So the inimitable Hbomberguy has a new video taking on the pickup artists we here at We Hunted the Mammoth have grown to know and loathe, focusing on two of the most loathesome, Roosh V and Matt Forney.
Watch it! This is one of those very rare 30 minute YouTube videos that’s worth watching (that doesn’t involve cats, Russian drivers, or pimple popping).
Well that was creepy yet enjoyable.
@ guest
Ooh I love those pics. It is such a gorgeous site though.
Now you’ve got my brain all abuzz. Thinking about the dancers and pipers mythology (caught out on the sabbath is a common foundation story for a lot of the circles here, some of the outliers are even called ‘pipers’)
But also the toppling thing. If I was an anthropologist I could probably speculate about some parallels with the moai on rapa nui. Or even the statues of Stalin and Saddam.
‘Or even the statues of Stalin and Saddam.’ Interesting.
I spent some time in the Orkney isles and have been itching to go back. I loved it up there. I toured the neolithic and iron age sites (Ring of Brodgar, Skara Brae, Maeshowe, etc.) and walked the landscape. Standing on the rocky beaches and looking out over the cold, choppy North Sea feels like you’re standing at the edge of the world.
I also felt very safe. It took a couple of days to let go of my American hypervigilance and relax a little, but once I did, I enjoyed myself so much more.
Just talking about it makes me wistful. That’s it, I have to go back. The stones are calling me.
@Lady_Zombie That’s where I hope to spend my late summer this year!
@guest Do eeet! You’ll love it! Make sure to tour St. Magnus’ cathedral and the Italian Chapel too.
Helgi’s has great food of the nicer end of the pub-grub variety.
Judith Glue has a lovely little bistro in the back of the shop.
There’s another pub a little further up from Helgi’s that also has good pub-grub. I can’t remember its name. I’ll try to look it up.
Watch out for grannies on bicycles. They will mow your ass down!
Just wander around! It’s so lovely there.
@ guest
It’s a common speculation in archeology that megaliths represent actual real people, revered (and possibly mythologised) by the population that erected them. It’s not hard to believe that societal changes and upheaval could lead people to believe that the old icons had failed them or the system they established had not lived up to the promises. Destruction of the symbols of the previous regime is a pretty standard thing in revolutions. And we’re still the same people we were back in the neolithic with all the same feelings and motivations.
Thanks for all that! [cuts and pastes into ‘places to go’ document] I don’t fly any more, and I’ve moved WAY south–so it will be a long time on the train from one end of the island to the other–but I’m considering it if I’ve got the funds by then (which I probably will, knock on wood).
@Alan In Mike Parker Pearson’s recent book about Stonehenge he talks about working with an archaeologist from Madagascar, and speculating about why people would erect these stones, and the Madagascar guy said ‘oh, we do it all the time, I just erected one for my uncle a few years ago.’
@ guest
There’s an American guy with the marvellous name Wally Wallington. He’s a retired builder. He’s got a bit of an interest in megalithic architecture. He used to work with a bunch of Amerindian lads and they said the same thing. They also showed him the techniques they used for moving and erecting big stones.
So there’d previously been all this speculation about how the trilithons had been put up at Stonehenge. Wally used the traditional techniques he’d been shown to put one up in a weekend, on his own. When you see the videos it’s like “Oh yeah, how obvious”
But as a result of his work and the big laser scan project at Stonehenge (which seems to demonstrate it was a bit of a rush job) there’s now serious suggestions that the famous ring and trilithons arrangement could have been erected with a relatively small crew in as little as three years.
(obviously the site itself represents many phases of building and shuffling stuff around over thousands of years)
To tie our themes together, there was a documentary series recently about neolithic Orkney. They experimented with the various options for moving the megaliths, like rollers. Then someone mentioned about how people still moved boats about using seaweed as a lubricant. So they put the stone on a carpet of seaweed and a handful of people could drag it around as fast as they could run. I love stuff like that.
(I’ve got the opportunity to reerect a couple of megaliths this Summer. I’ve mentioned the stuff above but my mates are still preferring the JCB option. It’ll probably end up with me hurting my back and a chorus of “we did tell you”)
Hbomb appears to live in a cluttered garage. Of all the weird things to get mad about, assuming he is rolling in cash doesn’t seem like a legitimate one to make. My apartment looks far nicer than wherever he films and I live in the projects for fucks sake. I’m also curious what counts as expensive props? A 5 dollar trilby? A pez dispenser?
I do agree he can come off as pretencious in his criticism of certain games and stuff but dayum.
Now I’m curious about contrapoints issue with Anita, though. ? I always got the feeling that dudes in paticular felt compelled to preface any defense of her with “now I don’t agree with xyz but…” which always annoyed the shit out of me. As if they disagree with something the manosphere won’t call them a White Knight and dismiss everything else they have to say about her.
Oh youtube. Gotta love it.
@Alan
There’s a fellow whose name escapes me just now who made some similar points about the Egyptian pyramids. To the effect that the most obvious way to get the big blocks of stone up the side of the growing pyramid was counterweights. Put big stone on sledge. Put a big box at the current top of the pyramid on anotheer sledge, held on the slope by ropes tied to the big rock. Then throw smaller rocks into the box until it goes down and the big rock goes up. Repeat as necessary.
@ dalillama
That’s weird because you’ve responsed explicitly to something I didn’t write but was literally just thinking of! I hope you’ve promised to only use your psychic powers for good purposes.
