Jonathan Dean

@hergrim

Delivery driver and r/AskHistorians mod. Dabbler in medieval history, fantasy nerd, Australian. They/Them 🏳️‍⚧️

252 Folgt2.348 Follower2.929 Posts

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Jonathan Dean@hergrim· 9d

This is why I'm not allowed to worldbuild. Things inevitably end up looking like a conspiracy board.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jun 8

4) Place the lid on the frypan and simmer for ~15 minutes. 5) Add the frozen peas and either the curry blocks or, if using curry powder, 2tbsp of plain flour, and simmer until the blocks are dissolved/the sauce thickens. 6) Serve over mashed potato or rice

A light blue ceramic bowl on a glass hotplate next to the frypan. It contains a base layer of brown rice, with curried sausages on top. The curry sauce is a light brown, and the components of the curry are clearly sausage, carrot, potato and peas, with the onion harder to see and the lentils nearly invisible.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jun 8

What you need is, approximately, 1/2 a kilo each of carrot, potato, frozen peas and meat, with two sliced brown onions, a cup of red lentils and two cups of beef-style stock made from powder. Normally I use Keen's curry powder, but dad never used the S&B blocks I bought him, and they're OOD.

A portrait style photo of an electric frypan full of discrete ingredients on a glass style electric stove with white tile spalshback in the rear.

The frypan contains two 2L iceream containers, each about half full, one of which has carrots and the other of which has potatoes, a plastic container for sliced cheese containing two sliced brown onions, a 500g packet of thin sausages, a 1kg bag of frozen peas and two packets S&B curry mix, one mild and one hot.

A portrait style photo of a yellow cutting board on a dark kitchen bench with white cabinents underneath. On the cutting board is half a litre of Massel's Beef Style stock in a 1L measuring jug and a cup of red lentils.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· May 11

I was trying to see if the h264ify plugin would let me play YouTube videos on my old netbook, when this video came up. I didn't realise that Robert Pattinson was an ancient historian as well as an actor. Or maybe they just mixed him up with @roelkonijn.bsky.social and called him in by accident?

A screenshot of YouTube that was definitely not modified by an unskilled hack using GIMP, a program they have almost no familiarity with.

The taskbar of the computer resembles that of Windows XP, as it's a Linux distro known as "FreeXP", and it shows both Firefox and Htop running.

The putative video screenshot has a disheveled looking Robert Pattinson looking at a laptop screen in the lower left corner, taking up approximately a third of the screen, with a blue background on a vertical top-to-bottom gradient (light to dark), and a still from the movie "The 300 Spartans" extending from the top right corner to a third of the screen from the right, and approximately half the screen top to bottom.

The still from "The 300 Spartans" has the Spartans in a hollow "wedge" formation, advancing cross rocky terrain towards four single lines of "Persian" infantry, with the sea to the right hand side and some small trees and rocks on the left.

The title of the video, which is not full screen or in theater mode, is "Ancient Warfare Expert Rates 10 Battle Tactics in Movies and TV | How Real Is It? | Insider", and on the right hand side of the screen are an ad and other Insider videos.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· May 1

A Reddit comment from a user named "ItsFridaySomewhere" that reads:

"You could have just spent that $20 on a hentai dating sim on Steam and I'd have judged you less for it."

It has 2.4k upvotes.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Apr 26

I've been trying to reconstruct the terrain at the time of the Battle of Agincourt, as best I can, based on some very early 17th century paintings, the 19th century cadastral maps, 19th century military maps and 1950s topographical maps. It's a lot to try and wrap my head around.

A crudely drawn map of the area in which the Battle of Agincourt took place, kludged together from a variety of sources dating from the 17th century down to the 1950s. The background is white, with orange contour lines and the 19th century road network drawn in black.

The village of Azincourt (labelled "Agincourt" on the map) is in the top right of the map, with Tramceourt to the left, about in the middle of the map. Maisoncelle is at the bottom of the two, roughly in between the two other towns.

The village extents, including assumed gardens and closes, are in a yucky blue-green colour intended to be reminiscent of the 19th century military maps, with dark green woods. A small section below Azincourt is lighter green, potentially being where some prominent hedges once were.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Feb 18

I accept no responsibility for what any of y'all do with this: marshdeer.github.io/xkcd2501-gen...

A modified version ox xkcd 2501, featuring a male and female stick figure.

