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Finding Genghis Khan's Tomb From Space
rossgneumann writes Genghis Khan really, really didn't want anyone to know where he was buried. The soldiers escorting his body to its final resting place killed everyone they passed, killed the people who built the tomb, and then were killed themselves. An elegant solution to this problem bubbled up from two unlikely sources: a man described as a "modern day Indiana Jones" and amateur archaeologists.
An MIT guy figured out what is there. Its a ship, that sank into the swamp bow first. They used coconut fibers for seating of the rowers back then. Explains the "evenly spaced wood platforms" as well. I remember the show back in the 80s "In Search of" when Lenard Nimoy talked about it.
I happen to know a couple of people that are involved in Cable contract discussions. From what they tell me (and hey, they could be totally wrong but it does make sense) the industry generally thinks that Discovery networks (discovery channel) is soon going to get cut from a lot of networks, soon followed by A&E (History channel) because people are getting fed up with the price of the different tiers. Cable companies have to cut something and those 2 networks are nothing more than reality show dustbins. Just like Fox is losing networks left and right now because the fact of the matter is most people just want a "news channel" and CNN is just fine for that and doesn't have a giant group of people that hate them like Fox does. These networks have to drastically cut their price or improve their content or they're not going to get carried anymore.
The companies themselves may be fine... they are making a lot of money in other things. Discovery holds patents on ebooks for some crazy reason. But the times of filling your entire channel with reality TV that costs you virtually nothing and has no depth is over. AMC has proven that even a small investment can have huge returns.
Oak Island? WTF is that?
Admittedly it's been a few years since I had cable TV, but have they really fallen that far? Back when we got rid of cable, the History Channel was more like The WWII Channel.
Oak Island is supposed to be a Mystery... and if you read many of the sensationalized accounts of it from many disreputable reporters that conveniently leave out certain facts about the place it sounds very intriguing. But the fact is, the place isn't a mystery at all.
Some kid swam out to it and found a tree with a pulley hanging from a branch a long time ago. That bit is likely true. But then, a guy heard about it and went out there. He was a Free Mason. And now, I don't mean the ones that rule the world. I mean the real ones that are basically like the Shriners that ware funny hats, drive gocarts and throw candy to kids in parades, and more importantly absolutely love secrets, mysteries, puzzles and hidden treasure. It's their bread and butter. They also like to relate all these mysterious stories to non-members to try and get you to join. If you ever meet someone at a party that starts talking about the Free Masons, run away. They'er either not a Free Mason and a conspiracy nut... or they are a Free Mason and a conspiracy nut.
Anyways, from that guy on, every single person to investigate or own the island was a free mason. Including Franklin Roosevelt! You cannot trust anything they say about the place. The crazy thing about free masons is that they are usually conspiracy nuts, and their conspiracies always involve their own club. Once you realize that every single person to investigate the island was a conspiracy theorist, and that you can't trust any of their accounts, it makes a lot more sense. I'm pretty sure every rumor about the free masons ruling the world was likely started by an actual Free Mason. Not only that, they do things to make themselves even more mysterious because they think that's cool. That rock kind of looks like a skull? Well, they'll report it as 100% a skull and they're pretty sure the shape of the eye sockets indicate it's a model of the first popes skull... clearly leading to some secret of the ages.
Long story short, Oak Island is what happens when you take a couple dozen conspiracy nuts and let them dig in the same hole for over 200 years and give them lots of media attention. The only thing buried on that island is all hope that those men would ever have to face reality.
Our family follows patronymic system. My last name, as recorded in my passport, is my dad's first name. My wife and daughter use my first name as their last names. We used to follow the system of village_name fathers_name given_name caste_name. But urbanization made the village name quaint. Caste names have become taboo in the last few decades. Leaving us with just a dad's name + given name.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact