3 ms·

Fact-checking Byzantine astrologers

• acqq 11y ago
  From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexiad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexiad "The Alexiad (original Greek title: Ἀλεξιάς, Alexias) is a (...) historical and biographical text written around the year 1148 by the Byzantine historian and princess Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexius I."
• engi_nerd 11y ago
  Lapham's Quarterly is a treasure trove of things like this. It's well worth the $39/year. And no, I'm not affiliated with it in any way. It's a magazine that appeals to the same part of me that always liked James Burke's "Connections", because each issue traces a different concept through various eras and prominent people.
  • JoBrad 11y ago
    He had a short TV show that I loved (also called Connections)
    • engi_nerd 11y ago
      He had several Connections series, as I recall. All absolutely excellent.
• natch 11y ago
  That was interesting. Not the text, so much. But the experience of reading it while assuming the writer was contemporary. At first I thought: this writing is weird. Was this even written by a human? Is this one of those generated articles written by programs that generate text for adword spamming? Then I read more carefully (was curious not about the content, because there wasn't much meat to it, but about the writer) and noticed the "my father" part, and realized why it was so weird. Which raises the question: would an ancient person, even assuming good translation, pass a Turing test?