The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Party Room => Ask Me => Topic started by: Malte279 on August 14, 2009, 06:48:17 PM
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There are some questions to which I am ill suited to give any response. For example people who know me will be aware that I am very careful about the use of superlatives as in the responses to questions such as "what is your favorite book / movie etc.?" as I dislike degrading everything else not described with such a superlative.
Same as everyone else there are also some questions which I might not want to answer. But usually there is no harm in asking a question even if it may not be possible to answer them. So here is a thread to ask me any questions on which you would like to know my response.
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Have you read Atlas Shrugged? What was your opinion of it?
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Hehe, it's okay. ;)
Hmm let's see...how much fun are you having at Lillefot's place? hehe
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I haven't heard of Atlas Shrugged so far.
As for the fun at Gustav's place, I know not of a measure unit to which one could apply anything countable as "how much", but I can assure you it is a LOT of fun :lol:
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Do you like Star Trek?
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What was the last book you read, and what was your opinion about it?
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What are your hobbies?
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Do you play halo
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I like Star Trek though I cannot claim being enough into it as to name me a fan. I did not see all Star Trek movies / series out there. I do not think it makes for a good crossing over with the land before time.
Right now I am reading two books. One of which I actually borrowed from Jason who is reading it at the same time. The book is Angels and Demons (the movie Illuminati is based on it). I do find it very entertaining and to some degree educational though some of the stuff offered there as facts needs to be taken with a pinch of salt (e.g. some Christian rituals are claimed to be of Aztec origin which is a claim which doesn't pass the test of a moments thinking as the respective rituals (Transubstantiation in particular) were part of Christian rituals long before Europeans had any contact with the Aztecs).
The other book is a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is not the first one I read and I have to read further to make up my mind about it. So far I didn't find anything new in it.
A list of many of my hobbies is in my profile (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?action=profile;u=2). I guess history is one of the most defining interests / hobbies of my life. Recently I started playing the harmonica which I like as it is both easy to learn and easy to take along and play wherever you may go. In case of many of my hobbies listed there I must admit that I had not much leisure to pursue them in the last nine months which were dominated by my university work. The hobbies also include many computer games (mostly strategy, building up and rpgs) though it has been a while since a game really hooked me as I feel many are somewhat repetitive. I am not into any first person shooters, so Halo is not one of the games I play.
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I'm going waaay back with this question, but when did you start seeking out LBT fans online (e.g N54 forum)? You were already pretty established when I showed up.
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If I remember correctly, you once said you played Civilization (not sure which version though). Which version(s) have you played (1, 2, 3, or 4), and what is your opinion of the ones you did play?
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My "LBT online birthday" so to speak would be August 1st 2000. My first ever post in a land before time forum can still be found in the N54 forum. My LBT "rennaisance" can be dated to December 1998 when LBT 2 and 4 where aired on television in Germany (and I got hold of all the other episodes that had appeared till then the same month. After I joined the N54 forum I remained constantly active there writing relatively elaborate posts (in an "English" that was far from where it is now :lol). So I guess I was sort of established at N54 when you appeared in late August / early September 2002. I did not at that time have any "official" authority over the board. That was given to me by N54 only after there had been some rather ugly attacks on the board and when it was clear that the original founder of the N54 forum could no longer be found. I never had any email contact with the founder of the forum at N54 and I think he did not continue to post at N54 relatively shortly after I appeared there (by the time I found the N54 forum it covered some three or four pages). I tried everything to find the founder of the N54 forum later on, but I never found him. I wonder if he is aware of how far the forum he founded went. Without him the GOF probably wouldn't exist even though I don't think anyone here ever knew him. Sometimes it is amazing how one person can influence the lives of many without noticing and almost without being noticed. Therefore I really want to give that tribute to the founder of the N54 forum, wherever he may be...
I played the original Civilization game and Civiliyation III including the expansion. Apart from that I played some Sid Meier games strongly based on Civilization, the original Colonization and the Colonization based on the Civilization IV engine. I think my favorite Sid Meier game based on the principles of Civilization was Alpha Centauri and its expansion Alien Crossfire. It is really sad that Alpha Centauri proved too complex for most players to become a commercial success comparable to the other games, but the diplomatic possibilities as well as many other aspects in that game seem way more advanced to me than in case of any other Civilization based games I have seen (e.g. I've been very disappointed with the Diplomacy in Civilization III where other nations will refuse just about every trade or alliance suggestion no mater what from the moment you have one or two (or some other set number of) allies). I still enjoyed all of the Civilization games I played and I enjoyed all of them a lot. There was always some room for improvement. In case of Alpha Centauri the main improvement I would have hoped for would have been the possibility to play with more than seven factions.
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English isn't your first language, yet you speak it better than me. Did you take any additional classes apart from regular schooling or learn it on your own?
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^ He learned it from me back in the day. ;) :p :p
Malte, are you living on your own now?
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English isn't your first language, yet you speak it better than me. Did you take any additional classes apart from regular schooling or learn it on your own?
English is the obligatory second language at schools in Germany. I wasn't very good at any languages at school English was the first subject ever in which I got a 5 on the half years term diploma (a mark which will prevent you from being transferred to the next grade if you have two of them on the final term diploma at the end of the year). However English became ever more of a necessity (a fact which in spite of my problems I never questioned) as many books on my interests (US history for example) are printed in English only and so are most pages of interest in the internet. Anyone who is interested can still check out my messages of 2000 in the N54 LBT forum to verify that my English at that time was much worse than is the case with most of our non-native speaker members who are younger than I was at that time. A five months student's exchange to America in 2002 certainly helped improving my English, but even after that there was still a lot to do. By now many of the books I am reading are in English and the daily reading and posting in the GOF and on MSN certainly did their part. Studying English language at the university also helped ;)
Malte, are you living on your own now?
Currently I'm living with three land before time fans in a lovely cabin in Sweden :p
Regularly though I do live on my own in a nice little cellar suterrain appartment which suits me better than the flatshare where I lived until July 2008 did.
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How would you describe your humor? ^_^
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I know for a fact that you have only written a few LBT fanfics. (All of which I tend to enjoy quite a bit, myself.) As good as the stories are though, was there ever a time you felt unsatisfied with certain parts of the story? And if so, what were those parts and why?
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How would you describe your humor?
Maybe a bit too complex. Sometimes when I make a joke people don't realize the joke. Sometimes I need to explain references so the comic of the moment of the moment is gone. Luckily this is not the rule and not all of the jokes I come up with are so dreadful :lol
I really enjoy a good laugh and within certain limits of taste I'm perfectly fine with dark humor as well. I must say that gross humor is not my cup of tea and I don't seem to be able to understand the comic in the utterly random kind of humor found in some youtube videos.
I know for a fact that you have only written a few LBT fanfics. (All of which I tend to enjoy quite a bit, myself.) As good as the stories are though, was there ever a time you felt unsatisfied with certain parts of the story? And if so, what were those parts and why?
There sure are plenty of parts in my stories which I am not satisfied with. The first two "The Big Quarrel" and "The Cold Time" include not a single self-created character to begin with (also my English by the time I translated those two was so poor that I am still puzzled that people read them, but as this is more about the contents I will not further comment on the language). As for "The Big Quarrel" I think too much of the story is way too predictable. There is nothing REALLY surprising about the entire storyline. There are moments in both of these stories which I think are a bit too much of a clichÈ for me to be happy with it. Sometimes I'm afraid I did not make characters act the way that would be likely. For example the fear of Ali to be bannished from the herd in "The Big Quarrel". It is just implausible for the kid to be bannished. Or in the Cold Time we have a rather made up reason ("don't scare anyone") for not telling everyone about the sharptooth he and Ali had seen. Sometimes (not always) some of the characters are acting and talking "out of character" I'm afraid.
In some respects I took more care with "Old Threehorns", but I got in a tricky dilemma there in some points moving somewhere along the narrow line of what would and what would not be plausible to happen in a land before time story.
One general weakness of many of my stories is that they are very long winded and sometimes unnecessarily so. Much of the Cold Time is a long chain of events that don't always bring the story forward. In some cases I left passages which I wrote to prepare the stage for later scenes which I then decided not to write leaving the prepared stage sort of dangling in midair.
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When are you planning to post the next chapter of "The Cold Time"? :p
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How difficult was college when you first came in as a freshman? How difficult was it at the end?
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When are you planning to post the next chapter of "The Cold Time"? :p
Done, thank you for the reminder :yes
I keep forgetting about that one.
How difficult was college when you first came in as a freshman? How difficult was it at the end?
Actually it wasn't too hard to me at any time. In any case university never gave me as hard a time as school did which is undoubtedly due to the fact that I studied subjects I was really into with heart and soul :yes
I have also been almost unfairly lucky sometimes :p
For example I blundered into the university because I had nothing else to do that day (though of course I had long planned to study and made up my mind for several weeks to study in Bochum) finding that had I happened to be there one day later the last day on which I could possibly sign up for that semester would have passed :blink:
The "welcoming" at the university was rather unwelcoming. For some safety reason the number of students admitted to the auditorium to listen to the dean's welcoming speech was very restricted. Even though there would have been plenty of room (though no more seats) in the auditorium I was among those who were left standing outside in the rain (literally) never hearing the welcoming speech. But I guess I did not miss to much :p
Another blunder I conducted in the first days without getting "punished" for it was that I considered a part of the studies which is named "optional studies" (and which consists of courses which are not directly related to your main fields of study) "optional" :DD So by the time I realized the "optional studies" were very obligatory there was only one course left to which few people had applied. This particular course ("Methods of practical communication") was probably the most sensible and rewarding (giving 10 rather than the usual 5 CP in one semester) course I ever had in the six semesters worth of "optional studies" I had in the end and I got there only by chance and blundering :oops
Now I don't want to pretend that I never had any troubles at the university. For example in my first semester I failed to pass one test in linguistics (the part of anglistics which I found least appealing and which I dropped after the second semester). Again I had blundered not only for what I wrote in the test, but I had even been in the wrong room by the time the test started (everybody's nightmare, isn't it?) :oops
In the second attempt I managed a sufficient in that test which was... well, sufficient ;)
There were more blunders I conducted and some are rather funny and none was fatal though some gave me slight heart attacks. In spite of all these blunders and errors though I must say that I really embraced university life from pretty much the first day. My love affair with that ugly but efficient concrete building of our university felt rewarding from the very start and I brought a good deal of idealism with me which has not evaporated to this day. Of course the university means a lot of work, of course there were the dark days when I felt it was getting just too much (and often I notice that I am comming up with my best work results when I feel that time is running out) and when there was a lot of stress. But never did university impose that kind of ugly stress on me which is caused by the lack of sense of purpose which has been one of the hardest things for me to swallow in my school days.
Now that I am done with my studies (I will get the results of my final work in a few weeks) I must say I am feeling kind of sad about it. Already the afterlife... after university I mean :angel is stretching out its claws for me. There are several options for me, several different places where I can, and will try to get a job or a stipend, but chances to succeed seem lesser there than at the university. Outside university good performance may be less merited and of lesser importance when it comes to getting a job. In spite of all the blunders mentioned before I am (false modesty aside) a darn good historian, but that does not ensure a job in a time when too little money is there to pay for it. I am also under pressure to find a job really quickly, for the moment I am no longer officially a student (October 1st), my insurance fees will double until I have a job. I hardly dare talking to my father these days for the fear of telling him that I don't have any job secured yet :unsure:
Before I get too far off topic the essence is that I really love university live and loved it from the beginning (my emails from the time when I started studying are a good historical source to document the fact that I felt that way even then rather than glorifying it in the aftermath). I hope that all of you who are starting college now will enjoy the same romance with the institution as I was granted :wub
If anyone feels that I am :crazy, feel free to feel so ;)
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Regarding your lack of a job, have you thought about online jobs? They might be easier to get than physical jobs, don't require additional costs like gas for transportation, and you can apply for hundreds in a single day, while never leaving your seat. It might not be the job you're looking for or your dream job, but it might be a good start off point, if all else fails.
Then again, if your work results do improve the less time you have left, your chances of success are increasing!
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I am a historian all through and I am confident that ultimately I will find a job or at least a stipend for the time during which I will write my dissertation. Gas prizes will be no problem as students and doctorates have cheap tickets which allow for the use of public transportation which I, in most circumstances, prefer over driving.
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What historical figure do you think deserves a much better reputation than the one they ended up with? What historical figure do you think deserves a much worse reputation than the one they ended up with?
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Now that's an interesting question and one for which there are probably countless examples. Very often the reputation historical characters ended up with did come for a reason. While there may be cases of characters being totally misrepresented in public opinion I think there are more cases where there is a basis for the negative / positive public opinion but that opinion pretty much ousted everything else about characters who were not good / bad only. Sometimes actions conducted in their time were seen very different in their own days than in our days. Here are some examples.
Vice President Aaron Burr is very much seen as a villain these days for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Duels were a rather common procedure in those days (and there are US presidents to fought in duels), even though they did not often have a mortal outcome. In any case Burr's killing of Hamilton is stuck while the whole background (even why the duel was fought is barely known). Burr is certainly not a person whom I could warm up for but public opinion often skips some facets of his personality which I find rather positive. He was for example one of the very few people in those days who actively promoted the idea of equal rights for women and womens' participation in politics. In days when celebrated founding fathers like John Adams (who was very annoyed by the requests of his admirable wife Abigail to "remember the ladies"), and Thomas Jefferson (his fathering childs with a slave also brings in the matter of slavery in a celebrated president who also had a Mr. Hyde to his rightfully praised Dr. Jekyll personality) just couldn't imagine equal rights to be granted to women.
Or how about one man whose very name has become an insult in the US. Benedict Arnold. Of course he is held in contempt for good reason after the treason he committed, but few people bother to ask why he turned traitor in the first place. He was pretty much denied credit for HIS victory in the battle of Saratoga without which the entire outcome of the war might have changed (general Gates got all the credit without having done much for those laurels). The fact that Arnold was married to a fiercely loyalist woman didn't make things much easier. I am not defending his actions, but try to look at the reasons which are often lost in condemnation.
One very interesting character who is widely praised is Winston Churchill. The world was really lucky to have him in the decisive year of 1940. But short of such states of crisis where a character like him would be needed I admit that he is not likely to be the kind of politician one would want to have in times of peace. During a great strike in the 1920s the man suggested to machine gun the striking workers and his statements on what to do to Mohandas Gandhi and his followers in India sound uncannily similar to some statements of the very kind of Fascists he later defeated (don't get me wrong here, I am not putting him on that level, but machine gunning striking workers... that does not fit to the more glorious image of him which many will have in mind).
In many cases history's heroes are just forgotten and even these heroes come in gray shades rather than in black or white. One example for this is John Rabe. You know that I am very interested in history, but until a movie was made about him recently I had never ever heard of John Rabe. He was a German businessman and member of the NSDAP, but while working in China he probably saved the lives of about 200 000 Chinese during the massacre at Nanjing and hardly anyone over here ever heard of it.
You know LB&T, your question is really interesting. It might actually be plenty enough stuff for several books. Looking at the facets of historical characters who are neglected in public perception.
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Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold were awesome choices for that question. I didn't know as much about Burr but I did know Benedict Arnold was one of our best generals in the American Revolution and I am sad that his reputation has become as such.
I was asked this question in class. I found it much easier to find heroes who (in my opinion) did not deserve their legacies that the other way around. My choices for those who were not worthy of their prestige is Andrew Jackson and Christopher Columbus. Jackson's crimes against the Native Americans are many and in some cases illegal (the Cherokee's forced removal from Georgia was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and Jackson completely ignored his obligation to uphold the law.) And yet he's on our twenty dollar bill and considered the first "president of the common man". Common white American man, more like.
I've got to go, so I can't discuss Columbus right now, but what are your opinions on these two men?
My examples for people who aren't nearly as well known as they should be are James Madison and Daniel Ellsberg. Neither name is as common as the others involved in their respective crises, yet they both played crucial roles in the creation of rights and checks on presidential power. Again, what is your opinion, if you have one?
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I've got to go, so I can't discuss Columbus right now, but what are your opinions on these two men?
Jackson is actually one of those I had in mind when I mentioned dueling US presidents. I agree on what you say about his "removal policy" against the native Americans, but unlike in case of many other historical figures I think that at least the so called "trail of tears" at least found its way into public consciousness. The linking of the character to the crime is still not very intact. Again we have a character who is not good or bad only, but I do agree that his being honored on the $20 bill must be hard to swallow for many native Americans and I can't blame them.
As for Christobal Colon, matters are even more complex and it is a bit too late on this end to start writing an essay now (I am not kidding, I have five books specifically about Colon on the shelves right beside me and several more books on explorers in general with large sections about Colon). His board book gives some insight about his way of thinking which nowadays is condemnable but which on the other hand was pretty much the thinking of almost everyone at the time. One of his earliest comments about the natives in the new world included statements about how great servants they would make. And there are many statements which reveal that Colon projected intentions (and agreements) on natives who couldn't possibly know what was going on when he declared them subjects to the Spanish crown etc.
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There are other examples including some which are particularly sensitive here in Germany. This quote from 1939 for example doesn't read like it came from a praiseworthy hero, does it?
Poland contains many Jews, many people of mixed blood who are only happy when they are dominated.
The one who wrote this was Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the very same who became kind of a national hero by planting a bomb to kill Hitler on July 20th 1944.
Now I do not mean to spit on anyone's grave hear and least of all on those of the heroes who died for their attempts to overthrow the nazi regime. But as a historian one must remain objective. A good number of those who joined the plot against Hitler had been very convinced of the nazi ideology at an earlier time. There had even been cases (Stauffenberg being one example) of people who opposed many policies of Hitler before the war, but then supported the regime after the military victories in 1940, then to turn against the regime again when it became ever more evident that the war was going to be lost in 1942 and 1943. There are also examples of officers who remained constant in their opposition against Hitler which in those cases is more likely to be really based on conscience when their opposition did not dwindle even in the time of military victories. In case of some however (Stauffenberg being not the most direct example as there is good reason to suggest that in spite of his support during the time of the military victories he did have qualms) the question must be asked to which degree they really opposed Hitler and the nazi terror or if their opposition was more against the impending defeat. A good number of the members of the plot intended to ally with the western allies to continue the war against the Soviet Union which (given the horrible crimes committed there already) doesn't really fit well with the image of a resistance based on conscience and humanist ideology only.
