Official Random Fact/Random Thought Thread!

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The manor houses of medieval England had a fire pit in the middle of the room. 100% of the heat, 100% of the smoke.

A friend has journals from his grandmother's family circa late 1800's. There was one entry that said it was so cold that the ice in the kettle on the kitchen stove hadn't melted in three days, and the stove was running wide open.
 
An interesting part of history is the degree of advanced tech for building, including central heating through indirect heated floors, water supply and sewerage systems, etc. that the Romans developed and deployed during their occupation of what became England. Started maybe 50 years AD, lasted some 350 years if memory serves.

When they left, the ability to maintain those systems left with them. Within a couple hundred years or so, the people (Saxons, Britons, and Vikings) living there were back to building fires in the middle of a wattle hut with no chimney, or an old Roman building and venting the rooms through holes they had bashed in the roofs.
 
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I've had bread my father made in the freezer that was there when he died. That's been 24+ years now. His bread was terrible. He was a good baker, but he got the notion of doing everything himself, including grinding raw grain to make flour. He was NOT a good miller, and he bought large quantities of ingredients, so they went bad before they got used. His bread was like a brick with a lead core, and tasted like it was pulled out of a 19th century wall. I saved though, cause he made it. There was zero chance of me eating any, but it was there.

There's been some disturbing trends affecting my ability to get snus from Sweden, so I've made some sizeable purchases that added significantly to my already large stockpile, and I barely have any room in my freezer for food. It's packed with tobacco. Well, I had two of my father's bricks in there taking up room I could use, and the choices were me dying with it in there, or feeding it to the birds. The sensible option of course is feeding it to the birds, so that's what I've been doing. I'm on the second loaf now. It's been an especially cold winter, so it's a nice bonus for the critters, but it's a melancholy feeling. It's a bit of the past gone forever.
 
Near a quarter century is a long time to hold on to bread, friend. I do understand the sentiment though. At least you're feeding something with it. That gives you a little more time, and quietude to contemplate all the days that led to there. So much better than unceremoniously dumping it in the bin.
 
A squirrel stole the second loaf today. I had broken some of it off yesterday, but the remaining piece was hard as a brick(*see first post :^D ). I couldn't break it using my hands or banging it against a log, so I just left it for the birds to deal with. They have sharp lips. The squirrel took it once, and I found it halfway across the yard, so I brought it back. He took it again, and I don't feel like looking for it. Whatever. If the squirrel likes it, that's great. Wasn't what I had in mind, but I like squirrels.

*NOTE: I doubt it was made that hard. Probably decades of freezer burn caused that to happen, but I'm sure it still sucked when it was fresh :^D
 
My boy cat just told me he wanted to be pet. He was standing on the table trying to get my attention, and I was talking to him, but not touching him. He finally started petting himself to show me what he wanted. He was rubbing the side of his head with his front paw. He was satisfied when I gave in and rubbed his head for him. Funny animals.
 
I think I'd like a wood stove. A stove made out of wood that is. If I were a skilled woodworker, I'd have to put something together. It's a lot of space expended for a sight gag, but still... Maybe put speakers in it, and electronic flames you can view through the glass. To make it extra stupid, you could open the front door to reveal a stack of steel "burning" inside.
 
Something to consider.

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.

- Freeman Dyson
 
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