"Like plates washed clean"

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy birthday to alii_s. May you have a wonderful day today and many more to come!

A few notes...

* For a limited time, HarperCollins is making Neil Gaiman's fantastic novel Neverwhere available online for free. I can't recommend this book highly enough. If you haven't read it, here's a perfect opportunity

Comments

[eldritchhobbit]

Aw, thank you! :)

[whswhs]

I saw the Pompeii exhibit here in San Diego, partly as research for my current GURPS book-and it was worth it; I learned that the ancient Romans had beam balances (the kind used for scales in many doctors' offices) as well as pan balances, which shows a conceptual advance in grasping that weight = F(length). I also got to look at some Roman surgical equipment.

Then there were the plaster casts of bodies, next to the exit, and those were hard to look at:

The man lying twisted up, reaching out one hand to touch his wife

The dog bent double in agony

The slave wearing shackles that would have slowed his flight

[eldritchhobbit]

That was utterly amazing. I'm so glad it proved useful to you professionally, too! I was especially haunted by the dog and the slave, since both were chained and unable to flee properly. It's hard to wrap the mind around how terrible those last minutes must have been, even though death itself apparently came swiftly.

I'm glad we both had the opportunity to see it.