Raphael Misson

The only way I could get it would be to look it up, so I'm stumped. I never saw a movie with Wayne and Buttons in it.

While it's true that one man's privateer is another man's pirate, you can't deny that privateers would have had a different perspective on their role and this would most likely have impacted any subsequent "decent" behavior. Pirates dispensed with the rules of society as almost any court account shows (pleading with people not to follow their unfortunate path and/or claiming kinship with the devil and so forth). Privateers had not dispensed with those rules. Read some of the privateer accounts and compare them with what we have of the pirates. I recall a difference in attitude and behavior. (Of course, many pirate account are secondhand (Johnson) which probably colors the pirate narrative in those cases.) Still, I don't think that you can say that the behavior of a privateer would necessarily be the same as a pirate just because the Spaniards thought they were all pirates. One group has willingly forsaken their society and the other has not - which is germane to the original point of this post. (Whether legitimate privateers are treated as pirates when they got back is irrelevant to their behavior as long as they believe they are privateers. Blackbeard was a rogue through and through as his ultimate behavior indicates, so his pretending to be a privateer can't carry much weight in the "pirates are the same as privateers" discussion. )

As I mentioned in the 18th c. post, there are a few period accounts of pirates with tattoos. See this thread.

I dunno. If folks want to type in what they perceive as an accent, I don't see where it really matters that much. It does sometimes make reading their posts challenging, but if it gets to be too much, I just don't finish reading them. (We each have that option.) I figure if typing "aye," even incorrectly, pushes their buttons...more power to them. They just have to understand that not everyone will want to read their posts. In fact, I imagine they already do. But I can't see excoriating folks - even in a small way - for playing around. We are all just playing here. http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/w/whycanttheenglish.shtml For myself, I intend to write like the 17th and 18th century surgeons going forward in this forum. Just like my surgeon hero John Woodall: "In vvant of Licorice take iuice of Locorice halfe an ounce. In vvant of french barley take other barley, or for a neede wheat flower, boyle this gently to 4 or 5 quarts, then cleare it, and if it may be, keepe it not in the brasse pott, but in some earthen or glasse vessell, and if the party his heat be great, and have paine in his head, adde thereto so many drops of oyle or spirit of Vitrioll, as will a little change the taste sovverish, but not too tarte in any vvise; and if into all this drinke you put of Rose water, of wine vineger and Cinamon water, of ech only one spoonefull, it will doe well to mend the taste, if you have it, if not the matter is not great, let the Patient drinke often hereof. Further you may if you thinke good adde sirupe or iuice of Lemons {ounces} 4. If it be for one which is loose in his belly you may infuse of your succus Acatia herein some 2 or 3 {ounces}, and being cleared let him drinke warmed, and so put it into the rest. Also in want of Acatia if you put therein Galls in powder a litle, it will do well.” (Woodall, p. 35-6)

Actually, we have documented period accounts of pirates with tattoos. See this thread. However, I don't think they were as ubiquitous as you see in pirate movies. Tattoos seem to have been more exception than rule. (But this isn't the place to discuss this - check out the above-linked thread. )

I'm reading this book called Essentials of Sea Survival by Frank Golden and Michael Tipton and have found all sorts of interesting facts in it that are useless to my book, but are interesting none-the-less. Not all of these are about the sea, some are about humans and factors important to their ability to survive in sea conditions. So I thought I'd post them in here. Note that this doesn't necessarily have to do with period. "Between 1978 and 1998 more than 5,300 passengers were killed in ferry accidents around the world, making ferry travel 10 times more dangerous than air travel (Faith 1998). Most people are familiar with the story of the SS Titanic, popularized in and Oscar-winning Hollywood film, but the record to date for number of lives lost at sea in a single peace-time incident goes to the sinking of the passenger ferry Dona Paz, after a collision with a small oil tanker in the Philipine archipelago, on a calm moonless night on 28 December 1987. Of the estimated 3,156 people board the ferry, none of the crew and only 24 passengers survived. [1489 people died in the sinking of the Titanic]... Because of the absence of compartmentalization on their cargo decks, car ferries have proved to be inherently unsafe." (Golden and Tipton, p. 3) "Although the body uses most of its outer layer (the shell) as a variable insulator, the one exception is the scalp, where blood flow tends to remain constant regardless of temperature changes. In cold environments about 50 percent of total body heat production may be lost through the unprotected head of a lightly clothed individual in an equivalent air temperature of -4 degrees Celsius (24.8 degrees Fahrenheit)." (Golden and Tipton, p. 32,34) "People acclimatized to heat produce a greater volume of sweat, but its salt content is less than those who are unacclimatized. this response helps those acclimatized to heat to conserve salt." (Golden and Tipton, p. 36) I have always wondered about the process of getting "used to" warm temperatures. "But because sweat evaporation, not sweat production, cools the body, sweat that drips off the body has no cooling effect. It merely results in dehydration." (Golden and Tipton, p. 37) Somehow, I thought that was all interesting. I'll post more as I come across it.

