Here is a pretty cool page with different Solitaire Games:
http://www.idiotsdelight.net/index.html
Monday, February 13, 2012
Rules for Best Little Known Games
Here is the link:
http://www.cardsanddominoes.com/index.html
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Atta Girl Anna Comnena
Anna Comnena led a life of privilege to be sure, but I still find her worthy and noteworthy of the Atta Girl Hall of Fame for her incredible contribution to preserving history and demonstrating women definitely have a place in the field of science.
Oddly though she studied science so long ago and was apparently quite good at it, how did society forget between that time and the time of the fight for women's rights and even today that women are just as capable as anyone else?
Anna Comnena or Anna of Byzantium was born December 1or 2 approx 1083 to 1148 (sources differ on this). Anna was a Byzantine princess and she was also a political figure, medieval historian and medical writer.
Anna was the daughter of Irene Ducas and her father the Emperor Alexius I Comnenus who ruled from 1081 – 1118. Anna was the oldest of her father’s children. She was born just a few years after her father won the throne as the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire by taking it from Nicephorus III.
When the time came, Anna was betrothed to Constantine Ducas, who was a cousin on her mother’s side and a son of Michael VII but Constantine died before the marriage ever took place.
Anna Comnena was well educated. She studied the classics and she studied music, but she also studied science and mathematics, which included astronomy and medicine which were topics that she wrote on later in her life.
In 1097, Anna married Nicephorus Bryennius who had some claim to the throne. Nicephorus was also a historian. Anna and her mother, the Empress Irene, plotted to have Anna’s husband succeed Alexius in place of Anna’s brother John, but plan never came about.
When Anna’s father was dying, she used her medical knowledge to choose among possible treatments. Despite her efforts, her father died in 1118 and her brother became the next emperor.
It seems that at one point Anna and her mother tried to overthrow Anna’s brother and replace him with Anna’s husband but apparently her husband refused to take part and when the plot was discovered and thwarted, Anna and her husband left the court.
When Anna Comnena’s husband died in 1137, she and her mother were sent to a convent that Irene had founded.
It was at the convent that Anna began to write a history of her father’s life and reign which her husband had begun. The history, The Alexiad, was 15 volumes when completed and was written in Greek rather than Latin.
Though the Alexiad was written to praise Alexius’ accomplishments, Anna’s place at court for most of the period covered meant that the details were unusually accurate for histories of that time period.
Anna wrote about military, religious and political life of that time and was skeptical of the value of the Latin Church’s First Crusade which occurred during her father’s reign.
Anna also wrote on medicine and astronomy and it is clear that she knew much about science. She included references regarding the accomplishments of a number of women including her own grandmother, Anna Dalassena.
There was also mention in the Alexiad, of how isolated Anna felt at the convent and how disgusted she was with her husband’s unwillingness to carry through with her efforts to put him on the throne. She noted that perhaps their genders should have been reversed.
In 1928 Elizabeth Dawes translated the Alexiad into English for the first time.
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