I Am Not Inspired
Posted: May 7, 2012 Filed under: Features, Thoughts | Tags: aristotle, famous, inspirational quotes, love, philosophy, Socrates, tennyson, wisdom 2 Comments »
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memorium A.H.H
If sentimentality was measured in weight, there wouldn’t exist scales large enough to gauge Lord Alfred Tennyson’s famous little adage. As with most of those literary excerpts handpicked to become ‘inspirational quotes’, Lord Alfred’s couplet from In Memorium is effortlessly pithy, charming and soothing. To me though, as a supposed source of inspiration, it’s infuriatingly flawed. Really, it’s just crap. I wish it were possible for me to say ‘screw you’ to the laws of quantum mechanics, travel back in time to 1850s London and deliver a precision karate-chop to the back of Tennyson’s bearded neck as he lowered his quill to the the page. Nothing against old Fred, but I’m sure he’d forgive my extreme measures if he knew how carelessly his words are tossed around today.
‘Better to have loved and lost’? Really? Let’s put it into practice then. Imagine you are handed the best ever chocolate-mint gelato cone the world would ever see. I mean, the best. Ever. One lick of this singularly perfect frozen dessert sweeps you off to a euphoric realm of sugar and dancing pixies. It is without question, the greatest thing you’ve ever tasted. You are so engrossed that around you the world slows to a blur and a hum. But, suddenly , a lose paver meets your foot and the sudden jolt bursts your scene back to reality and you watch, powerlessly, as that delicious icy scoop of your hopes and dreams escapes your grips and plummets down to the earth, splattering over an ant’s nest which has a dog turd on it. You stare at the scene in disbelief, completely shattered. Now, apologies for introducing such a morbid thought and I pray this never happens to you, but let me assure you, it hurts. It hurts like a bastard. One second life is but a weightless ascension to choc-minty nirvana and the next, it’s a sickening thud into the dirty ground of broken dreams.
Now, if you had never been handed this gelato, you’d have been as happy and content as before ‘The Incident’. You will have been blissfully oblivious to the agony of being robbed of what instantly became your definition of perfection. You’d suffer no lamentation, no desperate low – because there was no giddy high. The splattered green remains of the gelato covered in ants and dog poo is a much harder sight to bear when you know just how delicious and joyous it was. Without that knowledge, it would be little more than a typical spilled dairy product, which we all know is nothing to cry about.
Am I belittling the deeper wisdom of the phrase with a hypothetical smashed ice cream? Maybe. Well yes. But is lingering heartache and terminally-unrequited yearning a fair admission price to experience the dizzying thrill and passion of love but for only a brief, momentary spell. I genuinely don’t believe it is. No other thought can grip even the sturdiest mind and violently shake it into fragility than that of rumination – the dreaded ‘what if’ –in love or any other avenue of existence. It is of course just another human truth; about consequence, lessons, growth and Scrubs-style inner-monologues. But there’s no point trying to suture a wound with flimsy musings. The contradiction in what many interpret from Tennyson’s words only feeds the helpless, grasping feelings of frustration and injustice. It doesn’t make anything better. It only makes you want to time travel and karate chop history’s greatest wordsmiths.
Then again, perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. I mean – the choc mint may be gone, but consider that in your state of despair you forget that clasped your other hand is a big scoop of vanilla caramel, melting away, unseen and untasted…
Deep, huh.
Putting my cynicism and sarcasm aside, I truly do love a great inspirational quote as much as I love the combination of chocolate and mint in gelato-form. Great thinkers and writers are trusted teachers to me. I don’t need to have ever met them , but every word they’ve penned or uttered shines with the immeasurable value of their reputation and their proven wisdom. There’s a reason why great philosophers, writers and leaders command such influence over people, even well beyond their deaths. Their mastery of words and their insight into the human experience is timeless. One of my personal favourite phrases is: “The energy of the mind is the essence of life,” said by the brilliant Greek philosopher Aristotle well over two millennia ago. Immortalising those words into life-affirming proverb is the fact they are direct from the mind of Aristotle: the man who studied under Plato, who studied under Socrates – a product of three formidable intellects and equally formidable beards.
However, with Tumblr and Facebook and Pintrest and the like, the realm of inspirational quotations has been hijacked by melodramatic teenagers with Instagram and first-world problems. Search ‘inspirational quote’ on Google Images and you’ll see nothing but self-help drivel scrawled over silhouettes and fake lens flare. Worse yet, you’ll encounter a famous historical quote, but it will be superimposed on a picture of a barefoot woman in a billowy dress standing on black and white train tracks. And spelled incorrectly. And credited to Justin Bieber.
