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[Raphael]

I've been playing rather a lot of the old Sim City 2000 recently. I guess I got the idea from the fact that I've been reading a lot about the life of Robert Moses recently, so I was wondering whether I could built a virtual city without ruining a lot of virtual people's lives in the process.

Anyway, I'm posting here because one of my recent airports ended up looking like this, I I kind of doubt this would be a good idea in real life:

probablynotsuchagoodidea.png (204.98 KiB) Viewed 13400 times

I should note that in Sim City 2000, you can't just built airports however you want. Instead, you zone a certain amount of land for airport use, and if it's the right size and shape, the game will sooner or later built a runway and other airport-related things on it.

Oh, and in my current game, two out of my three neighboring cities are named "Jenna":

surroundedbyjennas.png (133.77 KiB) Viewed 13400 times

[malloc]

Oh, and in my current game, two out of my three neighboring cities are named "Jenna":

Perhaps they're in separate states like the Kansas Cities in Kansas and Missouri.

[bradrn]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

[keenir]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I can recc American Indian Victories by Dale Cozort...each chapter has a what-if for a portion of Native American history (including such events as King Philip's War) - but in order to do that, he first explains what did happen historically.

And there's the more recently published Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs by Whittaker...at least one chapter provides a look at dynastic history of the Triple Alliance from its founding to after Cortez arrived.

[bradrn]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I can recc American Indian Victories by Dale Cozort...each chapter has a what-if for a portion of Native American history (including such events as King Philip's War) - but in order to do that, he first explains what did happen historically.

And there's the more recently published Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs by Whittaker...at least one chapter provides a look at dynastic history of the Triple Alliance from its founding to after Cortez arrived.

Er… not those Indians! I meant, you know, the ones who live in India.

[zompist]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I've written such a book. But I'm happy to recommend some of the books I found useful, roughly in the order I'd recommend.

John Keay, India: A History. Excellent overview.
A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India. Not up to date, and doesn't cover Muslim India, but a lovely survey.
Octavio Paz, In Light of India. More a cultural essay, but fun.
Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History. On Hinduism and how it developed.
Anand Giridharadas, India Calling: An intimate portrait of a nation's remaking. A look at modern India, which is a good corrective after reading too much about ancient times.
Jon Wilson, The Chaos of Empire: the British Raj and the Conquest of India. Good corrective on romanticized views of the Brits.

[Man in Space]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I've written such a book.

And I have found it quite approachable and enjoyable.

[bradrn]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I've written such a book.

I am aware, yes! But he’s not at all a conworlder. Your recommendations do look like ones he’d enjoy, though.

[keenir]

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

I've written such a book.

I'd come back online to mention your book, and I see you mentioning both it and a collection of other books. Only other book I could've suggested would've been A Peaceful Realm about the Indus Valley civilization. so, seriously, thank you for beating me to the post.

I am aware, yes! But he’s not at all a conworlder. Your recommendations do look like ones he’d enjoy, though.

I learned a great deal about Indian history from his book on the subject - ditto Chinese & Middle Eastern.

[zompist]

I am aware, yes! But he’s not at all a conworlder. Your recommendations do look like ones he’d enjoy, though.

I learned a great deal about Indian history from his book on the subject - ditto Chinese & Middle Eastern.

Thanks for the sales and recommendation. They're all written for a beginner interested in that area.

But in a sense the first book you read doesn't matter too much. You need to absorb the basics. It's after 2 or 3 books that you want to make sure you're getting some varied perspectives, and details on things other books missed.

[malloc]

Apparently there was once a canid (member of the dog family) the size of a weasel, Leptocyon delicatus. That's what Colossol Biosciences should be reviving if you ask me.

[rotting bones]

I was (re)reading John James’s historical novel Not For All the Gold in Ireland, which is written from the perspective of a pagan Greek trader under the Roman Empire, and was struck by this passage:

When you have some skill or access to some commodity, and this has cost you a great deal of work in the past, then it is an act of impiety to the God who gave it to you not to show how much you value it by asking for it the highest price you can get. And if a man will not pay the price you demand, then he must go without. If he cannot pay for a fire or for food or for a doctor’s knowledge, then let him die of cold or hunger or disease. It is blasphemy for him to ask for food or firing or treatment free, and it is blasphemy for anyone to have pity on him and help him for nothing. This is the basic law of all religion, and the foundation of the science of medicine: no man is entitled to life unless he can pay for it.

I’m curious to know: does this reflect sentiments expressed by any real Greek (or Roman) writer? Or is this attitude just an invention of James’s?

