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Steve Bird

 Discussion on question by Starckman: …

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Steve Bird
Oct 20, 2023 13:00
I think you draw exactly the same parallels using modern corporate entities too. It all depends on what you count as "similar".
 

 Discussion on question by NationWideP…

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Steve Bird
Aug 30, 2022 15:35
I’m voting to close this question because the evidence provided in the question doesn't seem to support the assertion that "older books, white papers, and even kernels used the word dæmon, rather than daemon".
Steve Bird
Aug 30, 2022 15:35
I've just checked all of the old Unix/Linux manuals I have, going all the way back to a AT&T Unix System V user manual from 1986...and they all use daemon rather than dæmon. Not particularly conclusive I admit but I'm not sure that there was a great shift from one spelling to the other.
Steve Bird
Aug 30, 2022 15:35
Which community are you referring to in "if there's a reason the community sited at some point"?
 

 Discussion on question by Rubus: Has …

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Steve Bird
Mar 3, 2022 10:27
This might come down to a technicality. Strictly speaking, NATO doesn't have the ability to declare war on anyone as it doesn't have any forces of its own. The armed forces all belong to the member states, each of which can choose whether its forces are part of a NATO operation or not.
 

 Discussion on question by bigbb22: Ho…

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Steve Bird
Mar 1, 2022 17:25
The first line of the third paragraph seems to be missing a vital word. Nothing in the Wikipedia article says that they were particularly good at fighting, they just needed to be willing to throw themselves at the enemy to slow the invasion down.
 

 Discussion on question by Nemo: How d…

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Steve Bird
Nov 4, 2021 14:37
Haver you checked the potted history in wikipedia?
 

 Discussion on question by Abraham: Ho…

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Steve Bird
Sep 29, 2021 20:24
To answer this would require an unbiased survey of (at least) a representative sample of all of the German armed forces during the war. Given the risks in answering negatively to "Do you support the leadership and their ideology?" (or some variation of such), how useful would such a survey actually be?
 

 Discussion on question by Crossbow10:…

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Steve Bird
Aug 5, 2021 15:31
Also battlefields weren't static, troop formations moved about - having to collect up a pile of empty muskets to move forward (or back) would have been time consuming so the alternative would be simply to leave them behind (which would be prone to loss and damage).
Steve Bird
Aug 5, 2021 15:30
It's worth remembering that these soldiers had to carry anything they used on the battlefield all the way to the battlefield themselves. A musket was a long, heavy weapon (which was why they got dropped first when the soldiers were fleeing), so carrying a handful of extra weapons is going to be exhausting, cumbersome and unpopular.
 

 2020 History Moderator Election Chat

Open Discussion for history.stackexchange.com/election/1
Steve Bird
Oct 22, 2020 16:09
Mark & T.E.D., thanks for the answers. The opening remark mentions that the candidates are "committing a significant amount of their time", have you found that you need to spend more time on the site now that you're moderators than you did as (humble) users?
Steve Bird
Oct 22, 2020 15:41
Do people think that it's a benefit for a History SE moderator to have a broad interest in history in order to moderate the site effectively? Do professional historians have an advantage in that respect over history buffs (and the casually interested)?
 

 Discussion on question by hilchev: Ar…

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Steve Bird
Oct 16, 2020 07:00
I think the question also needs to allow for the fact that major centres of learning are not always in 'big' cities. For example, Oxford's population only reached 100,000 in the 1950s. In 1801 the population there was under 20,000. Likewise, Cambridge only passed the 100,000 mark in the late 1980s and in 1801 had a population of just 10,087.
Steve Bird
Oct 16, 2020 07:00
Whose definition of "genius/smart people" are you using?
 

 Discussion on question by Filippof: W…

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Steve Bird
Jul 12, 2020 18:01
What makes you assume that they are usually spear-shaped? Most flagpole finials that I've seen are balls. In fact, the site that you linked to offers only ball and eagle finials with no spear points at all.
 

 Discussion on question by Ælis: Is th…

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Steve Bird
Oct 8, 2019 01:31
I think this needs some stronger proof (that US citizens are more litigious than Europeans, that French lawsuits are more expensive, etc.) than "I often hear...".
 

 Discussion on question by Li Jun: Why…

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Steve Bird
Jul 1, 2019 16:46
I'm guessing the ancient history tag was added in direct response to your comment that "i ask about ancient town or village". It's very difficult to frame an answer when the scope of the question changes.
Steve Bird
Jul 1, 2019 16:46
You really need to make up your mind about which period you're discussing, the ancient world predates the middle ages (and the Viking era). So are you asking about ancient towns or medieval towns?
 

 Discussion on question by Alvaro Fuen…

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Steve Bird
Oct 12, 2018 16:53
I think this might be better answered by teachers rather than historians. At a guess it's because of time constraints - there's only so much history you can teach in the time given to history lessons and European schools will tend to prioritise European history over American history.
 

