This is the 19th instalment of #deanehistory.

Die Hard is the best Christmas film. This truism is well known.

But the phrase “Die Hard” actually has a much longer history.

In the early 1800s, Spain & Portugal fought the Peninsular War against the invading / occupying French. As usual, in any given scrap in the last millennia or so, the British were on board, against the French.

At the Battle of Albuera, quite near the Spanish/Portuguese border, in 1811, a British/ES/PT force fought Napoleon’s Armée du Midi (included some Poles from the Duchy of Warsaw). In sum: heavy losses on both sides, result a score draw. Such conclusions belie the human stories.

Major-General Houghton was a British national hero. Two thirds of his brigade died in the line at Albuera, including Houghton himself. The French were able to enfilade (fire along their longest axis) with a devastating hail of grapeshot & canister (like huge shotguns).

Colonel William Inglis, one of the many Scots to have flourished during Empire, commanded the 57th Regiment of Foot, part of Houghton’s Brigade. He’d joined it as an Ensign & served with it since the American Revolutionary War in 1781.

It is with a glad heart that I welcome everyone to the New Year, 2021.

The out-gone year was quite dramatic and it is only by the grace of the Almighty God that we survived to witness the succeeding year.

It is cheering that we are entering the New Year with refreshing news of a handful of certified vaccines against the dreaded Covid-19 virus. And better still is news of commencement of vaccination in some parts of the world.

I am expectant that the vaccine(s) would soon be available for vaccination in Nigeria. It is also hoped that very soon life would return to normal.

As a country, we have taken our share of the blow that Covid-19 dealt to the globe. And worst still, we suffered a multi-facet downcast on account of lazy and uninspiring leadership from the government at the centre - most especially.

Interesting to see lots of talk about grammar lately. Here's a thread from me on why I think explicit grammar instruction is important, but not all explicit grammar instruction is created equal!

I think explicit grammar instruction is important because it helps pupils to write better sentences. Pupils often write run-on sentences, and they aren't sure where they should put a full stop. This makes their writing much harder to understand.

For me, grammar instruction is about sentence structure. It's not about pedantic 'gotchas' designed to show how clever you are or how stupid everyone else is. It's about helping students to marshal their thoughts into coherent, logical sentences.

(On that note, I am sure there will be errors in this tweet thread, because I am writing it pretty quickly. I apologise for them in advance and hope it doesn't impede your understanding too much!)

To write good sentences, I think you have to know what a verb is and what a subject is. So what's the best way to teach those? You can teach definitions - a verb is a doing word, a noun is a person, place or thing, a subject is the person or thing that is doing the verb.

TIGER INSIDE FIX with VISU

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( @/arcturusjae )

ㅤ"Don't~tie me, tie me up, tie me, tie me up!"

Part Jaewon berakhir saat kelima member mengangkat kedua tangan mereka serempak seperti dalam keadaan terikat, sebelum Yoonwoo mengambil alih dan mulai membawakan

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ㅤ"Hwesaek jeonggeul dan hanaye Rule,"

Suara lembut sang adam mulai mengalun, seraya dirinya berjalan ke tengah-tengah formasi sambil menurunkan tangannya perlahan dari posisi awal. Yoonwoo berdiri tegap selagi pundak dibuang ke belakang,

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satu tangannya yang bebas diarahkan ke depan sebelum melangkah ke sisi kiri formasi sesuai ketukan lagu.

ㅤ"...Geugeon nal deo jageukhaesseul ppun,
Dallyeodeureo geochilge, Let's growl~"

Yoonwoo menggesturkan tangannya ke arah

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seperti tengah menyihir seseorang, sebelum ia membungkukkan badannya sedikit ke depan, lalu menghempaskan kedua tangannya ke atas sebelum ia mengakhiri part awalnya kali ini.

ㅤ"So bring it on, bring it on, bring it

Josh Talks turns 6 today. Here is what I have learnt. A thread.

1/ Building a company is hard. Building a company based on a social mission is even harder. Don't let anyone sway you away from your true cause - sticking to it is more rewarding than you think.

2/ Knowing who your user is and understanding their pulse to the extremest detail as early as possible is an absolute must. Every decision then becomes easier, will this help X? Will he/she use it? How will this change their outcome?

3/ Take time out to figure out what your core strengths as an organisation are. It makes building additional product lines much easier and faster. Still learning how to do this without getting distracted by what seems like a big opportunity in the moment.

4/ Running a profitable business is underrated. We were bootstrapped till we proved our unit economics work. Knowing that our business works at its core fundamentals makes it easier to make bold decisions.

Really good americana type songs I've been listening to to avoid podcasts/politics.

I've been publicly addressing white mediocrity since my 2011 blog post "The American Way: Mediocrity, When White, Looks Like Merit," but I learned A LOT from @IjeomaOluo's MEDIOCRE. As Brittney Cooper's @nytimes review said, it really is an invitation for society to do better.

