o/` Bel Canto – Rumour o/`
I watched a show on PBS (this link is worth clicking on, PBS really impresses me with how they provide relatively extensive websites for some of their programming) the other night about how a fungus growing on rye might have been the cause for many of the salem witch trials, and the deaths in thousands of similar cases across Europe. I had heard this theory of Ergot poisoning but had never actually watched a show completely explaining the theory. Anyway, during part of the show they were walking through a very old house in France and he said “watch your head, people were shorter when they made this house.” That comment made me wonder. Why were people shorter? Was it because their diet was worse than ours today so people had their growth stunted? Was it some sort of evolution where tall == good and we have been “bred” to be taller than our ancestors? Was it something else that I’m not aware of? Well, I have the whole wealth of knowledge from the internet in my den, so I decided to surf around.
After a couple google searches and coming across too many midget pages, I discovered some relavent pages. There is apparently some debate surrounding whether people really were shorter then. I found this page:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mark_Gist/height.htm
He makes some very interesting points… which include pointing out that the average height in the United States today is 5’8″ (I looked this up, it’s actually 5’9″ according to this CDC study, but the point is still clear). And:
“in centuries past, houses had much lower doorways, not because their inhabitants were shorter, but to reduce the circulation of cold drafts. (References from several periods and social classes support this.) The same is true with beds. In prior centuries people habitually slept semi-reclining, propped up on bolsters, and their beds were shorter. Numerous illustrations from the 14th-17th centuries bear this out”
Hm. Of course I won’t base my entire idea on what some guy says on his webpage, but it certainly gave me something to think about. Then again I could just give up and go with teenmstie‘s theory:
“Well, people were still much more isolated back then than they are today. Its possible that some people in one area were tall, some in another area were tall, they got together, made midget pr0n, and normal size people were born.”
I watched this interesting thing happen yesterday afternoon:
16:12:11 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Barenjager (~zappa@…) [Ping timeout]
16:12:18 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Ruecian (~Ruecian@…) [Ping timeout]
16:12:37 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Lizard_Axe (LizardAxe@…) [Ping timeout]
16:12:37 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Xoria (~knsad@…) [Ping timeout]
16:13:10 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Wakatu (Un00bs@…) [Ping timeout]
16:13:10 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Ritler|Sleep (Ritley@…) [Ping timeout]
16:13:53 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: tortau (duh@…) [Ping timeout]
16:13:53 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: NightsB (lwejkhfadh@…) [Ping timeout]
16:14:43 [clockbot] !clockbot.xelium.net *** Notice — Client exiting: Mojoooo0 (mojojojo@…) [Ping timeout]
Puzzled by this I wondered if it was a server thing? Hm. What had gone on? coincidence?
Nope, you’re looking at what happens when power goes out in the northeast! It was about a half hour before I learned of the power outages, and then had to look back and laugh. Luckily none of the IRC servers on xelium were in the outage area so we didn’t have an
y trouble. And I didn’t either, yay for Philadelphia not losing power!
Today I, um… gosh %) Oh I cleaned the apartment a bit. We’re having Cargo Kitty over this weekend so I’m saving some of the cleaning for Monday, it’s silly to dust today when I will have to do it all over again on monday. This afternoon I was able to talk to my cousin Melissa on the phone, I saw her when I was visiting family back in June and she is visiting a friend in Philadelphia next weekend! She’s coming in thursday, and thinks it might be fun if we could meet somewhere and go out on friday… and she’s going to Hershey Park on Saturday and asked if we’d be interested in going as well. I’ll have to talk to Myk about it, and make sure we aren’t busy or anything… at least going out for dinner on friday would be nice. My cousin is calling on Monday so we can work out some real plans on what to do. Finally a member of my dad’s side of the family will get to meet Myk and see how wonderful he is %)
Tonight is going to be pizza and movie night. A friend of mine on IRC dcced me “Blue Velvet” woo! So we’ll probably rent a couple movies, and watch Blue Velvet. It should be a nice night, especially with Cargo here, yay!
*wanders off*