The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: Greece

  • The World’s First Computer

    This extremely complex device was made 3000 years ago!

  • Off Limits

    There’s nothing on earth that makes me want to do something more than being told I cannot do that thing. Not that I’m going to disobey The Law writ large. I won’t even shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater. Laws are generally put into place for the protection of society. But some arbitrary rules…

  • Kayaköy, a Turkish Ghost Town

    Relocation is in the forefront of my mind these days, as I just moved to Washington State from Florida. This made me recollect something I hadn’t thought of in years, the ghost towns of Turkey. There are many of them. Because of the Greco-Turkish War from 1919-1922, Turkey would like us to believe that there…

  • Our Expanding Family Tree: Cousins Coming out of the Woodwork

    One of the largest and oldest organisms on earth is Pando, a Quaking Aspen clone in Utah that covers over 106 acres. Looking at it, you’d assume that it was just a bunch of individual trees, but it’s actually one organism, and it’s thousands of years old. We didn’t know that until recently. I think…

  • Chaos: The New Normal?

    A coworker of mine was describing a situation in which he and his brother were watching TV and they got into an argument which then escalated into a fist fight, and the police had to be called. Just a regular Tuesday night at Chez Coworker, apparently. I remember thinking, “Huh. My whole life, the police…

  • Where is China, Greenland and the Whole of Africa?

    Since I haven’t been able to afford international travel in the past several years, I travel vicariously by checking out the countries of origin of the people who visit my blog. WordPress is even kind enough to provide a nifty little world map, with the countries that have visited colored in for me. When I…