Intelligence and wit that is applied with kind intentions, completely free of arrogance is one of the best qualities you can find in a human being. Little else is as admirable as an altruistic desire to teach, and to learn so as to teach. The only way we can learn today from the greatest teachers who ever lived is to read and understand the words they left behind, especially those that that escape the pages of tomes and stand out on their own accord, throughout ages. Unfortunately though, the idea of these succinct, inspirational quotes is now the domain of tumblr-keeping teens whose biggest crisis in life was that harrowing time their BFF didn’t reply to a text for like, two whole hours. The important thoughts and works from the likes of Goethe, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Wilde, Nietzsche, Twain and so many others have been sucked into this world that spins on an axis of melodrama and lack of self-awareness. I wince at the thought that thanks to this online phenomenon, out there somewhere, someone has interpreted the wise words of Socrates – ‘Know thyself’ to mean ‘I like holes in my stockings becoz my style is like, soooooooooo individual.’ How cruelly ironic.
So why does ‘better to have loved and lost’ really infuriate me? It’s not Tennyson who deserves a karate chop, not at all. It’s those who repeat the phrase without understanding its true meaning (it was a lengthy meditation on mortality and hope following the death of a dear friend) and in doing so, push it closer towards superficiality, robbing the author of the respect it deserves. Thankfully, even the weighty tribulations of teenage life cannot weaken the poignancy of timeless wisdom. I’m frustrated because it’s disappointing to see great historical works misunderstood because so few in this online generation pause for reflection. These words are not meant to be ‘catchy’. They’re not meant to be photoshopped onto an overexposed picture of a tyre-swing, nor scrawled on a post-it note. They should exist only in your mind and heart, an arm’s length away for when that time comes when you really do need a little comfort or inspiration in your lives, wherever you are. If, as Aristotle said, the essence of life is an energetic mind, then feed it with the wisdom of others and invigorating ideas, think about the words, know them – don’t waste them in a rush to post up on your Facebook wall.
Faux Wisdom
Here are some ‘inspirational quotes’ I collected in a quick Google Image sweep. I learned a couple of things. One, lame metaphors and whimsical (and completely irrelevant) photos are a match made in heaven; and two, some people really should have kept to their day jobs and left the aphorisms to the pros.
No, the oak tree is a living organism that requires nutrients and water to survive. Much of this is absorbed by its roots. As the tree grows larger, its need for nutrients increases, so too does the length of the roots that burrow further and deeper in search of fertile, nutrient-rich soil. Storms are like, in no way related. Stick to being a priest, Herbert.
I’d love to know how Oprah Winfrey ends up being described in future annals of history. I sincerely hope the word ‘philosopher’ or ‘poet’ never appears in the same sentence as her, unless the word ‘faux’ appears before it. There’s no doubting her feelgoodmakey talents and justifiable status as a positive female role-model; but when she serves up nauseatingly saccharine cocktails of mixed metaphors like this, you remember why daytime TV is the tenth circle of intellectual Hell. Oprah would have been excellent writing cards for Hallmark, but for existential humanist wisdom, I’m afraid shouting in tone-inflections and celebrity friends won’t reserve Oprah a spot in the pantheon of thinkers.
I appreciate the championing of modesty over self-exaltation and integrity over glorify in this statement. But, then almost all credibility disintegrates when its originator is revealed. It’s certainly easy for you to say, Mister Albert ‘Greatest Scientist of All Time’ Einstein! It doesn’t help, either that this particular image is from a Tumblr entitled: ‘I’m the perfect mistake’… by someone called: ‘Melody’…
Unforeseen happiness in life is a comforting concept. Though, I don’t see why Barrymore’s door metaphor is so popular. If anything, it seems to encourage lax home security procedures. I can only think the illustrious Hollywood icon was in cahoots with a shady Los Angeles burglary syndicate, and was subtly persuading fans to not worry about locking their doors at night, so ‘happiness’ (probably the sardonic name of the syndicate) could sneak through and thieve all the jewelry and silk throw pillows and ornate lamps they wished. It’s the only logical conclusion.
Supernatural: The Incredible Biomimics
Posted: March 6, 2012 Filed under: Features | Tags: biology, biomimicry, engineering, flights, lotus, Science Leave a comment »
Phyto-Purification Bathroom by Jun Yasumoto
After a recent binge of David Attenborough DVDs and National Geographic magazines, I’ve happily been up to my neck in the wonders of biology, nature’s mysteries and tribal boob action. Nature is seductively striking, not just for the dramatic visual treats of volcanic storms or epic continental migrations, but for the very mechanics that sustain every living thing. Before I sound too much like the narrated introduction to a lame educational biology video – science’s relationship to nature goes far beyond cataloguing butterflies and differentiating mosses. Science itself learns from nature as much as it learns about it. I’m talking here about the concept of biomimicry – the way in which we borrow nature’s lead and use it to solve our own problems. We’re literality mimicking nature’s design, whether it’s the air-faring anatomy of a bird; the function of our internal organs; or even the infinitesimal characteristics of the humble leaf.