Again I must stress that I am not questioning the courage or trying to strip any of them of their well deserved praise, but it is one of those countless cases where history isn't just black or white.
Another example is Wilhelm Canaris. Wilhelm Canaris was a German admiral and head of the German military intelligence. In this function he saved hundreds of Jews whom he permitted to leave Germany (often over the Swiss border) and he also offered protection to many who opposed Hitler, and provided the explosives for a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. Because of this efforts are being made for him to be recognized as one of the "righteous among the nations", perhaps the highest honor that can be bestowed on anyone by Israel on the basis of their actions during the time of the Holocaust. However he also had been very active in bringing down the Weimar Republic and helping the rise of Hitler in the first place, he undoubtedly supported parts of the nazi ideology and did a "good job" as the chief of Hitler's military intelligence. What to think of such people?
I guess sometimes the rare ability to learn and become better than one used to be after conducting horrible mistakes can honor a person, but there are few cases in which such "mistakes" hadn't been made in a time when others had already recognized the viciousness of the actions or the systems supported by these actions.
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Where did you get your Avatar?
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A friend of mine and former GOF member once created a little parody of the lord of the rings. The end of the movie was styled after the end of The return of the king with the same music and drawings of the characters. Even though I did not have any acting role in the project (him living hundreds of kilometers from where I live) but only provided a few soundfiles I was included in the credits. The friend of my friend who drew the drawings for the closing credits had never even seen me and only had a photo in which I was wearing a graduation cap which she replaced with the viking helmet.
Not only do I find the picture quite pretty but it also fits to my name Malte (one of the possible translations would be "He who rules with the helmet" (the other being "Adviser of the peoples council"). ;)
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What other countries have you visited?
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Apart from my home country I have been for a longer time (staying at least for a couple of days) to: Holland, Belgium, France, England, Scotland, USA (Minnesota with short visits to Iowa, North, and South Dakota), Italy, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Portugal (I was too young to remember though), Tunesia (same as with Portugal I was too young to remember), and Croatia.
Countries I have been passing through but with only short stops and no more than one successive night spend there would be:
Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Slovenia.
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What music do you enjoy listening to the most? :)
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It is mostly soundtrack music for me, mostly instrumentals. I seem to be kind of a philistine when it comes to music as I really don't enjoy most of the music being played on the radio. Very often I feel that I like songs better when I associate something with them (e.g. when I heard them during beautiful holidays or the like). Or if songs have a message I can relate to, that's one of the things that can endear actual songs (rather than instrumental lyrics) to me. I usually prefer the kinds of music with a discernable melody that one could hum or whistle over such kinds of music which do not have such a melody. I am not particularly fond of highly electronic or loud music. With regard to moods I like a whole range of music from rather sad and sentimental tunes to very cheerful and active sounds (depending on but not necessarily reflecting my own mood at the time I hear it). I guess one could say I have a weak spot for somewhat bombastic moments in music which can be found in many soundtracks. Finally I sometimes listen to very old music from the historical times I am writing about. It may be a bit odd for a peace-loving person like me for example to listen to music that was written in the American Civil War and referring to it, but some of the melodies do sound quite impressive.
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If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, and spend just one day with them, who would it be and what would you do?
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My goodness, now you really got me Jay :blink:
There are several living people whom I would like to talk to but since it is not impossible to achieve this (tricky as it may be) I guess such an opportunity would not be spend for something that could be achieved by other means.
So I reckon I would be talking to someone who is no longer with us, but whom?
There is just one person who was very close to me and who is no longer with us, my grandpa. I loved him very much, but he knew that. On one occasion I made a joke which he may not have fully understood which I might explain again, but other than that there would be so little to say that we both didn't understand already to compensate for the sad parting.
Language barriers would make a talk to any historical person rather futile who doesn't speak English or German. This still leaves a number of interesting people to talk to with the idea of getting some information on history which the remaining sources do not tell us about, but whom would I want to talk to more than anyone else? Jason, this beats me. I will make up my mind when I get this offer but till then it is really something I cannot say for sure. In any case it would have to be someone with whom I could talk for a whole day as it would be kind of embarrassing sitting opposite one historical character not having a clue of what to say next or else having that character there but utterly unwilling to talk (some people were known to talk little beyond the utterances they became known for).
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How is your job searching going? ^^
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^Bump
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Uh sorry :oops
Well, so far there is not much progress due to the fact that I still didn't get my results. I should have received them this week, but the office in charge of the results is closed this week (they too have holidays). So I will in all likelihood get the results next week. Most applications require the mark of the final papers.
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What do you think of my story, Far Away Home?
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I admit I haven't read it :oops
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Let me know what you think. :angel
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Have you ever wanted to change your name?
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What is your favorite food?
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@ Caustizer. Well, truth to be told I am not really into stories that mix LBT and non-LBT elements.
@ Rat_lady7. Absolutely not! I am quite fond of having a not so frequent name. I am willing to take into account that hardly any native English speaker can pronounce it ;)
I admit I wouldn't like having the same name as many people around me (which in case of some names is a lot more likely than in case of the name Malte).
@ Cancerian Tiger. Oh dear, me and picking favorites :confused
There are of course many dishes which I really like but it is hard to decide a one and only favorite one. One dish which I really like and which is done on celebration occasions only in our family (like Christmas or New Year) would be fondue. I am not entirely sure if it is the food (ultimately that comes down to breat and meat boiled in oil along with tasty sauces and salad) or the social part of that dish that makes me love it so much.
One dish which I really loved during my trip to America and which I would really like to eat again (but that seems to be impossible to come by here) was a very delicious wild rice soup along with a salad served in a freshly backed bread bowl. That was just delicious.
I like of course most kinds of pasta and do not depreciate a Pizza either. Sometimes we make something that we call Ragout Fin but that has nothing to do with the Wikipedia article that will come up if you enter the name. What we call Ragout Fin would be a sauce with mushrooms and meat in a puff pastry.
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How DO you pronounce your name, anyway? I always guessed it was pronounced "Mall-tay", but I'm probably way off. :oops
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Yes indeed you are :lol:
Thing is that the vowels are pronouced a bit different in German than they are in English (a result of the great vowel shift (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_vowel_shift)). If spelled as the sounds would be spelled if spoken to German ears Malte usually is prounced as one of the following by the English speakers:
Molti
Maelti
Molt
But the Japanese too have their problem with the names or at least the one who was also a host to my hostfamily during my exchange in 2002 did. He pronounced me as
Maita
The mail problems are the vowels a and especially e in my name. The a is pronounced relatively short and would be pronounced simmilar to the "u" in the English word "cut" (though perhaps not quite as short). The e is pronounced totally different from the usual English pronunciation. The English "e" (if pronounced as a letter but not necessarily in words) is pronounced as the letter "i" is in Germany. The e in the English article "the" is pronounced similarly but not a 100% identical I think.
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Wow...I'm probably going to need to hear your name actually spoken if I'm ever going to learn to pronounce it. :rolleyes (Darn the phonetic limitations of the English alphabet! :p)
What varieties (note plural ;)) of dinosaurs interest you the most?
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I think I need to record my voice or something to see if I am pronoucing it right, but anyhow on with the questions:
Did you see anything about Obama's Health Plan? If so, what's your opinion about it?
Edit: Also, I remember a topic I made back in '08 that was about pronoucing names. http://z7.invisionfree.com/thegangoffive/i...wtopic=3928&hl= (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=3733&hl=)
:)
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How did you like you stay here across the pond during your foreign exchange student program? Did anything here take you by surprise?
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@ Caustizer. Well, truth to be told I am not really into stories that mix LBT and non-LBT elements.
So your not going to read it? :cry
...
I can see where your coming from though, if it's not your prefered reading then that's fine too, but i've tried to make it as cannon as I could in respect to the universe and the characters. Even some of the more awkward concepts are explained as the story goes on, to leave it remembered as a piece of pure LBT fiction.
From reading some of your posts on other threads I know you're a really good reviewer, so I was hoping for some critical imput on my writing style and portrayal of characters.
Thanks,
Caustizer.
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Okay, I'm just going to ask it...
Do you have a YouTube Account?
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I admit I am not likely to be able to really enjoy a story that crosses land before time elements with non-LBT elements and because of this I am not likely to be able to say anything really helpful on it :unsure:
No offense meant Caustizer, none at all.
I have a youtube account which includes a few seconds of movies which I put up there mostly so I could post them on the GOF.
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Out of all the LBT movies and TV shows, which guest character do you like the most?
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I am not a person who has an easy time with superlatives when it comes to anything where it is not clearly verifiable that something or someone is the most..., best..., you name it.
Thing is that if one character is named the one and only favorite that would make every single other character "not favorite". So I can say more about individual characters but I cannot come up with a ranking on who is my favorite and who is not. Though I can tell for a fact that Bron would definitely not be on such a list. They just didn't have a plausible story for him so as far as I am concerned he came across as that kind of new character which is just pushed into a series to present something "new" (a habit of moviemakers that was parodied even in a Simpsons episode). I found Pterano and Ali to be quite interesting characters that could well play an important role in another story. Dinah, and Dana, Hyp, Nod, and Mutt (I haven't yet seen the TV episode that includes them), and Mr. Thicknose also could well appear in other stories. These are just examples of course.
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What annoys you the most?
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Superlatives :lol
Seriously, I very rarely can state something that is "most", "best", "worst", "favorite" etc. thereby making everything else less prominent in that quality or vice. However there are of course some things that are really a red rag to me. Bigotry and racism are certainly among these.
PS: Thank you for the question :)
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Embellishing your collection of LBT awards are two images (I'm presuming it's the same image flip-flopped) of what appears to be a cross-section of some kind of fruit or vegetable, the innards of which happen to form the shape of a tree star. I was just curious about specifically what it is, and about the story behind it (if any).
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Thank you for the question :)
It is not a fruit or vegetable, but my personal seal. I think there may be a thread I posted back when I made it, but I failed to find it. Here is a larger image of the seal.
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Seal/Seal6.jpg)
I engraved it on a brass stamp. Having no experience with engraving and very improper tools at the time the engraving is a bit shaky and I deliberately didn't try to engrave any additional structure to the treestar for fear of messing it up beyond all recognition.
The seal shows a treestar with a droplet of water in its center that mirrors a helmet. The name Malte is from the Danish or old high German and can be translated either as "He who rules with the helmet" (hence the one in the seal) or as "Adviser of the people's council". While I would rather be the adviser of the council than the ruler with the helmet I didn't see how that one could be captured on that tiny droplet of water and after all a helmet is protecting rather than destroying, so I can live with that (and after all my avatar also plays with the helmet meaning of my name) :lol
I use that seal on most of the letters I am sending out to some LBT fans with birthday congratulations and the like.
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^ Whoops. :oops From the resolution of the image in your signature, I swear it looked like one of the fruit diagrams I studied in Plant Systematics. (It doesn't help that I and some other members of my family have a fascination with unusual shapes in food. :p) Anyway, that's fascinating. A great design for a seal. :yes
Speaking of helmets, historical question: I had read that Vikings did not, in fact, wear horns on their helmets, as is often depicted in popular culture. Do you know anything about actual historical horned helmets, and how the image came to be associated with Vikings?
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A good question, I love it :)
Thing is that to this day only a single helmet has been excavated which can definitely be linked to the old vikings. Gjermundbu helmet (named after the place where it was excavated):
(http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/pix/gjermundbu_helm.jpg)
Other helmets which have been found all date from later times or different people (Angles, Saxons etc.). Not a one of them however had any horns on them. There are quite a few medieval depictions and statues made by the vikings or made by other people depicting the vikings. For all I know not a single one of the medieval depictions shows a viking with a horned helmet. I'm not sure if I missed any, but in case a picture with horned vikings was made for example by a Christian monk (who usually did book illustrations etc.) it would be more likely than not that the horns were to link those "wild savages and plunderers of churches and monasteries" to the devil (but again, I am not aware of a single contemporary or even late medieval depiction of a helmet with horns).
In 19th century all of a sudden such pictures cropped up. The 19th century has done more than any other period of time to mess up our image of the middle ages. There were two main views of the middle ages, neither of which allowed for an objective view. One was to taint the middle ages as nothing more but a "dark age" (I think the term which nowadays is used mostly to the first few centuries after the fall of Rome (and still is a contestable description) was brought up in 19th century for the first time). In this view which was based especially on an extreme pride on the achievements of industrialization the middle ages were depicted as nothing more as an age of dirt, plague, religious fanaticism, and brutal exploitation of the majority by a tiny minority. There are some true elements in this but they largely ignore great achievements of the middle ages, blow certain problems out of proportion, or project problems existing in some areas on the entire world. Also this interpretation of the middle ages "invented" some medieval views in order to demonstrated how stupid people back then had supposedly been by comparison to the illuminated people of the 19th century (the best example for this is the false notion that people in the middle ages believed the earth was flat; a myth which is still believed by many). The other view romanticized the middle ages in which values like chivalry and honor, which were felt to be fading away in the age of industrialization, were extremely prominent. This kind of interpretation can very prominently be found in some Victorian age literature and also in the earlier works by Sir Walter Scott.
Getting back to the horned viking helmet, it was not the only piece of medieval equipment which became popular in the 19th century even though it most likely never existed. Another example for such a 19th century piece of medieval equipment is a flail with a short handle and a spiked metal ball attached to it with a chain. That one is also believed by many to have been medieval equipment, but there is no source or picture from the middle ages depicting or describing such a thing. There were mazes and long handled flails with long heads in the sources, but nothing like the thing I described above.
If one takes a look at the question under the perspective of sensitivity then it would be a very bad idea to have horns attached to your helmet. Granted, they might look intimidating to an opponent, but if said opponent hits the horn with a weapon in an angle that would otherwise just glance off the helmet, it would probably yank the head of the helmet's owner possibly throwing him of balance or even breaking his neck. In most things they did the vikings though very practical and it is rather unlikely that they would take such unnecessary risk and never document it if they did.
It is a lot more difficult to prove that something did NOT happen than proving that something DID happen. We do not have any historical source saying "No viking ever wore horns on his helmet", but we do not have any contemporary source whatsoever to suggest that they ever did.
There is one grain of truth however which may have contributed to the evolving of the myth of the horned viking helmets. There are medieval depictions of horned helmets, but these depictions neither show helmets that can be linked to the vikings nor do they depict helmets which are likely to have ever worn in battle. In tournaments or for special ceremonies there were "show off helmets" which were often loaded with a lot of decoration (including statues, animal heads (hopefully no real, smelly ones :lol), and long ribbons) which would be all but obstrusive in a real battle.
Here is an image of the seal of Albert of Sweden which includes such a ceremonial helmet.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Albrekt_av_Mecklenburgs_kungliga_sigill_1.jpg)
The seal dates from 14th century though, hundreds of years after the classical viking time and the helmet looks nothing like the clishÈ viking helmet.
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What other fandoms(in books, tv shows, movies, etc) do you like besides LBT?
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^Bump
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I am very sorry I missed the question so far, especially as I am really glad about any question to me in this thread :yes
Not all the many books, movies etc. I like really have any fandom (e.g. anything that comes along with a lot of fanmaterial and the like). I think one could say I am into the lord of the rings to a degree that one could talk of it as a fandom (collecting books, figures and stuff), though I cannot claim the expertise of our hardcore middleearth fans ;)
Another example would be Dinotopia. Unless I am very mistaken I have all but one dinotopia novel ever published (Sabertooth Mountain being the one that is missing) as well as the movies (the mini series and the cartoon which I found rather poor as well as the series which I found a lot better, though in many ways not to be mistaken for the Dinotopia envisioned by Gurney), and the audio plays.
I don't know exactly where "being into a fandom" begins. I own Harry Potter books (with the exception of the third, with the first in German and English, the second in German only, and the books from the fourth on in English only) as well as the audio books of Harry Potter, but I do not have any other fan material or created any kind of fanwork about it.
Similarly I like watching and reading Star Wars stuff whenever I can get my hands on it, but I reckon it would water down the term "fandom" if this was noted in the same breath as the fandomship of our real experts on Star Wars.
I watched all the Dink movies and like them quite well, but that is all there is to it, so I am not sure if that qualifies for fandomship either (same as with the Simpsons which I watch regularly without doing anything beyond that about them).
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what is the last movie you saw in theaters?
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Was your weekend successful, any potential employers :)?
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Thank you both for the questions :yes
what is the last movie you saw in theaters?
I don't quite remember since I so rarely got anyone to come along and watch... oh wait, of course I do remember! It was Ice Age 3 in the awesome company of Gustav, Jason, and Patrick in Gothenburg back in August.
In any case I know which movie will be the next. Tonight I'm going to the cinema with an aunt, an uncle, and a cousin of mine to watch Avatar.
Was your weekend successful, any potential employers :)?
Kind of a mixed result I think. I'm afraid the application for which I had the highest hopes is not likely to be successful. For once another professor there told me that (Quote) "half the Federal Republic" seemed to be applying for that one and also I do not think I impressed the professor to whom the application was sent. She didn't seem to like the topic I had suggested for the dissertation.
I did however establish some very friendly contacts with some other professors whom I found particularly likable because they were very active in seeking the contact with the younger students and doctors-to-be at the conference. In such talks it is a lot easier to tell a bit more and give some idea of what I can offer to an employer than it is in a stiffer outright application talk. I learned that two jobs will be offered by the John F. Kennedy institute in Berlin and I had a very friendly chat with the professor who will be offering these. Maybe I will be lucky there. And impression or no impression there still may be the chance for that job in M¸nster or Cologne (from where I don't have any response yet). Here's to hope :goodluck
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I just checked my emails and got one inviting me to an application talk! It is actually the first invitation to such a talk I got and it comes from one application I had almost forgotten by now already. It would be in Hamburg and the application talk is offered for the 26th of February. Now I AM excited :D
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Do you think racial distrust is the greatest challenge to a multi ethnic society or is it religious distrust. Feel free to choose another answer
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Do you like to cook?
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That depends on whether I'm cooking just for myself or if somebody else is sharing the "feast" (at least what I am coming up with is more similar to a "feast" though hardly qualifying in the strictest sense of the term if I know that I will share it with someone). When I cook only for myself the time it takes to make the given dish plays almost as much of a role as good taste does. I like tasty food, but apparently I see eating as so much of a social event that I would put a lot more time and effort into it if it is for someone else as well. Even if there are guests I am hardly a star cook, but I reckon I can come up with something tasty.
