Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Redshirt · Post by **Redshirt** » Thu Jan 16, 2014 9:27 pm

On a semi-related note, I've been finding articles and studies that are saying that .223 penetrates less panels of drywall than the popular 00 buckshot round. That kinda surprised me.

As a function of both its shape and high velocity, when a round of 5.56/.223 hits a soft target it yaws (tumbles). This is by design, in order to improve the damage it does to a human target. A spherical shotgun pellet wont go as far through air, but its uniform shape means it doesn't experience the same rapid dropoff in forward motion as a 5.56 round.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jan 16, 2014 9:36 pm

radthemad4 wrote:When addressing or referring to people with small caps usernames, should they be capitalized?

It doesn't bother me either way. Spelling "fectin" with a lowercase f is a conceit anyway.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:21 am

I was just thinking about it for netiquette, but thanks for the quotes tip. I'll do that if I ever write a report or thesis or something that quotes from a forum. Since most of you seem to be okay with the lowercase thing (or at least completely indifferent to it), I'll just use lowercase.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:24 am

In a similar vein to the username capitalization question--when should race and class names and titles be capitalized in game or fantasy material?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:03 am

Prak_Anima wrote:In a similar vein to the username capitalization question--when should race and class names and titles be capitalized in game or fantasy material?

Technically tribal and ethnic names are capitalized and species names are not. So the proper capitalization would be "Dark elf," "Strongheart halfling," or "Mountain dwarf." Alternately, you could choose to regard the D&D "races" as proper names and capitalize the words "Elf" and "Orc" as well. Considering that both Elves and Orcs can interbreed with humans, you'd be on pretty firm ground arguing that they are tribal names rather than species names.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:20 am

Why do people hate Gypsies?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:34 am

Huh, interesting. Is that why you capitalized the races in your Dead Man's Hand write ups, because they're effectively all ethnic groups as well as races?

Ogrebattle- I'd imagine it boils down to the usual human xenophobia and us versus them mentalities, along with differing cultures. They were "strange" people from "over there" so people didn't trust them because they looked and talked "funny." For the same reason people decided that it was ok to treat them poorly, which spurred the roma to say "well, they're fuckheads, so we're going to do whatever we want and to hell with them," which of course creates a fedback loop of dickery. It's just that being non-nomadic gives you a better foundation for dickery and discrimination, and being nomadic doesn't allow for much dickery beyond theft and con artistry, so the roma were quickly a subjugated class because they were always the visiters and never the hosts.

Anyone with a more formal knowledge of history is welcome to correct me as this is all gleaned from bare bones research I did when I wanted to know exactly how racist it would be to base a game world's elves off of gypsiesroma.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 1:50 pm

That's sensible.

Now I'm looking for information on Greek, Roman, Medieval European agriculture. Seed drills were introduced to Europe in the 1500's, so how did they plant the seeds before that?

I remember seeing some contemporary artwork of Europeans throwing seeds in big fistfuls and crows going in to eat them, but I forgot where that picture can be found.

The wikipedia page on plows doesn't really say much about how plows were back in the day either.
This kind of knowledge is nice to have for setting up fantasy worlds.

*Ok, just found that old article:
http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/id1.html

Plowing with wood, looks fuckin' hard

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 2:21 pm

OgreBattle wrote:Now I'm looking for information on Greek, Roman, Medieval European agriculture. Seed drills were introduced to Europe in the 1500's, so how did they plant the seeds before that?

I've got a copy of The Early Growth of the European Economy (800s-1300s) by Geroges Duby that talks a bit about that.

In general it seems that soil was still turned by hand, with the use of swing-plows made of wood, with metal implements being rare.

Since the plough was not assembled by a specialist, but on the peasant's homestead, it would have had a ploughshare made wholly of wood hardened by fire or at best covered with a thin sheath of metal, and would have been incapable of use in stiff soils, even when the plough was very heavy, provided with wheels and drawn by six or eight oxen. It could not even turn over light soils thoroughly enough to provide an active stimulus for the replacement of their fertility content. I t must have seemed a derisory weapon when brought face to face with the strength of the natural vegetation.

This was mainly the case in farms administered by monasteries; the Mediterranean countries have lighter soils and are generally metal-poor compared to northern climes, so the Romans never really developed plowing technology as much as some of their northern "barbarian" neighbors.

In general, agricultural production was not high. There was very little use of manure or other fertilizer, very little land-clearance, and bumper crops were rare. Some Caroliginian records of agricultural production put production rations as low as 1:1 in bad years (i.e. for every seed planted, only one was harvested), and 1:3 in good years.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 3:54 pm

OgreBattle wrote:Why do people hate Gypsies?

