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Story Friday May 4, 2018

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There was no paper (or similar) trail for Pyramid construction.

Every record of how to build it, along with every human who knew anything useful about how to build it, was either destroyed or sealed into the tomb along with the primary resident.

What an honour.

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24 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

There was no paper (or similar) trail for Pyramid construction.

Every record of how to build it, along with every human who knew anything useful about how to build it, was either destroyed or sealed into the tomb along with the primary resident.

First, either they missed someone or building pyramids is really easy, because there are so many of them.

Second, records sealed into the tomb totally counts. In fact, even the destroyed ones counts, although it's hard to count them.

Wait: maybe the signature that the stone block was put on proper place was ON that stone block. The inside face of it, of course. Meaning the person responsible for putting in the final stone needed to sign it from inside and then stay there.

(Later, the requirement of being on inside face was relaxed, but the signature was still there)

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7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Every record of how to build it, along with every human who knew anything useful about how to build it, was either destroyed or sealed into the tomb along with the primary resident.

What an honour.

I saw Land of the Pharoahs too, during the four-day break in regular network programming following JFK's assassination in 1963. Because I was living in Idaho then, on Mountain Time, the end of network broadcasting for two nights. So one of the two stations (!) in southeaster Idaho (I think KID, which is still around) pulled a couple of sword-and-sandal Fifties epics out of the vault and ran them, commercial free. The first was The Silver Chalicein which Paul Newman debuted as the lead in one of the most legendary turkeys of all time. The next one was LOTP, from 1955, which is a fairly interesting flick if completely unhistorical. Jack Hawkins plays Pharoah Khufu and Joan Collins plays a scheming younger wife who wants to be queen. She gets her wish in the end--she's sealed alive inside the Great Pyramid along with a bunch of priests who've all had their tongues cut out to escort Khufu into the afterlife.

Large-scale human sacrifice doesn't seem to have been part of Ancient Egyptian culture, unlike Ancient China, Assyria, the various Meso-American empires, and probably some more I haven't heard of. The famous Terra Cotta Army buried with Emperor Qin Shi Huang is an echo of earlier times, with sculptures substituting for soldiers (and the sculptures seem to have depicted individuals!). This enlightened approach from an otherwise extremely murderous tyrant (he was the first man to actually rule over all Chinese) may have had something to do with the wisdom of not having his bodyguards sacrifice him instead.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

When "Academic" History and "Hollywood" History disagree...

...

...

We know how this fight ends,

Yes. Hollywood History will lead a blitzkrieg, conquer almost whole world, fails to secure it's supply lines and few decades later capitulates.

Jurassic Park is less than 25 years old and people already accepted that dinosaurs should have feathers. They even acknowledged their dinosaur are not historically accurate in sequel - ON SCREEN.

Movies don't last. Even if the topic stays interesting and doesn't get outdated, the special effects certainly will, and so will the quality of material it was filmed at. Hollywood will make new version of the movie, with new stars and new effects, and it can use that opportunity to fix mistakes made in original movie, especially if people who knew better was making fun of the movie on social media.

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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Movies don't last.

Most movies don't last, but some movies set memes that are so strong they trump reality. This isn't really limited to motion pictures. Shakespeare's Richard III almost completely obscures any and all conjectures about the actual king who reigned for only three years. The Godfather films have influenced the culture of the actual Mafia. Birth of a Nation inspired the actual revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States of America, and Triumph of the Will turned Hitler into a god long enough to do do evil to a goodly portion of the planet.

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15 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Triumph of the Will turned Hitler into a god long enough to do do evil to a goodly portion of the planet.

It is barely -- barely -- possible that it might also have had something to do with World War One, the catastrophically botched Treaty of Versailles, the failed communist revolution in Germany and its far right wing reaction in the form of the rise of independent right wing militias (many of which Hitler absorbed into the later SA), the horrific years of financial instability during the 1921-1923 hyperinflation, the assassination of several key political figures, the continual erosion of Germany's government and Constitution, the Wall Street Crash in 1929 and the constant abortive attempts by other right wing figures to achieve dictatorship during 1930 to 1933. Plus a few dozen other unimportant details like horrible unemployment, decreasing faith in the government, the German Army's secret preparations towards rearmament throughout the 20s till Hitler came to power (whereupon the man discarded secrecy, making it appear as if he had magically pulled an entirely new army out of his rectal orifice), and the overconfident conviction of Germany's right wing leaders that Hitler could be controlled after being appointed Chancellor.

