
Fact-checking Byzantine astrologers - benbreen
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/accounting-standards
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engi_nerd
Lapham's Quarterly is a treasure trove of things like this. It's well worth
the $39/year. And no, I'm not affiliated with it in any way. It's a magazine
that appeals to the same part of me that always liked James Burke's
"Connections", because each issue traces a different concept through various
eras and prominent people.

~~~
JoBrad
He had a short TV show that I loved (also called Connections)

~~~
engi_nerd
He had several Connections series, as I recall. All absolutely excellent.

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acqq
From:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexiad](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexiad)

"The Alexiad (original Greek title: Ἀλεξιάς, Alexias) is a (...) historical
and biographical text written around the year 1148 by the Byzantine historian
and princess Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexius I."

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natch
That was interesting.

Not the text, so much. But the experience of reading it while assuming the
writer was contemporary.

At first I thought: this writing is weird. Was this even written by a human?
Is this one of those generated articles written by programs that generate text
for adword spamming?

Then I read more carefully (was curious not about the content, because there
wasn't much meat to it, but about the writer) and noticed the "my father"
part, and realized why it was so weird.

Which raises the question: would an ancient person, even assuming good
translation, pass a Turing test?