Greek thinkers generally had a low opinion of commerce. This is also apparent in Aristotle, who was more interested in investigating the world as it exists than changing it. It's a common feature of premodern Western elites that they thought of money as dirty. There was a time when nobles were embarrassed to be seen carrying money. (Western traditionalists who valorize capitalism are as full of shit as the liberals who associate materialism with conservatism.) I'm sure this attitude wouldn't have been shared by premodern tradespeople, but I don't know if their books, if any, survived. They weren't the elites in any case, and the elites usually shape opinion on religious principles.

Greek philosophers had other issues. Plato's Laws are extremely harsh, as is Aristotle's treatment of slaves. They thought a great man is a person who lives an honorable life and owns enough slaves that he doesn't have to work himself. In some ways, Greek philosophers were more liberal than almost any thinker in the 21st century, but most of the mainstream thinkers had categories of lesser beings they looked down on, and almost all of them placed slaves in that category. Slaves were so thoroughly dehumanized that Marxists call that time the slave era of production.

As for valuing divine gifts so much that one thinks selling them for cheap is an impiety, I have encountered similar attitudes in Indo-Tibetan tantra. There are stories in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism where teachers demanded gold from students. I was told Shingon Buddhism is not for the poor. I have heard similar things about Gurdjieff's school. The American university system has a similar attitude, as does Freudian psychoanalysis. In both Freud and tantra, the excuse is that the patient/student won't value the treatment/teachings otherwise. Tantra calls practicing without paying "stealing the teachings".

My father has expressed interest to me in finding a book on Indian history to read. Any recommendations?

(I think he’s looking for a fairly accessible and broad overview, if such a thing exists.)

Take your pick: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

[rotting bones]

Clarifications:

Greek gods did expect service from their worshipers, but I don't think the god's patronage would be seen as a commercial relationship.

IIRC Plato was an exception who did not want his city state to have slaves. However, you could argue that most of the citizens of his Republic would effectively be slaves.

[rotting bones]

OpenAI o3 crushed Grok 4 at chess. I guess pointless aggression doesn't give you superpowers after all.

[rotting bones]

I had a question that I wanted to ask the Random Thread. Not, I think, related to any of the recent topics here. But by the time I had gotten around to logging into the ZBB, I had forgotten what the question was. Where are trashy dystopian sci-fi brain scanners when you need them?

Yeah, I often have that problem when looking something up on Wikipedia. All the featured articles and latest news on the front page distract me and I forget why I originally came there.

Citicoline supplements?

[WeepingElf]

I wish to say something about malloc/Eddy here. I have always perceived him as a kindred spirit. He and I have quite something in common: we are both politically leaning to the left and have an autism-spectrum condition (and of course, we are both interested in conlangs and conworlds). The main difference seems to be that I sought and found professional help (it helped, of course, that I live in a country where low-income people like me have access to good health care) and worked on myself to cope with my condition. It was hard work, and still is, but it can be done.

[Raphael]

Does anyone have any writing tips for writing a second draft - I mean the physical writing process itself, not the question of what to write - in a way so that you can easily look up the first draft while typing the second draft, and in such a way so that you neither have to use two monitors nor print out much of the first draft? The software I'm using is Libreoffice.

[bradrn]

Does anyone have any writing tips for writing a second draft - I mean the physical writing process itself, not the question of what to write - in a way so that you can easily look up the first draft while typing the second draft, and in such a way so that you neither have to use two monitors nor print out much of the first draft? The software I'm using is Libreoffice.

Put two windows side by side?

[Raphael]

Put two windows side by side?

Thank you, that's a good idea! It means that I have to make do without the rightmost buttons in the Libreoffice menus, but I hardly ever use them anyway.

[Raphael]

Something random that I suddenly started wondering about:

Has anyone ever written a book on the history of Europe's cultural relationship with lions? I mean the actual animals, not some kind of metaphor. Though, of course, their use as a metaphor would have to be an important part of such a history.

I mean, at first sight, it's a bit weird: These days, lions are seen as living in the African savannahs, generally in parts of Africa that are a long distance from Europe. But despite that, they have long played an important part in some aspects of European culture, for instance in heraldry. And that didn't just start with European colonialism and genocide in Africa; it's a lot older than that.

Of course, once you know the relevant parts of history, there's not much of a mystery left. Lions used to live in a lot of places where they're extinct now, as far north as what is now Turkey. Even relatively recently, they still lived in the northernmost parts of Africa. And throughout history, Southern Europe, and later most of Europe, had all kinds of contacts with North Africa.

Still, I wonder if there's any book-length treatment of what I've just written. And if there isn't, perhaps someone should write it?