Like the all good big, hairy intelligent apes, we’re brilliant at copying ideas. The human brain wouldn’t have developed to its impressive proportion if our ancestors weren’t monkey seeing and monkey doing. And because intellectual property and copyright laws are human inventions, we can rip off Mother Nature with absolute impunity. In all seriousness though, the ideas we steal are put to some pretty amazing uses – many breakthrough discoveries and engineering marvels would not have happened if we hadn’t taken some cues from our natural world. Some of our incredible achievements seem quite superhuman, but there’s nothing supernatural about it – just very ordinarily natural…
Is it a bird, is it a plane? It’s hard to tell…
The most obvious and significant example of biomimicry derived from our long-held ambitions of flight. Mankind had long observed the way birds would flap their wings and soar to unreachable heights and unsurprisingly, the earliest recorded human attempts were very directly based on the bird’s example. In the ninth century, Arab scholar Abbas Ibn Firnas attached wings to his arms and covered himself in feathers and one century later, the English monk Eilmer created a rudimentary hang-glider. Both men apparently claimed success (despite inevitable crash landings) – but it was not true flight, it was just Buzz Lightyear-style falling with style. Optimus genius Leonardo da Vinci went a few steps further. He spliced passions for anatomy and engineering, by dissecting actual birds and using the knowledge to produce some sophisticated designs. Unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to fully develop his ideas – but considerations of aerodynamics and air displacement was evident in his designs.
After Da Vanci’s time a new method to reach the skies took precedence – being ‘lighter than air’. Blimps and hot air balloons were indeed successful vertical human expeditions, but it was kind of cheating with chemistry. The true believers of physics did not give up however, and eventually in December 1903, the Wright Brothers made that famous four-mile flight over the dusty plains of Kill Devil Hill. Without falling down the bottomless pit of contention over the first ‘true’ flight (pretty much every man and his dog were giving it a go on home-made contraptions at the turn of the century) – the Wright Brother’s machine worked best because they controlled their flight, sort of. By watching how pigeons manoeuvred their bodies in relation to their wings, Orville and Wilbur applied similar principles to the Wright Flier I and its breakthrough three-axis control mechanism. It was the first bonafide airplane; the blueprint for all today’s winged aircraft that conveniently take us to destinations near and far, a modern luxury our grandparent’s grandparents could barely even dreamed of.
And, it would not have existed were it not for the humble pigeon. Maybe you should think twice before calling them ‘winged rats’. Give them some bread – they deserve it.
Faster than a speeding bullet… train
On the subject of transport, closer to earth (well on it actually), streaking across the length and breadth of Japan daily are fleets of ultra high-speed shinkansen, the legendary bullet trains. The shinkansen revolutionised rail travel in the middle of the 20th century by their ability to belt along rails smoothly and comfortably at speeds of well over 300kp/h. That’s stupid fast. Powerful engines and improved track-design were enough to give the first generation of the trains the oomph to reach some brisk speeds, however problems arose, and among them something relatively unique to trains – tunnels. Changes in air pressure whenever a train emerged from a tunnel at pace created a thunderous clap – a sonic boom – that was heard for miles. It was difficult for the trains to operate when scores of disgruntled residents with ringing ears were blocking the tracks with torches and pitchforks.
And so Eiji Nakatsu, a chief engineer of the shinkansen, was sent off to find a solution to make the train quieter. Like the Wrights discovered many years before, an answer could be found in the avian world. A keen bird-watcher, Nakatsu-san noted how predatory owls were remarkably silent in flight. Swooping upon prey with stealth and speed was the owl’s trademark, so he did what any engineer would do and put a stuffed owl (on loan from the local zoo) in a wind tunnel and whipped out the ol’ notepad. “We learned that one of the secrets of the owl family’s low-noise flying lies in their wing plumage, which has many small saw-toothed feathers protruding from the outer rim of their primary feathers,” said Nakatsu. He took the saw-tooth concept to the drawing board and went to work applying it to the train. After giving it a rad engineery name (they called it a ‘vortex generator’) the owl-feather technology was hugely effective at reducing overall noise.
But the perplexing tunnel-boom problem remained. Armed with hulking mainframes, computational fluid design software and probably super-intelligent robot lab assistants – the engineering team were certainly well-equipped to tackle the problem, but again, they need only have consulted our feathered friends to solve the problem. It was the nimble kingfisher that inspired Eiji Nakatsu this time. The fish-hunting kingfisher will dive from air into water with little splash or resistance, which inspired the shinkansen designers to model a new nose based on a kingfisher’s scything beak. It too was a great triumph and resulted in not only a quieter train, but a more energy-efficient and awesome-looking train as well. Nakata would later say, “I learned firsthand that truth can be found in the way life exerts itself in order to persist and carry on in this world.” My man.
