Ah, at last! I've installed new blogging software (WordPress) and the new version of Mirabilis.ca is now up and running.
This PDA version of the site won't update until I
a) figure out how to do that in Wordpress, and
b) find the time to do that.
If you want a PDA version of the site, please drop me a note to say so. If some of you still want to read the site on your PDAs, I'll get myself organized and make it happen for you.
Cheers,
Christine
Posted on January 3rd, 2005.
Well, this is annoying: my blogging software, Movable Type, seems to have packed it in, and I can't post anything using that software. Argh!
We're at the cottage now, where we have only dialup internet access, and limited patience for computer goop. When we go home (probably Sept 5th or so) I'll get this fixed one way or another. Seems like a good time to switch to better blogging software, hmmm?
So anyway, there won't be updates here until I get things fixed. If you want to know when things get back to normal around here (without checking the site every day) keep an eye on the RSS feed, or just drop me a note and say that you'd like to be informed when things are all back to normal.
Posted on September 1st, 2005.
From The Guardian: David's toe points art historians to origins of Michelangelo's marble.
Scientists have identified the precise origin of the marble block used for Michelangelo's David, and say the discovery will be useful for helping to preserve one of the world's greatest sculptures.
Until now, art historians knew only that the large block came from the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, which still produce many types and qualities of marble.
Analysts have now used three tiny samples, retrieved from the second toe of the left foot of David when the figure was damaged in act of vandalism in 1991, to track down the marble's origin. Not only were they able to determine the exact spot of excavation - the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara - they also found that Michelangelo's marble is of mediocre quality, filled with microscopic holes, and likely to degrade faster than many other marbles. [continue]
Posted at 10:22 AM on August 29, 2005. | Permalink |
From The Guardian: Shakespeare was a political rebel who wrote in code, claims author.
MORE...A code-breaking book which aims to change the image of William Shakespeare and reveal him as a subversive who embedded dangerous political messages in his work is to be published in Britain.
Far from being an ambitious entertainer who played down his Catholic roots under a repressive Elizabethan regime, Shakespeare took deliberate risks each time he took up his quill, according to Clare Asquith's new book Shadowplay. She argues that the plays and poems are a network of crossword puzzle-like clues to his strong Catholic beliefs and his fears for England's future. Aside from being the first to spot this daring Shakespearean code, Asquith also claims to be the first to have cracked it.
'It has not been picked up on before because people have not had the complete context,' she explained this weekend. 'I am braced for flak, but we now know we have had the history from that period wrong for a long time because we have seen it through the eyes of the Protestant, Whig ascendancy who, after all, have written the history.' [continue]
Posted at 11:22 PM on August 28, 2005. | Permalink |
From the New York Times: Team-Building With a Twist.
It was the waiter's missing shirt button, and the tattoo of a snake and a lizard on his bicep, that clinched it.
Fifteen employees, from managers to plant workers, of the Gates Corporation, a Denver maker of automotive and industrial rubber belts and hoses, had already lifted fingerprints near the chalk outlines of two bodies in an alley and a parking garage and found clues like hair, blood, the steak-knife murder weapon and notes about the killings.
Then, over dinner in a restaurant, one of them remarked that the waiter's appearance matched evidence that they had gathered during the day. So the group asked Tim D. Keck, a consultant and retired police chief who was leading the exercise during a quarterly team-building conference in Poplar Bluff, Mo., the location of a company plant, to "arrest" him.
Corporate trainers have always had a knack for coming up with offbeat exercises to teach teamwork and build leadership skills. Rope courses and other military-inspired Outward Bound-like tests of endurance have been around for decades. But in the last few years, there has been a shift away from physically demanding and intensely competitive exercises toward more creative and cerebral undertakings, according to the American Society for Training and Development in Alexandria, Va.
The new wave of team-building adventures varies from cooking contests à la "Iron Chef" and arts-related activities like playing percussion instruments, staging plays and dancing to outside ventures like sailing and crime scene investigating. [continue]
Posted at 10:14 PM on August 28, 2005. | Permalink |
From The Independent: Archaeologist begins search for wreck of slave ship that mutinied.
An archaeologist is to begin searching the South African coast for a slave ship that was the site of a dramatic battle between Madagascan slaves and their Dutch captors in 1766. Jaco Boshoff hopes to find the wreck of the Meermin and shed new light on the slave trade.
In December 1765, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Meermin and sent it from Cape Town round the tip of South Africa to buy slaves on the west coast of Madagascar, 1,700 miles away. The crew picked up 147 slaves there, and set sail to return home. At sea, the Dutch crew ordered some of the slaves to clean the guns and some spears they had picked up as souvenirs. The quick-witted slaves used the arms to kill half the 60-member crew and ordered the survivors to sail the ship back to Madagascar.
The sailors did as they were ordered by day, but at night they steered the ship back towards Cape Town - at a faster pace. When the boat finally dropped anchor in Cape Town, some of the Madagascans went ashore, only to be overpowered by farmers. The rest remained on board until the ship hit a sandbank and they were captured. The authorities abandoned the damaged Meermin on the sand.
