Recent comments in /f/history

Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j6k0foc wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

Err... generating power from pyramids? I thought it sounded that style.

Pyramids are decent lightning rods, like anything tall and pointy (and massive)... but there's no way to gather that power. Mountains also "generate a lot of power," but there's no way to harness that to a useful purpose, either.

The pyramids were tombs.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j6jdv7g wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

A semi conductor tech? How does that work? Could you explain that, please?

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I expect neither Anatolia nor CA could've produced a lot of high quality iron/steel, or else the iron age would've started. Iron was also noted to be very expensive, sometimes worth more than gold, through that era.

Late Hittites were accepting iron as tribute in minas, so it was treated like a precious metal. Possibly a way they were getting iron was as a byproduct of the bronze/copper industry, collected semi-smelted iron nuggets that were a defect in the copper ore.

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dpdxguy t1_j6j3pmr wrote

Reply to comment by DaFugYouSay in The Chickens and the Bulls: The Rise and Incredible Fall of a Vicious Extortion Ring That Preyed on Prominent Gay Men in the 1960s by PhillipCrawfordJr

>nobody would have bothered blackmailing them in the first place.

The article clearly states that the extortion ring went after targets big and small.

However, it also seems clear that the primary reason the police went after the extortion ring was that it was making the police look bad to the powers that be. IOW, it's the police that would not have bothered if (some of) the victims had not been wealthy and powerful

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