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Here's one thing that has bugged me for a while. Why is it said that the great red spot is around 500 years old? How do we know that it hasn't been around for much longer?

Do we have before/after evidence that at one point it didn't exist, and then around 500 years ago it existed?


In fact we don't even know that it's been there for 500 years. It's only been continuously observed for 187 years.

While there were earlier observations of large spots on Jupiter, it's not 100% certain they were actually the same storm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Red_Spot

To extend, a series of disjoint astronomical observations of the Earth would likely show a hurricane/cyclone/typhoon somewhere, but it wouldn't necessarily follow that they were all the same one.


I've always heard the "at least 500 years old" sentiment, because Galileo describes it in his observations.


Where is that said?


Folks… despite the 'dreadful' link baiting in the title, this is a pretty great article.


Nothing linkbaity about it. "Dread" as in "fear of God" is a common theme in western Christianity, especially around Bach's time (and still is in some cases today, cf. the Rastafarian dreadlocks being a symbol of respect for the power of God). And in this sense, "fear" is meant less as "scary haunted house" kind of fear, and more as respect and obedience to the divine power.

Also of interest: the etymology of the word "dread"[0]; Fear-God Barebone, the brother of the more famous Praise-God Barebone, for whom the "Barbone's Parliament" during the English Commonwealth takes its name[1][2]; and the theological theory behind the idea of the fear of God[3].

[0]: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise-God_Barebone

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barebone's_Parliament

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_God


The phrase itself is well known and has been kicking around for ages. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous drug trip:

"And close your eyes with holy dread"

But also Wycliffe's Bible, from the late 1300s:

"The hooli drede of the Lord dwellith in to world of world"


Puritans had the best names. Praise-God's son was named "Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone"


Ah, fantastic. Some cultures still do names like that: I once met a woman from Zimbabwe whose name translated as "Merciful Lord", which I thought was pretty cool.


Upvoted. Despite the sibling comment (+ thread) explaining quite well (thank you) about "dread" and "holy dread", that's not something everyone is knowledgeable about, and as such the title can appear to be "baity". Especially as a non-native speaker, as well as someone not into devotional music and its history, this comment was appreciated, and it was what made me decide to read it, which I'm glad I did! Thanks!


Musician checking in. Reading music in the original notation I have found to be particularly enlightening.

Where the manuscript writer (or print publisher) chose to put bar lines, for instance, can give clues as to intent in performance. I'm thinking specifically about Venetian publishers in the 17th century -- but there are plenty of other examples.

Notation can be incredibly important when trying to discern intent in some disciplines.


Would you mind to elaborate a bit more? Seems to be very interesting fact.


Picture a piece for 3 players -- 2 soprano instruments and Basso Continuo (a bass instrument + let's say, harpsichord). It's a piece with a recurring harmonic structure; say, Passamezzo or ciacona -- think Pachelbel Canon.

The BC in this particular instance might only have barlines every 8 measures. The soprano parts might have barlines every 8 measures too, but might also have them where a significant change to their melodies change. Like, when a flurry of 16th notes begin to crop up.

Now, this isn't always the case -- it's definitely inconsistent, but such things show up enough that those hints cannot be discounted at all, and seem to be enough of a performance hint to at least be noted and appreciated by the performer.


Was bar placement not standardized to be at the end of every measure?


No, bars were not standardised at all!

One could interpret placement of barlines as something close to paragraph markers -- not all the time, but often enough that they seem to indicate specific intent.


It's great for me to hear that Grendel's is still there. I used to love to go there for their Sour Cream Chocolate cake.

I don't imagine Elsie's diner is there (and also Tommy's). I loved to get bagels at Elsie's of a morning, knowing that the bagel would be infused with whatever else was on the grill that morning.


Elsie's has been gone for a good couple of decades. I loved their sandwiches and thick frappes (which were called Westerns as I recall).


Wow, how is this not a thing?

Great idea.


I used to hang out there all the time in the '80s. My most memorable moment would have to be the time I complained to the waitress about the cockroaches that scurried from beneath my plate. Her answer?

"What do you expect from a restaurant that's in the f*cking basement?"

Strangely, that experience didn't stop me from returning to Algiers…


As a grad student and later denizen of the area, I loved to hang out at Cafe Algiers. I have fond memories of a young waitress dumping a scalding hot pot of coffee onto my lap, then barely saying "sorry". At least they didn't charge me for the coffee.


Are any developers avoiding working on IoT devices/interfaces because of the uncertainty regarding the security of these devices?

I have no idea of the liability of developers in this space, but the fact that the question even comes up in my mind certainly gives me pause.


"Please don't roll your own security" isn't much of an option when many of these things are running on custom stuff from the ground up. But, I doubt many will pay for a secure foundation to run on... Makes me wonder if the windows for IoT has any promise.


I guess my uninformed concern is… if I write an app that has an interface that manages a device that is suddenly embroiled in a class-action lawsuit, what are the chances that I'd be sucked into that lawsuit?


Watching this made me nostalgic for world.std.com, in Boston -- that was many folks' first dialup ISP.


To be clear: It's a reed organ kit enclosed in a box that looks like a bible.


As a musician, I've often wondered how a performer whose native language contained such words as "allegro", "largo", "andante" interpreted those markings vs me, whose native language does not contain those words.

To me, "allegro" is a tempo marking, not a state of being, for the most part.

I'm not actually sure who is getting the short end of the stick, in this particular instance, to tell you the truth.


It's easy to assume that a word has some sort of underlying notion, and that an Italian might think of "largo" slightly differently because it also means "generous" or "free". However, in practice, words often develop distinct meanings that don't necessarily affect each other. For example, the notion of bar (a musical notation, a pole, an alcohol establishment, or the law exam) are quite separate even if they may have had some common ancestry.


I am thinking it's a question of filters. I first encountered 'despacio' in a piece of music. Now that I'm living in a spanish-speaking country, whenever I come up to that word, the first filter is that piece of music; the second filter is the actual meaning of the word.


That would be Italian, wouldn't it?

As a fellow musician, I've wondered the same.


Your comment brings up a good question. Would a spanish-speaker transliterate those terms into a musical context, or into a language context first, since the words themselves are pretty equivalent?


Most are suficiently different (allegro would be alegre in spanish) or unused (andante) to keep the musical context. But it's easy to grasp the musical context from the language one anyway (in the case of largo and lento).


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