Dialogue is as follows

Female stick figure: Medieval English archery is second nature to us historians, so it's easy to forget that the average persion probably only knows primary sources like CCR Ed. III, V4, P29 and 7 Hen. IV, c.7.

Male stick figure: And 33 Hen. VIII, C.9, of course.

Female stick figure: Of course.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jan 18

I've been down a rabbit hole today and learned about the VBR CAR; its effectively a version of the G11 you can make in your shed. It looks and functions a lot like a late 19th/early 20th century rifle, just in caseless form.

Take a stereotypical steampunk rifle - all wood and shiny metal, with the ergonomics and general aesthetic of a brick - and give out a giant rectangular magazine and a bipod. There is a gap between the magazine and the barrel extending from just behind the pistol grip to just ahead of the trigger guard.

That's a VBR CAR.

An imagine of the action of the VBR CAR without the buttstock attached. You can see that the rotary chamber is actuated by a rack and pinion system and that the vertical ammunition is loaded via a top arm that pushes it down from the magazine into the action, much as the G11.

There are two compression recoil springs, one in a straight line with the barrel and the other at a 45 degree to it, while there is a tension spring above the straight line compression spring.

The whole system is a combination of a milled block and bent/stamped components.

All the components laid out after field stripping the rifles. It really is just a combination of flat pieces of steel and a giant milled steel block.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jan 2

Bloody oath!

A Tweet or Skeet from E. J. Dawson (@ejdawsonauthor).

Text: My husband upset me this morning and now I'm inflicting it on all of you.

The is an image of a hot drow woman with a sword and buckler next to Saxon Hale, a buff shirtless Australian man with chest hair in the shape of Australia.

Below the drow woman is the caption "Drow Elves" with the following bullet points

- Live in a place called the Underdark
- Exiled from the surface

Under Saxon Hale is the caption "Australians" with the following bullet points:

- Live in a place Down unda
- Exiled by the English.

At the bottom, below both images, is the phrase "Known for dangerous creatures including big spiders.

Conclusion: Drow have Australian accents.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Nov 28

If you see this, I IMPLORE you to post a picture from whatever device you're using without explanation.

A fair skinned red haired man in purple clothing with white cuffs, collar and belt is wearing a purple and yellow medieval style cap and pointing at a darker skinned man with black hair dressed in what appears to be a moderately light blue shirt. The pointing man is telling "I SHALL DEFEAT YOU IN MORTAL THOUGHT EXERCISES", and both men are looking very happy to be having this duel.

In the background is a brown haired man with spiky hair and a gold and blue pseudo-military jacket. He is hesitantly reaching out towards the man in purple, with a sweat drop on his right cheek.

The image is a panel from Ale Presser and KB Spangler's webcomic "Side Quested", which you should definitely be reading.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Nov 14

I mean, come on! It's even appropriate, with each being a representative of their feuding on-again/off-again deities. The LN author really missed a trick, and every adaptation since has also missed it.

A white haired woman (Scarlett) with red flecked crystal earrings, blood splatter on her face and a red dress is on top of a pink haired woman (Terenezza) wearing a pink dress and a tiara, their noses almost touching. Scarlett has a wicked grin and is saying "I think, I had not punched you enough at the ball", while Terenezza grits her teeth in anger.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 28

As suspected, I am below average, but not short enough to be smol.

A chart showing the curve a heights in Australia, with a red line at 173cm representing my height and a blue line just past 175cm showing the average for Australia. I am taller than 1/3rd of adult male Australians and shorter than 2/3rds.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 27

Attempting to replicate the complex network of roads between villages and hamlets - not to mention trying to plonk them down in a way that doesn't seem artificial - is about as easy as you think. Not sure I nailed it, or the slope markings, but not bad for a second attempt.

A clumsy map entirely in ballpoint pen. A major river valley runs from right to left, the right side being at about a third of the way up the page, and the left side being a fifth of the page from the bottom. At about halfway across the map is a major town with a bridge, a heavily traced line indicating a major road leading to it from bottom left (starting a quarter of the page from the left hand edge) to the top right (about a quarter of the page from the right hand edge).

Above the town are several valleys with small streams running into the river. Two are on the right, the rightmost one being the biggest, and a very small one is on the left. Between the left hand and central valleys is an almost fist shaped body of land, the "wrist" being the space between the two valleys.