Super-breath
It’s not just the world around us that has inspired revolutionary technology, but the world within us – our very own biology is a hugely complex and sophisticated assortment of systems that make us… you know, be alive. There are rich veins (sorry) of inspiration to be found within our own anatomy, and recently that’s just where some scientists have looked to help solve one of the biggest scientific problems facing the world today: climate change. Global warming is largely blamed on man-made CO2 emissions and the greenhouse effect it causes our fragile atmosphere. In crudely simple terms – there’s too much carbon pumped out for the environment to process and the effect manifests as untimely changes to the climate. So, if we can’t reduce our CO2 output – then we’re going to need to shoulder some of the responsibility to help Mother Nature manage it all.
Where can we find such technology to clear the air we breathe? Well, we need only look to the tool that we’ve always used to clear the air we breathe – our lungs. United States-based Eco-tech company, Carbozyme is currently developing what it calls an ‘enzyme-catalysed liquid membrane permeator,” It sound like something that may or may not have crashed into Roswell, New Mexico, but this particular gas-separation technology borrows heavily from very terrestrial examples. Human lungs are one of the body’s greatest feats of organic engineering. The unbelievably thin membrane of the lung and its intricate branch structure gives it an enormous surface area (70 times that of your body itself), which along with certain natural enzymes creates an extremely effective gas-exchange system. Early tests by the team at Carbozyme using such artificial ‘lung’ filters in flue stacks reportedly removed 90 per cent of the CO2 emitted.
Meanwhile, other similar solutions are being inspired elsewhere in nature, such as the CO2 to limestone conversion processes discovered by studying molluscs. Both technologies are still in the development phase, but both testify that the best ideas occur naturally. If only nature had thought of making the atmosphere itself something of a giant lung… actually, no. That’s a very disturbing idea.
Cleaning up crime… and grime. Actually just grime
Cleaning – is there anything worse? Teenagers and beleaguered housewives on daytime infomercials know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. The endless battle against dirt and grime is such a chore – is there no other way? Well, in fact yes, there is. And no, it’s not a steam-mop or sham-wow, but in fact something small – very small – and quite ingenious inspired by the humble lotus flower The lotus grows in muddy, swampy regions, but its flowers and leaves are always immaculately clean and spectacularly vibrant. They seem to radiate a quality that earned them cultural and religious significance since ancient times in places such as India, China and Japan. But the secret to the lotus’s spotlessness is no miracle – it’s a clever skin with intricately-patterned microscopic bumps that allow no dirt to cling stubbornly to its surface. You can carelessly wave glasses of red wine and shake tomato sauce bottles with reckless abandon around a lotus plant and it will not so much as flinch – virtually nothing can stain them thanks to their unique, extremely water-resistant surface. Like you may notice on a plants’ leaves on rainy days, water doesn’t soak in, but glides off the surface in droplets, this is because they are masters of the hydrophobic principle, allowing only 2-3 per cent of the water’s surface area to come into contact with the leaf – on lotus leaves, this is 0,.3 per cent.
Because of this, contact with water actually cleans the surface of the leaf with remarkable ease, and this has inspired many companies to harness the ‘lotus-effect’ for their own products. Already in existence are stain-proof materials such as nanotex and self-cleaning paint, such as Sto Lotusan, which bears it’s inspiration in its very name. The next steps? There are visions of entirely self-cleaning bathrooms, self-cleaning houses, self-cleaning hospitals – even whole cities. Successful application of lotus-inspired surface technology means less money spent on maintenance, less chemicals flushed through our plumbing systems and less back-breaking hours spent on your hands and knees smiting mildew with a toothbrush. We create the structures with advanced superhydrophobic surfaces and nanotechnology takes care of the rest. Just add water – literally.
Superworld
Knowingly or not, biomimicry is in some way responsible for countless other engineering feats. Though it as a distinct, defined concept is something of an anomaly of traditional sciences; the schools of biology and engineering sit as two very separate entities. The biologists scurry about with petri-dishes and microscopes, while at the other end of a research campus, engineers sit around a table salivating over trusses and peaking loads. No pun intended, of course. Biomimicry has existed before it was given a name, but now as a recognised scientific concept gathering momentum, it’s a particularly exciting bridge spanning biology and engineering (and one that isn’t as riddled with ethical concerns as other bio-engineering pursuits, which is another topic entirely).
Perhaps most importantly, it champions the theory that the presiding principles that dictate the universe are no different at an atomic level as they are in vast clusters of galaxies. The beauty is that no matter how highly regard our intellect; we’re humbly reminded that we are ourselves nothing but a product of nature, as is everything we ultimately achieve. Superhuman feats will only be seen on the pulp of comic books – we’ll never fly on our own accord, but when nature finds a way, we won’t be far behind.
