wombat1138 | Entries tagged with random geekage

Note: the reason I consider this a crackpot theory is that however delightful it is to see all of these historical details falling into place around it, I doubt very much that Watsuki or the animators deliberately researched them or even consciously had them in mind. IMHO it's just my own attempt to fill in Kenshin's early background with a personal fanon that makes sense to me. (I don't have a personal religious stake in this; although I was raised vaguely Catholic, I bailed before Confirmation and ended up with the firm conviction that if there is a God, he apparently decided that I would be a better person if I didn't believe in him.)

Over the weekend, I spotted and snapped up an actual physical copy of the Whelan book I'd found through Google a while back, and had mentioned in this earlier entry. It's a translated and annotated compilation of the Bible via Kakure Kirishitan communities on Kyushu, the southernmost major island of Japan.

It's... a very odd document. It was originally seeded near the beginning of the Tokugawa regime by Catholic missionaries from Portugal, sometimes struggling to convey certain words, names, and concepts to their Japanese converts; these converts and their families then passed down the stories by oral tradition over the next few centuries. Whelan spliced about ten different versions together into a single continuous narrative, which is still surprisingly brief and covers only the most major events in the Bible.

The book provided several new Google keywords for me to pursue, leading to this site of independent research about the Kakure Kirishitan traditions. There's a lengthy page of interview transcripts; this section is particularly intriguing. It's about a church that was built by one of those traditional communities after Christianity was decriminalized.( Read more... )

Unfortunately, my camera is still limping along in mostly-zombie mode, so no pix-- but last week I finally saw something I'd heard about, but never encountered in person: glass that fluoresces bright tangerine-orange under UV. Under natural light, it's a clear, strong sulfur-yellow; the most common term for it seems to be "manganese glass", but based on a bit more geekly investigation, I think the magic ingredient is really cadmium sulfide or cadmium sulfate.

The initial piece I found was a thick molded goblet; over the weekend, I found some beadage made of the same stuff. Yow.

I really, really need to get the camera working again :b

However, did manage to grab the website image of the really amazingly bad supposedly-Sinographic rubber stamp I mentioned a while back:

(Cut for spoilers.)

1.) Finished Okami earlier this week, though I missed several things in the game. Most of it was minor stuff like Stray Beads here and there, but apparently I managed to accidentally skip ( Read more... ) (As a future trivia reference, 大神 (ゲーム).)

2.) Finally managed to semi-confirm a theory about a minor detail in a Yamaguchirow doujinshi, specifically ( Read more... )

Meanwhile, making slow progress with the hana-kotoba book, though not in a very organized way. If I'd thought this out more clearly, I would've divided the translations into individual index cards for each entry, instead of just sequentially jotting things down into a notebook; this is especially obvious when considering the long list of flower names transcribed from the table of contents, and then the separate list of add'l info from the book proper. Oh well.

Found a little book entirely devoted to Japanese flower symbolism. However, it is almost entirely in Japanese. *headdesk*

At the moment, am slowly transliterating the individual flower names onto paper. They're all indexed in katakana regardless of etymology; I still deeply suck at recognizing katakana, and so am limping back and forth between the book and my handy kana ref chart. Some of them are obvious loanwords from the English flower names, throwing doubt on the traditionality of those particular flowers, but all of the species names are also provided in romaji, which should help with the final identification later. Each entry also seems to start with a brief summary of the meaning (I haven't started any kanji lookups yet), so hopefully I won't have to translate the full paragraphs of text that follow.

Still flailing through Okami; stalled on some of the timed minigames, some of which are supposedly optional but really aren't if you want any hope of being able to deal with certain beasties in normal combat without using up inventory items. OTOH the "thief's glove" makes it possible to generate goodies at will, though not by specific selection.

In a recent post,

punkwalrus posted the English lyrics for the children's song "Don Gato", which was a common favorite in elementary-school music class in our area.

Fascinatingly, the lyrics seem to be semi-translated from a Spanish children's song (sometimes with the alternate title "Estaba el señor don Gato") which had a completely different melody. The melody for the English version is borrowed from a different song, "Ahora que vamos despacio" (this youtube version has a remarkable arrangement that makes me think of the Pogues doing ska), whose lyrics are almost completely unrelated.