 Discussion on question by Franz Droll…

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Steve Bird
Jul 13, 2018 10:52
It might come down to the question that was asked, if you ask people if they are Christian they might say yes but if you ask them if they are a member of a Christian church they might say no.
 

 The Time Machine

General discussion for history.stackexchange.com. For urgent i...
1
Steve Bird
May 23, 2018 06:45
@T.E.D. I was just about to comment on the wave of homework essay questions that were appearing on the site in the last few days.
 

 Discussion on question by Matt Throwe…

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Steve Bird
Sep 6, 2017 13:33
@PatriciaShanahan I think you should expand that into an answer.
Steve Bird
Sep 6, 2017 13:33
@reirab In order that you could use evidence of mortar/marks on the doorway (or lack thereof), you would need to be sure that Henry used a given room, know what state the doorway was in prior to his stay and also be sure that nothing had changed in the 500 or so years since his stay. Also impracticality might be useful in determining that something is unlikely to be done but it's not proof that it wasn't tried. (Not that I'm supporting the idea in this case, simply that it's difficult to prove a negative).
 

 Discussion on question by Dr. Sushi: …

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Steve Bird
Aug 9, 2017 13:49
As you note in the question, the period of interest is "prior to the arrival of the Protestant church", therefore the Protestant-church tag is inappropriate for this question. Please stop adding it.
Steve Bird
Aug 9, 2017 13:49
The fact that you're interested in including Protestant sources does not make the question about the Protestant Church, therefore the tag is inappropriate.
Steve Bird
Aug 9, 2017 13:49
In which case, I would suggest that you re-word the question to include that information in the detail and remove the Protestant-Chuch tag since the question is not about them.
Steve Bird
Aug 9, 2017 13:49
Your date range seems a little early for the core of the question - the Reformation, when Protestant Church split away, only started in the 16th century.
 

 Discussion on question by Philip: Whe…

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Steve Bird
Jun 9, 2016 00:00
You're essentially asking how things would have changed if humans were technologically omniscient. Since this is purely speculative, it's off-topic for the History SE and you would be better off asking this on Worldbuilding, which does allow "what-if" questions.
Steve Bird
Jun 9, 2016 00:00
Your question does seem to pre-suppose that technological advance is driven purely by ideas and not by social and economic forces. It also seems to ignore that technological advance is rarely isolated; In your example of the steam locomotive, there had to be advances in the development of the steam engine to make it small enough and efficient enough to work as a self-propelling device before it could be viable. It wasn't waiting for the idea of a steam locomotive so much as waiting for the supporting technologies to allow a steam locomotive.
 

 Discussion on answer by Youstay Igo: …

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Steve Bird
Sep 27, 2015 03:19
Also you state that "A couple of men would disembark with the naphtha canister". How do they do that? What do they disembark onto? If you lighten the vessel by a couple of men, won't it ride higher in the water? Won't a couple of men climbing the forward tube (which is the only one big enough) unbalance the vessel, possibly causing it to heel over?
Steve Bird
Sep 27, 2015 03:19
If they cannot propel it. How do they get it anywhere near the enemy in the first place?
Steve Bird
Sep 27, 2015 03:19
"the operators would simply pull on the rope" So the rope passes through the hull of the sub; how do they stop water coming in through that hole? Also with having different sized tubes to the surface front and rear, it would be a nightmare to trim the vessel. How does the vessel propel itself into rope-length range of the enemy?
 

 Discussion on answer by Adam Davis: W…

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Steve Bird
Sep 10, 2015 14:09
I read the question and as I said in my first comment, a raft is the wrong vessel for the northern route chosen.
Steve Bird
Sep 10, 2015 14:09
"so what navigation?" - if they're not navigating, how do they know they're not sailing around in big circles? Even if they don't have a fixed destination, they want to know they're not going to wash up on the shore they left a few months earlier. Also I never said anything about the storm conditions needing to be constant. A day-long storm repeatedly drenching them with cold water in combination with a frigid wind will probably do the trick.
Steve Bird
Sep 10, 2015 14:09
I think that it's unlikely they would be able to manufacture a tent that was sufficiently sealed that it would keep out water from waves sweeping across the deck. The tent would also act as a subsidiary sail, especially in high winds, complicating handling and navigation.
Steve Bird
Sep 10, 2015 14:09
The choice of a northerly route (as in the question) would make the use of a raft much less successful. The seas would be rougher and the climate colder. This would mean that, to avoid deaths due to exposure, there would need to be some form of enclosed cabin where the people could shelter from the wind and water. Putting a weather-proof structure onto a basic raft would make it top-heavy and unstable, and also make sailing and navigating the raft more difficult.
 

 Discussion on question by TheLima: Ho…

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Steve Bird
Jun 1, 2015 12:42
As your examples show, the exact solution would vary depending on the chosen turret so there's going to be as many different answers as there are different turret designs.