But that is just the opinion of a few dozen historians who have studied the topic all their lives. They are probably mistaken and everything proceeded from just that one movie.

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11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Shakespeare's Richard III almost completely obscures any and all conjectures about the actual king who reigned for only three years.

I can assure you that I don't know anything about Richard III - either the real one or Shakespeare one.

Also, as far as I know, Shakespeare didn't made any movies. Unless he borrowed Leonardo da Vinci's Camera Obscura to shot them. I suppose you can reach up to one frame per hour with such device and quick painter.

11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

The Godfather films have influenced the culture of the actual Mafia.

That's tricky but probably only way how the movie's influence can last.

11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Triumph of the Will turned Hitler into a god long enough to do do evil to a goodly portion of the planet.

Which was unpleasant but not exactly long term.

(Note: the understatement is supposed to be joke. I'm aware that lot of people would use stronger words, on the other hand, they will definitely agree it wasn't pleasant.)

 

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when I visited Scotland a few years back my very patriotic scottish tourbus driver told us that the movie Braveheart rekindled the scottish sense of self as "scottish" rather than as british.  The Scottish independence vote was mere days away, which might also have something to do with it.

He complained about being ruled by people two hundred miles away as if that were some huge distance.  I repressed a snicker.  As a Californian,, my *state* government is 200 miles away.  Washington DC is 3000 miles away.  But the real distance is mental not physical.  My tourguide left me the impression that the mental distance was a very wide gulf, as if the british empire were long gone but the imperial mindset still lived on. 

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

when I visited Scotland a few years back my very patriotic scottish tourbus driver told us that the movie Braveheart rekindled the scottish sense of self as "scottish" rather than as british.  The Scottish independence vote was mere days away, which might also have something to do with it.

He complained about being ruled by people two hundred miles away as if that were some huge distance.  I repressed a snicker.  As a Californian,, my *state* government is 200 miles away.  Washington DC is 3000 miles away.  But the real distance is mental not physical.  My tourguide left me the impression that the mental distance was a very wide gulf, as if the british empire were long gone but the imperial mindset still lived on. 

My parents used to go to a gin(card game, not the alcohol) tournament in Niagara Falls on the US side. They'd meet people from West Virginia, Maryland or Vermont who would be like "It took us 3-4 hours to get here." when my parents revealed being from Southwestern Ontario Canada, they'd be like "Oh man, that must have been a long drive!" my parents would say "only a little over 2 hours" which would leave the americans baffled. We're actually about 45 minutes from Port Huron though but it still funny when people assumed that my parents had to travel a great distance to get there.

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10 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

when I visited Scotland a few years back my very patriotic scottish tourbus driver told us that the movie Braveheart rekindled the scottish sense of self as "scottish" rather than as british.  The Scottish independence vote was mere days away, which might also have something to do with it.

He complained about being ruled by people two hundred miles away as if that were some huge distance.  I repressed a snicker.  As a Californian,, my *state* government is 200 miles away.  Washington DC is 3000 miles away.  But the real distance is mental not physical.  My tourguide left me the impression that the mental distance was a very wide gulf, as if the british empire were long gone but the imperial mindset still lived on. 

"In Europe, 100 miles is a long way. In US, 100 years is long time."

And yes, it's about the mental distance. There are governments which fail to be in contact with people living just few miles away. The Old Hack will probably confirm that, based on his previous comments :)

I suppose California had similar problem when being ruled by T-800 terminator. :)

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6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And yes, it's about the mental distance. There are governments which fail to be in contact with people living just few miles away. The Old Hack will probably confirm that, based on his previous comments :)

Christiansborg, the site of our Parliament, lies about a hundred feet from one of our main thoroughfares and still seems to be only tenuously in contact with reality at all.

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5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Christiansborg, the site of our Parliament, lies about a hundred feet from one of our main thoroughfares and still seems to be only tenuously in contact with reality at all.

My impression is that this is a problem with legislatures (and legislators) in general.

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13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"In Europe, 100 miles is a long way. In US, 100 years is long time."

I suppose California had similar problem when being ruled by T-800 terminator. :)

Actually not as such things go.  Some thing do get better with automation.  :)

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11 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And yes, it's about the mental distance. There are governments which fail to be in contact with people living just few miles away. The Old Hack will probably confirm that, based on his previous comments :)

Christiansborg, the site of our Parliament, lies about a hundred feet from one of our main thoroughfares and still seems to be only tenuously in contact with reality at all.