Sources:
http://www.junyasumoto.com
http://www.cbid.gatech.edu/in_the_news.html\
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=self-cleaning-materials
Howard, Fred (1998). Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers.
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/
http://www.japanfs.org/en_/newsletter/200503-2.html
http://fuckyeahbiomimicry.tumblr.com/
http://www.carbozyme.us/tech.shtml
Don’t Mess With Me
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: Features, Lists | Tags: Caesar, Genghis Khan, history, revenge, Simo Hayha Leave a comment »There is a brilliant line in the equally brilliant 2008 film, Gran Torino. A line custom-made for Clint Eastwood’s grizzly drawl: “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t have messed with?” says Clintwood’s Walt Kowalski to a street thug some 50 years his junior, “That’s me.” History is full of folks who should not have been messed with. Good or bad, righteous or evil – there have been some proper badass mofos, who unleashed seven and a half circles of Hell upon those foolish enough to cross them. Here are five of the best…
'I came, I saw, I pretty much won at being awesome.'
1. Julius Caesar
(Roman – 100-44BC)
World-conqueror, Egyptian hottie-puller and resident Senate pincushion.
Who else’s name in history is synonymous with unquestioned supreme rule AND an alternate birthing procedure? That’s some honour, but one worthy of Gaius Julius Caesar. The man was one of those very rare figures in history who simply excelled at everything (except maybe listening, but more on that later). He was as shrewd a politician as he was gifted a writer and brilliant a general. The fact that he not only brought the biggest civilisation in the world at the time under his reigns; won the hearts and minds of its populace and did the dirtius maximuswith Cleopatra – the sauciest minx in recorded history – testifies to the all-round awesomeness of this man.
Caesar’s formative years were not quite your average coming-of-age. As the nephew of General Marius, he was picked on by the dictator Sulla (an opponent of Marius), stripped of his inheritance and forced to leaveRomefor his own safety – returning only once Sulla was dead. With that chip on his shoulder, Caesar entered military life, politics and nobility – with prodigious success. He forged and outrageously successful reputation as a general after conquering the long-embedded thorn inRome’s backside – Gaul. He also entered into an unprecedented political alliance with contemporaries, Crassus and Pompey, now known as the First Triumvirate. Caesar used his allies for his own ends, Crassus for money and Pompey for influence over the Senate. But as Caesar amassed an ever-expanding and unbreakably loyal army and with it, power and wealth, the Senate grew worried that he’d set his sights onRomeitself. They were right. Julius, a big fan of Alexander the Great, wanted more than just a governor’s post – he wanted ultimate power.
So the Senate planted Pompey – a hugely successful general in his own right – in their corner and told Caesar that marching into Rome with his would lead to his decimation at the hands of their boy, Pomps. Caesar brushed the threat aside like crumbs on his sleeve (if he had sleeves) and crossed the Rubicon River (giving birth to the metaphor) intoRome. Once there, he proceeded to kick Pompey’s sorry arse all over Europe – fromItaly,Spain,Greeceand eventually to Egypt (where he stopped to pursue a fling with Cleopatra and settle some Egyptian political affairs – just ‘cos).
After dusting Pompey’s final legions, he returned to Romewhere his opponents in the Senate scarpered like frightened pigeons. He took supreme control of Rome, single-handedly ending its long history as a Republic and beginning its era as an Empire. He set up sweeping political reforms, not only to protect his grasp on power (from then on all future Emperors were given the title ‘Caesar’) but to protect Rome’s future itself. He was famously assassinated after four years as Rome’s leader, but the impact of his military successes, his political reforms and straight-up awesomeness ensured Rome would go on to become the greatest empire in all of time. Veni, vidi, vici – bitches.
Who messed with him: Cicilian Pirates
In 75BC aged just 25 and already a Senator (thanks to a Civic Crown earned in battle) Caesar was captured by Cicilian pirates en route to Rhodes. The pirates held Caesar to ransom for 20 talents of silver, to which Julius scoffed and told them to demand 50. During the 38 days he was captive, Caesar built a rapport with the pirates, who were somewhat taken by his charm. He joked with them and read them poems and speeches he wrote. He even laughed that he would have them all executed, which they all took as humorous banter. After the ransom was paid and he was released, Caesar immediately rounded some ships and sailed directly back to the pirates’ location, where he found and arrested them all, taking back his ransom and some. When the local governor took too long to decide the pirates’ fate, Caesar took his captors from prison and executed the lot, just as he had joked he would. So, basically, Caesar performed some sort of reverse Stockholm Syndrome situation on vicious pirates that captured him, made them love him even though he told them he’d kill them and then he killed them. It must have been some toga he wore with balls like that.
