Thug Notes: Catcher in the Rye
Henry VI, Part 2
Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath (Scene 14)
Thug Notes: Great Expectations
Henry VI, Part 1
Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath (Scene 13)
Archeology vs. Historical Reenactments
Medievalists.net has an interesting article about the risk of contamination of archeological sites by historical reenactments. One of the potential side effects of reenactors trying to be as “period” as possible is that the more successful they are, the more they risk confusing future archeologists.
Thug Notes: Lord of the Flies
Sucks to your assmar.
Numberphile on Cutting a Cake
The folks over at Numberphile have dug up the best way to cut a round cake from a letter to the editor in a 1906 issue of Nature. Although it seems there ought to be a better way to keep it together than rubber bands.
By the way, the cover image here is from Cake Central.
Beta vs. VHS
Here’s an engineer explaining the difference between Betamax and VHS, and why VHS won. Back in those days, I worked as a stock boy in a video rental store. To give you some context, when I first started working there it was mostly LaserDiscs and Beta (with the LaserDiscs clearly on the decline), and a little VHS. Within a year, the store was half Beta and half VHS, with the LaserDiscs no longer available for rental — we were selling the used ones in bargain bins to clear out stock. Within two years, the LaserDiscs were gone, and Beta was clearly on the decline. A year after that, it was hard to find any place carrying Beta.