The top left of the map is a bunch of curly lines, denoting a forest, and several wooded areas are drawn in a similar fashion. The rest of the map is a mess of minor roads and small shapes indicating villages and hamlets of various sizes.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 24

Prince Julius poke the bear hard enough that she's now ready to hit back. Even when (this time, seriously) proposing, he just cannot help but be a giant troll. I look forward to seeing if Scarlet can land a punch on him.

A tall, gorgeous woman with white hair and he eyes is wearing a crown of roses and smiling as she pulls on fingerless leather gloves with studs on the knuckles specifically for punching people. She's wearing a red dress with some black lacing serving as corsetry and a black bow is on the right side of her collar. In the background is a rose arc, and her smile is joyful menace rather than a besotted adoring smile.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 15

I was, surprisingly, entirely sober when I decided to make snagshi. Next time I need to add more Worcestershire sauce and Vegemite.

A light blue cutting board on a grey benchtops. On it is the dreaded snagshi: a sushi roll made with a beef sausage from the supermarket. Instead of rice, the filling appears to be spaghetti, and two pieces of chopped onion indicate that it's present in the filling too.

A clear photo of one end of a cut snagshi, clearly showing the sausage and chopped spaghetti.

The other half of the snagshi, blue cutting board and icecream container filled with chopped spaghetti are in the blurry background, along with a cluttered benchtop.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 5

There's a complete 14th century longbow from Brzegu, Poland, that was made in this vein, so the concept is entirely doable. The question is just whether or not it was done in 11th century Normandy.

In the top left hand corner of the image is a recurved bow terminal from the previous image.

The right hand half of the image is a sketch of a long yew bow from Poland, close to two metres long, with a more detailed drawing of the top terminal. The design is much more advanced than that of the Charavines fragment, with the terminal of the Brzegu bow being identical with the siyah of a recurve bow in design, and the body of the bow having a hexagonal kind of cross section.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Oct 5

of stringing to the concept of recurve bows, but it also shows up in the Leiden Maccabees (eg: f.009r). Several terminals from the 11th century finds at Charavines were recurved, although they could belong to crossbows, so it's possible that simple yew bows were made in the style of composite bows.

An archaeological drawing crossbow prod and a collection of terminals from bows or possibly crossbows.

The crossbow prod is entirely intact, approximately 980mm long and 35cm deep. It is slightly decurved, with a deep "D" cross section at the centre and an approximately round section in the middle of the limb.

Two of the terminals show signs of being recurved, with a D or very deep D shape and two nocks (one presumably for a bastard string). Some of the limb remains, and shows a very flat ovoid cross-section.

The remaining 5 terminals would have belonged to essentially straight bows, with four of the five have a D shape at the terminal and double nocks, but lacking enough of the rest of the stave to give a good idea of the limb cross section. The fifth fragment has a simple loop nock and is essentially a very broad and shallow oval for the entire length, including the terminal.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Aug 28

I promised @kristadb1.bsky.social some Green and Gold photos, and am now delivering. Unfortunately I missed the one spot I could pull over that would have given the best photo, and only one of my photos was any good. Maybe next fortnight I'll be able to remember to stop at the good spot.

The foreground, reaching right back almost to the horizon is a deep green sea of wheat, with a line of gum trees midway towards the horizon reaching up into the light grey clouds. A sliver of yellow canola runs from right to left, just below the horizon, becoming progressively slimmer. On the left fifth of the photo, just below the horizon and rising up into the sky, is a large hill, part of a ridge that runs behind the canola field and can barely be seen beyond this one hill.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Aug 3

Since I've fallen into some bad habits when it comes to lunch, I decided to cook something that would do me for the week. I settled on a one-dish lentil pasta bake, slightly modified from this recipe: cookthestory.com/delicious-no.... It came out fantastic, and should keep me from temptation.

A clear Pyrex dish with handles at either end, sitting on top of a glass top stove, in portrait mode.

Inside the dish is a pasta bake, with a small chunk in the top right corner already eaten. The cheese is mostly in the centre of the dish, with the area within 1 inch/25mm of the edge having little cheese present. The cheese itself is a 3 cheese blend, so not all of it has fully melted and some of it is orange.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jul 6

I spent way too long on this for what it's ended up being (and ran out of time, so I half-arsed the border).