His Fate…
Caesar eventually became the most powerful man in the Western world, but he was not immune to sneaky assassination plots and daggers. Many tales are told of the numerous sooth-sayer warnings about his impending doom on the Ides of March, but he chose not to heed these warnings and was stabbed by a cluster of pissed-off Senators led by Brutus and Cassius when he entered the Senate that fateful day.
'Just because I can't see you doesn't mean I won't mess your shit up.'
2. Enrico Dandolo
(Venetian, 1107 – 1205)
Old, blind and bitter Venetian leader who gave the Byzantine the ol’ what for.
The proverb ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ suggests to those seeking vengeance to be patient, to bide time until the opportunity to smite your wrongdoer best presents itself. Though for Enrico Dandolo, the Venetian doge who waited 33 years to get his back, well, his revenge was not so much cold as incredibly stale and probably disgustingly mouldy – but in any case, utterly devastating.
Enrico Dandolo was part of a politically-influential family in the Venetian republic during the height of the watery city’s power. It was also the period when the Christian Church was struggling to balance itself between the Holy Roman Empire in the West and theByzantine Empirein the East. The Byzantine government had seized a whole lot of Venetian property for no other reason than being jerks, and so Dandolo was sent in 1171 as a Venetian ambassador toConstantinopleto try and sort out the mess.
Again, for no apparent reason other than previously mentioned jerkness, the Byzantines refused to listen to the Venetian’s demands and instead chased the gondola-paddlers back home, blinding Dandolo in the process. Although he knew corneas would never again be filled with the ornate magnificence that is St Marco’s Cathedral ever again, Dandolo buried his bitter hatred for the Byzantines and carried on with his diplomatic duties. Some 14 years after the incident, he helped forge a treaty betweenVeniceandConstantinople– a treaty that would be useful for Dandolo in years to come…
In 1202, it was that time again – another Crusade to theHoly Land. This was the fourth and the mission was (surprise) to wrest control ofJerusalemfrom the Muslims. But as the Knights gathered in theportofVenice, they realised they had no more money to fund a full-blown invasion. Just as they were about to pack their shields and head back to their castles, Enrico Dandolo, now well in his nineties and the doge (governor) of Venice, stepped in and announced he would not only bankroll the fourth crusade – but his blind, old arse would be riding up front and centre. And so the army set off toEgypt, from where they planned to launch their campaign againstJerusalem. Except, they didn’t head toEgypt. No, Dandolo diverted the invading forces toConstantinople– their Christian allies of the East. Dandolo, blinded by both rage and the horrible things the Byzantines did to his eyes many, many years ago, orchestrated a full-blown sneak attack against an allied city – and not just any city, Constantinople . Big, impenetrableConstantinople. The crusaders eventually broke in and sacked the place, and in the process knocked the Byzantine army a heavy blow and set the empire itself on its spiral into oblivion.
Who messed with him? The Byzantines
When Enrico Dandelo was born, the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches was already straining relationships between the Byzantines and the Western European powers. But it was all on a theological grounds – i.e. ‘we’re better mates with God than you’, ‘your prayers suck and ours are awesome’, etc. When the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos started pestering the Italians, tensions increased, but everything was handled politically… even Dandolo’s blinding was an incident that blew over – for everyone but Enrico of course. Fast forward three and a half decades and Enrico, now the most powerful man inVenice, sent a surprise assault onConstantinople and brought the entire empire to its knees.
His fate…
One year afterConstantinople was sacked, Dandolo died of natural causes. It seems that his soul was not able to rest until he exacted his revenge, he was 90-odd years old anyhow – ancient by medieval standards.
'Fear my spiky hat and moustache!'
3. Genghis Khan
(Mongolian 1162-1227)
Founder of the biggest, baddest empire ever, lover of beheadings.
More than a millennium after the great Julius Caesar propelledRometowards empirical greatness, over in the wild Central Asian steppes another man would rise to do the exact same thing – only bigger… and nastier. Temujin, later Genghis Khan, was born into the ruling family of the Khamag Mongol tribe – one of the many disparate, nomadic tribes wandering the vast expanses ofCentral Asia. Genghis’s childhood was pretty messed up. His dad was poisoned by a rival clan; he and his family were cast out into poverty; he was imprisoned for killing his half-brother during a dispute; and then he was enslaved. With a little help from his dad’s old allies, he was rescued and reunited with his mother, who taught him a thing or two about being a leader – and a straight-up badass.
Genghis eventually rose to leadership and successfully united the tribes and combined the warrior forces to conquer a number of hostile clans in the region. By 1206, he had established the Mongolian Empire and became the first ‘Khan’ (king). He had turned what was once a rabble of raggedy-arse tribal warriors into a disciplined, fierce and angry army. Like Caesar, he treated his army well. He divided spoils of war amongst his soldiers and rewarded loyalty with promotion and bonuses.
