Columbus Day

Columbus's fleet departs for its historic trip

This is a reposting of a previous Columbus Day post. Again, the significance of his voyage is not that he steps foot on a Caribbean island, rather it is that his voyage led to the connecting of the Americas to Europe and the trade and the expansion of our world view that followed.

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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. 

Carl Blechen paintings

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Carl Blechen (1798 – 1840) was a German Romantic painter. He was one of the later Romanticists and his work, while still overly dramatic, is more grounded than the earlier Romanticists. He is best known for his landscapes. His mental health gradually deteriorated and he died of a total mental breakdown.

Carl Blechen self-portrait

Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

Get ready for a leave taking weekend with Sophia Ammann.

 

Making bamboo chopsticks

This video shows the Yamachiku factory in Japan. It is the only company in Japan that still makes bamboo chopsticks. The video covers the entire process, from harvesting the bamboo to the finished product. They certainly take their chopsticks seriously. Turn on the captions and they explain the steps.

If you want to buy some of their chopsticks they have an online store. I quite liked their chopsticks for eating potato chips -- who wouldn't need a pair of those? There is a video of them in operation below.

For those interested I have an earlier post, The ins and outs of chopsticks, that points out that there are actually differences between Chinese, Korean, and Japanese chopsticks that can make them awkward to use by the different nationalities.

 

Paintings of trucks

Click any image to enlarge

These are paintings of trucks. New trucks, old trucks, abandoned trucks. Some are working trucks, some are personal vehicles. 

I'm, always amused by Europeans who think large American pickup trucks are frivolous and ostentatious. They tow things, like the family boat, haul things, and can operate in bad weather and on suboptimal roads. They are much more utilitarian than they seem when spotted just sitting in a parking lot.

Pourquoi t'as fait ça?

Get ready for an admonishing weekend with Ladaniva.

 

The children of your brain

Retro Smokebot
(click image to enlarge)

The Secret of the Machines - Rudyard Kipling

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit—
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?
If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.   
Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?
You can start this very evening if you choose,
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!

The boat-express is waiting your command!
You will find the Mauretania at the quay,
Till her captain turns the lever ’neath his hand,
And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.

Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head
And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake
As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!
Our touch can alter all created things,
We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because, for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!