Hmm. Apparently I have the ocean sailor's attitude. Like William, I am surprised.

Those are some hints! They seem so good, that I am going to make a complete guess. Out of Africa?

iPirate, I merged your topic with an existing one about Pacific pirates to keep the info all in one place. Hope you don't mind.

Is it possible to have a particular post appear at the top of each page of a thread? I am thinking specifically of game threads (like the movie quotes game) here - the rules need to appear over and over again or they get lost. This could also work in pass-along story threads (to remind people of who the characters are, for example), in the Roll Call thread in the PiP forum and in index threads so that the initial post containing all the indexes would appear at the top of each page. (People sometimes start chatting in such threads and the initial post of interest to those not involved in the chat gets lost, rendering the thread less useful.) So?

Conferring with the board?! Is that like linking into the hive mind? "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Actually, I don't believe there was never a rule about giving hints. (This has all been sort of fluid as we made the rules about forfeiting a turn up later in the game because it kept dying off. If a thread like this ain't active, only people with long memories can revive it.) I believe there was a rule that if the quote poster didn't certify that the quote was correct within a day or so, we would assume it was right or verify via Google and move on. (That was another problem we used to have. People would post a quote and never check to see if people had guessed it right.) However, it make make sense to establish some better delineated rules to keep the game going. How about these: 1. As long as the game is active, new quotes can only be posted by the person guessing the previously posted quote correctly. 2. If no one guesses a quote within one week of its posting, the previous quote is forfeited and a new quote can be posted by the first person to notice this. 3. If no one can guess a quote within 48 hours of posting, the quote poster must give a hint or forfeit their turn. 4. If someone guesses a quote, the quote poster must respond within 48 hours of forfeit their turn. 5. No one can exclude Duchess from guessing, not even Mission. I think two days gives people enough time to respond. What does everyone else think?

That implies the board has abilities that I don't even want to think about.

In the wot' de 'ell vein... 115 guest users in the last 15 minutes? Wot' de 'ell indeed! I think there's something funny about the user counter thingy.

Well, you can get the whole series for about $24 on Amazon new & used, so what the heck. That's a lot of hours of Napoleonic period entertainment....I just hope it's as good as the Sharpe's series. (Which runs you $300 on Amazon n&u.) Say, I see the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series is now clocking in at $110! That's about half what it was last year. I know what I want for Christmas this year...

I watched the Gregory Peck Horatio Hornblower movie last night and I noticed that they got a lot of details right in that one, based on the stuff I've read. Plus it's a pretty decent movie. (Although, if the crew had scurvy after being at sea for seven months as the surgeon reported, they would never look as good as that crew did. But it was made in the early 50s and as far as period correctness, it stands head and shoulders above many of the other movies from this period.) I just may have to check out the TV series. (Is it as good as the Sharpe TV series? I loved that one.)

I must have missed this one. Indeed, collecting antique medical equipment is one way I divert consistent sums of money from my savings. You're right about the really good stuff being abnormal (probably because the stuff we label as "not really good" is so easy to get) and you're right about the actual period stuff being too expensive. (Even if I managed to buy it, I'd be afraid to bring it to events for fear of its getting stolen.) What I've noticed about eBay is that occasionally some seller will get hold of a collection of interesting items (a doctor's antique instrument collection, a scale collection or some such) and then there is a surfeit of fascinating stuff to buy. If the seller puts it all on at once, you can usually get some stuff for reasonable prices because there's so much of it that the small group of antique medical instrument buyers focus on fighting over the sexy stuff. That's how I got my period scale with weights and box. (Well, really close to period.) Other than that...how many leech jars, speculums and alleged cocaine vials can the world at large really need? What I currently want is a dental pelican: They're used for removing teeth and they're proving to be really hard to find. So far, I haven't seen one for less than $500. That's far too much. (Anyone seen a repro pelican? I'm not proud...)

