of the internet. This is installment one of four.
Continue reading ‘[From Sea to Shining Sea] Charles A. Thresher’
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Tags: bloody kansas, charles a thresher, lawrence
Finally, someone fixed the problem of drying your shirt with the collar stays in it, making the stays warp to all hell. Carbon fiber doesn’t contain any metal – which means no corrosion and no taking them out at airport security.
Okay, so maybe they cost $40 for 2 pairs, but it’s not like you’ll ever be replacing them. (via Valet Mag)
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Tags: carbon fiber, collar stays
[via swissmiss]
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Tags: ok go, primary colors, sesame street
The 7 Ps
Repeat after me:
Click to download it as your desktop background and never eff up again.
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Tags: 7 Ps
The subzero temperatures surging through Russia right now caught the attention of the New York Times today, as it noted the effects the weather would have on the upcoming anti-government protests. Russian newspapers aren’t really talking about it, except for how the city will need to take care of the homeless (на русском).Forecasts for the weekend in Moscow will be 7° F, compared to unseasonably warm temperatures that much of America is having (it will be in the 60s in Oakland for Superbowl Sunday). The NYT notes that protesters are trying to figure out how to make a politically significant message but not freeze to death in the subzero temperatures. It wouldn’t be first time the weather in Moscow posed a larger problem than anything man-made.
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Tags: napoleon, nazis, protests, russia, winter
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