Thank you for the questions :)
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Do you think racial distrust is the greatest challenge to a multi ethnic society or is it religious distrust. Feel free to choose another answer
Sorry, I had already posted the answer to the second question when I saw that there had been another one. This must be my lucky day :D
My answer to the question may be kind of disappointing as once again my aversion against the use of superlatives comes in. Religion and Ethnicity are both really stupid reasons to hate anyone and if somebody is blowing up a church for hatred on the religion this is as horrible in its motivation as running amok among a party of people of a given ethnic group is. There are also cases where religion- and ethnic based hatred and violence overlap and even include further elements. It is then difficult to say which of the various motivations is the "worst" and the extend of the different motivations is of interest mainly if the awareness of one of the motivations being much more prominent than the other may contribute to work against the sources of hatred.
Hatred against whole groups if individuals one doesn't even know is always a bad thing, no matter if the group is defined by religion, ethnicity, social standing or whatever other factor that does not hurt the one who is getting hateful over it.
Thank you for the question. I think it is quite an interesting subject of discussion :yes
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I'm almost afraid to ask this (and you can obviously ignore this question if you would rather not discuss the subject), but how did your application talk last Friday go?
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No need to be too scared in just asking a question which I have just failed to respond to so far.
Altogether I think the talk went pretty well. I do not know of course whether or not I'm going to get the job I am hoping for, but in any case I think it was a valuable experience.
The atmosphere was quite friendly and much of the talk revolved around historical subjects I felt pretty comfortable with. I hope to have left a good impression and I had a good impression myself.
One important drawback for me turned out to be my lack of sophisticated command of a second (living) foreign language. While I do know a little French it is hardly enough for scientific work. I guess I should have stressed my absolute readiness to learn and smooth out this flaw.
Another moment where I think I should have reacted differently was after I had been asked about my main focus of interest in American history (which would be primarily (but not exclusively) 18th and 19th century. After this I was asked why I was not so interested in the 17th century. The problem here was that I don't have any good reasons not to be interested in the 17th century simply because I really AM very much interested in it as well. Therefore I must have sounded strange when trying to make up reasons why I didn't find 17th century as interesting when actually I didn't have any reasons. I am interested in American history as a whole and I can (and I think did) give good reasons why I am particularly interested in the 18th and 19th century. I should not have allowed myself to come up with reasons for disinterest in the 17th century where there is no disinterest at all.
I hope to get a further notification in the weeks to come and I very much hope for the response to be a positive one as I would really like to work there. Until I know I will continue to send applications to any jobs offered in the field of American studies.
Thank you for the question :)
PS: I also learned from this application talk that Altona, a part of Hamburg had been under Danish administration until 19th century. I had been unaware of this so far. I always take pleasure in learning something new and investigated a bit more into the history of a part of Hamburg under Danish rule.
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How dark do you like your LBT fan fics?
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In which scales is darkness or lightness measured? What exactly do you mean?
Personally I think that if correctly applied dark elements can add a lot of spice and excitement to a story. However, I have often seen dark elements applied without real background, mostly on behalf of violent for entertainment's sake without any real explanation on why there was said violence. In such a case I do not think the "dark element" really serves it purpose.
If well explained and plausible, dark elements can be a very positive part of a story, so can not dark parts of a story which make sense. The coherence (not predictability) of the setting, the characters, and the plot are usually what makes a good story. For example the death of a single character (to name a specifically dark element) can be a lot more effective than the death of many if the reader knows a lot about the one who dies or even identifies with said character.
Thank you for the question :)
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What do you look for in a LBT fanfiction? To put it another way, how do you define a “pure” LBT story (the kind you would be interested in reading)?
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It would come down to a fanfiction written in such a way it could easily be turned into a movie in the style of the first movie or the first few sequels and should also stay clear of crossing overs. Elements such as humans, time travels, aliens from outer space (I am aware of the rainbowfaces, but it is for such things that I refer to the first few sequels) are not a part of a pure LBT fanfiction by my definition. If there is violence or unusual actions of characters (unusual from the point of view of an LBT dinosaur who do not share many of the lines of thinking of modern day humans).
I think these would be the most crucial points, but there are others which have sometimes been neglected by the movies such as not carrying the story serving re-definitions of nature too far (tsunamis don't role from the shore to the open sea and volcanic springs are not likely to make an elevator / lift anyone could walk away from unscalded to tell the story).
There is another point that doesn't necessarily make a story not-pure but also carries it away from the idea of a land before time story. This point would be the characters. Stories might focus entirely on grownup characters from the movies or characters created by the author thereby totally or mostly leaving out the main characters from the movies.
I must at this point stress that I am not in any way advocating my own stories here. "The big quarrel" (gosh, was that supposed to be English by the time I wrote it?) includes a number of very unrealistic and not thought through ideas, to a lesser degree this is also true for "The cold time" which has its share of good and bad ideas but doesn't seem to have a central plot exciting enough to keep an audience hooked. Neither story includes any characters of my own creation and generally doesn't offer many surprise moment. Pure LBT stories they may be, but in quality as in being exciting to read they may fall way short of some non pure LBT fanfiction.
Nevertheless I am really very much in favor of the concept of pure LBT fanfiction and written by a better author than me I think they could be really great. I admit it sometimes saddens me to see how much senseless slaughter some would unleash upon the Great Valley or with what extremely different stories they would cross LBT over. Thing is that one would have a very hard time trying to find any pure LBT fanfiction at all. I wonder why it is that hardly anyone would give it a try at all. I got responses along the lines of it being too difficult to think of further stories for pure LBT stories (that was before the creation of the TV series came up with a good number of pure LBT fiction some of which was quite good) while I really think that there is a lot left that one can tell in the world of LBT without ignoring its boundaries. Apparently (this is another response I got) these boundaries are however perceived as limiting the author's creative freedom. So as a result there are hardly any pure LBT fanfictions at all.
It is for that reason that I have mostly stopped reading fanfiction because neither could I really enjoy these stories nor would me feedback be of any help to the authors :(
Thank you for the question :)
PS: I very much regret that apparently my refusal to go into non-pure fanfictions has been interpreted as a sign of personal dislike by some (or at least one) author of such stories. This really isn't the case :(
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Your thoughts on this version of If We Hold On Together?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JnFDdBbMnA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JnFDdBbMnA)
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I think it is a good thing if a song is interpreted in various ways and it is quite interesting to listen to the different styles.
Loud and electro-metallic music is usually (always the chance for exceptions) not my cup of tea. So for me personally this interpretation is none that I would listen to frequently, but it is a good thing that someone put a lot of time, effort, and passion into this interpretation for everyone who is more into this style of music.
Thank you for the question :)
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Can you name any LBT fanfictions you have read in the past that you enjoyed?
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What do you think of the Swedish power metal band Sabaton?
Some sample music:
Angels Calling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ubqk7c8tpg&feature=related)
Primo Victoria (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgzxpoYwDB0)
40:1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSz1eZXpMKY)
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Can you name any LBT fanfictions you have read in the past that you enjoyed?
You sort of got me on that one :oops
I have never actually come across any pure LBT fanfiction the kind of which I am always advocating. I did enjoy the style of what I have read of Jason's "Battle of the Sacret Essences" a lot. If ever there was a pure LBT fanfiction in that style it would make my day. I dislike sounding so overcritical (and this in particular because I don't want anyone to think of my opinion on fanfiction to be a sign for any kind of personal aversion against authors :().
I had never heard of Sabaton before (which doesn't say much as I must confess that I could probably pass by famous stars which some people would kill to meet a single time in their lives and I probably wouldn't even notice). Having listened to the samples you posted there are parts which I like and some which are not quite my cup of tea. Did you ask about this band in particular because of their songs dealing with historical topics?
In this respect I find the songs interesting of course. From the musical aspect I tend to prefer the kinds of songs where I have a melody that I could imitate by humming or whistling and I am not a big fan of electronic instruments and drum kits. Power metal is not my genre. Then again it may be that such music may be a much better representation of war than the often very pretty and "glorious" music often used in movie soundtracks. Summing it up I find the songs interesting to listen to though I wouldn't listen to these songs to "enjoy" them, but I doubt that these songs have been written to be "enjoyed" just like that.
Thank you both for the questions :yes
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What books would you recommend for those that are just starting to write their own story?
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What exactly do you mean? If one has a story to tell I think one should start writing and one might develop ideas one hadn't originally planned during the writing. If ones starts reading books with the main purpose of writing an own story I'm afraid one must carefully guard against merely ripping of what others have written already. There are many excellent books I can recommend you which are very interesting, exciting, thoughtful etc. but I never read a book with the main idea in mind to use ideas from another book for an own story.
It is almost impossible to write something that does not partly borrow from already existing stories and it is quite alright if that's the case. But I think one should write a story and have such similarities appear during the story rather than reading a book with the purpose of writing something similar.
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This has been on my mind for awhile, and I just wanted to know what you thought of it. :)
This might be an odd question, but do you believe in the term "guilty pleasure" as in having "LBT as a guilty pleasure" due to certain circumstances of what seems to be socially acceptable in society, or do you kick out the labels and just like what you like even if other people would call them guilty pleasures?
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I have not heard the term "guilty pleasure" anywhere outside the GOF and only through Anna's response to the same question did I realize that there was also a sexual connotation to the term. Either way, to feel in any way guilty about something it must be an action which causes harm either to others or to myself. In case of the land before time I see neither being the case. There have been moments when I wondered what I would be if all the time I have devoted to the GOF would have been time devoted to historical studies or other more "real life" focused stuff. But if the pursuit of happiness is to be considered part of human nature than there is really nothing to feel unhappy and less even to feel guilty about.
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While reading back through this thread, I noticed one question I had asked that you had never answered: :!
What varieties (note plural ;)) of dinosaurs interest you the most?
By the way, did you get the e-mail I sent you regarding a change in my contact information?
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Hi Pangea, thank you for the question,
yes I did get the email (the arcor address is the one I use) and responded to it. Did you not receive the response? I invited you to MSN for a chat, but I am not sure whether or not you received the invitation.
As for dinosaur species, there is none that doesn't interest me at all. I am fascinated by Iguanodon's hand with something that comes close to an opposable thumb, I find the various representatives of the family Ankylosauria quite fascinating (well-armed, but unlike the extremely popular raptors strictly defensive), I can also relate to the "sprinting species" :p
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yes I did get the email (the arcor address is the one I use) and responded to it. Did you not receive the response? I invited you to MSN for a chat, but I am not sure whether or not you received the invitation.
No, I didn't receive it. Sorry. :( (Darn it, I knew I should have asked you which e-mail servers yours is compatible with before I changed mine! :bang) I still don't have an MSN account either, I'm afraid.
Anyway, here's a new question that relates to the one I asked about Viking helmets a while back: Are you familiar with a tapestry (http://www.sjolander.com/viking/museum/#Oseberg_tapestry_with_a_horned_helmet) from the Oseberg ship burial mound in in Norway, that supposedly depicts a horned-helmeted figure? (The sources I've found suggest that it depicts a religious figure or a chieftain.)
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Thank you for the question :)
The Oseberg Tapestry is not the only example of a depiction of a helmet with horns or other decoration and in this respect I need to relativaze an earlier statement of me. There are individual examples in some other documents. However, one is harder pressed to find depictions of such headgear worn in actual battle. Same as with crowns there is a certain likelihood of helmets with equipment that would have proven an impediment in battle to be used for representative or cultic purposes. In nordic mythology cows played significant roles for example Au?umbla, a cow who pretty much created mankind by licking a salty rock. It wouldn't be uncommon for "priests", "druids", or other religious servants to use horned helmets for ceremonial purposes. Religious use of horned helmets can be found among other people in the world too. Examples can also be found among the Celts and even ancient Mesopotamia. In battle however such helmets would have proven to the disadvantage of whoever wore them.
One will also find rather extreme show of headgear being used in certain tournaments (not actual warfare) where sometimes it was even the main purpose of the tournament to knock or tear the headgear from the helmet of the opponent. In real battle however there is no sign that such disadvantageous headgear was worn by the vikings even though the depiction of vikings wearing such helmets was popularized in 19th century.
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Hey Malte, have you ever thought of taking psychology? :idea
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Thank you for the question :)
I don't plan to study psychology on an academic level.
I did get a glimpse at some psychology courses at the university when I was still studying for a teacher's degree. Those courses however were so extremely theoretical, unworldly, and useless that any ambition to pursue this in an academic manner has been pretty much suffocated. I am quite interested in trying to understand the minds of others, how other people see the world, and what may make them think the way they do.
What I have seen in psychology courses at the university has been of no value whatsoever in this respect however. I think that the psychology classes in English or American universities or colleges are likely to be by far superior to the classes I have seen over here. I'm afraid the quality of psychology classes at German universities is suffering a lot from a primarily theoretical ivory-tower like approach to a subject that should be a lot more practical oriented :(
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Ever seen Disney's The Black Cauldron? Heard anything about Disney coming out with a DVD sometime around June? ^_^
Sorry, two questions kinda and their really out of the clear blue sky, i've been wanting to watch the movie ever since i heard it was coming out on DVD.. :(
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Thank you for the question :)
I saw it once several years ago, but prior to that I had been familiar with the story of the movie because of an audioplay of the movie which I had since about 1991 and which I had listened to frequently.
It is a funny coincident that you happen to ask this just now because a few days ago I listened to some audioplays I had borrowed from a local library. They were the chronicles of Prydain on five CDs (based on the books rather than the movie).
As for a DvD release of the movie, I haven't heard of it so far, but I hadn't investigated about it specifically.
Now this is not a replacement for a DvD of course, but I think that The Black Cauldron (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_oVAqz29Yw&feature=PlayList&p=FA559613C8A9F341&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=36) can be found on Youtube too if you haven't seen it so far.
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Since no one else has asked or guessed, and I'm too historically illiterate to guess, :rolleyes what WAS the historical speech/document your opening speech for the 2010 Award Voting (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=7807&view=findpost&p=9190985) was based on? :)
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It was very loosely based on excerpts from Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address to the Nation (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Military-Industrial_Complex_Speech) which became noted mostly for his warning of the increasing influence of the military industrial complex (and a resulting popularization of the term).
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Have you found your bread knife yet?
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Nope, it is still gone and I have absolutely no clue where that one foot something long blade went <_<
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What exactly do you have against dark LBT fan fiction?
I mean PokÈmon has tons upon tons of dark fan fiction.
One of the most famous is Latias' Journey. It is based on the very light PokÈmon anime but it is far, far, far, far more violent and darker than any episode of the anime.
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Do you like pie?
If so, what kind is your favourite?
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Thank you for the questions :)
As for dark LBT fanfictions it is simply that what I have read of them had very little to do with the land before time except for the names of characters (who did not tend to act like the LBT characters would) and places.
The land before time is not the same as Pokemon, Star Wars, Resident Evil or the other franchises it is often connected with. I know very little about Pokemon (the example which you picked), but for all I do know it is much about fighting often in a sport-like competition and sometimes on a more serious basis and about the trainers training the pokemons to become ever better fighters. This is not the nature of the land before time. Dinosaurs would have very different motivations from humans. I am not unaware of the "entertaining value" of violence and I will not pretend not to enjoy this entertainment in the right contexts as well. However, based on what we see in the movies dinosaurs from LBT are not thinking along the lines of humans who will kill each other for all kinds of reasons, sometimes even for sheer lust of killing. In LBT the prime reason for violence is the wish to survive (both for a sharptooth who needs to eat and for a leafeater who doesn't want to be be eaten). There are such motivations as racism which in a given context might lead to violence, but for the large scale slaughter shown in some fanfictions I have seen the dinosaurs just don't have the motivations. I don't see for example why large groups of sharpteeth would team up to "conquer" the Great Valley. concepts such as "possessing" land are probably more alien to land before time dinosaurs than they were to native Americans. As for the example with the sharpteeth they would need a lot more food to sustain a large group than they would as individual hunters (talking of the large kinds of sharpteeth now rather than the smaller raptors), they would find a lot easier and less risky prey in the mysterious beyond, and if they did "conquer" the Great Valley they wouldn't have really gained anything for the great risk of their lives they took. It is just one example where I feel fundamental basis of the land before time universe are being ignored just to get as much war and violence as possible into a story. Others may think different and it is okay for others to think different. But I feel I have good reasons not to think of such stories as being really in the spirit of LBT and therefore not liking them myself.
(On a side-note after having read what has been written elsewhere, I do not think very high of my own land before time stories. While they do not really violate the rules of the LBT universe they all have major drawbacks. The plot of "The big quarrel" is in many ways foreseeable and following clichÈs. To some degree I'm afraid I have served the same "dull sharpteeth" problem that we see in some later LBT movies. Parts of it are just plain unrealistic and the story doesn't include any own characters (lack of own characters isn't necessarily a shortcoming if the own characters wouldn't contribute anything to a story. But own characters can also add a lot to an LBT story. Sometimes own characters take over the story so much however that the actual land before time characters play little to no role at all anymore.). Moreover my English by the time I translated "The big quarrel" (2000 and 2001) was so bad that I am surprised anyone would read the story at all.
With "The Cold Time" there are many similar problems. I think the main problem of that story however is that it is above all a sequence of episodes of very limited coherence.
"Old Threehorns" finally is probably better in some ways than the earlier stories but is still suffers from being very long winded. With this story I think I also got very close to putting a toe across my own expectations of what is or what is not likely and possible in the world of LBT. It sure would come closest to a "dark" LBT story. However since I started writing it back in 2002 movies have appeared which tear the story of "Old Threehorns" apart. I am not likely to finish it.)
Pies? I suppose I do like them, but I think pie can be translated as a variety of rather different dishes. On the one hand a pie can be a cake on the other hand it can be a dish involving meat, cheese, and various ingredients. Of both versions there are kinds that I like (admitting though that in some cases I am not a hundred percent certain if the dishes I am thinking of would pass as "pies"). Which are the kinds of pies you are asking about about?
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Do you prefer books or movies?
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That depends on the quality of the book or the movie. I guess in most cases the books surpass the movies in quality, but there are exceptions (e.g. I consider the series the animals of farthing wood a rare example of a movie adaptation surpassing the book due to a greater degree of individuality of characters in the movie). Movies have the advantage of often taking less time to watch than the reading of a book does (but if shortage of time does not allow us anymore to read then we are in really big trouble). Especially in recent days I have often resorted to audio books too.