From the AP, via USA Today: Tanning beds now listed among top cancer risks "International cancer experts have moved tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation into the top cancer risk category, deeming them as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas. For years, scientists have described tanning beds and ultraviolet radiation as "probable carcinogens." A new analysis of about 20 studies concludes the risk of skin cancer jumps by 75% when people start using tanning beds before age 30. Experts also found that all types of ultraviolet radiation caused worrying mutations in mice, proof the radiation is carcinogenic. Previously, only one type of ultraviolet radiation was thought to be lethal. The new classification means tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation are definite causes of cancer, alongside tobacco, the hepatitis B virus and chimney sweeping, among others." Arsenic and old tanning beds...

Yeah, you'd probably be advised to post them somewhere that caters to such or put on your own website and then link to them. I don't think there is an option to upload such files to this forum. (When you "post pics", you are really sort of linking to them on the website where they reside, not putting them on this website. Well, unless you create a Gallery for yourself and upload them to that. At least that's my understanding.) Edit: Say, I just noticed that that question was asked six and a half years ago! What urged you to dredge this up?

Yeah, but I didn't know the quote. (I got about halfway through the first story in Sin City and turned it off. Not my cup of tea at all. Kinda' reminded me of Tarantino's movies - which I usually avoid as well.) Don't know Blackbead's quote either. (This whole post is just a waste, isn't it?)

Wow, it's been a decade or more since I read the book. Didn't he hide it by unscrewing the wall socket or the number plate of the door or something like that? My favorite Bond book is Diamonds are Forever. I read it every few years. (All women should be as cool as Tiffany Case - the one in the book, not the annoying one in the movie.) It was a crime that they wrote Ernie Cureo out of the script for that one. Wint and Kidd were far more fun, though. (Although they should have kept the scene with the "eighty percenter." But I guess that would have made them a lot less fun.) "Very...moving...Mr Kidd." "Heartwarming, Mr. Wint." "A glowing tribute, Mr. Kidd." (That's from DAF, I'm not putting a quote up to guess and violating the rules!)

Googling that and surfing through a few of their product photo pages, I noticed some of her. (Although that is a seriously crappy pic - you should lighten it up in a photo editing prog.) So if you want to paper your wall or something, check out the Brute Force Leather website. "I'm on the Brute Squad." "You are the Brute Squad!"

The very one. Casino Royale was the first Bond book, written by Ian Fleming and published in 1953. It was subsequently made into a (stiffly filmed and mostly unwatchable IMO) episode of the TV show Climax! in 1954 with Bond portrayed as an American agent(!). Fleming then sold the rights to this novel in 1955 to someone other than Broccoli & Salzman (who would make all the other official Bond films beginning in 1962). CR eventually wound up in the hands of Chester K. Feldman, who made a truly mind-bogglingly bizarre alleged Bond parody in 1967, using only some of the names from the novel. Rather waste two-plus hours watching this confusing and odd mess, I suggest reading the Agony Booth recap of it. The current holders of the Bond movie license, acquired the rights in 1999 and used it to 'reboot' the Bond series in 2006. Quite a twisted tale, isn't it? Personally, I love the main title credits. I can just sit and watch them over and over (and have done so many times.) If you try this, pay attention to the backgrounds. This makes it your turn to post a quote to be guessed.

And a head of logic. Donnas? Well, there's the one I met at PiP...and...I think that's about it. (I'm certain I've met others, but that's the only one I'd call a friend.) See, I figured she was too busy to read that thing.

Further research suggests you are right, Ed. I wonder if the scissors were added to the kit? They're the things that look stainless to me. Well, those and the saw blade, but that's not that surprising because saw blades were replaced. (The other instruments mostly seem to have a dull patina and even some corrosion that suggests a raw metal to me. It's mostly guesswork, though. This is why eBay is tricky - lucky I am not so particular that the instruments I purchase are certifiably GAoP era. Lucky for my wallet, too.) However, I am pretty sure that I read that ebony handles went out with stainless medical instruments because of the risk of infection. Yet another reason the scissors may not belong to the original kit.