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Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

bbc.com

121–128 of 128 posts

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again someone many have accused of tinfoil battery being shown to be onto some nugget of truth. He had a medical scare recently, anyone know how he's doing?

I have trouble seeing the connection between your reply and my comment - did you intend to post it elsewhere and did it accidentally end up with mine? EDIT: My best guess is that this was intended as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292738 an referring to Charles C Mann and his book?

Sorry for some reason I misread Feynman as something else...

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#123
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LIDAR data requires precise location-information of the scanning-device, otherwise the data you collect is at best useless, and at-most wildly skewed. This is because all the points are in-reference to the location of the device. A faster traveling vehicle inherently means less-accurate location measurements.

Can SLAM be applied in this case?

It definitely can, though accuracy would always be a big concern.

IIRC, the Google self-driving car used LIDAR. Though their localization algorithms included many sensors, with the LIDAR data was just one of them.

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#124
post #108

I appreciate the efforts and tech used to map the area and create the graphics but I've been to Guatemala and I suspect that these scientists didn't "discover" near as much as they claim here. Mayans still live there, and they know every nook and cranny and tree and rock in those forests. If you ask them, and then shut up and listen, they'll tell you all about it and answer any questions you might have. I did ask one…

Similar thing in the lower parts of Mexico. As told to me by some locals on a stop while riding through the country on my motorcycle, there are plenty of locally known, overgrown ruins that are yet undeveloped as visitor sites simply due to lack of funds or renovation resources.

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#125
post #108

I appreciate the efforts and tech used to map the area and create the graphics but I've been to Guatemala and I suspect that these scientists didn't "discover" near as much as they claim here. Mayans still live there, and they know every nook and cranny and tree and rock in those forests. If you ask them, and then shut up and listen, they'll tell you all about it and answer any questions you might have. I did ask one…

Most professional archaeologists/anthropologists do ask the indigenous people and do listen. Sure there are always some people who are attention seekers, but the majority do good science and leverage indigenous knowledge. That said, you overestimate how much the people can know. They don’t have ground penetrating memory, and the Maya people have always been far from one united nation but closer to a collection of city-states with some shared cultural traits.

Furthermore, most of the classic Mayan sites were long ago abandoned so it isn’t like there are indigenous people hanging out around Ti’kal or Calak’mul that can just spill the entire history.

Any competent Mayanist would have told you the same as that person in Belize. It is no secret the landscape is dotted with unexcavated ruins, but the scope is unclear which is exactly why this research is so useful.

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#126
post #108

I appreciate the efforts and tech used to map the area and create the graphics but I've been to Guatemala and I suspect that these scientists didn't "discover" near as much as they claim here. Mayans still live there, and they know every nook and cranny and tree and rock in those forests. If you ask them, and then shut up and listen, they'll tell you all about it and answer any questions you might have. I did ask one…

Most professional archaeologists/anthropologists do ask the indigenous people and do listen. Sure there are always some people who are attention seekers, but the majority do good science and leverage indigenous knowledge. That said, you overestimate how much the people can know. They don’t have ground penetrating memory, and the Maya people have always been far from one united nation but closer to a collection of cit…

"They don’t have ground penetrating memory,"

No, they don't.

I'll point out that the article mentions they "remove the dense tree canopy to create a 3D map". It does not say "they used ground penetrating Lidar".

Seems to me you underestimate what they know and overestimate what you know and that is exactly what I was saying they found irksome.

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble seeing the connection between your reply and my comment - did you intend to post it elsewhere and did it accidentally end up with mine? EDIT: My best guess is that this was intended as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292738 an referring to Charles C Mann and his book?

Sorry for some reason I misread Feynman as something else...

There have been quite a few crackpots saying ludicrous things about the Mayan calendar, so that sounds like understandable mistake to me.

Re: Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

#128
post #116
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted - this definition as genocide as destruction of a culture (instead of physical murder of a people) also supports the idea of "white genocide": A targeted effort by people with power to liquidate white peoples' group identity ("abolish whiteness") and to marginalize and obscure their traditional cultural touchstones ("don't teach books by dead white men" and related efforts to avoid teaching Shakesp…

You can't take HN threads into pure ideological warfare like this. It isn't what this site is for, and it's toxic to what it is for, namely intellectual curiosity. Since we've warned you before, and you obviously don't want to use the site as intended, I've banned this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So complaining about American black genocide is fine, but then comparing it to white genocide (and rejecting the term) is bannable?

I seem to have been banned simply for mentioning the concept of white genocide even though I concluded against it.

Look at all the question marks in my post. Read the conclusion. This is the opposite of ideological warfare. It's an attempt at furthering discussion of a difficult issue.

If you changed the group identity words in my post it would be acceptable.

Put simply, you're biased and you're harming discussion here. This ban should be reversed.

Otherwise, explicitly write a list of what political ideas are not allowed to be discussed.

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