Books and movies both have their benefits. Which I prefer depends on the quality and the situation, but I think in most cases it is the book surpassing the movie rather than the other way round.
Thank you for the question :)
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How are you doing Malte?
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Thank you for the question :)
I wish I could just say "busy but happy" as I have in countless MSN chats during my study time when asked about my howabouts. However, these days are really not my days at all. I sent out so many applications already (mostly to universities including one in the US, to booksellers, and two to a publishing house) hoping to get a real job. But so far all I got were refusals. There is really not a high demand for historians. The only "job" I have at the moment is a mere 5 1/2 hours per week in a private school and what I earn there doesn't suffice to even cover my insurance :(
I wasn't taken at not so "highbrow" jobs I applied too with the hope to earn some money for the time being either presumably because they can guess that if I succeeded in getting a job more related to my subjects of studies I would take it. It is odd that I have really little use for the plenty amount of free time I currently have. Being accepted for a real job (in the ideal case at a university where I could then also write my dissertation) would really come as a kind of salvation right now.
There isn't too much social contact in my life either these days. For the time being the entrance to my Great Valley is blocked and I do what I can to shovel it free. But making no visible progress with it at all is really frustrating and drags me down quite a bit :neutral
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Do you find model armies interesting?
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Did you EVER have a love interest in your life?
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Thank you for your questions :)
Do you find model armies interesting?
Do you mean specifically tabletop game armies like Warhammer or model armies in general?
Come to think of it it doesn't really matter as yes I would be interested in both even though I never owned tabletop game myself... excepting Claymore sage which I think may be made by the same company as Warhammer but which is a very basic games.
As for model armies in general I have been into diorama building with scale 1:72 figures. I don't have any pictures of a WW2 Pacific theater and a WW1 diorama which I had build long ago but which I don't have anymore.
But here are some images of a diorama which I build showing the fight for Little Round Top on July 2nd 1863 during the battle of Gettysburg:
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/Little%20Round%20Top/LittleRoundTopDiorama6.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/Little%20Round%20Top/LittleRoundTopDiorama5.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/Little%20Round%20Top/LittleRoundTopDiorama8.jpg)
Some of the figures there do not exist in this form in any kit of figures but are constructed out of parts from various figures. The figure of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (the federal with the sword) consists of five individual parts though the figure is just about an inch in size.
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/Little%20Round%20Top/LittleRoundTopDiorama2.jpg)
I also once constructed new figures for a company who then made tin molds of them and sold them (but I admit I only ever made one set of figures for them (figures suited for dioramas showing "camplife" or non-combat scenes of the US or CS cavalry)). Did you EVER have a love interest in your life?
Yes, I'm pretty sure about that.
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^ :blink: How long did it take you do that!? That's awesome work!
I was always thinking of building a scale landscape for my Micro Machines and maybe one to play Axis & Allies on (with the hexagons/squares and stuff).
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I don't remember the exact time, but it sure took more than a month. I think it was in November / December 1999/2000 that I made this Diorama.
In 2000 I also made another one of the first day of the battle of Gettysburg:
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3085.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3061.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3059.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3075.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3072.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3083.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3081.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3080.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3078.jpg)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh475/Malte279/Modelbau/IMG_3077.jpg)
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Did you EVER have a love interest in your life?
Yes, I'm pretty sure about that.
And what was this "love interest" of yours like and when did you meet that particular someone?
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Thanks for the question, but I'm not going into details about my love-interest on a public forum.
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Have you read my botanical poem, the “The Equisetum's Lament (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=7730)”? If so, what did you think of it? (You can post your response here or in the poem's thread.)
P.S. Nice dioramas, by the way. :yes I especially like the Gettysburg one.
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Thank you again very much for your feedback. :DD I'll go on to my next question:
How is your LBT embroidery project going? :)
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Thanks for the question :)
I haven't been working with the embroidery for a while. I gotta admit that during the last time I have been "existing" rather than "living". All the unsuccessful applications, the apparent impossibility to get a job in any way related to my studies and the same lack of success with applications for other kinds of job are really dragging me far down these days and I feel I really need a job to get up again (so while the applications remain unsuccessful it remains a vicious circle). Anyway, I'm getting off topic here. Once I pick up work with the embroidery again and make progress I will post more images here.
P.S. Nice dioramas, by the way. :yes I especially like the Gettysburg one.
Thank you :)
Both dioramas show scenes from the battle of Gettysburg by the way. The first shows action of the 2nd day of the battle (2nd July 1863) on Little Round Top (<Off topic question, does anyone else here have the reflex that whenever you type "little" you start writing Littlefoot and got to correct the last two or three letters before you notice?), the other shows Federal Cavalry on McPherson's ridge on the first day of the battle.
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Both dioramas show scenes from the battle of Gettysburg by the way.
Whoops! I guess I didn't read the description of the first one thoroughly enough. :blink:
I haven't been working with the embroidery for a while. I gotta admit that during the last time I have been "existing" rather than "living". All the unsuccessful applications, the apparent impossibility to get a job in any way related to my studies and the same lack of success with applications for other kinds of job are really dragging me far down these days and I feel I really need a job to get up again (so while the applications remain unsuccessful it remains a vicious circle).
Sorry to hear about all that. :(
Perhaps you'd appreciate a history question? :)
What do you know about the Kensington Runestone? I had been taught that it was a hoax, but recently I heard that it might be genuine evidence that Vikings visited central North America after all. (I’m not sure what to believe now. :confused)
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You know I love history questions :D
Aye, I too read about the Kensington Stone being a hoax though one artistically done.
As for the Vikings there is evidence about their landing along the northeast coast before the coming of Colon (which was by no means the only example of Europeans landing there before the official discovery. Apparently French fishermen used to land in the region of Nova Scotia with a certain regularity to dry their catch before returning home; but they didn't seem to think much about that).
One thing that I did read about theories of Europeans really getting far into the heart of the continent is related not so much to the Vikings as it is to a Welsh expedition. A Welsh prince (I would have to look up the name and the exact time) apparently set out on a westward expedition in 12th century. Very little is known about how much of this story is legend and how much actual truth. In any case in Alabama (near Mobile I think) there is a memorial which allegedly marks this prince's landing place (not a very likely place to make a first landfall missing Florida entirely).
However, more substantial evidence is related to a native American tribe, the Mandan. When European expeditions in 19th century made contact with this tribe in the Missouri region they described that some of them had features very uncommon for native Americans such as light hair, facial hair, blue and gray eyes etc. Moreover they apparently differed from most tribes of the region in the style of their dwellings and a habit of fencing in villages in a style that reminded observers (the painter George Catlin in particular) of medieval Welsh fortifications.
For all I know the theory of the Mandan being the descendants of the participants of a Welsh expedition is discarded by most scholars. I do not know all the arguments pro and con, but I suppose that nowadays it would be tricky to tell which elements of Mandan culture are really preceding the arrival of the Europeans and which European influences have been picked up since.
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Interesting. That fact about the Mandan prompted me to do some searching on Google, because it made me curious whether anyone had tried to determine their ancestry through DNA testing. Apparently such studies have been done, but I couldn’t find anything about conclusive results.
Are you planning to submit any artwork for pokeplayer984’s LBT tribute video? :)
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I started something, but I'm afraid I won't finish it in time. One reason (apart from general lack of spirit while I don't have a job) are computer troubles. I meant to do that image (of which I finished a raw pencil sketch with my graphic tablet (first time I would really put it to good purpose). However, the computer just doesn't allow me to configure the tablet (specifically to change the settings so that one point on the tablet remains fixed to a point on the paper). Every time I try to open the file where such configurations would be made I get some notification about rundll32 and the program is never opened. Installing the most up to date driver for the tablet did not lead to any results either. Sometimes the only reason for me not to smash my computer against the wall is the awareness that I would deeply regret this the next moment and many moments after :bang :bang :bang
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Out of all the people throughout history, which among them do you find the most inspiration to work on something?
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I started something, but I'm afraid I won't finish it in time. One reason (apart from general lack of spirit while I don't have a job) are computer troubles. I meant to do that image (of which I finished a raw pencil sketch with my graphic tablet (first time I would really put it to good purpose). However, the computer just doesn't allow me to configure the tablet (specifically to change the settings so that one point on the tablet remains fixed to a point on the paper). Every time I try to open the file where such configurations would be made I get some notification about rundll32 and the program is never opened. Installing the most up to date driver for the tablet did not lead to any results either. Sometimes the only reason for me not to smash my computer against the wall is the awareness that I would deeply regret this the next moment and many moments after :bang :bang :bang
Sorry to hear that :( (And I know exactly what you mean about the computer :rolleyes). Well, the good news is, it doesn't have to be newly created artwork. pokeplayer says (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=7948&view=findpost&p=9199550) you can submit older art pieces as well.
As long as I'm discussing art, here's another question on the subject (and forgive me for treading on the thin ice of Lake Superlative here): Out of all of the different art mediums you've used (drawing, watercolor, soapstone sculpting, casting metal figures, embroidery, etc.), which ones have you found the most enjoyable, the most frustrating, the most challenging, the most time-consuming to work with?
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Thank you for your questions :)
Out of all the people throughout history, which among them do you find the most inspiration to work on something?
Well, there are some people in history for whom I feel great respect or even admiration. However I am guarding against a kind of adoration that would make an objective look impossible.
It is important to keep in mind that these people were still people and often had dark sides to them. In a way this makes them all the easier to relate to because they are of the same matter as all of us and also with some of the flaws. It is the positive aspects though that serve as examples for us. Lists of positive examples could be endless, but here are some that I can think of spontaneously (there are many more):
Hans and Sophie Scholl for their courage to do what was right in a society where right had been abandoned and standing with their lives for it.
Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Alva Edison I admire for creativity.
I admire the work of Albert Schweitzer as his charity came less conditional and less dogmatic than the work of some others whose charity as such would be no less admirable than his.
Well, the good news is, it doesn't have to be newly created artwork. pokeplayer says you can submit older art pieces as well.
I submitted some images for the video including an incomplete version of the image I started just recently. I guess if I did manage my graphictablet I could work a lot faster. But I didn't get the hang of it and the mouse work in roughly correcting all the major shortcomings of a pencil drawing that is supposed to be turned into a photoshop image is dreadfully time intensive.
and forgive me for treading on the thin ice of Lake Superlative here
I just love the way you put that :lol
It is indeed difficult to say. I think though that the carving of soapstone is particularly enjoyable for me. But due to the amount of dust it produces it is also something that I can rarely do.
As for time consuming there are two candidates I think. The embroidery is probably the most time consuming of all. The other candidate might be making tin figures, but not from existing positives (like brooches etc.) but by modeling figures yourself. I don't think I ever posted about the Cera figure I have been working on. From wax I made a head of Cera (and I am kind of proud how well it worked out) from which I took a mold (a mold of three components, the most tricky one I did so far. I also made a mold for her body (because of the shape of Cera (the four legs in particular) all the parts needed to be made separately). And then I realized that the wax I was using wouldn't work out for her legs because the thin part where her shoulders join the rest of her body couldn't be created with sufficient accuracy. So yes, this was a very time consuming project and also frustrating for not being finished. Generally the making of the molds is exciting but also with a great potential for frustration. If you get just a bit too much of the very smelly and toxic volcanizer to the caoutchouc it will harden too quickly to show the details of a figure, if you add just a bit to little it will not harden enough and will remain a smeary mess beyond all recognition and if you get the amount right, you really want to make sure that the volcanizer is well stirred into the caoutchouc to avoid "soft-spots", but you don't want to stir too long either for it starts to harden the moment you add the volcanizer. Given the fact that the stuff is not just toxic and messy but also very expensive the potential for frustration is very high here. The use of the finished molds though well compensates for that :smile
PS: I should add that soapstone carving also has a potential for frustration if the stone breaks at a late stage of the carving because of any porous inclusion (as happened in case of a figure of Ducky lying on Spike's back).
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With all of the interesting information of just about everything you obtained, did you obtain it through schooling, work, or a personal hobby?
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Thank you for the question :yes
A mixture of all that I would say, but I daresay that most of the knowledge came through private hobby and reading (I have been a rather constant customer of libraries since I was about seven or eight years old) while most of the methods came from school and university education.
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Hey Malte, are you feeling any better from what happened?
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Thank you for the question. As for the coma, that one was not so dramatic. It looks kind of spectacular again (face bumped and bruised and all that) but all of the injury is rather superficial. I found that apparently I must have fallen on an electric plug with my head which caused a little laceration. One of the plugs was bend and there was some hair from my head sticking to it. Anyway, the coma really is my least concern these days. I am not doing well at this time, but this is for the continuing lack of success with my search for a job :(
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I’m so sorry about your current situation, Malte. :( I wish I could do something to help. :cry
I hope answering this next question won’t in any way aggravate your mood, but I was wondering, what are some historical myths and misconceptions that you, as a historian, find particularly annoying that people continue to believe and accept as fact?
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I hope answering this next question won’t in any way aggravate your mood,
...not at all. You know I love history questions. So thank you for it :yes
As for historical misconceptions, they usually don't annoy me very much because the existence of such misconceptions often gives the historian the opportunity to do the historian's job ;)
Some myths are particularly persistent and sometimes kind of unfair however. For example when thinking of the middle ages in Europe many people will think of witch burnings and extremely brutal jurisdiction. Now make no mistake, the middle ages were in many ways rather brutal but many of the things which we associate with the middle ages were a lot more common in the supposedly more enlightened early middle ages. If we set the end of the middle ages to around the year 1500 (it was of course a gradual progress from one age into the other but the middle ages are rarely defined as ending much later than 1500) we will find that witch burnings and the like were at their major peak throughout the following 150 years while most of the cases of which actually did take place in the middle ages really took place throughout the 15th century. Also religious conflict with all its cruelty reached its climax in the centuries after the middle ages. I'm not saying that the middle ages weren't a rather miserable age to most of those who lived then, but the idea of a sudden influx of civilized and enlightened spirit at the beginning of the renaissance is often exaggerated.
I think when it comes to historical misconceptions I am annoyed after all when it comes in the form of movies which boast with alleged historical accuracy but then fail to even make any serious attempt to live up to that claim. Now I acknowledge the fact that for movies it may be important to make compromises in order to keep the audience interested. However, in that case they ought to be a bit more honest about the "liberties" which they took. Even movies which are very poor in terms of historical accuracy can stir up the interest of people enough for them to get informed about the real events, which is certainly a good thing, but all to often people take what they see for facts and then it would be really good if the movie makers didn't come up with ridiculous claims of an authenticity which the movies in question never even tried to achieve. Sometimes I also fail to understand why some deviations from the historic truth are brought into a movie when sticking closer to historical events might have made the story a lot more interesting.
Another thing that can be problematic is that sometimes interpretations of historical events become so emotionally heated that it becomes tricky to represent a certain opinion on it. A good example for this would be the beginning of WW1. In the aftermath of the war Germany had to declare its sole responsibility for the war. Since then historiography has moved on and the more accurate lists of motivations for all of the nations involved have come up. However, I am sometimes under the impression that some people over here make too much of a point out of emphasizing Germany's not being solely responsible for WW1. Of course Germany was not so unquestionably and exclusively responsible for WW1 as it was for WW2, but looking at the actions taken by the nations in late July early August 1914 I can't help feeling that Germany did have more than an "even share" in responsibility for the outbreak of WW1. Encouraging Austria-Hungary to make demands which would obviously lead to war and then invading neutral Belgium would in my opinion put Germany on a more active level of warmongering in those days than many of the other nations. The universal enthusiasm for war (be it for French wishes to make up for 1870/71 or British concerns about the maritime build-up) is on a much less intense level of the same story in my opinion.
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I know we haven't really talk about religion too much on our MSN chats Malte, so I just wanted ask:
What's your opinion on religion as a whole? Or I guess to explain it a bit more, do you think religion is essential to human beings? Or is it something that you think doesn't necessarily needs to be around in life? It's just a security thing for human beings?
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It is a question that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.
I think that this depends very much on the individual. To some people religion is an absolutely integral part of their lives, to some it is part of their lives but not as important as it is to others, and some people discard religion altogether.
I think that true religious faith is not really a matter of choice. Some people will state their believe or even try to convince others of it but more because it is what most people around them are saying or teaching them rather than because of very deep personal conviction. The same can work around the other way of course with people stating that they don't believe because they don't think much about it.
In human history religion has of course been a crucial factor for both good and bad.
I have way too much respect for the comfort that individuals can find in religion to just discard it as nonsense the way some people do. Perhaps even the most frequent question on whether there is a god, or several gods, or no deity whatsoever is not as important as it seems so long people can find comfort or encouragement in religion. But this of course is entirely about the personal and private faith of the individual.
Sadly there is also the dark side of believing and not believing in the form of forcing either down the throat of everyone else. Religion has been terribly abused in order to keep large majorities quiet about the injustices these majorities have suffered from minorities (so while I couldn't sign it in every context and for every person I sure do see where Marx was coming from when he called religion "Opium for the people"). Religion has been even more terribly abused by people who insisted that their own faith was the only one and that others had to die unless they had the same faith about what was going to happen after death (no logic in that at all). It doesn't matter at all if people shout "Deus vult!" or "Allahu akbar!" or whatever else when killing or torturing others on behalf of their faith or whatever they may shout when killing or torturing people unless they state that there was no god (a relatively recent development but one that has also left a horrible trail of blood already).
I think that this insistence of the own faith being the only path to paradise is at the core of all the religion based suffering (whether we are talking of the worst form of people being slaughtered for their faith or lack of such or whether we are talking about the not quite so terrible form of religious suffering (but also one that can ultimately lead to bad ends) of humans being forced to attend religious services against their will or convictions by their parents, clerics or other authorities).
I do not know if there is a god or not.
I do not think that we should make our striving for leading a good life so dependent on whether or not there is a god.
If tomorrow I knew with absolute certainty that there was no god or after life I would not draw the consequence of leading a bad life against my fellow humans ever after.
Although I do not know if there is a god or not I pray sometimes. But I do not pray to be "on the save side" but because I am aware that there is so much for me to be grateful about that it is not the decisive question whether or not there is a deity, or several deities, or no deity at all to whom my gratitude would go. I would be grateful either way. Prayers can also be prayers of hope for something to happen on the own behalf or the behalf of others of course. But even in case there was no deity to decide about these prayers they are still helping to become aware of what one is striving and hoping for in life. There is no wrong in that either way.
Now if indeed there is a god, or several, or an afterlife I never understand why people think that there must be but one single very narrow way to salvation rather than several. Is a human automatically more qualified for paradise by being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Shiite, a Sunni, a Jew, an Orthodox, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Taoist, a follower of the teachings of Confucius, or a follower of any of the hundreds and thousands of other religions or subbranches of religions, or non-religious ways to lead ones life in an integer way? I don't think so.
I have brought up the image before, but I can do so again. If there is a paradise I can imagine it like an island in a river with humans crossing the river over one out of many bridges, on boats, or rafts, or swimming, or walking over the water, or crossing the river in many other ways. All the ways lead to the same island. But unfortunately many people feel that everybody must cross the river on their own route. Perhaps it is out of an extreme concern for the other humans that fails to see that they are just fine on the bridges, or vessels, or ways they take. Perhaps it is also because some humans are scared that if there are other ways to the same destination there might be something wrong with their own way. So some of them try to get everyone to use the own way. They will go so far as to try to bring down the bridges of others, or sink their vessels, or drown them rather than see them go their way on a route different from the own. These people so focused on getting others to take the same way as them and stopping others from taking a different route may end up so hooked up in this that they fail to ever go their own way to the end and reach that island of salvation.
I don't know if there is a god, but I find it very hard to imagine that if there is a god this god would condemn everyone unless he or she walks on a path very narrowly fenced of by one particular religious scripture. I think that if there is a deity grand enough to create this whole universe in which humans are but one out of million species on one out of innumerable planets, within one out of innumerable galaxies... I cannot imagine such a deity to be so narrow minded as to accept only a very narrow selection, of a selection, within a selection, inside a selection of people based on a single religious code rather than a life that seeks to maintain all this marvelous evolving creation.
I don't know if there is a god, but if there is I don't think that god is well represented by any people who can't life with the idea of others living a life in a way different from their own.
Thank you for the question Amy :)
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I hope you get well soon. I know you'll persevere (sp?).
Anyway, I'll ask you the same silly questions I gave F-22. What is your favorite (or your top 3) of the following:
Aircraft (any type and era)
Vehicle (any type and era)
Ship (type or name and era)
Firearm (type and era)
Ancient Weapon (type and era)
General or Leader (any era)
Battlefield or Battle (any era, history wise)
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Oh dear, oh dear. For someone who keeps pointing out his problems with superlatives such as "favorite", "best" etc. this is quite something to swallow :lol
And in comes also the need for the historian to maintain an objective, critical distance to historical characters to avoid either admiration, contempt or whatever other sentiment to critically examine actions etc. of a given historical character.
Also with military matters, weapons etc. it is such a case. The fascination which weapons can exert is far from unknown to me, as is the interest in combat that results in a very large percentage of our media (be it fiction or nonfiction) dealing with people fighting and killing each other. I think war is one of the most horrible states mankind can be submitted to by mankind itself and yet it is one of the consistent threads running through human history. I do hope that the day will come on which that fatal blood red thread can be cut. There is a screaming insanity in thousands and millions of people who never even met each other before and who under different circumstances might find that they have a lot in common killing each other and committing acts for which they would be tried and punished in more civilized circumstances than war poses.
However, I am also realistic and well aware that idealism of some cannot rid the world of war. It takes the strong opposition of large majorities of all involved parties against wars in order to prevent them (and we have seen that even huge protests are not always sufficient to stop wars though I do believe that protests in the 1980s did contribute to keeping the Cold War from getting hot). On the other hand it takes just a few people of influence in favor of a war and a passive majority (which might even dislike the idea of war but not enough to do something about it) to get one country to start a war compelling another country to defend itself thus "joining" the madness whether they want to or not. For all this I do not see the world getting rid of this scourge of mankind in the foreseeable future but one ought not to ignore the great progress that has been made in parts of the world. The day might come when we are gone...
Anyway the main point of all this is that the admitted interest and fascination in military history is absolutely NOT the result of any embracing or lenient stand on the concept of war, the annihilator of humans and of what humanity ought to be.
However, I would deny my enthusiasm for history in general if I didn't take this awesome chance for talking about history. Rather than responding in this thread where it would be a response that might not provoke any further discussion or gain of knowledge or insight I will start an own thread on matters of military history in which I'm going to respond to the questions put up not necessarily with a list of "favorites" but rather with random (but hopefully somewhat structured) thoughts on the matters in question.
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Again, I didn't realize your philosophy on such subjects. As far as that question goes, you don't have to answer it at all if you don't want to.
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I opened a whole thread on it in the AM section so there may be a lot of questioning, answering, and discussing on military matters. More than there might have been in this chat. It is just that superlatives are something I rarely work with and that I try to maintain a critical distance to historical topics. So I would not end up just naming a a ship, a plane, a general or the like as a "favorite" but instead write some more lines on what I find interesting about the given thing or person without designating either as my "favorite" ;)
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Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem? I’m guessing you’ve already done some research on mildew and how to control it, but, on the off-chance that it would help, I did a little searching of my own, and found a page (http://www.fcs.uga.edu/pubs/current/C767.html) that recommended this and other methods of controlling mildew.
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Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem?
I haven't used those so far. Reviews from forums about mildew problems seemed to be rather disappointed with them. Actually I did ask for such means in a building center, but they didn't have any of it at the time.
For a while I put out salt on plates resulting in big solid pieces of caked salt (I actually made some imprints of LBT figures in the salt on one plate so these imprints would be there after the salt caked together because of the air humidity :lol), but whatever humidity the salt took to cake it did not lower air humidity in my room.
For some days the weather was dryer resulting in the humidity staying under 70%. In the last days there has been more rain again. I borrowed an electric air dehumidifier from my dad but I rarely use it (only when no opened windows can get the humidity below 70%) because it gobbles up so much electricity.
However when I was in the building center I got plexiglass plates to replace the press board plates in the drawers under my bed (the worst source of the mildew) and got rid of the mildew catching press board. It does make me feel a lot better as the other mildew I have come across so far was only in tiny spots and only at an air humidity above 75% which hasn't been the case for a while now. I hope for the weather to get dryer again.
Thank you for your help Pangea. I really appreciate it :yes
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Thank you for your help Pangea. I really appreciate it :yes
You're welcome. :) Good to hear things are a little better, and I hope they continue to improve.
Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem?
I haven't used those so far. Reviews from forums about mildew problems seemed to be rather disappointed with them.
Disappointed in the desiccants' impact on humidity levels, or disappointed in their effect on the mildew itself? (You probably know this already, but I think the desiccants aren't supposed to get rid of the mildew so much as to dry out the air and make it easier to control the mold.)
Also, how badly has the mildew affected your books? Has there been any irreparable damage?
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Bumping this thread with another question:
If you'll pardon another ice-fishing trip on Lake Superlative (and the fact that this question is kind of similar to one I have asked you before), what would you consider some of the most widespread or enduring historical myths or misconceptions?
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Also, how badly has the mildew affected your books? Has there been any irreparable damage?
Uh oh, I had totally overlooked that one before. Luckily there was no lasting or irreparable damage on the books.
what would you consider some of the most widespread or enduring historical myths or misconceptions?
Again I will dodge the superlative by just stating that the myths I would name are extremely common but I could not name one that would definitely be the most far spread. One can hardly test how far spread such a myth is and I also reckon that some myths may be very prominent in some regions while they would not be as well known in other regions of the world.
However, apart from the previously mentioned "horned helmes" of the vikings here is another very often heard myth: "In the middle ages people believed that the earth was flat and sailors were in the believe that they could drop from the earth if they came to close to the edge."
That claim is mostly nonsense from what we can tell from the sources. I say "mostly" because there have been a individuals who did believe in a flat earth, but those were few in comparison to the many who recognized the round shape of the earth (and this included members of the clergy such as Thomas of Aquin). Of course we don't have any sources from the huge majority of the medieval population who couldn't read or write and we don't know of course if a serf peasant who worked hard and was worried about producing enough food for his dues and his family wondered at all about the shape of the earth. Apart from written texts there are also such symbols as the globus cruciger which was used early in the middle ages already symbolizing the earth ball in the hands of a ruler. Funnily enough one of the most popular images that can be found in many school books as an example for the medieval view of the world was really made in 19th century (a time in which there were two kind of conflicting interpretations of the middle ages the one showing it as "romantic and unspoiled" the other showing it as "primitive and barbaric).
Speaking of barbaric, it is true that the middle ages knew extremely cruel and brutal punishments. However, such cruelty was certainly not invented in the middle ages and one would have a hard time trying to make a claim that with the end of the middle ages the cruelty decreased. Quite the contrary, the huge majority of the witch burnings and most of the cruelties executed by the inquisition (the institution was indeed founded in the middle ages) which are so often associated with the middle ages took place in the early modern age which arguably also saw an increase of religious fundamentalism that is so often linked to the middle ages.
Many of the historic misconceptions are not quite so well known, not quite so easy to to prove or disprove, or are simply a matter of debate that would take a very long time to settle. Often acts of propaganda have a very lasting effect on the image of history we have in mind. An example is the battle of Agincourt 1415 in which (thanks to Shakespeare) we believe the English were outnumbered 3 to 1 by the French but won mostly because of the superiority of their longbows. While nobody argues the fact that Agincourt was a huge victory for the English modern research of the carefully kept pay rolls suggest that in fact the ratio is likely to have been more like 1.5 to 1 for the French and there also is a likelihood that the effectiveness of the longbow (which in tests on the modern armor of 1415) failed to penetrate the same at the long distances that we tend to picture in our minds) was but only one factor that led to the French defeat.
Another battle which some historians said was likely to be more like a little skirmish on a beach rather than a Europe saving battle is the battle of Marathon. Some historians say that it was likely blown up by the Athenian propaganda who were in need of something to base their claims on leadership over their Spartan rivals on. I must admit though that I do not know the arguments on both sides and therefore cannot offer a competent opinion on this one.
Many "historic events" (usually the heroic ones) probably never happened or at least not in the way we assume they did. For example the charge of the Scots Grays in the battle of Waterloo which has been immortalized in many paintings (the most famous of which is often used as a cover for the board game "Risk") and also depicted in movies. It probably never happened in the way it is depicted. The popular image has the Scots Grays (cavalry) charge over a long distance into the French infantry with some soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders (infantry) clinging to the stirrups of the cavalry to be "carried into battle". The candy of the whole attack was that the imperial eagle of the 45. French regiment was taken in the charge. A regiment known as the "invincibles". That name however was never heard with reference to the said regiment and was apparently brought up by Sir Walter Scott (a man who generally wrote books that are very readable but tend to distort historical facts to a degree that is really painful to the academics ;)). However it was not just that minor detail of the name, but also the fact that at the time of the cavalry charge the opposing lines of infantry were barely 10 meters apart from each other. The charge cannot possibly have done in full speed gallop as it is usually depicted at that short distance. And the "heroic legend" of the Gordon Highlanders clinging to stirrups to be carried into battle (something I have seen on a picture in Edinburgh Castle) would have had dire consequences in the highly disciplined British military of the time. The fact that the soldiers in question would have had to face court martial for leaving battle line without order (a crime for which soldiers could actually be sentenced to death!) makes it rather unlikely, moreso even than the fact that one doesn't cling to stirrups of slow moving horses in the hope to cover a distance of some ten meters any faster...
Uhm... I notice I got totally of topic here. Most probably haven't ever heard of the Scots Grays any their charge at Waterloo, so this one definitely wouldn't be anywhere near that superlative you were asking for Pangea :p
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A bit late....just thought of it actually...how did your mom react to my birthday present to you? :p
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Luckily there was no lasting or irreparable damage on the books.
That's a relief. :)
Uhm... I notice I got totally of topic here. Most probably haven't ever heard of the Scots Grays any their charge at Waterloo, so this one definitely wouldn't be anywhere near that superlative you were asking for Pangea :p
That's okay. While I like to be enlightened about the myths that are so widespread that they're basically considered common knowledge (e.g., Napoleon being short) pretty much any myth (historical or otherwise) is interesting to me. :p
Petrie's question made me think of something: have you shown anyone else the card I made you for your birthday? Or Iris's “Shorty Bonaparte” figure, for that matter? :lol I'm curious to hear what other people's reactions were, if you did. :)
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A bit late....just thought of it actually...how did your mom react to my birthday present to you?
She really loved the letter paper with the racoon and the squirrel whom she found very cute. She also took a close look on the photos you sent along. By the way, this reminds me that there was one line which we didn't quite understand. When you wrote about one photo:
"A newspaper press in 2005... was the former side of that factory building below."
Is that to be read as a newspaper press being established on the ground of the factory building in 2005 or as a factory building being established on the ground of the newspaper press in 2005? I think the sentence could be interpreted both ways.
Mum also commented on the look of your handwriting which she really liked for combining the clear readability of block letters with the personalized look of handwriting.
Petrie's question made me think of something: have you shown anyone else the card I made you for your birthday? Or Iris's Ôø?Shorty BonaparteÔø? figure, for that matter?
I haven't yet seen a member of my family since I received your image, so I couldn't show it to them yet. Unfortunately my family members do not show very much interest in what "LBT stuff" I come up with, but of course their disinterest must be respected same as they respect my interest. I'm going to show the image to some of my folks this weekend however :)
I did have a chance to show some photos of Shorty to Mum though and she (who really loves such artwork and (in spite of little interest in LBT generally also found a tin Littlefoot so cute that she asked me for one of them ;)) was really fond of Shorty. She also loved the idea behind the figure to refer to both, my interest in LBT and history :)
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"A newspaper press in 2005... was the former side of that factory building below."
Is that to be read as a newspaper press being established on the ground of the factory building in 2005 or as a factory building being established on the ground of the newspaper press in 2005? I think the sentence could be interpreted both ways.
Sorry for the confusion. That means the newspaper press is there now, and the factory used to be there. "Former site of the factory building below" would indicate it is no longer used as a factory. ;)
Mum also commented on the look of your handwriting which she really liked for combining the clear readability of block letters with the personalized look of handwriting.
I actually had to rewrite this as I didn't get what you meant at first. Must be called something else in Germany. Now I get your mom likes that fact I wrote using printing, but also combined a couple of elements of cursive. ;) Darn translations. I had to think that one through.
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Hey Malte, I’ve got another Viking question for you:
Is there any evidence that Vikings used hammers and/or maces as weapons? (I did a project on Vikings for my last semester of college, but I guess I either didn’t look much into weapons or I forgot. :oops) Actually, are there any people in history who are known to have used hammers specifically for battle?
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An interesting question indeed Pangaea and I admit I will have to look up some stuff myself. :)
The first thing that does come to my mind is the famous hammer "Mjˆnir" which in viking sagas is the weapon of the God of thunder, Thor. Those sagas preceded the more frequent use of hammers in medieval warfare. I know that the hammer Mjˆlnir has been a symbol used in viking ornaments and trappings. I am not aware of actual war hammers being found in excavations of viking villages, graves or the like (but having not searched for it specifically I am not sure if such hammers may have been found anyway). A weapon often associated and definitely found by the vikings have been battle axes.
As for war hammers I think I once read many European knights were kind of reluctant to pick it up for a weapons as it was deemed as kind of "profane" for resembling a tool rather than a weapon. However, with the improvement of armor in the later middle ages which rendered the wearer ever less vulnerable to swords blunt weapons or weapons which focused a lot of force on a very small point to penetrate armor became more accepted and frequently used (especially in 15th century). War hammers often combined both, blunt forth and a sharp point by the hammers head having a flat side on the one and a sharper thorn on the other end.
Another thing that is remarkable is that, if we can trust the Bayeux Tapestry, the leaders of the Normans (after all descendants of the vikings) wielded wooden clubs rather than swords during the battle of Hastings as early as 1066.
Clubs and maces probably rank among the earliest weapons in human history and due to the simplicity and availability of clubs or simple maces they can be found in pretty much all cultures. In human history. It is sometimes difficult to specify where the mace ends and where the hammer begins. I am not aware of a people though where hammers were the dominating weapon (like the sword was in many cultures).
From here on I need to check out other materials to learn about whether or not war hammers have been found at any viking excavation sites.
Having done a little more research it seems that old norse texts mentioning or ornaments depicting Mjˆnlir date as far back as 9th century. Apparently the descriptions are not always quite clear on whether it was really a hammer, a mace, or an axe. This is what a medieval trapping of Mjˆlnir (of which there have been many modern copies or "reinterpretations") looks like:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Mjollnir.png)
However, I haven't found any reference anywhere of war hammers being found at viking sites or war hammers other than Mjˆnir being depicted in viking art.
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I just remembered one more thing that may be of interest (though it doesn't tell us anything about the viking's relation to war hammers). I just remembered that the Frankish military leader Charles Martel (7th / 8th century) was sometimes referred to as "the hammer" and other army leaders to have been given that "title" (e.g. English king Edward I. (13th / 14th century) was sometimes called "hammer of the Scots"). Charles Martel has often been depicted wielding a hammer in battle (the battle of Tours 732). However, all of the images of him with that hammer were done much later and are more likely than not based on the fantasy of the artist rather than any facts. What makes it unlikely that the nickname "The hammer" was based on his actual weaponry is the fact that "martel" is the French word for hammer (it may be spelled slightly different).
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( The french word for hammer is marteau. Martel looks more like martËle from the verb marteler who is the action to hit something with a hammer. )
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Aye, thank you :yes
Also it may be that whatever word the Franks of old used at the time sounded closer to Martel than the modern day word, but this is pure speculation on my part.
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Have you had a chance to look at the photo thread (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=8380) I started for my Twin Cities trip in August? (I remember that you were interested in seeing pictures.) I'd love to see any comments or questions you might have. :)
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^ Bump.
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Since you live in Germany, maybe you can shed some light on a little something that has always confused me.
With how much music videos on YouTube are blocked from appearing in Germany, could you shed some light on why this is? It seems that regardless of what song America gives, one of the first countries to get blocked is Germany. Why? What's going on here?
Seriously, I'm sure the Music Industry could use the extra revenue. So what's the problem?
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MERRYCHRISTMAS!!!