Same reasons people hate Carnies, plus magic.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 10:03 pm

OgreBattle wrote:

Plowing with wood, looks fuckin' hard

This painting is actually relatively late in that period as the padded horse collar was not introduced in europe until the 10th century. Before that, oxen were used, but they had a much lower efficiency.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:53 am

Is there a quick, comprehensive guide somewhere to the history of pants in the western world for the last 2,000 years?

Like when did they start wearing tight pants, was it for military reasons? 'Cause I see those 19th 18th century uniforms, I see George Washington paintings, and he's got some tight pants on.

But it seems like tight pants are a western innovation. From what I know of the history of East Asia, everyone wore fairly loose pants and if they needed to tighten them it was done by wrapping cords around the ankles, leaving the crotch with plenty of breathing room.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:12 am

The modern tight pants were invented for French court fashion in the 17th century. The Mughal Empire had tight fitting churidars that they wore under what were essentially short dresses a hundred years earlier.

So either French nobility saw North Indian Muslims in their churidar pyjamas and said "I gotta get me some of that" or they just went to the tailors one day and said "I want to wear something that says 'lookit my junk!'" Not really sure.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:06 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:French nobility... (snip) ...and said "I want to wear something that says 'lookit my junk!'"

I think we all know which one it was.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 6:07 pm

"Look at my calves", actually.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:34 am

fectin wrote:"Look at my calves", actually.

Regal as fuck

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:45 am

Whatever takes your focus off his face and hair, I guess. I presume that's also why he has a blanket draped over his shoulder.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 2:28 pm

That's exactly the painting I was too lazy to find. It's huge in real life.
Guy apparently was just really really proud of his calves.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 12:32 am

Is he in heels?

Morat · Post by **Morat** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 2:33 am

OgreBattle wrote:That's sensible.

Now I'm looking for information on Greek, Roman, Medieval European agriculture. Seed drills were introduced to Europe in the 1500's, so how did they plant the seeds before that?

Broadcasting. Which is what you saw, you spread the seeds by hand more or less evenly over the area. This is *amazingly* worse, you have to cover the seeds that happened to land in the furrows *by hand*, and those that fell outside? Oh well. Birds will get some, the rest will grow stunted and mostly useless. But they will absorb nutrients from the soil, so yay.

A good drill could improve yields by a factor of, like, eight. Though it didn't take over in Europe until the 19th century, out of cost, fragility, complexity, and soil finickiness.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 2:54 am

Picture related anecdote:

Once during the reign of Nicolai II, an officer got loudly drunk in a pub named after emperor, and, when other patrons tried to calm him down, appealing to his patriotism and loyalty to the emperor, spat on the emperor's portrait sreaming "I don't give a shit about the emperor!". That got him incarcerated, awaiting the court decision.
One way or the other, the case got to Nicolai, who took one look and gave a decision:
-Stop hanging emperor's portraits in pubs.
-Free the officer.
-Tell him, that I don't give a shit about him either.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:24 am

...You Lost Me wrote:Is he in heels?

Yes. They enhance the shape of his calves.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:33 am

So when people say "pre-apocalyptic", are they referring to "any time at all before the apocalypse" or do they mean "the apocalypse is right there in front of them, it just isn't happening yet"?

Because in November I have a costume party to attend. This gives me heaps of time to make a fancy outfit, grow my hair long again, dye it, get gatling guns built into my knees, whatever. The theme is "Apocalyptic/Pre-Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic". And well, I shall list all apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic things that I like:

Sailor Moon (Season S qualifies, as does Stars, I suppose anything set in alternate future Crystal Tokyo or previous Crystal Tokyo counts)
Rifts (which basically means "wear whatever you want and claim that you're a character you just made up, with whatever OCC)

If "pre-apocalyptic" opens up "everything that isn't covered by post or apocalyptic" and the theme is actually "Anything", then that gives me more options.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:50 am

I would imagine that pre-apocalyptic is the moment right before the apocalypse. The example that comes to my mind is the scene in Dark Knight Rises where the common people of Gotham are pulling the rich dicks out of their penthouses and such and tearing their fancy coats and shit off of them.

So for Pre-apocalyptic, I would say something like this qualifies:

So, hit thrift stores/ebay/consignment stores and look for fancy-ish clothing for cheap that you can distress. If it's clearly not made for you (over-sized, perhaps) even better.

But, sadly, I am not a mind reader, so you may want to ask the person throwing the party what they mean.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Jan 24, 2014 7:28 am

Can someone here sum up the theory of "Gender Performativity" in English instead of the insular academic jargon used on wikipedia? Bonus points if you can explain how it's actually relevant instead of just a prime topic for thesisifcation via academicism jargonization across Erikson's eight spectra of normative and psuedo-subjective strata of implied societal differentiation as an internalized facade.