A very angry red-haired woman with clenched fists is in the foreground, while a smug looking woman with white hair that has purple tips is in the background. The white haired woman is saying "Good news - tarrifs are back on the menu" in a white speech bubble. The red haired woman has a speech bubble that has a red to yellow gradient, top to bottom, and is saying "Everything shall burn!". Flecks of red surround her, and the border is a clumsy combination of yellow, orange and red (top to bottom) because the person making the edited image ran out of time to much around with GIMP.

It is a panel from K.B. Spangler's "A Girl and Her Fed" - an excellent webcomic you should check out.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Jun 24

A confused looking kangaroo covered in snow with a speech bubble saying "WTF?". It's from the old animated short "The End of the World", a ridiculous (and hilarious) parody about nuclear war.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· May 15

A very crude representation of a fully armoured man-at-arms (no major gaps in the plate from the front), assumed to be 180cm tall in armour and 60cm wide. With a 90cm spacing, arrows would still miss about 54% of the time, even when shot at fairly shallow angles.

A large blue rectangle with the crude figure of a man in armour. The arms and legs are in yellow, while the head and torso are in red.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· May 14

Coming back to this, here are some mock ups of the spacing. The cavalry is assumed to occupy 60cmx244cm, with 30cm between files and 180cm between ranks. The infantry is assumed to occupy 60cmx30cm, with 30 cm between files and 60cm between ranks.

A long blue rectangle with four ranks of six red rectangles. The red rectangles are much close side-to-side than back to front.

A large blue rectangle with a smaller red rectangle that starts in the bottom left corner, taking up about 40% of the total area.

A blue background with red rectangles in four ranks of six each. These red rectangles are wider than they are deep, unlike those of the cavalry diagram.

A large blue rectangle with a single smaller rectangle in the bottom left corner, taking up about 20% of the total area.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Apr 20

I decided to make myself a fancy salad today, so I could have some for lunch through the week. I...may have overdone it a bit and will be eating it twice a day for the next four or five days. Lesson learned!

A large blue bowl on a marble pattern placemat, filled with a salad consisting of quinoa, black beans, corn, red onion, red capsicum, tomato, coriander and cucumber.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Apr 15

Sam Farraway, the candidate for the Nationals, has released his "How to Vote" card. The actual guide to voting is probably meaningless - the Nationals are almost certainly going to be one of the Two Parties and their preferences are meaningless - but they do show how Far Right the Nats are.

The top third of the image is a solid green that transitions into a landscape about halfway down the image. On the left-hand side of the image is a photo of Sam Farraway, a balding man in his 40s dresses in a cheap white shirt. On the left of the image is a mock up of a ballot paper, with the suggested order of candidates numbered from 1 to 10, with Sam Farraway as number one.

The solid green bar in the top third of the image contains the sentence "How to Vote for Sam Farraway", with the subtitle of "The Nationals for Calare".

The suggested voting order of the candidates after Sam Farraway is

2) Jennifer Hughes
3) Ross Angus Hazelton
4) Vicki Elizabeth O'Leary
5) Jase Lesage
6) Kate Hook
7) Andrew Gee
8) Julie Cunningham
9) Sue Raye
10) Ben Parker

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Mar 29

And, of course, the inevitable unblinking demon chook that stares into your soul.

The image is of a black chicken (or "chook", in proper Australian terminology), facing forward, with red corrugated iron behind it. Its eyes stare into your soul and it. Does. Not. Blink.

It stands, almost as still as a statue, moving its head mere millimetres to track you. There is no sign of life, it does not seem to breathe, it just stares.

The chook knows what you did. The chook is coming for you. Run!

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Mar 29

Is there anything like a country show? See if you can guess which lawnmower has been extensively reworked and which are stock models.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Mar 5

This is going to be me on waking up in like two months, isn't it?

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Dec 19

Anyway, this was mostly an excuse to bury a photo of me being gender queer because, despite being fatigued and tipsy, I still struggle to admit to others that I'm queer.

A photo taken in a bathroom mirror of a moderately muscular, cis looking person with a balding head wearing clip on earrings, a skin tight light blue t-shirt and a black miniskirt. He has barely discernable breasts and is smiling.

Jonathan Dean@hergrim· Dec 8

Truly, it's a shame Chiko wasn't able to market the Chiko Roll to the Americans, because in my experience they could use some halfway decent servo food.