This video discusses a Roman mint from Trajan's reign. It discusses how the coins were minted and gives the organization of the mint's workers. I wondered how it was guarded. No word on that in the video, which would be handy info to have in case I wanted to build a time machine and go back to do an Ocean's 11 style heist.
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John Martin (1789–1854) was an English painter and engraver known for his paintings of Biblical, mythological, and historical disasters. His paintings feature large and dramatic landscapes peopled with tiny figures. His art career ended in 1853 when he was paralyzed.
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| John Martin |
Above is a rather odd video, but it does have some good information in it. It uses the video game Fallout 4 as a starting point and moves on from there. If you don't know, the Fallout game series is set after a nuclear war and you run around fighting mutants, and raiders, and what-not, but that's not the topic of the video.
The aesthetics of the game world is a retro-1950s futurism with robots, atomic power and a sort of goofy old-timey Americana feel to it. Generally, you only see the post-war ruins of it, but Fallout 4 starts with a pre-war segment set in a suburban cul-de-sac. The Architectural Outcast uses that as a springboard to discuss how America's suburbs came to be.
WWII soldiers were not well paid, but as compensation they were promised certain post-war benefits via the GI Bill. One of these benefits was an affordable house with no down-payment. The problem was that during the war, and the Great Depression that proceeded it, not a lot of houses had been built and so there was a shortage of housing, and what houses that were available were old and rather worn out.
The U.S. solved the problem by going on a massive housing boom. Much of it was via planned housing developments surrounding cities, which led to the modern suburbs. For efficiency's sake, different models in these developments were limited, and so we got the cookie-cutter feel the suburbs are known for.
There were also attempts at kit houses. Because it was featured in the Fallout neighborhood, he discusses the Lustron House, a prefabricated steel house that never gained traction and is nothing more than an oddity today.
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| The Lustron Home |
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| Columbus's fleet departs for its historic trip |
It is Columbus Day. Some of the common talking points around it strike me as being rather puerile. For example, we have the 'stolen land' bit, and the strange 'Columbus didn't really discover it because other people were already there' point.
As for the first, while the Indians undoubtably got ravaged in their encounter with Europeans, throughout history populations have sloshed back and forth taking and losing land. In fact, prior to the arrival of the Europeans the Indian tribes had been long engaged in chronic warfare with each other, with their areas of control shifting as their fortunes ebbed and flowed. If you had the misfortune of being a captive atop an Aztec pyramid you were already being ravaged.
As for the 'Columbus didn't really discover it' snark, Columbus isn't only, or even principally, known for being the first European to step foot on the soils of the Americas. We know other Europeans had travelled that far already. Rather, his voyage led to something theirs did not, the meaningful connection of the two hemispheres. As I've said in an earlier Columbus Day post, "The world changed from an academic's sphere to a physical globe on which the oceans were routes to all its lands." That is the importance of his achievement.
His discovery was world altering. We have a term for its consequence -- the Columbian Exchange. Columbus's discovery led to the opening of transatlantic trade, and with that plants, animals, diseases, and people passed from one hemisphere to the other. Wheat, corn, potatoes, rice, barley, cattle, pigs, and horses all crossed the Atlantic to the benefit of all. Unfortunately, diseases did as well, much to the detriment of the Amerindians. That transfer greatly impacted both sides of the Atlantic. It shaped the world we live in today, and that is the legacy of Columbus's voyages and the true reason he is to be remembered.
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When the sun goes down human eyeballs need to get light somehow or another. In this post I present paintings of our friend the lamp, in all of its either electric or flaming glory.
