BS: Random Traces From All Over

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:34 PM

Ah, but there is a connection between your two posts, Amos. Both have to do with attempts to prevent counterfeiting.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:22 PM

A ricochet from another partt of the jungle altogether:

"On a warm winter afternoon in Guangzhou, I accompanied Chinese police officers on a factory raid in a decrepit tenement. Inside, we found two dozen children, ages 8 to 13, gluing and sewing together fake luxury-brand handbags. The police confiscated everything, arrested the owner and sent the children out. Some punched their timecards, hoping to still get paid. (The average Chinese factory worker earns about $120 a month; the counterfeit factory worker earns half that or less.) As we made our way back to the police vans, the children threw bottles and cans at us. They were now jobless and, because the factory owner housed them, homeless. It was "Oliver Twist" in the 21st century. " (NY Times columnist)

Thanks for the exposition on Diocletius. Makes a bit more sense in that context.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:08 AM

Diocletian was trying to reform the economy of the Roman empire, and feared that if the alchemists succeeded in creating gold, its value would be lost and inflation would ensue.

Don't forget that Newton believed transformation of base metals to gold to be possible. Under the ancient system of four elements, every substance* was made up of a mixture of Earth, Air, Fire and Water where these were the 'ideal' versions of earth, fire, air and water. It should therefore be possible to rearrange the components to change one metal to another.

Newton rejected this system, but still believed that the fundamental elements were few, so the same argument applied. It was only via a 300 year diversion, through the 100-odd chemical elements, that Newton's few fundamental particles came to be known as quarks, and that no simple chemical reaction had the energy to provide the desired transformation.

As for Brother Lemert and Moncure Conway, I expect these are earlier or later alchemists, who are still around today, and still can't get their experiments to work except in a spiritual sort of way.

(*word used in the modern sense.)

Subject: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 10:07 AM

For those who feel the world is too defined, too ordered, and too local, I offer this entertainment: a thread in which to place short notes of completely random memes, bits of the unexpected, the irrelevant, the serendipitous and the sort of pieces of information that make you turn sharply to the left instead of continuing what you were looking at a moment ago. Here's an example:

It is interesting to note that when Diocletian issued his famous edict (referred to in Brother Lemert's letter) he believed that in burning the manuscripts of the alchemists he was destroying the source of the Egyptian gold supply. On this see "Demonology and Devil-Lore" in two volumes, by Moncure Conway, Vol. II, page 303.

A real "go-figger" sort of moment, huh?

Regards.


A