Did anybody thought of the black market site "silk road" rather than the actual Silk Road before clicking on the link?
I was thinking exactly this lol
Riding the New Silk Road
151–160 of 161 posts
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#152Time to trot out trivia. As the article points out, the Silk Road faded in importance in the 1400s. But it doesn't say why. There were three major reasons why it faded. The first was the final fall of Constantinople in 1453, ending the last remnant of the original Roman Empire. This made trade with Europe harder. The second was the development, initially by the Portuguese but followed by others, of direct sea routes…
> The result was a long-term economic and military decline of areas like the Middle East. The extent of which was not realized by the West until Napoleon conquered Egypt. Can you expand on that (or recommend further reading/links/videos/books?). Especially the "the extend of which was not realized by the west"? Were people in western europe suprised when napolean conquered egypt?
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Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#153It seems to me like we're finally witnessing the birth of a 21st century news paper. The New York times has always been well regarded for it's journalism. Now we're starting to see what can be accomplished when a credible journalism outfit is complemented by equally credible digital designers.
I wish I could read the article though. Can't get past the paywall.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just finished reading City of Fortune ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400068207/ref=pe_180000_31... ), and this is closer to the truth - the rise of the Ottomans, the fact that Christian Europe couldn't get its act together after the debacle that was the 4th Crusade, etc etc - at one point, Venice was almost single-handedly fighting the Ottomans.
My understanding of the decline of Venice is that a lot of it was driven by the fact that the commerce situation had changed drastically. Why were the Venetians fighting the Ottomans on their own? Because the Mediterranean had ceased to be as important as it had been historically - interest had shifted to the new world, and to sea routes to Asia, which bypassed many of the middlemen, each of whom marked up prices. Fo…
Spain got in the fight at the vehement request of the Papacy -- and because Muslim corsairs were raiding their coastline with substantial vigor (including the Barbarossa twins). Genoa, too, was goaded in to fighting, but they were very reluctant to put their ships on the line as their ships tended to be individual/family owned and there was a built in disdain for the Venetians that cautioned them against committing resources to help.
There were a number of massive naval engagements, including the Battle of Lepanto(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_(1571)) which was one of the single largest naval battles ever fought.
Much of the riches that Spain gleaned from the Americas was funneled in to building and maintaining a massive fleet to fight the Ottomans with.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#155Time to trot out trivia. As the article points out, the Silk Road faded in importance in the 1400s. But it doesn't say why. There were three major reasons why it faded. The first was the final fall of Constantinople in 1453, ending the last remnant of the original Roman Empire. This made trade with Europe harder. The second was the development, initially by the Portuguese but followed by others, of direct sea routes…
Are you sure the decline of the Middle East was a result of the Silk Road fading in importance? A better argument is that it was the other way around.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#156Wow, the presentation of the photos really made an impression on me -- it's just like Harry Potter. It's amazing that even after almost 10 years of YouTube, having video presented to you in a slightly different way can give you a feeling that you're experiencing the future.
Here is a 6min video of the Vietnam reunification express, taken outside Quy Nhon right after Lunar New Year. The slow rhythm. The lush rice paddies. Old houses with people cooking and children playing. Simply magical!
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank god. IMO the "Snow fall" article was the best thing I've seen come out of journalism in many years.
link to the "Snow Fall" article: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/
This also reminds me of something similar at The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/may/26/fire...
I thought it was very well done.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#158That soviet train tracking system looks beautiful. Wouldn't mind that on the wall of my office.
Pretty old school, and the fact it still works after 20+ years says something... they must have good maintenance engineers working there.
They have maintenance engineers who have no choice but to keep it working because nobody is going to replace it :)
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#159That soviet train tracking system looks beautiful. Wouldn't mind that on the wall of my office.
Pre-computer, pre-plastic industrial interfaces generally look beautiful. You can see actual graphic design that went in.
See for example http://www.tema.ru/travel/dubna.2009/ near the bottom of page.
Re: Riding the New Silk Road
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend showed me the HTC One recently. Apparently the camera shoots those mini-videos by default, and you can then pick a still from there. You can also stitch multiple shots into a single one: http://blog.htc.com/2013/05/your-sequence-shots-with-htc-zoe...
I don't think it captures audio, though.
It does.