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What do you think about Watership Down book/movie/tv-series?
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I like WD in general though I am not nearly as much into it as I am into the land before time. From what I can tell the movie has been a relatively true to the book kind of adaptation which of course means also that it includes a lot of dark elements. I do recall that when I saw it for the first time (I was still very young) I found some of the stuff rather creepy, but at an older age I can appreciate darker stuff more of course.
As for the TV series it is of course a more light hearted, more child friendly approach to WD, but this does not mean that it came without plenty of dark elements beside some of the more lighthearted stuff that has no paralell in the original book; much rather the dark stuff is not usually depicted quite as graphically. They deviated from the book also in turning Blackberry into a doe and generally included some more female characters which I consider an improvement given the far going lack of females in the original story (and the fargoing passivity of the existing female characters). I would also give the makers of the TV series a positive feedback for most of their plots.
I am not nearly as much into WD as I am into LBT, but I still like it (and with regards to our RPG it may be a good thing that I'm not so much into WD as I am into LBT as otherwise I might end up taking some things just too serious :lol).
^ Now this is a very, very late thank you indeed, but thank you very much Amy for your Christmas wishes :yes
^^ My goodness, I never noticed your question John, I'm so sorry for not responding earlier. Sorrier than that however am I to admit that I cannot really sheed any light on the matter. I do not know the exact legal situation nor do I have any clue whatsoever on why some videos are blocked specifically for Germany or why some videos including copyright material get through (perhaps they are simply missed) while others do not. As for myself I use youtube almost exclusively to watch English history documentaries where there seem to be rarely any issues.
^^^ I did post in your thread back then Pangea without mentioning it here (just if anyone else is wondering.
It is nice to see the return of my ask me thread ;)
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I am not nearly as much into WD as I am into LBT, but I still like it (and with regards to our RPG it may be a good thing that I'm not so much into WD as I am into LBT as otherwise I might end up taking some things just too serious dino_laugh.gif).
For example? I haven't seen you taking anything too serious so far. If you did then either I wasn't there, I didn't mind it or I forgot about it. ;)
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For example if it was an LBT RPG I would be very eager for the original characters (whom nobody would want to play) to be part of it and for things to be written and done in such a way that it could be turned into a good movie right away ;)
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That doesn't sound so bad. :)
What ancient culture/civilization you are most interested in as a historian and why?
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A question that is difficult for two reasons. The one is my omnipresent depreciation of the exclusive superlative that would make everyting but one thing "less interesting / good /whatever".
The other question is which standart we apply to the word "ancient". When is a culture ancient and when is it not? Perception of history has for a long time been (and to a far degree still is) under the strong influence of Eurocentrism, that is a perception of history based on European time periods and perceptions that may have had little or no influence whatsoever on cultures in other parts of the world. A purely time based definition of ancient is not always practical. How for example are non-European cultures such as the Maya, Inka, Aztecs, Khmer, and many Chinese cultures to be considered? All of these are very interesting cultures yet their climax were in the middle ages, respectively early modern age, yet if either term is named (middle ages or early modern age) people usually don't think of any of these cultures.
Anyway, by listing these I already named a couple of cultures I find quite interesting. If we apply the eurocentristic definition of antiquity I am quite interested in the cultures of Carthage, Rome, different Greek and Mesobotamian as well as some Celtic cultures. I must admit however that my awareness of ancient history is less developed than that of medieval and (early) modern history.
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As for myself I use youtube almost exclusively to watch English history documentaries where there seem to be rarely any issues.
What kind of history documentaries do you watch that you have to go to youtube to watch?
Does this mean that you don't get the History Channel in Germany?
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Gosh why didn't I see your answers to Myrkin in this... You're doing a great job in the rp.
I don't know if I asked you this before, but what are some of your favorite movies? (aside from historical :p )
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No, regreteably we don't. I suppose that with the right equipment one could receive it, but I don't even have a TV but only an antenna allowing me to watch TV on my computer. As for the documentaries I watch it is usually historical stuff which I may either come accross by checking out for keywords on topics where I feel there is a certain likelihood for documentaries to exist or sometimes documentaries are also recommended to me by other GOF members (thank you Kacie and thank you Katie ;)).
For example recently I had watched a rather well made documentary on the French and Indian War titled "The war that made America" while at the moment I am watching a series of documentaries titled "Ancients behaving badly" (where I must say it is rather clear that the focus there is on appealing to the masses sometimes at the expense of objectivity and under the inclusion of background sounds that would befit a thriller better than a documentary, but it still is interesting to watch that interpretation of history).
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If you had a chance (and the money) to leave your home country and go to one of the most historic places in the world where would it be?
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That is a very tough question if one place it is. Currently I take particular interest in some historical places in the US, but that's not so much because of the history of the places as such as it is for the 150th anniversary events to take place there now (so in case of those places it is more of a matter of time than the place as such). If all implications of specific time to be at a place were to be ignored it would be sensible to pick a place where one is not likely to get as easily as one would to any of the locations in the US. Machu Pichu in Peru or Angkor Wat in Cambodia could be such locations. However, I'm sure there are also many places not so exploited for tourism with all the pros (places not adabted for the comfort of tourists) and cons (places likely to be in a state of decay without any efforts to maintain them) this would bring.
There is not one single place on which I could fix myself at this time without any ifs or buts about the decision.
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Forgive me if this question is a little silly (and if you already explained it elsewhere), but I was curious: what does the quote beneath your avatar mean or refer to?
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It is not a silly question at all.
The quote: "Dream of the Great Valley, but don't forget to build up your Great Valleys in real life as well." means that on the one hand we can can derive joy from dreaming and thinking about the land before time or whatever other fiction may give us happiness. But on the other hand we should never forget to create and built up what gives us happiness in real life as well. It is dangerous to base all ones happiness on fiction and dreams only and therefore one should always make sure to seperate fiction and real life so that, when one wakes up, one still has real reasons to derive happiness from rather than having ones happiness be so entirely based on fiction that it might suddenly all be lost.
As for: "I conduct sufficient blunders to earn my right of not being placed on an uncomfortably high pedestal." I noticed that some people are shy to criticize me, seem to be intimidated, or appologize by me quite frequently when there is nothing at all they did to appologize for. I often make mistkes, I fail, I blunder and I therefore don't want to be treated about any of those in any way different from anyone else. It sometimes is a burden to me that people whom I would like to get to know better seem to be shy around me and I hope that perhaps that statement in the signature might encourage them to abandon the exaggerated restraint towards me.
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I think Pangaea asked you about "I'm a historian. I MUST be like that!" This one is sort of a professional joke, right? A member of a profession makes fun of that same profession. A historian wearing a viking helmet would be like the popular image of a scientist, a weirdo in white with glasses conducting experiments with colorful chemicals, which usually result in explosions.
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Oh okay, that one is kind of an insider joke :lol
Back in 2007 I was on holidays with an aunt, an uncle, and two cousins of mine. We had a really great time and somehow nearly every one of us ended up with a catchphrase that he or she had said during the holidays. I do not remember the exact context anymore, but on some occasion (likely when I was holding unasked for history lessons ;)) where it was quite funny I had given this statement: "Ich bin Historiker! Ich muss so sein!" (which translates to the phrase under my avatar). I liked the statement as my enthusiasm for history really makes up for an integral part of my personality and since it seemed to fit well to the avatar (which I had used before) I decided to make it my phrase there.
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I have a sort of double question here, both parts of it relating to your LBT fanfiction preferences.
First, I know you have said in the past that you have had a hard time finding any LBT stories that are free of non-LBT elements such as humans, crossovers, wars, etc.; I was wondering: have you read any of FlipperBoidSkua’s LBT fanfictions? They tend to be very dark in tone (though not descriptively gory), but other than that, I think they fit the bill for what you look for in a LBT story, so I would recommend them to you (particularly “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”) if you haven’t seen them yet.
The second question is, what do you personally consider to be too dark for a LBT story? I’m pretty sure that a story full of character deaths or vividly detailed scenes of copious violence would be too much, but as was established in the very first film, dark elements such as death do have a place in LBT. So where would you draw the line? (Forgive me if this is one of those excessively vague questions.)
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Thank you very much for the hint Pangea. I need to take a look at the story when I get the chance. Thank you indeed for by now I consider crossing overs and non-LBT stuff in fanfictions so much the norm that unless it is specified otherwise I guess I expect fanfiction to be not strictly LBT.
As for what is "too dark" for an LBT story I suppose that quite a lot of dark stuff can actually happen in LBT. However, for it to be credible there must be some sense / reason for the dark stuff happening. For example with stories where Sharpteeth built up armies to "conquer" the Great Valley just because... It really doesn't make any sense to me at all. When violence is included without any reason or explanation for it just because people love to write and read about fighting and killing I feel that the result tends to be very poor. Also I think that if such violence is included people should also have the guts to go all the way and not just have a character killed in a fight and leave it at that but also show the consequences. Characters don't simply die to entertain crowds. When Littlefoot's mother died for example a lot of time in the original movie was devoted to show what this meant for Littlefoot. In fanfictions I have read there seems to be very little emotional effect or consequences in the death of a character other than thirst of revenge resulting in more LBT warfare without a real cause.
Personally I enjoy dark stuff in stories including LBT stories. But I must say that the kind of massacres I have seen in stories hardly qualify as "dark stuff" at all as so much of it was just written because the authors and readers loved fighting and killing. So joyful an affair these slaughters seemed to be that personally I felt nothing really dark about it or anything else either :neutral
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What is it that you enjoy most about Dink, the Little Dinosaur?
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Shrugs, it is always difficult for me to answer about one single superlative and in this case in particular I think it is the combination of several factors each individual one alone would not suffice to make me like it. The general interest that made me watch it in the first place was of course the similarity of some basics with LBT (dinosaurs and stuff). I do like the characters and think that in spite of some similarities it is interesting for a change to see some characteristics not ascribed to the same kind of dinosaur (Flapper isn't sporting Petrie's nervousity for example). I also liked most of the plots and found it interesting to see how they sometimes obviously inspired later LBT sequels. I cannot name a single factor but only this combination of several factors that contributed to me liking the series.
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Did you do anything last month to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Civil War? (I had the impression you had been planning to do something like that for a long time.)
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It's actually the 150th anniversary and tomorrow will be the exact date of the 150th anniversary of the official outbreak of the Civil War with the shelling of Fort Sumter.
My long hope had been to write a dissertation about the events conducted these days in the US to commemorate the events. Life rarely goes according to plan and my hopes and plans to be in the US in 2011 to attend, observe, and write about the events in this year will not be realized. I do hope that I'm not going to regret this for the rest of my life, but short finances as well as the difficulties put in the way of anyone from abroad wishing to temporarrily work in the US (and in most countries of the world for that matter) did not allow for it :cry
I still hope to be able to attend events in the next year (which would among numerous battle anniversaries include the anniversary of the proclamation of emancipation). Till then however I would be really most obliged to anyone here living in the US who could share own expierences, expressions, anything related to the comemorative events. I am especially interested in newspaper / magazine reports, but also in everything else that our American members might come across these days.
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Sorry; 150th anniversary. :slap It's a good thing I'm not pursuing a career in accounting… :rolleyes
That's a shame to hear. :( You have my sympathy.
I'm afraid I'm not aware of any commemorative events going on in my area, but I'll keep my eyes open for the kinds of articles you're looking for.
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I have the impression that books and other forms of archived information are more your field, but do you also own (collect?) any artifacts of archaeological or historical significance?
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Yes, I do if I can. My dad always called a "hunter and gatherer" with the emphasis on gatherer. Sometimes books too may be of historical significance and I own some which are to be considered "historical sources" rather than "books" in the most neutral sense of the term.
I got something that is claimed and certificated to be a piece of the Berlin Wall. I surely don't believe it (with all the pieces of the wall sold on the flea markets in Berlin you could probably build the wall multiple times) but in any case it is a piece significant to the "cultural impact" in public perception rather than the actual matter of the wall itself :rolleyes:
More authentic stuff I got is a WW2 time American Pilot cap (likely never actually worn during the war but stockpiled and never used back then), a British WW2 helmet, a piece of shrapnel. I also got several 1000 Reichsmark bank notes of 1910 (apparently an ancestor of us won the then phenomenal sum of 30 000 Reichsmark in a lottery but didn't really benefit from saving the money when in 1923 it ended up all worseless). I also got some other coinage from older days and some that may be more interesting in decades to come (after all it is just almost a decade ago that Germany and other European countries adopted the Euro). I also got some items that will increase in historical significance. In the late 90s, when I was about 14 -15 years old I started contacting WW2 pilots trying to interview them / corresponding with them. I recorded an interview which I did with one of them on a casette (tape cassettes same as floppy disks also are so rapidly disappearing that before long they too may get an air of being "historical items") and got the letters and photographs of quite a few others. Most of them have died since.
I also started at an extremely young age to gather newspapers about specific stories. Had it not been for a friends telling me that "God would hate that" which back then made me throw them away, I probably still would have had the newspapers reporting about the gulf war of 1990/1991 (so as a six / seven year old kid my interest in history was showing). The oldest original papers I collected and still have are from 1995 and ever since I tried to keep papers reporting on events that will be considered of historical importance.
Most of the stuff I collect is of personal nostalgic importance however, rather than of "historical" value. I got a lot of stuff saved that I did as a very young kid (remember that first ever LBT art?) including long stories I wrote as a primary kid (one is titled "Jack the seaman"), wishlists of long past birthdays or christmases and a lot of other personal items which would be insignificant to others but which have a very high personal value for me.
Thank you for the question :)
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Have you gotten the chance to watch that show on the History Channel about Gettysburg (thanks to the YouTube videos I showed you)? If yes, what are your thoughts about it?
I'm just curious, since I managed to watch it both times that it was on TV last week.
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Yes indeed I watched it :yes
I consider it a good thing that the documentary was not as shy as many movies are to depict war as gruesome and I admit that it was kind of an "experience" to watch Pickett's charge for a change without awesome music playing in the background. I also liked the fact that the documentary focused on some parts of the battle which are often neglected (probably partly because they were not shown in the 1993 movie), namely the battle on Culps Hill as well as the fighting that took place on the streets of Gettysburg itself. The documentary focused on the perspective of the fighting men rather than limiting itself to high ranking generals only.
The documentary however also focussed very, very strongly on the actual fighting and spend a lot of time depicting the fighting. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but I think that it could have been further improved if they had given a little more of an idea about the significance of the battle in the course of the war respectively the course of the battle itself (there is the risk however that through either of these additions the "fighting men's perspective" of the documentary would have been lost). An addition that would not have meddled with the "fighting men's perspective" would have been if there had been a little more information on the life of the soldiers (in which the actual fighting was but one element in a war in which two soldiers died from disease for every soldier killed on the battlefield). This too however probably would have shifted the focus from the actual battle the documentary was about and I acknowledge that a documentary cannot cover just everything. But I would really like it if this was one in a series of documentaries which covered other aspects as well.
Just to repeat lest this be forgotten with all these remarks, I found the documentary very interesting and enjoyed watching it. Thank you very much for the link :yes
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I thought of this question just today: Of all the periods in history, why is the American Civil War your favorite? What is it about that particular time in that particular part of the world that makes you so fascinated in it over everything else?
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I'm sorry I am so slow in responding, especially because I really appreciate the question; thank you very much for that :)
However, after such an introduction one would expect a clearer response than I am able to give. I'm always awkward with such superlatives as "favorite... whatever", but there is no denying that the American Civil War is a chapter of history that captured my interest in particular. I feel unable to name one determining factor that sets it apart on my interest scale, but there are quite a few factors that I believe may each have contributed to this.
The American Civil War is but one of many parts of US history which I find especially interesting because they show so well some of the discrepances between ideals and realities in American history. It is not like the Civil War came suddenly up out of nowhere (in spite of the neo-confederate propaganda that interprets it as a sudden rush of aggression from the north fostered by the new republican party) but to study the roots of the Civil War one must go back much further and see which political (e.g. decision to maintain slavery in the new founded US though there were serious attempts to get rid of it in 1776), technological (the cotton gin of 1793 pretty much put an end to the hope (though the claim remained) that slavery would soon outlive itself and disappear on its own accord), legal and other stepping stones were laid out on the way into civil war. Even here we often have the discrepancy between ideals and reality (and they come with some masterpieces of rhetoric). Beside politics and rhetorics there is the sheer brutality of the struggle even before it officially began. Whether we are talking of the frequent abuse of slaves, about senator Preston Brooks clubbing Senator Charles Sumner into unconsciousness inside the US Senate, or about Jayhawkers and Bushwhakers murdering each other in Kansas and elsewhere foreclosing the actual war.
Then there is the actual war of course which in many ways is of particular interest. The dimensions were far beyond anything America had seen up to that point. It was a clash of outdated tactics of marching in close ranks with the very technology that made these tactics obsolete (the minie ball in particular). In many ways the US Civil War can be considered both the last large scale "old war" and the first large scale "modern war". Technology like the telegraph, and railroads played a major role in this war as well as the tactics of "burned soil" which saw horrible come backs in the wars of the 20th century. Many other inventions like the ironclads, submarines repeating rifles, and machine guns saw their first effective use in this war even though in many cases it was more like testing (machine guns for example were used on some occassions but not on a scale that they can be justifiably assumed to have had a significant effect on the outcome of the war).
An additional moment of tragedy is added to the US Civil War by the many cases in which soldiers from both sides knew each other or had even been close friends (having been in West Point together, having fought together in the Mexican War, or even being close relatives).
In spite of the fact that no other nation joined the war (though some clearly allowed for this "distraction of the Americans" to take more aggressive steps in their western hemisphere foreign policy (like the French in Mexico)) it was still a war fought by people from many countries. Newly arrived immigrants who saw no alternative but to become soldiers as well as immigrants who had arrived only years before. There were hundredthousands of Irish and Germans among the armies of the Civil War and also significant groups from other nations.
With all that there is yet another aspect that makes the American Civil War interesting, namely the fact that on a different level it is still going on. The struggle for the interpretation of the war is far from over. Lies like for example the claim that slavery had "nothing to do with the Civil War" become ever more accepted among certain groups especially if true points (like the fact that only about a quarter to a fifth of the population in the south owned slaves) are added to it to allow for the lie to appear more credible. The modern interpretations and falsifications of this war (often fostered by the "lost cause") are a very current topic, especially if one takes a look at how the war is presented, glorified and falsified in the movies which more than anything else seem to influence the view of people about the war these days.