Now Mr Boshoff, who works with the government-run Iziko Museums in Cape Town, believes he can find the remains of the ship. [continue]
Posted at 08:54 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From scotsman.com: Long-lost map points back to roots of Botanic Garden.
A long-lost map found gathering dust in a basement is set to give a fascinating insight into the history of Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden.
The 150-year-old map has been restored from the brink of disintegration after being found by chance in a basement beneath the Botanics library.
Botanists and curators at the garden are excited by the find and believe it could shed light on the garden's past and reveal important facts about the work of the garden in the 19th century.
They now aim to study the map in detail to find out as much as they can from it and are convinced it holds more facts about how the garden used to look and why many of the features which remain today were created. [continue, see photo]
Posted at 08:12 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From ICWales.co.uk: Roman 'motorway' secrets unveiled.
Archaeologists excavating along the ancient Via Egnatia in Greece are revealing the secrets of the ancient Romans’ equivalent of an Interstate highway.
Stretching 535 miles across modern-day Albania, Macedonia and Greece, the stone-paved road made the going easy for charioteers, soldiers and other travellers. It was up to 30 feet wide in places and was dotted with safety features, inns and service stations.
"This was a busy road, and the Romans managed to make it completely functional," archaeologist Polyxeni Tsatsopoulou told The Associated Press.
Built between 146 and 120 B.C. under the supervision of the top Roman official in Macedonia, proconsul Gaius Egnatius, the highway ran from the Adriatic coast in what is now Albania to modern Turkey, giving Rome quick access to the eastern provinces of its empire.
Ancient engineers did such a good job that the Via Egnatia remained in use for some 2,000 years, sticking to its original course even as its paving slabs were plundered for building material. But over the last century, [continue]
Posted at 04:40 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From Yahoo News: For sale: one megalithic tomb (if buyer passes muster).
MORE...BAGNEUX, France (AFP) -Pascal Normand has decided to sell his 5,000-year-old megalithic tomb, but he is being very choosy about who gets it.
"Ive got to feel that the buyer has a real passion for the monument, even if he decides not to open it to the public," Normand said about his dolmen -- a Neolithic tomb consisting of two or more upright stones with a capstone -- in Bagneux, western France.
No passion, no sale, he says.
To sweeten the deal, Normand is throwing in a bar and two apartments on the 2,300-square-metre (half-acre) plot, asking 1.5 million euros (1.8 million dollars) for the lot.
The dolmen, at 23 metres (75 feet), is the longest in France, Normand says, adding that it was classified as a historic monument in the 19th century by Prosper Merimee, the playwright and author who was also state archaeologist. [continue]
Posted at 04:31 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From novinite.com: IXth Century Monastery Remains Unearthed in Bulgaria.
Well-preserved monastery vault arches dated back to the IXth century were found during excavation works in the Karaach Tepe area near Varna.
The arches are the only ones that have remained from the monastery constructions of the Middle Ages, experts claim. The new findings prove that in the early stages of the Middle Ages the Bulgarians were able to compete with the Byzantines in that kind of construction works. [continue]
Posted at 04:12 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From scotsman.com: Power of seven.
Whatever tenant arrangements were agreed around 5,000 years ago, number seven house at Skara Brae village in Orkney has been pretty good value for money. Structurally, it's solid and the furniture - beds, dresser, cupboards, cool-store for the food - is still in tip-top condition. And if the original roofing (whalebone, skin, turf or suchlike) had been regularly attended to, it could be advertised as "ready for occupation".
Certainly, there wouldn't have been the modern condensation problem, caused by the latter-day addition of a glass roof, or the stresses caused from thousands of feet pounding along what was meant to be the upper level of somebody's home. Which is why Julie Gibson, Orkney's county archaeologist, reckons the preservation work being done this summer on the neolithic house has made present-day visitors appreciate the unique value of the site even more. [continue]
Posted at 04:06 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
From sfgate.com: Renaissance garden grows insight into the lives of long-gone sailors.
MORE...The Vasa was a magnificent ship. Decorated with symbolic sculptures, carvings and gold leaf, and bronze guns polished to a fare-thee-well, she was built to impress and strike fear as the pride of Sweden's 17th century Royal navy. On a fine August day in 1628, with king, court and populace gathered, she was launched. Within minutes -- sails set, flags flying, gun ports open for the royal salute -- she caught a gust, heeled over and sank.
The Vasa lay in the Stockholm harbor for 333 years. In 1961, she was brought up from centuries of enveloping mud. With the salvage came skeletons of the drowned along with about 24,000 preserved objects. In 1990, the Vasamuseet, located less than a nautical mile from the spot where she capsized, opened to display her restoration. The museum -- with its interactive exhibits and films that bring to life the Vasa and her times -- has become Scandinavia's most visited attraction. [continue]
Posted at 03:34 PM on August 27, 2005. | Permalink |
This text-only version of Mirabilis.ca displays only the last two days' worth of blog entries; I hope you'll find this convenient for viewing the site on your mobile device. For those who prefer more entries on one page, there's a "last 7 days" PDA version of Mirabilis.ca at http://www.mirabilis.ca/pda7.html .
Is there anything I can do to make this text-only version more useful for you? If so, please write and let me know. (If you do send a suggestion, I might even make a special version of the blog, just for you!)
- Christine