Some possible sociological background for Shinta's gravedigging volunteerism and choice of tomb~~stone~~sticks, excerpted from this discursion on the "untouchable" undercastes of Japan:

Much like day laborers in modern Japan, those who were marginalized ended up doing the “3-D” jobs (dirty, difficult and dangerous) that society needed done but which nobody wanted to do. One such job was the disposing of dead bodies — a particularly “defiling” task. (And in the context of that ancient worldview, there was thus a second level of “3-D” — defiling, demeaning and despised!)

These marginalized [persons] were further categorized into two separate groups that later became known by the very derogatory terms of “hinin” (非人), literally “non-human,” and “eta” (穢多), literally, “defilement abundant.” The first basic distinction to be made was that between the disposal of the carcasses of dead animals and the bodies of dead humans, since the latter involved rituals of mourning and dignified burials. “Kiyome” who specialized in the handling of dead humans were the group from which the “hinin” category developed, while those that dealt with dead animals became the “eta.” ( Read more... )

From a 1922 chemistry textbook, emphasis added:

Ruby glass owes its red color to the presence of colloid gold. I show you three specimens which are "solid solutions" of gold in three very different and characteristic degrees of dispersion (demonstration).[1] The first is an almost clear and but slightly yellow mass of glass. This is obtained immediately after dissolving the solid gold salt in the glass. There is obtained in this way a molecularly dispersed solution of the gold in the glass, and one which, in consequence, is ultramicroscopically empty. The second preparation is the ordinary ruby glass in which the gold is contained in a colloid state. The third specimen is deep blue by transmitted light and orange brown by reflected light. The specimen is also distinctly turbid. It springs from a failure in glass manufacture in that, presumably through a too long heating of the glass, a coagulation of the red gold particles to the more coarsely dispersed blue particles has taken place — just such a change as I showed you in an aqueous dispersion medium when I coagulated the red gold (produced through reduction of gold chlorid by tannin) to blue gold through the addition of acid. These same facts as illustrated in the case of glass prove of what little importance is the kind of dispersion medium and how much depends upon the degree of dispersion in determining the variations in color in this substance.

[1]: Different specimens of gold ruby glass were kindly placed at my disposal by POPPER AND SONS of New York

No illos, alas, but "Popper and Sons" still appears to be in operation; I wonder if they'd have any records/samples of what they sent to this guy?

The Lycurgus Cup (dating to Imperial Rome) reflects green but transmits red. Technical analysis here, ascribing the effect to colloidal nanoparticles of gold and silver; there's also a lovely picture of an experimental piece from the Corning glassworks that reflects translucent jade-green but transmits a gorgeous true violet (less red than the standard manganese-based purple).

(sunlight) neo-alex faceted rounds and neo-orchid centerpiece bits: purple; Swarovski cantaloupe bicones: reddish-grey; uranium glass: various pastels (small aqua rounds, frosted green/pink octahedra, seafoam-givre triangles and centerpiece dagger drop).

(incandescent) neo-alex and neo-orchid: purple; Swarovski: pale red; uranium glass: various pastels.

(fluorescent) neo-alex: ice-blue; neo-orchid: purple; Swarovski: green; uranium glass: various pastels.

(near-UV LED) uranium glass: lime-green glow; everything else: dark, except for random reflections.

Total length 19", Czech glass + Swarovski lead crystal on GSP, sterling silver endcaps/clasp.