Our Parliament has three blocks of buildings next to each other. The next building in that line belongs to university. Doesn't seem it's helping.

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Our Parliament has three blocks of buildings next to each other. The next building in that line belongs to university. Doesn't seem it's helping.

I suspect that the effect would be the opposite of helping.

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On 5/6/2018 at 4:34 AM, hkmaly said:

Movies don't last. Even if the topic stays interesting and doesn't get outdated, the special effects certainly will, and so will the quality of material it was filmed at. Hollywood will make new version of the movie, with new stars and new effects, and it can use that opportunity to fix mistakes made in original movie, especially if people who knew better was making fun of the movie on social media.

And most of the time they'll fail to capture what made the original good in the first place, though at least that often has the upside of bringing the older, better movie back into the public consciousness.

As for special effects, personally I love the style(s) of 20th century special effects, and I find the imperfections are often what gives them their charm. I realize my opinion is not the prevailing one, but I still can never sympathize with the view that a movie or show having "dated" special effects is a bad thing.

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51 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:
On 5/6/2018 at 10:34 AM, hkmaly said:

Movies don't last. Even if the topic stays interesting and doesn't get outdated, the special effects certainly will, and so will the quality of material it was filmed at. Hollywood will make new version of the movie, with new stars and new effects, and it can use that opportunity to fix mistakes made in original movie, especially if people who knew better was making fun of the movie on social media.

And most of the time they'll fail to capture what made the original good in the first place, though at least that often has the upside of bringing the older, better movie back into the public consciousness.

I don't think it's most of the time, although the cases where it happened are often VERY visible.

Like the Clash of the Titans, where the better CGI and better looking Kraken can't save the fact that Hades CHOSEN to get Underworld and not counting the issue with Persephone was satisfied with it, that Kraken was Poseidon's monster, and that Perseus definitely didn't married Io, his great-great-great...grandmother.

51 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

As for special effects, personally I love the style(s) of 20th century special effects, and I find the imperfections are often what gives them their charm. I realize my opinion is not the prevailing one, but I still can never sympathize with the view that a movie or show having "dated" special effects is a bad thing.

It's true that 20th century special effects can be better than modern CGI - because they are done physically instead of digitally.

Land of the Pharaohs was also be one of the movies which took advantage of cast of thousands of real people, which is something not really possible to replace with digital effects ...

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

and that Perseus definitely didn't married Io, his great-great-great...grandmother.

There once was a man named Oedipus Rex
you may have heard about his odd complex
his name appears in Freud's index
because... he loved his mother.

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18 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

and that Perseus definitely didn't married Io, his great-great-great...grandmother.

There once was a man named Oedipus Rex
you may have heard about his odd complex
his name appears in Freud's index
because... he loved his mother.

Oedipus also killed his father. I don't think Perseus needed to worry about that.

And he definitely needed to marry Andromeda (or at least ...) because he found the dynasty and had lot of descendants, including Heracles, who was his half-brother and great-grandson, proving that Zeus doesn't care.

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I don't think it's most of the time, although the cases where it happened are often VERY visible.

Like the Clash of the Titans, where the better CGI and better looking Kraken can't save the fact that Hades CHOSEN to get Underworld and not counting the issue with Persephone was satisfied with it, that Kraken was Poseidon's monster, and that Perseus definitely didn't married Io, his great-great-great...grandmother.

I suppose I haven't really seen a lot of movie remakes (particularly if one were to rule out new adaptations of stories that have been adapted before that aren't trying to remake the old adaptation), so I can't really make a definitive statement on the matter. Also, come to think of it my experience with remakes, reboots, and new adaptations in general is pretty mixed - though I will say that cases I've seen where the newer version is unquestionably superior to the old one(s) are pretty rare, and as such the idea of a new version will replace (as opposed to coexist with) the old one really rubs me the wrong way.

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It's true that 20th century special effects can be better than modern CGI - because they are done physically instead of digitally.

I almost specified that older digital effects can and often do look pretty bad in a painful way - though I would argue the problem isn't that they look "old" but that in those cases they were never that good in the first place. (Not that all old CGI was painfully bad, some of it was just painfully obvious. Also, even bad CGI can have it's charm in the right movie - a few years back I re-watched the original Power Rangers movie, and the cheesy CGI in it was just as amusing as the chessy practical effects in the original TV series).

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