Siege of Melos

Melos Greece

JMSmith has a post up about power, and to illustrate his points he uses the Siege of Melos (416 BC).

I am not quite sure what JM is referring to. He might be talking about Europe waging economic warfare against Russia, or maybe he's talking about a battle within the catholic church. I'm just not real clear. But the Siege of Melos is a history lesson worth repeating. Return of Kings has a good synopsis.

Kalabaka Greece

Kalabaka, Greece

Came across this image on daily timewaster and wondered how well Google's 3D Map would render it. Pretty well, as you can see.

Google's vision of Kalabaka, Greece

Google's 3D Maps are pretty cool. Follow the link, hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and the left mouse key on your mouse, drag the mouse around, and the whole town comes alive in 3D. It's pretty amazing. Doesn't work everywhere, notably most of China, but more and more of the world is being mapped by LIDAR, which, near as I can tell, is how we get these 3D renderings.

Update a week later replaced image that Blogger somehow managed to lose.

Railroads!

Completing the Transcontinental Railroad

The Orthosphere tells us that today marks the 150th Anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Vunderbar! But then he mentions that "While railroads in the sense of wheeled carts rolling on tracks have existed since antiquity . . .", which sends me on a Wiki-wander, which turns up an ancient railroad, or sorts, in ancient Greece.

Diolkos - Ancient road for transporting ships across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece

Map showing location of the Diolkos railway in Greece

The 5 mile long roadway was a rudimentary form of railway, and operated from c. 600 BC until the middle of the 1st century AD. - Wikipedia

Going from one side of the Isthmus by sea would entail a 500 mile voyage which you might be able to complete in a day but could very easily take a week.