Genghis could have sat back after that, comfortable as the beloved leader of an empire, with a harem packed to its silken ceiling with comely concubines. But his fascination with the military and craving for expansion was insatiable. With several brilliant generals under him (including Subutai – one of the greatest generals in the history of the world) Khan set sights to conquer all horizons. The Mongols were unstoppable. Under Genghis and the ‘dogs of war’ (his crack generals), the Mongolian army burst out in all directions from its central Asian nucleus like an exploding star. They decimated everyone and everything it their path, leaving only severed heads and smouldering ruin behind. The Mongol’a success was down to its combination of revolutionary siege tactics and downright brutality. While Khan bestowed benevolent moral codes for his people (he banned theft, female slavery, fighting and even protected animals from unseasonal hunting), he showed his enemies no quarter. One of his favourite games was what he called ‘measuring against the linchpin’, whereby after capturing a settlement; he would force all civilian male captives to walk behind a wagon. Anyone who stood taller than the linchpin (a bolt on the back of the wagon) was instantly beheaded. It was to both prevent any counter-uprising by older males and to scare the bejesus out of future targets.
By his death, Genghis had conquered at least half of Asia, from theSea of Japanto the Caspian. Like Caesar, he established lineage rule, and his son, Ogedai picked up where his old man left off. The empire would eventually go on to become the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen – covering 24 million square kilometres, or 16 per cent of the world’s land area – and one quarter of the world’s population. They also were perhaps the most brutal – it’s estimated 40 million people fell to the sword of a Mongolian. Forty. Million. Even Caesar would take off his wreath to that.
Who crossed him: The Khwarezmian Dynasty
While it would make sense to list Jamukha – the childhood friend and blood brother of Genghis Khan who eventually became his jealous rival and fought Genghis for Mongolian leadership (only to lose and have his back broken like a piece of balsa wood) – there is another, more brazen example of foolishness in raising the ire of great Genghis. When the Mongolian army reached the middle east – Genghis Khan thought to establish a commercial relationship with the neighbouring Khwarezmians- instead of just conquering them, which was getting a little passé by now. He sent a trade caravan to the city of Otrar, but the local governor was mistrustful of the gesture. He took the goods and arrested the merchants – some 500 men. Genghis wasn’t exactly pleased, but sent a three-man diplomatic team to the Khwarezmian leader, Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad to ask for his men to be freed and for them to all forget this little misunderstanding over some strawberry yak milk. But the Shah responded by shaving the heads of two of the messengers and beheading the third – as well as ordering the execution of the imprisoned merchants. With that, Genghis took off his diplomacy pants, did a few power-squats and put on his genocide trousers. He stormed in Khwarezmia with 200,000 of his most grizzled veterans, led by his best generals, and annihilated it. He literally erased the empire from history. As for the govenor of Otrar, he (apparently) had molten silver poured into his eyes and mouth, while the Shah died of fright after escaping to a tiny island in the Caspian.
His Fate…
Debate rages over the true cause of Genghis Khan’s death, but all seem to agree it was around 1227, when he was 65 years old. Some say he was killed in battle, some say he fell of his horse and others suggest he died after being castrated (understandably so).
'A storm?' pfft, I'll destroy it with my cutlass.'
4. Edward Low
(English 1690 – 1794)
Posterboy for acts of piracy and cruel and unusual punishment.
When you think of a pirate, you either think of Blackbeard or Johnny Depp. Though, neither Blackbeard (surprisingly) nor Depp (unsurprisingly) embody the true brutality of a rogue pirate captain. That honour belongs to the scurviest of scurvy dogs, Edward ‘Ned’ Low. Lacking conscience and compassion, Low’s name is remembered for his sheer ruthlessness. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described him as a man of “amazing and grotesque brutality”. That about sums Neddy Boy up. On his first outing as a rookie pirate stealing logs in Honduras, Low took umbrage at the captain’s announcement that there was little food for rations. Young Ned grabbed a musket and fired a round at the captain, missing him and nailing a comrade in the neck. Low and 12 others were punished for mutinous behaviour by being cast off a dingy to die. But die he didn’t. Instead armed only with anger and a belly of rum, he and his rowboat posse attacked the next ship to pass by. Low disposed the ship’s captain and commandeered his first vessel, on which he boldly “declared war on all the world.”
The Captain Low vs the World theatre of war was mainly off the American East Coast, but in a few short years, he and his crew of miscreants had captured around 100 ships, mostly sloops and fishing vessels, with a few skirmishes with French and British Man-O-Wars for good measure. But Low’s name was not made for his pirate conquests, but rather the merciless treatment of those unfortunate enough to stand in his way. As he went about amassing ships and booty, Low also amassed a terrifying rap sheet filled with counts of torture and grievous bodily harm. Low’s cutlass would go on to slice off many a limb and facial feature. He took delight in personally hacking captured crews to diced pieces and burning ship cooks alive. Low’s infamy equalled his ruthlessness and it took him precious little time to become one of the most feared pirates in the Seven Seas, and the most wanted.