These are some reasons why I am interested in the Civil War, but same as with LBT I don't have one ultimate decisive reason. A very interesting question though :yes
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Have you ever been to Gettysburg or experienced the US Civil War museum?
Because of your high interest in history. do you play any civilization building games like Age of the Empires, Rise of Nations, or the Civilization series?
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Hi Caustizer and thanks for the question. :)
I haven't actually been on any US Civil War battlefields myself. The only US states I have ever seen are Minnesota (where I spent my students exchange) and short trips to Iowa, North and South Dakota. I wish I was able to visit some of the historic sites (and especially so now during the time of commemorative events occasioned by the 150th anniversaries), but I lack the financial means at this time :(
I did indeed play every single one of the games you named (in case of Civilization it was the original and number III and IV, in case of Age of Empires the first two). I enjoy playing these games, but of course, they are games and therefore not exactly to be treated as historical sources on the times they are about but rather about our own times :lol
They can have the positive effect of stirring up interest and provide a few core names or vaguely historical facts which one may end up researching about later on. I admit for example that my first ever introduction to admiral Yi Sun-sin and the Korean turtle ships was through the Conquerers expansion of Age of Empires II (I must admit though that my knowledge of far eastern history is to this day deplorably close to nonexistent) ;)
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I wanna know how was your trip with your other Admins?
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Not really back yet. Just ‡ short stop at Gus' placera allowing us to post ‡ little but we are heading for Stockholm now. I'm not regularly back until NeXT thursday.
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Hey Malte, I did actually find out the answer to my question as to why Music that is allowed on YouTube is blocked from Germany. Turns out your government got greedy. You see, along the way to pulling this all off, (making copyright music legally available for streaming in as many countries as possible in the world) the music industry ran into a little hurdle. Turns out, Germany wanted a certain amount of money for every time someone in their country watched a video that contained copyrighted music. It was such a ridiculous amount, that it was more of a loss than a gain to set up legal streaming for that country.
Streaming doesn't pay much for it's views. You need to be successful rather quickly for it to work. (If you set it up and so that no ads are displayed, you would need 100,000 views in one month just to pay for rent and food alone. Ads vary in the amount they pay, so it's questionable there.) The real dough comes in the ads that are displayed. As annoying as they are, they're the only way you have a chance at making money off of YouTube.
They would need to be VERY successful in Germany in order for the amount they demanded at hand to work, and looking at the percentage of views at the time, chances were it wasn't going to even come close to working out. So, with that in mind, they cut their losses and blocked Germany from nearly all music. (The ONLY ones allowed are unmodified Public Domain tracks, and no one makes money off of that.)
I can't remember the amount they demanded, but I do remember it being quite ridiculous. So yeah, if you want to know why, your government got greedy there.
Anyways, onto my real question at hand...
I'm sure you have noticed the "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" Thread in The Fridge Section of the Forums. Have you checked out the show yourself? I find it quite good and enjoy it myself, despite the fact it's meant for little girls. I'm not that ashamed that I like it, to be honest. (To be more honest, a lot of older males like the show apparently.)
Now if only I had the courage to tell my parents how much I like the show.
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I wanna ask you what kinds of music do you like?
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I'm sure you have noticed the "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" Thread in The Fridge Section of the Forums. Have you checked out the show yourself? I find it quite good and enjoy it myself, despite the fact it's meant for little girls. I'm not that ashamed that I like it, to be honest. (To be more honest, a lot of older males like the show apparently.)
I noticed the thread, though I didn't pursue it. I read a bit on Wikipedia, but it really isn't my cup of tea.
I wanna ask you what kinds of music do you like?
Most of the music I am listening to are songs I associate something with. Most of this is instrumental music (in many cases from movie soundtracks). In other cases there are songs which I associate with events in my life if the music was played at a time. As for the styles of music, I can say that I by far prefer the kind of music that has a discernable and imitable (imitable as in being able to sing, hume or whistle the melody) melody over music that does not.
I am generally not particularly fond of loud, electronic, metal music and most of what is played on the radio over here these days.
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Have you been to Philippines? :)
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Unfortunately not. I left Europe two times only. Once I was too young to remember (Tunesia when I was just about a year old or so) and the second time was my students exchange to Minnesota back in 2002.
I haven't ever seen the Pacific Ocean.
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Hi Malte,
I'm not sure if you know this already or not, and if you don't, would you perhaps be willing to do a bit of research for me on this? I've been trying to find out if Gerhard von Scharnhorst had any children. Unfortunately, English sources are pretty bare-bones on this topic, though so far I have managed to locate at least one son and one daughter that he had. I cannot unfortunately find the name of his wife, nor if he had any other children or not. Would you happen to know if he did?
If you can find this out, I'd also like to know their birth years and names, if at all possible. :)
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His oldest son was Wilhelm von Scharnhorst (*16th February 1786 + 13th June 1854). Curiously this son of Scharnhorst was married to Agnes, a daughter of August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. They had a son named August (1821-1875) who died without any children (thus ending the male line descended from Gerhard von Scharnhorst.
Gerhard von Scharnhorst however also had a daughter, Julie von Scharnhorst (1788-1827) who apparently also had descendants who did not have the name Scharnhorst anymore.
Gerhard von Scharnhorst was married to Clara Christiana Johanna Schmalz (*5th May 1762 + 12th February 1803).
While researching this (no, of course I didn not know all the dates by heart :lol) I came across this PDF file (http://www.bordenau.de/Vereine/Scharnhorst/genealogie.pdf) which you may find interesting. It is a genealogy of Scharnhorst that includes his descendants (from page 22 onwards). The file is in German, but since most of it is names, dates, and places it may be possible for you to make sense of it. Vorfahr = ancestor, Nachfahr = descendant.
It appears that some of his descendants life not far from where I life (a part of the town where I was born is named after Scharnhorst by the way).
Thank you very much for the question :)
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And thank YOU very much for answering! :DD This is quite informative, and definitely what I was looking for! Thanks so much for this! I've been doing some passing research on the Prussian military, and Scharnhorst in particular, but couldn't find much about his descendants or his family in general, so this helps rather immensely!
Fascinating too that some of his descendants live rather close to you. :yes Also very interesting that his son married Gneisenau's daughter. I find that surprising, yet it probably made sense for them to enter into such a marriage at the time.
Once again, thanks so much for this! :DD
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You said you were working on an LBT fanfiction that featured how Ruby and Chomper met each other. How is your progress on that story? I'm very interested in reading it. :yes
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Thank you very much for your interest. Unfortunately I got to admit I haven't been working on it in ages so it is still in the first chapters of the first part of what would be a trilogy.
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Hey Malte,
How are you these days?
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Hello Amy :)
People are used to me telling about the ammounts of work I am dealing with (usually to the effect of keeping me high spirited) but these days it is a little too much. At the moment I am working as a substitute teacher at a school in the morning that is for students who didn't get a regular school degree at a regular school or none that would allow them to study at a university. Consequently students there are a rather mixed lot with a good number of them being motivated and a joy to teach but also a number who seem to be there mostly because they are being forced by somebody. Throughout the last week I had to let the students of 9 classes (some 180 total) take tests and correct them. In addition to that I am also holding presentations in the evening at the adult education center and I enjoy holding these presentations a lot, but of course it takes a lot of time to prepare them. Add to that the organizing work for the impending university semester (by which time I will not be able to continue the school job in full length (having no teacher's degree from the university I don't get full pay or any social security measures from the job). So it all is a little too much at the moment which is why I think my activity (as in writing myself rather than just reading) on the GOF dropped a little in the last days.
This weekend there will be the celebration of my sisters 30th birthday :)
I am looking very much forward to it, but it also means that there won't be much time to just relax for a moment before the next week starts.
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Have you ever been to Bavaria recently? If so, how does it look these days?
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Thank you for the question.
Last time I was in Bavaria was back in 2005 or 2006 when a sister of my father's wife had her silver wedding (25th wedding anniversary). The sky in Bavaria is blue (provided there are no clouds) and the grass tends to be green :p
M¸nchen (Munich) is a rather interesting town and I enjoyed the "Deutsche Museum" a lot (a museum comparable to the Science museum in London. For some reason people abroad (especially in the US with Bavaria being the most prominent part of the US zone after WW2) often think of Bavaria when thinking of Germany. To some degree Bavaria is Germany's Texas though, the most conservative part of the country. Their main soccer (football) team "Bayern M¸nchen" has been badly beaten up recently by "Borussia Dortmund", the team from the town where I was born (these days I almost regret being not very interested in soccer :lol) so at least for the soccer fans there it may look a little gloomy these days.
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What might have happened if Hitler was assinated before coming to power?
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^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDm2JcnTPs
This is one possible scenario. I had to do this. :smile I'm sure Malte will forgive me.
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I haven't yet watched the video to avoid it taking any influence on my response. I am going to watch it after posting here.
I suppose the time of his assassination would play some role "before coming to power" would probably mean an assassination before 1933, but given that when calling a killing an asassination it suggests that the dead person probably would be in the public spotlight already (rather than for example a largely anonymous Hitler being killed in WW1). So assuming that he would be killed prior to 1933 but after getting some public attention for his attempted putsch in 1923 Hitler still might have inspired some misery in case whoever would have taken power would have taken Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" literally, a book which Hitler wrote in arrest after the failed putsch and which leaves little doubt about what Hitler was up to.
The overall situation of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s made the country a real brooding pit for radical nutcases. Dissatisfaction with the democracy of the Weimar republic, discordance among the many small political parties (not all of which were radical), the anger about the treaty of Versailles, the high rate of unemployment and economic suffering (especially after the crisis of 1929) and the fierce and violent battling between radical factions of the left and right wings made it very likely for somebody to seize dictatorial power in Germany, since large parts of the population were willing to let this happen. I'll therefor base my scenarios on the presumption that somebody else would have ended up with dictatorial powers rather than the pretier scenario of a continuation and growing acceptance of democracy in Germany at the time.
Antisemitism was regretably present among many Germans, with or without Hitler, but still chances are that not every dictator which might have come to power would have been as ready to carry out the madness Hitler had laid out in "Mein Kampf". The breaking out of another war was likely (though not set in stone) even with a different radical than Hitler in power. The horrible crime of the Holocaust may perhaps not have been as likely under a different dictator.
I guess the worst case scenario would have been a different dictator who took Hitler (based on his writings) as an example to follow but who was a better strategist than Hitler. The worst case scenario would be a dictator who in many ways (especially in his persecution of war and genocide of the Jews) would resemble Hitler, but on the other hand would not have made the kind of decisions Hitler made which contributed to his failure (such as the bombing of towns rather than airfields and military facilities during the battle of Britain, the decision to attack the Soviet Union, the many orders prohibiting any kind of tactical withdrawl, the decision to turn the Me-262 into a bomber etc.). Probably the best case scenario short of a lasting of the democracy in Germany would have been a moderate dictator at the time. A dictator that is who didn't share the fanatism (especially the antisemitism) of Hitler, who would have focused on the country rather than personal interests and who would have been ready to give up power when it was no longer helping the country. While such a "lovely, kind, dictator" sounds very fictional, there is actually a contemporary at the time whom I was thinking of. Mustafa Kemal, better known as Atat¸rk (which means "father of the Turks") came to power through a putsch similar to the way other dictators did. Throughout his rule over what remained of the former Ottoman Empire he made a number of decisions he could not have made without the dictatorial power he held. The forced deportation of the Pontic Greeks (combined with the Greek decision to force Turks living in Greek to settle in Turkey), and his harsh punishments of people who ignored his prohibition of the continuation of a number of Ottomanic traditions are among his harshest decisions. Given the context however these decisions may have helped to prevent future wars and conflicts. Atat¸rk transformed a weak and defeated, backwards oriented country into a modern nation and did reestablish democracy (though to this day the military which brought him to power does play a very important political role in Turkey) even at the risk of giving up his power.
A dictator of similar nature in Germany at the time might have taken some measures similar to some Hitler took in the 1930s, perhaps the unification with Austria (which most Austrians were quite happy with at the time) might have been conducted by such a dictator too. However, in case of such a dictator it would not have all been work in preparation for a future war but more on behalf of reestablishing Germany (especially in the mind of the people at the time) after the defeat in WW1. Such a dictator would not have striven for conquest of further land or reoccupation of territories lost in WW1 (Mustafa Kemal never tried to reconquer the former Ottoman territories which became independent after WW1 either), but rather would have tried to consolidate Germany by non-military means and reintroduce democracy at a time when people were more accepting for it.
PS: Note that I am not speaking out for any kind of dictatorship with the second scenario I described. It was a "best case" short of a continuation of democracy scenario.
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Thanks Malte for those scenarios, guess it may not have been much different even if Hitler never came to power.
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It depends on who else would have come to power. A difference it would have been in any case, but it is not certain what kind of difference it would have been. Assuming that a ruthless dictator would have come to power, but one without the fanatic and insane antisemitism of Hitler the entire Holocaust might not have happened and that would have been a huge difference indeed, even if we assume the other dictator too would have started WW2.
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^What anout the Nazis' fixation on Lebensraum, their anti-Slavic attitude and Generalplan Ost? As long as Nazism is influental, an invasion of Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union can't be avoided. And if a Nazi Germany achieved victory over the USSR, it would probably start a genocide of such proportions over the 200 million Slavs under its rule that the Holocaust would pale in comparison.
It was anti-Slavism, not anti-Semitism that sealed Germany's defeat in Eastern Europe. The people of the Soviet Union suffered considerably under the Soviet Union, and millions of Ukrainians and Russians were ready to join Germany's perceived anti-Bolshevik crusade. However, the German authorities' appaling treatment of the East Slavic population made the people realise that Stalin wasn't so bad after all. But even under such bad conditions a million Russians under Vlasov fought together with the Germans. How many millions more would have been available had Germans treated Russians like human beings?
In short, I believe it was possible for a militaristic Germany to conquer all of continental Europe, but only if it abandoned both anti-Semitism and anti-Slavism, that is, if it abandoned the basic tenets of Nazy ideology.
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Aye, that was one of the fixations Hitler already laid out in "Mein Kampf" so any alternative dictator trying to follow Hitler's writings would likely have striven for that "Lebensraum" too destroying many Leben in the process. I very much doubt though that a person other than Hitler alone would be the decicive factor that would have made a victory of Germany over the Soviet Union possible. Chances are that even in case of a scenario in which the Soviet Union did collapse and in which it was occupied by Germans it would have proven more than Germany could swallow. Such an occupation, and especially one accompanied by genocide would have almost certainly provoked a degree of resistance that would have made it impossible to keep the land occupied in the long run. In any case you are correct that the bloodshed probably would have been as bad (or worse in case of a dictator who was more of a strategist in military matters than Hitler was (though he probably wouldn't have started that war in that case to begin with)).
I wonder what would have been in case of a dictator who was anticommunist and with that terrible "Lebensraum" thinking, but without the fierce anti-slavism and antisemitism. Given the harsh rule of Stalin chances are that he would have been considered a liberator by some people. In fact there are some reports about some Russians welcoming the attacking Germans before they found that not liberation but murder was the purpose of the invaders.
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What if the Germans marched into Russia as liberators? I don't want to hear, they wouldn't, I would like to know what would happen if they did liberate the Russian people.
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What if the Germans marched into Russia as liberators? I don't want to hear, they wouldn't, I would like to know what would happen if they did liberate the Russian people.
What I think you need to realize is that this isn't far away history over here. There are few places in our large towns over here from where one can go a few hundred meters without passing by sites of nazi crimes. In our roads there are thousands of brazen commemorative stones reminding of people murdered by the nazis. Where there are thousands of memorials of flag hoisting, glorious trumpet calls and uniformed generals in other places we got memorials for countless of people being robbed, humiliated, starved, murdered, tortured and gassed. The entire attitute of most people here therefore is different than the "funny, exciting or glorious story" kind of attitute with which people elsewhere may approach WW2.
I studied history and consider the "what if" scenarios kind of toying around but they can't be scientific for lack of possibility to prove or disprove any scenarios. I try to describe scenarios that would be likely or possible to some degree.
What I just want you to realize (before dealing with the question) is that your question is pretty much like I wanted you to tell me what if Osama Bin Laden had come to the United States to distribute candy (paid for by Saddam Hussein) on Pennsylvania Avenue while requiring open mindedness and religious tollerance <_<
If the unlikely scenario had taken place that the entire building up of hatred against the Soviet "Untermenschen" in the 1920s and 30s had not taken place. The whole scenario could not have taken place on the basis of the 1939 borders. Germany and the Soviet Union did not share any borders. So either the criminal war against Poland would have had to take place or Poland would have had to become Germany's ally with a sudden urge to invade the huge Soviet Union in order to be "a good neighbour" and spread democracy there (any thoughts on this Myrkin?).
In the unlikely scenario that a Germany in the 1940s had suddenly been overcome by the need to spread democracy to Russia (a statesform which had not exactly been widely accepted in Germany) rather than just murdering or destroying everything that looked communist or Slavic the reactions of some people are likely to have been different. Especially in the border regions and in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and possibly regions like Ukraine and Bellarus there might have been some active support for the invaders. The results in the end would very much depend on the degree to which fear of Stalin and adherence to the original ideals of communisim would weigh against the hopes stuck to the foreign invaders with the unexplained self-less urge to spread democracy. In order to liberate a people the people too need to want to be liberated or at least (as in case of Germany) not want things to continue the way they have. No doubt there would have been some confusion in addition to the bloodshed that a war brings even if it is not the kind of war of total annihilation and devastation that Germany historically waged against the Soviet Union.
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What if the Germans marched into Russia as liberators? I don't want to hear, they wouldn't, I would like to know what would happen if they did liberate the Russian people.
What I think you need to realize is that this isn't far away history over here. There are few places in our large towns over here from where one can go a few hundred meters without passing by sites of nazi crimes. In our roads there are thousands of brazen commemorative stones reminding of people murdered by the nazis. Where there are thousands of memorials of flag hoisting, glorious trumpet calls and uniformed generals in other places we got memorials for countless of people being robbed, humiliated, starved, murdered, tortured and gassed. The entire attitute of most people here therefore is different than the "funny, exciting or glorious story" kind of attitute with which people elsewhere may approach WW2.