But I was toying with writing a bit about how I’ve been working on building sites to learn how to build my donkey sanctuary and the guys there use a lot of the same techniques. Specifically I was going to mention how we moved some glulams (sort of big wooden girders) up four stories just by using gravity and fulcrums. Effectively you use the weight of the glulam for you. You might have to slide it around or hang on the end of it to provide extra weight, but you never have to actually lift it.
Like you say it’s all about counterbalance. Just goes to show though how all those tropes of thousands of slaves dragging things up ramps have entered our consciousness.
(oh and using excavated spoil as a counterbalance to lift building blocks is how they erected a retaining wall)
booburry:
I admit I haven’t watched many of his game videos, but the ones I’ve seen didn’t strike me as pretentious. Well, except for Serious Sonic Lore Analysis, but that was for comedic effect (I lost it when he “quoted” Roland Barthes). I particularly enjoyed Fallout 3 Is Garbage, And Here’s Why, which I think is well worth watching even if you disagree with the title.
@Alan
That trope is a combination of racism (those non-whites are primitive and couldn’t know advanced building techniques), academic tunnel vision of the sort that we were discussing re: traffic (the archaeologists studying this weren’t structural engineers and had no idea about the best way to go about it, so they just guessed), and treating the bible as a historical document (the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, there must have been some reason to have all those slaves around, there’s big buildings, QED; note that there is no actual archaological or historical evidence that any significant number of Hebrews were ever enslaved in Egypt, or in Egypt at all, let alone the entire people.)
Whoo boy, whenever somebody opens their rant with “Barack Hussein Soetoro,” you just know it’s going to be
kill me nowamazing.Funny, because that’s exactly how you’re coming off to me.
Dude isn’t perfect (he can get a smidge BernieBro-ish on his Twitter), because nobody is – but Christ Almighty, if your pants-shitting problem with him is that he likes a few movies and a game you don’t… Just… Christ Almighty. The screaming entitlement you’re exuding is so fucking thick I’m surprised you don’t need a scuba tank to breathe.
THAT IS HOW OPINIONS ABOUT ART WORK YOU RIDICULOUS WANKER.
As a side note, I also like the prequels and Doom, but I’d still think you’re acting like a #Gater even if I didn’t. Because you are. Now shut up and sit down, adults are talking.
I strongly dislike the Star Wars prequels, but I don’t believe that my opinion of them is Objective Truth and anyone who does claim to like them is simply being a contrarian because how could they possibly have a sincere fondness for something that I, High Majestrate of Art, have declared to be inferior.
@Scolar Visari
If we’re talking about the US then a $4billion brand new stealth, guided missile destroyer, with a long range ground bombardment gun isn’t enough to feel all big and powerful. That’s just a cute toy. The “I’ve got a big swinging dick” ship is a $13billion nuclear powered supercarrier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Zumwalt
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gerald_R._Ford
respectively
What? They’re kinda cool ok.
I don’t have an opinion on the prequels, ’cause it’s been a pretty long while, and believe it or not but I only saw Episode 3 once. I don’t have an opinion on the original trilogy either. Like, I just remember enjoying all six movies, that’s it. Dat swordfighting style tho, it’s ridiculous and glorious and I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t mind if it takes up half the screentime either, my fencer’s eye can’t make any sense of what it sees but my other eye enjoys the pretty spinning lights. So I guess the prequels have more of that so I might enjoy them more…? Nah, that’s not how movies and the enjoying of them works.
I don’t think I’d like the Doom reboot if I played it (but then again you never know, I can enjoy pretty much anything if it’s well-executed enough), I mean I don’t like the other Doom games anyway. Not ’cause gore or excessive violence or anything, it’s just I like my FPS’s with a bit less frenzy. Like I’m playing Fallout 4 right now, and I’m exploding fools with .308 bullets for fuck’s sake, but at least I do it at my own, rather slow pace.
So for the sake of the argument, let’s say I don’t care about either side of either debate.
I still think Nick’s acting like a gator.
SO AM I. *high fives*
I rather prefer my Laser Musket for all my snipin’ needs, though (minor story spoilers, major head explosions).
HOLY SHIT WAS THAT HIS SKULL !?
“Was” being the operative word there. ^-^
I didn’t even know energy weapons could selectively incinerate body parts. Like, I thought the whole dude always went fwoosh.
Then again I’ve barely started. But chances are I’d have gone the whole game without ever realizing that, ’cause I’m too dumb not to stick to my Fallout 3/New Vegas usual get-up (and it seriously lacked energy weapons) even though it’s been like almost a decade or what.
Tomorrow will be dedicated to finding out what mad science I can commit that doesn’t involve conventional ammo. I’m still staying away from nukes though ’cause those things terrify me enough IRL right now that I don’t wanna stare at too many mushroom clouds even in Fallout.
I had a long rant about how I feel about FO4 based on what I’ve seen and heard but basically I just wish FO4 allowed you to complete quests in a larger variety of ways and had more quests that weren’t all “go here and shoot this”, even though I’m sure it would be fun, still. And also how much I wish Obsidian would make another Fallout game.
Mmmm, Fallout New Vegas. That’s the good stuff.
@Jack
I heard about that too. And so far I’m noticing I don’t get that many options to be an asshole, not that I really mind at this point, but still.
Okay, so I guess at least I won’t have to worry about being offered to nuke a town for shits and giggles.
So far (again, not that far) I haven’t been too bothered by the layout of the quests ’cause I’m so busy scrounging for basic stuff I’ll take any dumb reason to go take a walk and shoot things, but it might become problematic when I’m done finding my bearings and getting the basic stuff.