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beowabbitMediaeval word puzzles, courtesy of Retronaut. I can’t quite tell whether they’re actually puzzles of some sort or just passages written in a grid like Seek-and-Find. They’re not that; they’re legible Latin left-to-right, but I suspect there’s something deeper hidden in the layout. (The phrasing seems a little odd, and the lack of spaces — the letterforms are clearly from a time when spaces would have been used — and features like the consistent use of Q alone for QU suggest some kind of puzzle.) The site where I found them doesn’t have much information; anybody whose Latin (or patience) is better than mine want to take a guess at what the puzzle is?
(This is a little more retro than Retronaut’s usual fare, but they have some interesting stuff.)
(This is a little more retro than Retronaut’s usual fare, but they have some interesting stuff.)
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-27 03:41 (UTC)I don't have the time right now (I am packing a lot), but these are really cool.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-27 18:20 (UTC)I don't see a puzzle aspect. At first glance, they would seem to be word search puzzles, but if you read straight across, right to left, line by line, it's just Latin text written in a grid format. The illuminator *may* have arranged things so that the word breaks always fall at the end of the line, which is cool, though a little easier in Latin, where you can rearrange words a little more freely.
And yet...
The letters in the picture are definitely meant to be read as part of the background: in the first picture (saint holding cross), the sixth line starts SPERAREH[I]NC[V]ITA..., where the bracketed letters are red-on-gold instead of background, and that reads "sperare hinc vita", i.e. "to hope (by) this life"; SPERAREHNCITA is gibberish.
But if you read *down* that staff, you get
CEXRI[SNVGO]TETVAVICTORIAVERASALVS...
(where the bracketed letters here are on the saint's hand, and *not* in red-on-gold). My Latin is not remotely good enough to translate this, but there's no way that it just coincidentally reads "TUA VICTORIA VERA SALUS". So while there's not a *puzzle* per se, there's definitely some very clever arrangement of words that's giving a highlighted message.
In most of the other pictures, the red-on-gold is too hard to read, and my Latin is *definitely* not good enough to fill in the gaps from the surrounding text.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-28 12:33 (UTC)Of course, it's in French, but that may be a bit more accessible than the Latin
no subject
Date: 2013-03-13 01:51 (UTC)Ministry tawdry-tablets
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sports
Date: 2013-03-25 13:17 (UTC)Not so in sleepy San Antonio, Texas, the league's third-smallest market. professional sports teams in the past decade. The team is worth $390 million, 11% higher than last year and $37 million above the league average.
Last season the team posted operating income (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $11.7 million on revenues of $122 million, compared with $6.9 million of $112 million for the average NBA team. Fans have filled the AT (nyse:news) Center to 98% capacity the past four seasons, versus 89% for the rest of the NBA, and have rented all of the 60 luxury suites at prices ranging from $160,00 to $240,000 a season.
A big reason has been stability. Gregg Popovich, now in his eleventh season as coach, is one of only two NBA coaches in place more than four seasons. (The other is Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz.)
And Spurs owner Peter Holt, 58, a Vietnam hero--Silver Star, three Bronze Stars, Purple Heart--who before rehab in 1981 had a long history of alcohol abuse. He does not like controversy. He refuses to spend big bucks on prima donna stars and has instead built his team with young players who excel more on the hardwood than on the police blotter.
To date no Spur, for example, has gotten in trouble for shooting a gun outside a nightclub, as Golden State Warrior guard Stephen Jackson allegedly did earlier this season.
Forward Tim Duncan, drafted in 1997, is a role model both on and off the court and has twice been named the league's MVP. Point guard Tony Parker has been http://www.brandshoese.com one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" and is the fianc of desperate http://www.footballnewsee.com housewife Eva Longoria, whose family lives in San Antonio.
Rather than sign the flashy college underclassmen for whom most NBA teams so ravenously compete, Holt goes overseas for 70% of his draft picks, who continue to play for their foreign teams until they prove themselves. The Spurs drafted Argentinean guard Manu Ginobili, for example, in 1999 but didn't sign him until three years later. Ginobili was an NBA all-star within two years. "We look at character first, then skill," says Holt, whose team now includes players from Slovenia, France and the Netherlands.
Holt reinforces the team's untarnished image by pumping money into charities. The Spurs Foundation has contributed $10 million in cash and gifts to help the children of southern Texas over the past two decades. "They have exemplified what a team http://www.fashionjewelryse.com can mean to a community," says NBA Commissioner David Stern.
It wasn't always this way. In the mid-1990s the franchise was in disarray. The Spurs had 20 owners (mostly local businessmen), were struggling to make money and had plenty of controversy, thanks to bad boy Dennis Rodman, who was traded to the Chicago Bulls in http://www.brandjewelryse.com 1995. The Spurs were playing in an outmoded arena built for football, depriving the team of the lucrative luxury-suite income other NBA teams were starting to enjoy.
Holt, whose great-grandfather invented the first track-type tractor (which led to the formation of Caterpillar
(nyse:
Popovich drafted Duncan a year later, and the team won its first title in 1999. On the day the Spurs were handed the championship rings for their first title, the public was voting on whether to put up taxpayer money for the bulk of a new $175 million stadium. The plebiscite won with 61% of the vote. Opening in 2002, the new AT Center helped revenues climb 50% that year, and the team turned its first operating profit ($19 million) after three moneylosing years.
For two of the past three years ESPN magazine has named the Spurs the best franchise in sports, based on a composite ranking of such things as fan feedback, championships and owner loyalty. The Spurs could hold on to that title-- barring any fistfights at half-court.