Eventually even his own crew became distrustful and anxious of his unpredictable violence. Low’s last instance of evil (shooting his first mate in his sleep) caused his crew to mutiny and toss him overboard, marooned in a leaky dingy – bringing his brief but legendary pirate career full circle.
Who messed with him: The Portuguese Captain of the Victoria
Possibly the most upsetting example of Low’s infamous cruelty was during the capture of a Portuguese ship in 1723. When the Portuguese captain denied Low a haul of gold to by dropping it into the sea, Ned reacted in a fit of fury by slashing off the captain’s lips with a cutlass, broiling them, and forcing the victim to eat them while still hot. He then slaughtered the crew and left the ship floating, deserted. Pretty haaarrggh-sh (sorry, had to get one in somewhere).
His fate…
Low’s demise is disputed. The National Maritime Museum (maybe the most reputable source) says Low escaped into anonymity in Brazil, while other sources say he was picked up by a French ship, where he was recognized, chucked in the brig and hanged. In any case, he’s in pirate Hell now – no doubt loving it.
'So many heads to shoot - so few bullets!'
5. Simo Hayha
(Finnish 1905 – 2002)
Sniper extraordinaire, Call of Duty nerd hero.
Amidst the madness of World War Two, the Soviet Russian juggernaut reinvoked its century-long desire to take over neighbouringFinland. Just two months after the war began, Soviet troops kicked off the Winter War when they crossed the Russia-Finland border with three times the manpower, 30 times the aircraft and 100 times the tanks of the itty-bitty Finnish army. But, while the Red Army had the sheer numbers, the Finns had Simo Hayha – possibly the deadliest man to ever wield a sniper rifle.
The Soviet advance was slowed by masculinity-shrinking frosty weather, dense forestation and punishing terrain; just why they really persisted is a mystery considering the Russian’s backyard is twice the size ofEuropeitself – with all the forests and frozen wasteland you’d ever want. In any case, if the Soviets thought the weather was bad, they were rudely shocked once Simo Hayha locked and loaded to unleash enough damage to make John Rambo wee his khakis. A farmer-turned soldier, Hayha was an extraordinarily proficient sniper, boasting robotic accuracy and ninja-like stealth. He was a one-man army, clocking up an unbelievable total of 505 confirmed sniper kills, plus more than 200 kills with a sub-machine gun. That’s not human – that’s video game stuff. Whole battalions struggle to inflict that level of hurt.
Simo was a master of concealment. He wore an all-white camo suit, compacted snow around him (so it wouldn’t move when he fired) and kept snow in his mouth to suppress visible vapour from his breath. What makes his natural disaster of a body-count even more gobsmacking is the fact he used inferior old-school iron-sights because telescopic ones could give off a glint of sunlight glare, a lesson he learned after popping several Russian snipers for that very reason. Hayha was a fearsome spectre, nicknamed the ‘White Death’ amongst Red Army ranks. They tried to eliminate him with counter-snipers, whom were dispatched effortlessly by Hayha; and then even artillery strikes on suspected positions. But Simo was too cunning, the ultimate role-model for what Call of Duty players would call a ‘camper’, picking spot after spot to hide, kill and move on. Eventually, a lucky Soviet potshot struck the Finn in the head. It was an incendiary bullet that reportedly took half of his face with it. But it didn’t kill him. No-one that badass dies of something as wimpy as an explosive bullet to the face. Hayha regained consciousness a week later – the dayRussia threw its hands up and declared peace (March 13, 1940). Hayha’s chest was festooned with medals and fast-tracked up the army’s ranks. Seven-hundred plus kills in less than 100 days of service. A dutiful and unlikely hero to his country and a devastating silent menace to his enemies. Definitely no noob.
Who Messed with him: Soviet Russia
The Soviets were foolish to invadeFinland and they suffered an embarrassing loss. Hayha was the ultimate example of many brave Finns who obstinately refused to yield to the Russians. The moment communist boots trod on his native soil, Hayha was Mr Homeland Defence. Any Russian foolish enough to wander within 500 metres of Hayha’s muzzle was rewarded with a bullet between the eyeballs. The Finns had worked hard against both the Swedes and the Russians for their independence in the previous centuries and they weren’t about to give up their newfound sovereignty that easy.
His Fate…
He survived a shot to the head and even though it disfigured his face, he went on to live a long and happy life as a moose hunter and dog breeder. He lived to the ripe old age of 96.