While (still) looking for info about "orange manganese" glass, found an intriguing late 19th-C reference to a type of glass called "astralite" that I've never heard of before. It sounds beautiful, though: "resembling aventurin [i.e., goldstone], but containing crystals of a cuprous compound, which by reflected light exhibits a dichroitic iridescence of dark red and greenish-blue." The recipe starts with a base mixture combining (in relative proportion) silica (80), lead oxide (120), carbonate of soda (72), and anhydrous borax (18) with a secondary mixture of either "scale oxide of copper" (24) and "scale oxide of iron" (1); or of lime (5), "scale oxide of copper" (26), and "scale oxide of iron" (2). (I may have to look up the equivalent modern terminology later.)( Read more... )

While looking for an explanation of "orange manganese" glass, finally found what looks like a technical explanation of "saphiret glass" in a late 19th-century glassmakers' manual. here: in a way, it's the gold-based analogue to the confusingly named copper-based "goldstone". Both are the result of reducing the chromophore ions in the glass melt: in the case of copper, the metal precipitates out into visible crystals; in the case of gold (usually added at a much lower proportion), the precipitate forms a translucent colloidal haze that (as the source says) reflects light as pale brown but transmits it as sapphire-blue. ( Read more... )

While looking for something else at the library, I found a reference book that listed some traditional Japanese flower symbolism in the context of myths and legends-- photocopied some pages and also jotted some extra notes down. May need to do some extra Googling to track down all of the Linnean names and check the transliterations; some of them had a rather archaic look which may arise either from the source material or a different transliteration system. ( Read more... )

Sparked by a thread over on RKDreams, whose general inability to display kanji makes this particular discussion unnecessarily difficult. Also, http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1B can be an otaku's best friend.

The name of the Aoiya, the Kyoto inn run by the remnants of the Oniwabanshuu, is written 葵屋, as shown by two different placards at the bottom of page 152 in volume 9; like the similar signs in front of the Akabeko and Shirobeko, the original horizontal layout uses the "reversed" right-to-left order that was common before WWII or so. It does not use the same ao kanji as Shinomori Aoshi's name 四乃森蒼紫, as shown on pp 78 and 80 of the "Profiles" book in modern left-to-right order. ( snipped for excessive blather )

(Yeah, I know... I should get back to "Ikun". But ooo look shiny thing went that way.)

I've actually been hit by a small RK plotbunny for the first time in a long while, though it isn't going anywhere yet. However, while poking at potential background research, I dug up some fairly neat symbolism that seems as if it'd be useful, though I haven't yet figured out how it could be smoothly incorporated into a story.

The hototogisu is a small bird (known in English as the "lesser cuckoo") that's a traditional haiku symbol of early summer and of unrequited/tragic love. It's known for its mournful-sounding call, which is only heard before dawn in the mountain forests where it lives; it has never liked to nest near urban areas and won't sing in captivity. Further tradition associates its call with either a sudden death-cry or a lament for a lost mate; in the case of the latter, there are even legends that the bereaved hototogisu mourns so much that it keeps calling until blood pours from its throat and it too dies.

There's a brief clip of a hototohisu's call here (look for its scientific name, Cuculus poliocephalus); I gather that it repeats the same call over and over again as it flies. The incessant nature may be what contributes to the impression of mourning; the clips do give me a sense of "Where are you? Where have you gone? Why can't I find you? Where are you?", but they don't seem like a death-cry to me (not that I've heard one in RL, so would I really know?).

(adapted from email to a querist at omniglot.com/puzzles.htm , about a mysterious inscription attributed to Amaterasu's mirror and claimed to be a form of Hebrew)

The diagram of this inscription is generally attributed (e.g., at http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam4.htm ) to Yano Yuutarou, as transmitted within the Shinsei-Ryuujinkai sect which Yano founded.( Read more... )

http://www.addictinggames.com/seed.html

Sample "DNA" string; bracketed letters inserted for tracking purposes: 95.4[A], 0xc3264[B], 4[C], 8[D], 29.0[E], 0.6[F], 1.6[G], 1.1[H], 20.8[I], 31.0[J], 1.1[K], 4[L], 0.1[M], 0.0[N], 0.0[0], 0.2[P], 1.9[Q], 0.0[R], 0.3[S], -0.0[T], 0x9fa8e4[U], 0x8f86de[V], 7.4[W], 10.4[X], 11[Y], 15[Z], 20[AA], 0[BB]

