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Items to fit into your overhead compartment |
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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| I'm mostly sharing this PopSci article because it's interesting archaeology, but there's also a computer-age twist. Construction workers find Viking graves linked to King ‘Bluetooth’  The site includes relics illustrating a ‘vast and dynamic world.’ Construction workers digging about four miles north of Aarhus, Denmark have accidentally discovered a “spectacular” Viking gravesite. That's the interesting bit, to me at least: that it wasn't a deliberate dig in a known burial mound or settlement site, but just some semi-random place. Dating back to the second half of the 10th century, the archeological trove may even tie directly to one of Denmark’s most famous rulers: King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson. And yes—his legacy is tied to the handy wireless feature in your smartphone. Hence the computer-age twist, however tenuous and speculative it might be. Hopefully the archaeologists involved work more reliably than the ancient king's namesake. Human remains such as bones and teeth were also found at the site along with smaller, less ornate graves that possibly held an elite family’s enslaved workers. Sometimes we forget that slavery, in some form or another, was the norm rather than the aberration throughout most of human history. It wasn't always tied to racism like we tend to think of the concept. I'm not defending the practice, mind you. Archeologists speculate the burial site is probably related to a nobleman’s farm located less than 0.65 miles away. Okay, look. I get that PopSci has a mostly US audience to target, so they convert to units this back-asswards country is familiar with. But would it have killed them to phrase it as "about 1km away?" The son of King Gorm the Old, Harald ruled over Denmark and Norway from around 958–986 CE... At which point, presumably, the Nordic countries could be described as Gormless. ...and allegedly earned his nickname from a conspicuously colored tooth. As they didn't find said tooth, I'm withholding judgement on whether Bluetooth was actually involved in the burial site. His influence is so prominent that during the 1990s, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson picked “Bluetooth” as the working name for a technology intended to “unite” the computer and cellular service industries. I suppose that's a better name than, say, Leif, though I'd wager more people knew of Leif Erikson than Harald "Bluetooth." Its recognizable icon still used today? The Nordic rune for “B,” also featured prominently on King Bluetooth’s Jelling Stone. Only part of the logo is the runic "B," or berkana, or bjarkan. It also incorporates a "K" or kaunaz, which has associations with fire, torches, and even death, and I'm still not clear on why the kaunaz is in there except to make the whole thing look like a variant on hagalaz, which is associated with transformation. That bit of symbolism is the truly appropriate one. When, that is, it actually works. Yes, I know something about Nordic runes. No, I don't ascribe them mystical properties. But symbols are what we make them, and I've always been amused at this connection between 21st century technology and 10th century kingdoms. |
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Anyone who has dealt with the courts wonders, "What crazy person designed this?" Unfortunately, my daughter is currently enmeshed in the system and some of the hoops she has to jump through just don't make any sense at all.