I studied history and consider the "what if" scenarios kind of toying around but they can't be scientific for lack of possibility to prove or disprove any scenarios. I try to describe scenarios that would be likely or possible to some degree.
What I just want you to realize (before dealing with the question) is that your question is pretty much like wanted you to tell me what if Osama Bin Laden had come to the United States to distribute candy (paid for by Saddam Hussein) on Pennsylvania Avenue while requiring open mindedness and religious tollerance <_<
Oh, sorry, I don't mean to sound like that, and I really do feel sorry for those millions who were murdered, I would just like to know, for some reason beyond all rational possibilties, that if the Germans tried to charm the russians into submission, like they did in the western countries.
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I've recently found out that, 150 years ago today (September 13) during the American Civil War, some Union soldiers found a copy of orders from Confederate general Robert E. Lee (likely dropped by accident) shortly before the Battle of Antietam. This meant that the Union general now knew where the Confederate troops were. I'm bringing this up because, in an Alternate History book series about what if the South had won the Civil War, the point it diverges from actual history is when those orders are found by Confederate soldiers instead.
In your opinion, how significant was the discovery of these "lost orders" to the battle that followed and the war itself? How different do you think things could have been if the Union soldiers had not found those orders?
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Thank you for the question :)
In the end the finding of these papers, Special Orders, No. 191 didn't turn out nearly as deceicive as they would have in case the federal army had been commanded by someone less cautious than George B. McClellan. McClellan, who commanded the Army of the Potomac at the time was a brilliant organizer and his service to the union was that he had in fact shapped the Army of the Potomac into an effective fighting unit. However, he was not ready to use the army and always presumed for Lee to outnumber him (when in fact the Army of Northern Virginia at no point outnumbered the Army of the Potomac). When McClellan received Lee's orders which laid out exactly how Lee's army was divided (and thus in a perfect position to be cut up before it coult reunited) McClellan is said to have exclaimed: "Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home."
After calling that he quickly proceeded to doing... not exactly very much. Lee learned on the same evening from southern sympathizers that his battle orders had been found and Lee moved to concentrate his forces around the town of Sharpsburg. Had McClellan moved more aggressively he could have caught and defeated Lee piecemeal. Instead he approached very carefully and vastly inferrior southern forces bought Lee an additional day (September 14th) at Turner's and Crampton's gap (two engagements often summarized as the battle of South Mountain), after the gaps were taken McClellan continued to move slowly and even when his army was in position opposite to Lee on the 16th of September he decided against attacking that evening. All this time allowed for Lee's troops to concentrate and even the last division (that of A.P. Hill) Lee had on the southern side of the Potomac and which had still been kept there by the necessity of organizing the surrender of Federal forces who had been "bottled up" in Harper's Ferry managed to arrive on the field just in the nick of time when the federals were about to break through Lee's right flank.
September 17th, the battle of Antietam was in any case the bloodiest day in US history with the battle casualties of that day exceeding the battle casualties of the war of 1812, the war against Mexico 1846-48 and that against Spain 1898 combined. Nevertheless the battle of Antietam does get less attention than for example the battle of Gettysburg. I think that this is not only because even more people were killed and wounded there in a time span of three days, but also because the battle of Antietam didn't seem to have a clear victor. In spite of being outnumbered about two to one and having been pushed back in several spots with a dreadful deathtoll Lee was still on the field on the evening of September 17th and would remain there throughout September 18th waiting for another federal attack that never came before finally retreating back over the Potomac. So on a tactical level it was pretty much of a draw with neither side having swept the field. Southern casualties exceeded 10 000 northern casualties exceeded 12 000 (with the south however having much less reserves of manpower to fill the ranks). Nonetheless with the north in the end having forced the south to retreat back south, thus ending Lee's invasion of Maryland it turned into a strategic victory for the north. It is the political consequences of this battle however that make me consider it a much more decicive turning point of the Civil War than the battle of Gettysburg ever was. The outcome of the battle allowed Abraham Lincoln to pass the proclamation of emancipation without it looking like an act of despair. The proclamation ended any realistic hope for an intervention of a European power on behalf of the South. If the south had won (after the series of victories it had won before) it might perhaps have convinced England and France to join the war which (up to that point) was at least not fought officially about slavery (in spite of the fact that it would have never even started without the conflict about the "peculiar institution").
Nonetheless the battle of Antietam was also a great chance for the north which was totally missed by McClellan. Lee had placed his forces in a surprisingly precarious position at Antietam. While the ground itself was defensible, Lee also had the Potomac river in his rear. In case of a defeat there would have been no save escape route but one single ford which could have easily fallen into the hands of the federals (in fact it almost did but for the aforementioned arrival of A.P. Hill in the nick of time) and the Army of Northern Virginia would have been completely surrounded. Lee risked everything there. From a tactical point of view it would have probably been a much easier battle (if in that case the battle had happened at all) if he had withdrawn to the other side of the ford of the Potomac and wait for the Army of the Potomac to cross. But such a retreat (which would have meant leaving Maryland) would have been seen as a concession of defeat without a battle.
As for special orders, number 191, chances are that perhaps it would not have made a huge difference if they had not been found by the federals. A more aggressive commander of the Army of the Potomac at the time could have made all the difference though with or without the respective orders which McClellan just failed to use to any advantage whatsoever.
I got to admit it is very, very bitter for me to be here at these days. I had planned to write my dissertation on the 150th anniversary celebrations / commemorations of the American Civil War. Fate had it though that to this day I have not found a job or other means that would allow me to go to the US to attend these events and observe them first hand. I got to admit that this is the kind of thing that I am likely to look back on with the deepest regret and some bitterness for the rest of my life. :neutral
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This is something that I feel compelled to ask, what exactly is your issue with US gun laws and gun owners? I've seen your posts on the topic and they seem come off as borderline insulting.
In fact, I actually chatted with someone (not gonna say who) about this and they agree with me.
To sum it up, why are you so hostile to US gun owners?
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As for my posts being borderline insulting, please tell me which parts you perceive as insulting without what I said at least containing a perception one may argue for or again. And then look at your own posts and count the times you are using f*** and s*** and other formulations that don't include any arguments but read like blunt pure hatred.
It is not limited to the topic of gun control either. Would you like to look at some examples?
All of the following was posted by you within this year, within the last few weeks that is and I daresay your choice of words can be considered offensive:
The fact that the f---ing asinine "Assault Weapons Ban" is on the table again by Senator Feinstein.
It didn't do s--- the first time, why are they wasting their time? I f---ing hate politicians sometimes.
Fuck it, I loathe caustic critics. News flash, you're not being edgy or funny. This type of critique makes you look like an utterly unlikable, tactless killjoy.
How much I'm starting to think NJ is a s---hole.
F---! Idea overload!
Words cannot describe how pissed off I am.
Great, the Anti-TCB Group on Fimfiction is being attacked by some dumbass who've we banned like ten times. [...]
I already hate TCB fans because of previous drama with them (mainly because if you admit to not liking Chatoyance's stories, they'll fucking crucify you) but now I fucking loathe them.
That f---ing asinine 2013 Assault Weapons Ban may not have the votes to pass the Senate.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-25/a...ass-senate.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-25/a...ass-senate.html)
F--- yeah!
Give it up, Senator Feinstein, you've lost.
Be my guest to find any case in the last nine years on the GOF where I have been posting like that.
Not only can these hateful messages be seen as quite offensive, but strictly speaking they are a violation of the board rules. Everyone writing about me as some kind of board tyrant please at least take the lenience into account. I cannot and I don't want to dictate you what to think of me, but I do not think I have ever been providing a basis for the perception of me as a kind of tyrant which I am sometimes told about.
I can still see why my posts can be annoying for someone who disagrees with my views, and I think there are plenty more people who disagree with me. They have every right to disagree with me and maybe feel annoyed about my ocassional cynism on matters like gun control. But I don't think I have descended to the degree of cursing and swearing and foaming and burning hatred which is glaring at the readers from your own posts Serris.
Correct me if I am mistaken, but I think your view comes down to letting pretty much everyone have any gun (including automatic and semi-automatic weapons designed for no other purpose but mass killing), while my view is that there are types of guns with no practical purpose to justify the risks and also that before someone earns the right to own a gun that someone must prove that he or she is most likely not going to abuse that gun. Never would I think that gun control alone can solve an issue of many roots (one of the main ones being the permanent fear so common in America that one must always be ready to kill before someone else is), but that is not a reason to pour out more guns into the hands of everyone pretending that this would make the US any saver.
I have often laid out my view on gun control and if you still need to ask for my issues with the current legal situation then you may want to read my posts in the thread and try to focus not on getting offended but und understanding (which is not the same as agreeing with) what I am saying.
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Correct me if I am mistaken, but I think your view comes down to letting pretty much everyone have any gun (including automatic and semi-automatic weapons designed for no other purpose but mass killing), while my view is that there are types of guns with no practical purpose to justify the risks and also that before someone earns the right to own a gun that someone must prove that he or she is most likely not going to abuse that gun.
Close but not quite. I prefer dealing with the people; not the instrument. This involves a background check and training. Once you pass those, you can own any small arms you desire (no explosives though) in any quantity. You want to have enough weapons to outfit an infantry platoon? Go for it! You want a full-auto, belt fed M2? Go for it! Also applies to all non-explosive ammunition (hollow point, tracer, AP, etc) too.
Abuse this and your weaponry is confiscated and auctioned off (and you and your family are barred from the auction). And depending on what you did, you'll suffer penalties. Stitch your neighbor's car at 3 AM with your M2? Lose your weapons and license for five years and pay restitution. Hose down a local school during the school day with your Minigun? Lose your weapons and your license for the rest of your life. But that won't matter because you'll spend the rest of your life in jail. Oh, your family will also have to pay for the damages too.
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As for those posts. Well, they were written when I was either excited or angry. I tend to swear a lot under moments of high passion; it's a coping mechanism for me.
On the topic of gun control, how about we agree to disagree? We will never see eye-to-eye.
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^ The agreeing to disagree is pretty much what I wrote two months ago in the Sandy Hook thread:
Disagree with me as many will, but I do not believe that is the way to go.
But agreeing to disagree includes not getting offended about the other one voicing the own view as well. You have been going on a lot about your view, oftentimes in the hatefilled tone of which I gave some examples. And you you are the one feeling offended by me voicing my own opinion?
Agreeing to disagree doesn't work with one side claiming a monopoly on being offended all the while using a much more agressive tone.
As for your view, I do not deny that with all restraint of politeness I consider the idea insane for a private person to own that kind of weaponry which got no purpose other than mass killing or quantities of weapons suited to start their own little civil war if they feel offended or something.
All too often nobody had ever "expected" the person who gunned down other people in a public place or the like to do that. While your suggestions are aimed at punnishing the ones who do this (and their families) I would much rather aim to prevent such tragedies in the first place. With the amount of victims to gun violence in the US these days I do not think that the satisfaction certain people get for having the power to slaughter entire communities is so lofty a matter as to justify the prize of the death, maiming, and the suffering of the victims and their relatives.
I am glad that President Obama addressed the matter in his state of the nation address and I do hope that he will live up to it. When he does Serris, I think you might find more support for your own view if you come up with arguments and bottle the whole f*** and s*** and the like which you expect others not to find offensive while being yourself rather touchy about the views and arguments of others.
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How are your career efforts going? If I am not mistaken, you hope to become a history professor? :)
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Thank you for the question :)
Indeed becoming a professor for history, or at least teach history at university level is kind of a life dream for me and has been pretty much since my childhood. I'm still applying since there are very few possibilities and many applications to those job offers which are out there (most of the applications I am writing are unsolicited). These days there is one job offer which is really exactly what I have been looking for. I is a position that would allow for the applicant to write a dissertation while being involved in another research project in the field of North American culture and history. In case I do get that job there is no doubt I'll be with it heart, hand, soul and mind (I hope that doesn't sound too dramatic ;)).
Also that current job application may be my last chance to write my dissertation about the sesquicentennial of the civil war and actually attend some of the events I would like to write about. Chances are slim, but really the requirements for the job are exactly what I have to offer, so here is to hope. Please keep your fingers crossed for me :yes
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Just a random question relating to something you mentioned in Littlefoot1616's star day thread:
Did you ever find out when, where, and by whom the trampoline was invented? :lol (Seriously, I'm rather curious myself.)
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I admit I had never researched about that one and had to in order to give a usable answer. One basis for the invention of the tramboline seem to be games in which one person kann jump on a solid blanket or animal skin which is held by a group of other people. I recal seeing such activities in early 19th century caricatures, but I suppose such games would have been around earlier than that. The life saving function of such a blanket used by firefighters to allow for people trapped on the upper floors of a burning building to jump to safety was also figured out in the 19th century.
Wikipedia credits George Nissen and Larry Griswold, two American gymnasts with the construction of the first modern trampoline in 1936.
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When it comes to Land Before Time fanfiction, you've made it no secret that you prefer the kind that "stay true to the series", without any mindless wars, human interactions, or crossovers of any kind.
Seeing as you have recently gotten interested in the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, would you say that these same preferences of yours also apply to MLP:FiM fanfiction?
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It is awesome that you have one of these threads, Malte. There's a ton of things that I would like to ask ya.
Let's start simple, shall we? Which languages do you speak on a fluent way?
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Hey guys, nice to see my old ask me thread revived. I was starting to be afraid that chaterbox me had been talking too much in the past to leave any questions open ;)
When it comes to Land Before Time fanfiction, you've made it no secret that you prefer the kind that "stay true to the series", without any mindless wars, human interactions, or crossovers of any kind.
Seeing as you have recently gotten interested in the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, would you say that these same preferences of yours also apply to MLP:FiM fanfiction?
Yes, I think my preferences there are somewhat similar. I admit that I may not be quite as strict about with with MLP as I am with LBT (I did read some webcomics some of which had a rather dark turn), but it makes a huge difference to me if the story makes sense or if there is just violence for the sake of entertainment.
For my own fanfiction I don't plan any human crossovers (though in case of MLP they would be somewhat sanctioned by the Equestria girls movies I suppose) or violent excesses or that kind of things.
Let's start simple, shall we? Which languages do you speak on a fluent way?
The sad truth is that I kind of suck at learning languages :oops
Oftentimes people think I was being falsely modest because I often try to employ a degree of eloquence with the languages which I do speak fluently; but using a language once learned and learning an entirely new language are two different pair of shoes to me.
I only speak English (with a notable accent) and German (as a native tongue) fluently. At school I had Latin, but the classes there were never even meant to teach us to actually speak that language. At the university I had two semesters worth for French which pretty much enabeled me to introduce myself and say in French that I don't speak any French.
English too gave me a hard time at school and my early messages in land before time forums still testify to the fact that my English was a lot worse at that time than the English of many none native speakers of the same age.
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Have you seen The LEGO Movie?
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I haven't so far I'm afraid.
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Having heard of all the Civ4 multiplayer games you've played with other GoF members (which, as much as I like the game itself, I'm unlikely to join anytime soon), I'm just curious: Which particular civilization (America, Rome, China, etc.) do you typically prefer to play as, and why?
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So far I usually played as Japan, England or France since I enjoy their respective benefits. Please feel always invited to join us by the way, we would very much enjoy more GIF members to join our ranks :yes
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What do you like the most about Germany? I personally like its landscapes a LOT.
(You were German, right? :p).
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Yes, I am from Germany. The odd thing is that it is a lot easier to point out what is in need of improvement of this country compared to what I really like about it, in spite of the fact that I am mostly happy here. Maybe the positive things are not of the kind that I would ascribe to nationality in particular.
There are plenty of good people here with a huge majority here being very open minded, tolerant and progressive, though these don't usually make the news headlines the way the much fewer but much louder representatives of a lot that is running wrong here (aka nazis).
Germany does have a great variation of landscapes and very distinct local cultures and dialects. I myself am from a very urbanized region that used to be a main industrial center and may rank among the most densely settled regions in Europe and yet about 50% or so of the region are green spaces.
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Come to think of it, there is one thing I really missed during my students exchange to the US even though while being here I would pay little attention to it. In Germany there is a variety of different kinds of bread including some very dark bread. Most of the bread kinds we got are very savory compared to the kinds of bread one will find in some other countries (no offense to any other country intended ;)) where the tendency often seems to be to make it white and somewhat suggary. I got to admit one of the first things I felt I had to do after returning from my students exchange was to get a slice of "Schwarzbrot" (translates as "black bread") and eat it with a slice of cheese :lol
In general there seems to be a greater appreciation for savory (as in not excessively suggared) food here than in some other regions of the world (though, make no mistake, our instant meals are as disgustingly hyperglycaemic as in every other part of the world where I could test it so far ;)).
I think a generally positive thing about Germany is that in recent decades Germany has gone a long way when it comes to dealing with the horrible crimes committed by Germans in the 1930s and 1940s and shifting away from that lame "nobody knew anything about it" kind of excuse which Germans had long pretended to the world. I think it does take some degree of maturity of a national mentality when a people learns to accept that its history has some very dark sides and to examine these sides to help preventing anything like that from ever repeating. Unfortunately to a seizable number of Germans this dealing with the horrible crimes of the past may lead to a somewhat defensive attitute and (this is indeed something I find very sad) a twisted perception of the way Germany is seen in the world that leaves little room to appreciate the great gift that the nations of the world have given Germany by readmitting it into the circle of "civilized nations" after the crimes committed.
A more positive result of all this is that the huge majority of people over here are very pacifist. War is not as readily accepted as an option over here as it may be in certain situations in some other countries (though there is a degree of hypocrisy there seeing that Germany is one of the worst weapon dealers of the world with many dreadful regimes being among the main customers).
Last but not least there is the constitutional right of lifelong access to education for everyone. I could start a long rant now about about everything that runs wrong with eduction in Germany (and that's a lot!), but this general right ensures the possibility for many people to participate in learning activities for all their lifes and for others to teach what they know well (anyone who knows me from chats will know that this is where my history classes come in :lol). If only this teaching could be done as a regular job rather than on comissionary basis I would be perfectly happy.
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I've been recently hearing about an upcoming movie called "Free State of Jones" that's apparently based on real events from the American Civil War, where a group of southerners, both white and black, took a stand against the Confederacy. Naturally, I'd like to ask you, our resident Civil War expert, if you're familiar with the events portrayed in this movie.
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What is your favourite German food?