Another sample: 95.4, 0xc3264, 4, 8, 29.0, 0.6, 1.6, 1.1, 20.8, 31.0, 1.1, 4, 0.1, 0.0, 0.0, 0.2, 1.9, 0.0, 0.3, 0.0, 0x9fa8e4, 0x8f86de, 7.4, 10.4, 11, 15, 2.0, 0.0

Current favorites: ( Read more... )

Last variable [BB]-- outermost petal sides' degree of curvature between endpoint and base: 0 generates sharp triangles; 1 generates circular arcs; larger values generate double-convex bows if width permits. Negative values do not appear to generate concavity.( Read more... )

Attempting to cobble back together the declension poem from Punch's Comic Latin Grammar, which Martin Gardner suggests as a possible source for Alice's vaguely remembered noun paradigm in Wonderland (although "mouse" is actually the third-declension mus, muris; first-declension musa, musae is "muse". Sundry scraps of the poem are scattered around Google, esp. in previews of an otherwise inaccessible JSTOR paper.

Musa, musae,
The gods were at tea,
Musae, musam,
Eating raspberry jam,
Musa, musa,
Made by Cupid's mama.

Musae, musarum,
Thou Diva dearum.
Musis, musas,
Said Jove to his lass,
Musae, musis,
Can ambrosia beat this?

...Well jeez, my own memory of Latin has certainly gone down the drain. Oh well.

By comparison, Alice's litany in chapter 2: "A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse!": note the capitalized article in the nominative "A mouse" vs. the uncapped accusative "a mouse", the "Church Latin" pronunciation of -ae, and the lack of the ablative case (~"by/for/from a mouse"; I'm not sure how Victorian grammars usually glossed the form).

Our local paper had a short page-two blurb about the latest NEA stats on US reading skills, and then

eeedge reposted another press release/report about the same story, which made me wonder about the underlying stats. A PDF of the full report, "To Read or Not to Read", can be read here.

(Tangent: last week, the local library tried out a new literacy program in which small groups of children took turns reading to "therapy dogs", on the theory that the dogs would reduce the stress for diffident readers and provide general warm fuzzies.)( Read more... )

As part of a recent re-reading binge, I've just whipped back through The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, better known for his first book Watership Down. By comparison to that lapine odyssey, tGitS is an adult contemporary novel that reminds me of Robert Graves' The White Goddess in its odd, numinous pedestal of joyously amoral female sexuality. At this point, I'm rather conflicted about that-- sex-positive for women, yay! but only in the context of hypnotic devouring temptress, boo-- esp. since Adams' travelogue fantasy Maia (whose parallel re-read I'm still in the middle of) explores the same theme in a slightly more nuanced way.

This time around, I'm noticing a lot more symbolism than I recall from previous readings, especially in the character names but also the pervasive imagery of water. I know I'm still missing stuff because of Adams' tendency to show off in a polyglot way; Maia has an epigraph in untranslated, untransliterated Greek, and tGitS has a lot of snippets in German with only a few translations appendixed at the end. Specifically, the central woman in tGitS was originally named "Käthe Guetner", though this was quickly changed in subsequent editions because of a libel suit; considering all the other names, "Guetner" must have some allusive significance (unless there was some actual basis on the real woman), but I have no idea what.( Read more... )

ranbiki: steam-distillation apparatus about 50cm tall (the link has a photo which is monochrome but enlargeable). Its introduction is generally credited to the "Dutch learning" category of Western technology, but seems to be more directly related to similar pre-existing processes in mainland Asia; nevertheless, its name does seem to be an adaptation of the European word "alembic". ( Read more... )

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wombat1138

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the wombatcave

Entries tagged with random geekage

RK crackpot theory, once again

Yet even more weird glass, plus follow-up

Hah!

hana-kotoba the hard way

meow meow meow

Rurouni Hinin?

"Dragon's Breath" at last?

...still tracking weird historical glass...

Science!!!1!

more weird glass

weird glass

hana-kotoba (again)

Aoshi and the Aoiya

hototogisu

Baruch Adonai-sama banzai...?

Seed-hacking (WIP)

Mousies

NEA reading stats

reading notes: The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams

pre-industrial distillation technology in Japan