Of necessity, that invitation requires unvarnished truths. A few of my favorite lines:

“When I talk about mediocrity, I am not talking about something bland and harmless. [...] I’m talking about a dedication to ignorance and hatred that leaves people dead, for no other reason

than the fact that white men have been conditioned to believe that ignorance and hatred are their birthright and that the effort of enlightenment and connection is an injustice they shouldn’t have to face” (6).

“Perhaps one of the most brutal of white male privileges is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others” (30).

“Nothing says ‘American’ like a boy making a woman struggle so that he can seem independent” (35).

“Mediocre, highly forgettable white men regularly enter feminist spaces and expect to be centered and rewarded, and they have been. They get to be highly flawed, they get to regularly betray the values of their movement, yet they will be praised

On this day in 2008, one of our favourite movies, TEETH, was released. This horror movie centres around a young woman who has "vagina dentata" - teeth in her vagina. Vagina dentata myths is common, appearing in South America, India, Japan and Māori mythologies. Here's one myth...

So, you all know and love the movie Moana, right? And you all know and love the demigod Māui? Well, Disney and Lin Manuel Miranda skipped a particular Māui story in the "You're Welcome" song. It involves vagina dentata.

According to Māori legend, Māui tried to secure immortality for humans (you're welcome!) by "reversing" birth via the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-pō.

Hine-nui-te-pō is described as having "in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and greenstone." This did not put Māui off (you're welcome!)

His plan was to enter the sleeping goddess via her vagina and exit through her mouth. He found her sleeping with her legs open and, seizing the opportunity, turned himself into a worm (you're welcome!)

On our new podcast, we interviewed @angie_rasmussen, one of the leading virologists, who has been a guiding light during the pandemic. Thread here to summarize, transcript and audio https://t.co/Q6CabBsKCM @cuttingforstone /1

Current status
"We're essentially experiencing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day in terms of number of deaths; our hospital systems are overburdened. ...We're going to be dealing w/ this for some time to come, even after people get the vaccine, certainly #LongCovid is real." /2

On her strong efforts for dispelling misinformation
"My philosophy about public health is that you can't have it without the engagement of the public. And my philosophy about communication is that information empowers people to decide for themselves" /3

The diagnosis of #SARSCoV2 reinfection is very challenging and Dr. Rasmussen provides the best and complete explanation for why that's the case. One dimension of that is being able to culture the virus in a BSL (biosafety level)-3 lab /4

Many are not familiar with what BSL-3 and 4 labs are all about. Great summary here from her extensive experience. More in podcast/transcript on her response in BSL-4./5

Ten minutes until The High Republic launch event live on YouTube! #StarWars #TheHighRepublic #DisneyBooks #DelReyBooks

Here's the link...
https://t.co/11x3FME1ph

Okay, here we go! The boss herself, Kathleen Kennedy, introduces a The High Republic trailer! #StarWarsTheHighRepublic

Michael Siglain giving a bit of history on the project...

There's the team, all looking Luminous! @msiglain @claudiagray @CharlesSoule @justinaireland @cavanscott @djolder @KristinBaver

They are all discussing their specific experience developing the project at various points along the way. Speaking about working at the Ranch, Cavan Scott said they had to "literally chuck us out!"

Alright, I just finished "Light of the Jedi" by Charles Soule, and I have some thoughts on it, both as a scientist, historian, and Star Wars fan. I'm mostly coming at this from an Old Republic fan viewpoint.

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. #StarWars #StarWarsTheHighRepublic

The first thing I want to look at is the tone, because anything else is really nitpicky and the fundamental themes of the story are really the main basis for comparison. So I'm looking at this from a few angles, the big one being it claiming to be a "Star Wars Arthurian Romance."

For those that know anything about the actual Arthurian Romances, they fundamentally focus on diverging from Arthur as the main character, which one can conceptually argue this book does, diverging from the Skywalkers as a main character and focusing on other Jedi.

Where LotJ differs (so far) is in its content - there is no adulterous love affair, quest for a holy artefact, etc. Although in some ways the book touches on or sets up these possibilities - the franchise as a whole is very much about high fantasy storytelling.

I know Claudia Gray is not shy to include sexual content in her stories, and we have plenty of Star Wars tales of seeking "holy artefacts." So I certainly could see either of these happening in the future.

It's often said that the indigenous people of South America never developed a system of writing.

But this isn't entirely true. In fact, they created a unique and complex system of notation based on the tying of knots, known as quipu, which remain undeciphered to this day.

The quipu were usually made from string, spun from cotton fibers, or the fleece of camelid animals like the alpaca and llama.

The cords stored information with knots tied in vast assemblages of string, sometimes containing thousands of threads.

In some analysed quipu, the combinations of thread length, colour, knot type and knot position allow for up to 95 possible combinations, which could represent numbers, symbols or even sounds.

