Brand Marketing Wars between Chinese Dynasties

Zhu Yuanzhang named his dynasty Ming. The ideogram Ming 明 combines the pictograms for sun 日 and moon 月 to convey the sense of brightness. When the Ming were overthrown in the 1640s, the invading Manchu chose for their dynasty the name Qing 清, combining the pictograms for water 水 and blue 青 to create a composite that means purity. There is a scissors-paper-stone logic to this naming progression.


The ancestors of the Manchu (the Jurchen) had founded the Jin dynasty that had flourished for more than a century until its overthrow by a Mongol-Song coalition. Jin 金 means gold, named after the Gold River in their homeland, and of course gold is a metal and therefore can be melted by the fiery brightness of the Ming. Fire, however, is extinguished by water. By changing Jin to Qing, the Manchu were figuratively confirming their victory over the Ming. In addition, a famous festival in China is known as Qingming (literally pure brightness, or The Feast of Pure Light). By choosing the name Qing the Manchu were ensuring that their name would forever proceed that of the Ming in one of the most important dates of the Chinese calendar.  

Now, the term Ming has several other associations.

First, it forms part of the Chinese term given to Manichaeism (Ming Jao). In his struggle to overthrow the Mongols, Zhu Yuanzhang the founder of the Ming dynasty, had first to defeat a rival faction that was predominantly Manichaean. His choice of the name Ming was partly intended to keep survivors of the defeated group on board.

Secondly, fiery brightness is also considered to be yang 阳 contrasted with the yin 阴 of water. The south is considered to be yang while the north is yin. By choosing the name Ming he was giving primacy to the south.
  

*Taken from the Vietnamese book The Song of Kieu, A New Lament, pages xxii & lviii

Pythagorean Cup

Imagine Pythagoras in one of his school feasts in southern Italy looking at his pupils having fun. He sees some drinking too much and thinks about the vices of men. So he decides to teach them a lesson, involving math as always. What was later conceived was one of the most simple and marvelous ancient gadgets.

What is it?

The cup is exactly like all the others, though it differentiates in 2 things. First, inside of the space where the liquid is to be, there is a small bit lifted in the middle. Second, inside the bit there is a route for the liquid that goes, as the below image demonstrates, out of the cup.  

How does it work?

So, you fill water in. Until you reach the discontinuous line everything is fine. The water will concentrate around the bit and inside it, but only in the right side of the liquid route. When more liquid is thrown and the line is passed, the laws of nature take charge. What happens is that liquid falls in the right side of the bit holl and a route is created that is pushed by the weight of the rest of the liquid. End result = no liquid to drink :(

Algorithm “filling the drink”:

litresofwater = 0

enter the loop/startfilling

{

litresofwater = litresofwater + litrespouredintothebottle

if (litresofwater > limit)

go to A

else

continue loop, but first

If (you want to stop)

go to B

}

A: throw slowly the liquid out

B: stop filling and drink as you like

End of Algorithm

It is also very interesting because during the application of the algorithm you get schooled by dead physical matter which at least i think is wow. Step one, you fill the cup, it's your trial, this step is in your total control. If you don't cheat your classmates everything is fine you are equal among equals, you have respected the fair distribution of resources, you can now proceed with confidence coming out of a moral challenge and discuss with your peers. If you do cheat, you have to be humbled, and your chance of drinking sweet wine of the Mediterranean is diminished so that you think what happened.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISfIT3B4y6E

Europa: the myth of a girl

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess in the phoenician city of Tyre. She was sleeping in her palace when a sudden dream invaded her mind. There were two women representing the two continents, one was Asia and the other was nameless. Asia argued that since she had been born in her continent she belonged to her. The other woman maintained that her birth wasn't as important and that Zeus should give Europa to her. After waking up, wanting to calm from her previous experience, Europa gathered her friends, all daughters of the nobility and of the same age, and went for a walk along the mediterranean fields of the shore.

Kinky and horny, Zeus, (i don't know what that guy did all this eternity) looked around for party? Was ready for new adventures? Anyway, he sees her and some sources say that the demigod Eros shot a love arrow and he was immediately dazzled by Europas beauty. Not wishing to continue his centuries long fight with his wife Hera, he transformed himself to a shining white bull to disguise himself and went off.

While the maidens were having fun, enjoying the day and playing games, they came across a herd of bulls who were eating grass, calm and absentminded. The two groups came together and all-bright Zeus was soon spotted by the young girls, who set off to pet him. Europa was also curious and the two creatures came closer when somehow she got persuaded to climb the bull and Zeus instantly and speedily run to the sea.

The poet Ovid in his work Metamorphosis described the scene more analytically:

And gradually she lost her fear, and he

Offered his breast for her virgin caresses,

His horns for her to wind with chains of flowers

Until the princess dared to mount his back

Her pet bull's back, unwitting whom she rode.

Then—slowly, slowly down the broad, dry beach—

First in the shallow waves the great god set

His spurious hooves, then sauntered further out

'til in the open sea he bore his prize

Fear filled her heart as, gazing back, she saw

The fast receding sands. Her right hand grasped

A horn, the other leant upon his back

Her fluttering tunic floated in the breeze.

At the sea, and while Zeus rode fastly, suddenly the Nereids on the back of dolphins emerged from the sea along with Triton who blew his horn, even Poseidon. Then Europa realized that the white bull was a God and she begged him not to harm her. He reassured her and later they reached the island of Creta. At the beach they had sex which made Europa pregnant to Minos. Her son would rise to become the king of the first european civilization that would take his name, the Minoans.

To be continueed..

Sources:  http://www.greeka.com/crete/heraklion/heraklion-myths/europa.htm

http://www.loggia.com/myth/europa.html

http://www.thenewfederalist.eu/Europa-and-the-bull-The-significance-of-the-myth-in-modern-Europe  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(mythology)

On Alexander’s death

It is believed that Alexander died from overdrinking after the army's return in Babylon. I think it's quite rare a death for a war-endured, 33 year old body, experienced in overdrinking to succumb completely, to the point of death from just another drinking orgy. On the other hand, the version of him being poisoned is more believable.

First of all, he had exhausted the army, specially his childhood friends and generals and the macedonians army core phalanx men and companion cavalry. He was assembling resources across the empire, ready to experiment new tactics and units for another campaign in Arabia with a vision of expanding to Carthage, Rome and end up at the forests of Germania. If you were a friend of his would you like your fate to be directed, decided and dictated by this man? that at the end of the day had already conquered the world, materialized the wildest of his dreams and established himself as a demigod. Wouldn't you like to live a peaceful life, enjoying the memories of the past, building this new world, having a family and all this stuff? Not another war for this psychopathic conqueror, when a possibility of dying would still be unallowably high. He had already been rejected by his own men from entering the Indian peninsula, enough was enough

Last but not least, what has to be mentioned is that the ones who wrote the history as we know it today were the powerful rulers, after Alexander's death, who were nobody else but the Diadochi, his successors, the same guys that partied with him at that night. There are other stories as well, for example Kassander alone or with political allies poisoned him with a newly-discovered liquid transferred in a camel's foot. Who knows? But the scenario of overdrinking i guess is super rare