The Inca people used them for collecting data and keeping records, monitoring taxes, conducting censuses, keeping track of dates, and for military organization, all with immense success.

One early European eyewitness Hernando Pizarro records one early sighting of these quipu.

In fact, these quipu were the only system of notation used to administrate the Incas’ society, a vast stretch of land the same size as the Western Roman empire in Europe, containing more than 10 million people – all of which operated without a single word being written down.

I’ve enjoyed reading @AlexJLanglands The Ancient Ways of Wessex & learned how #chalkstream #winterbournes & #springs have influenced our culture & cultural heritage - #Ridgeway paths that are now #NationalTrails

Perhaps old news to many, but new to me so here’s a short thread…

Our #ridgeway paths are a bundle of numerous routes which I always assumed followed the high ground for strategic purposes & avoiding the muddy clay vales. Timperley & Brill (1965) described our #ridgeways as literally high ways, although they could have called them “dry ways”.

Langlands (2019. p14) explains that #ridgeways or watershed-ways were used out of necessity to avoid #winterbourne streams, springs and wetlands lower down the escarpments & that in summer when the #winterbournes were dry travellers could use routes along the lower slopes....

Quoting Grundy (1918. p70-72; downloadable on Google), Langland calls these lower routes #summerways and suggests there are summerways parallel to nearly all of the great #ridgeways - twin summerways and ridgeways

Looking at the Downs near Whitehorse Hill, the B4507 road follows the escarpment at a relatively steady height just above the spring line - almost a dot-to-dot line linking spring heads and their #winterbournes - could that be the old #summerway I wonder?

To the Victoria Embankment, there to take our Government-mandated exercise by following the lines of two waterways, the Bloomsbury Ditch & the #CockAndPye Ditch. These were channels which drained the marshland that surrounded the village of St Giles - current-day Covent Garden.

The walk is one devised by @teabolton in the second volume of his guide to London’s lost rivers, & follows the line of the 2 linked ditches from the Thames at Victoria Embankment Gardens & then back to Cleopatra’s Needle. #CockAndPye

"With no known natural watercourses between the Fleet, to the east, and the Tyburn, to the west, Covent Garden and Soho are gaps in the London river map. It is, however, quite possible that the ditches rechannelled small streams that existed before the earliest maps" - @teabolton

The fields of St Giles-in-the-Fields were notoriously boggy. St Giles itself stood by the main London-Oxford road (as in Oxford Street), but was sufficiently isolated that when, c. 1120, Henry I's wife Matilda founded a monastery here, it doubled as a hospital for lepers.

St Giles always had a marsh-tang of misery & sedition about it. It remained a leper colony - on & off - until the Reformation, & was the centre of Sir John Oldcastle's Lollard rebellion in 1414. (Sir John was executed at what's now the Oxford St-Tottenham Ct Rd x-roads in 1417.)

WRITING A WINNING STATEMENT OF PURPOSE (SOP)

PART A

This VERY long thread will break down the process of writing an SOP using six questions that have worked for me in the several admissions and scholarships I have secured.

Get a drink and let us begin.

Writing an SOP requires thorough research and planning. Writing an SOP involves writing a story of your academic and professional experience.

Remember that volunteering or internship roles also count when you are writing your SOP.

It is important to tell a coherent story from start to finish of your SOP. This allows the assessors to link your passion with your academic and professional trajectory.

It is also very significant that you allow others (mentors, friends, professionals) to review your essays.

This is important because, your essay might be coherent and convincing but if it is laced with grammatical errors, you are likely to lose points.

You can also use editing software or websites to assess your writing.

I will be providing six questions that I aim to answer when I write my SOPs. I will also expand on the questions as we go along. Part A will speak to four out of the six questions. Part B will continue from Q4.

My wife and I led a very successful Zoom party for New Year's Eve. I thought I'd share details and tips in case it helps others. We had about 15 squares worth of people on the screen. The two main activities were charades and singing songs related to time. 1/14

An issue we were worried about was tech support during the event, since not everybody was familiar with all Zoom features. We were planning to use a breakout room or two in case people got bored with an activity and wanted to talk, but never needed it. 2/

To aid in tech support, we used BOTH a laptop (with external monitor) & a separate iPad. That way, I could ensure that my instructions on what to tap worked, see what the others were seeing, etc. The iPad had audio off & we shared a good external mike connected to the laptop. 3/

Since I needed to work closely with the laptop, I had to sit right in front. The second device let my wife also sit right in front of a camera. The external mike cut down on room echoes since she was closer to it than the laptop's mike and made our voices equal. 4/

We asked everybody to rename themselves to be the names of who we were seeing (e.g., "Joe and Jane Smith" instead of "JSmith iPad"). That required tech support for most people. (It's different on iPad and laptop.) We introduced everybody, telling how we met them. 5/