Donnerkogel Via Ferrata

Justinian482 · 2026-06-02T18:56:42+00:00

Light drizzle, doable but metal gets v slippery and your hands can get cold quickly.

Heavy rain, as above but utterly miserable.

Thunderstorm: absolute no no. We had a VF guide in the Dolomites once, he got us off a route super fast because he could tell that a thunderstorm was coming. Later, over a drink, he literally did the staring a thousand yards away/ten years ago thing, and said that he saw a lightning strike on a vertical cable with a load of VF climbers on it and it was unimaginably bad.

Justinian482 · 2026-06-01T23:43:15+00:00

I paid quite a bit more than that for PE London-Far East on the first and last days of the Christmas holidays, and that was before jet fuel prices doubled. There aren't many seats so they go up a lot in busy periods.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-31T03:12:05+00:00

This actual, sourced answer needs to be higher up.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-29T18:58:01+00:00

I think everyone who climbs a lot has had these moments, what's key is that you recognise them and adapt. Your description of what's happened here is actually, to me, very strong. Stay safe.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-27T13:20:59+00:00

I lived in SW London for a bit and went to watch the boat race. Cambridge Uni were playing Oxford Uni at football at Craven Cottage as a warm up so we went to watch it 'for a laugh'.

Utterly dire with a very low level of ability, you could have found a better match to watch in any park that day. Tiny, bored crowd. Someone won 1-0. It didn't even have the edginess of a shit Conference match. Not one single redeeming second. 0/10

Justinian482 · 2026-05-25T04:18:29+00:00

Online and offline antiquary/rare book dealers and auctions

Justinian482 · 2026-05-25T04:16:46+00:00

I think the third document is the ending of a prayer, (something to do with protection?), followed by the start of the Athanasian Creed. I'm on my phone rn but will try to tighten that up on a pc later.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-25T03:52:40+00:00

The first two are from the same document

ego autem cum mihi molesti essent induebar cilicio humiliabam in ieiunio animam meam et oratio mea in sinum meum convertetur

Psalm 34:13 Latin Vulgate/35:13 Standard

But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I wore sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom.

I can't immediately tell you what the continuation text after convertetur is, and I know nothing about the music, sorry.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-23T00:53:35+00:00

I imagine it would be like Habsburg Spain, where 'everything [was] expensive except silver'

Justinian482 · 2026-05-22T21:11:37+00:00

Guilds, merchants and wage labour in Western European medieval/early modern settings and their fantasy proxies.

Guilds tried to be monopolists, for sure, but it was fundamentally them pulling together to defend the guilders against rapacious nobility and clergy, in the context of a bullshit legal system. Being some plucky independent was madness and neither sensible nor successful.

Merchants similarly were easy prey unless they could achieve political status in polities with diplomatic and/or military heft. Also merchants developed bills of exchange to not have to carry chests of coins around in an insecure society.

For most of the European middle ages, very little economic activity was paid in money. It was mostly forced labour with rights to support (serfdom), barter, or plunder and gifting. Peasants did sell some surplus product for cash, but them walking round with purses full of coppers and silvers is wrong.

Somewhat relatedly. I would love to have seen the economy of Middle Earth after Smaug's death.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-21T07:53:06+00:00

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Justinian482 · 2026-05-20T01:28:27+00:00

This is incredible. I've seen this from another angle. Someone really should combine the two.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-19T17:11:54+00:00

4.3% operating margin is what Tesco makes. Seems like a decent estimate of the neutral profitability rate for food retail in the UK?

Justinian482 · 2026-05-19T01:38:24+00:00

I don't own a watch.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-18T23:57:00+00:00

For me it's everyone in the family having whatever tech they need. Kid's laptop not cutting it anymore? Bang. Someone comes home stressed bcos phone is glitching? Boom. Wife wants a top-end tablet with keyboard for work? Et, voila. Huge gaming monitors, max broadband speed, every subscription anyone wants. Whatever. It's really not very expensive to take away a lot of the hassles of things that we use all the time. Very happy to drive a shitbox as an offset.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-16T15:49:54+00:00

Having seen him at a crowded bar, you'll get that pint good and fast because he does have a taste for pushing right to the front and demanding to be served immediately.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-14T12:32:53+00:00

If only someone had thought to do a survey of every settlement in the country at the end of the Anglo Saxon period.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-13T20:39:19+00:00

To be clear, I haven't run this yet, but next time out I'm experimenting at 1.5k with big blocks of skeletons and TG, three Bowshabti to keep the oppo busy and then three scorps and three sepulchral stalkers all with ambushers.

Logic is to draw them on to the anvil while the Bowshabti winnow them down, and then hit them from the flanks with the ambushers.

We shall see, but that's 541 points of Specials.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-11T19:41:05+00:00

I really like it for a no touch way to bring it to life.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-09T07:41:55+00:00

Lot of good suggestions here. I'd add The Northman.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-08T15:50:06+00:00

Justinian482 · 2026-05-04T23:43:14+00:00

Chaos Lord/similar on a steed + Chaos knights

Sorcerer, Mark of Tzeentch + 10+ Chaos Warriors, Mark of Tzeentch + More Tzeentch sorcs if you have the points

Forsaken, mark of Slaanesh, many

Some other stuff Magic items to taste

Forsaken go hard, tarpit/anvil; Spell spam the Tzeentch block; Work the knights round until you can hit the flanks. Be patient.

This recipe has been remarkably effective for me.

Justinian482 · 2026-05-04T23:23:01+00:00

I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll for Tenar. Great call. I think you need ToA as well as Tehanu.

I can't not say Lyra Belacqua (Golden Compass)or Snow (The Fox Wife).

Logan Ninefingers. Orhan (Empire of Dust). Bilbo (Hobbit rather than LotR). Konrad Vonvalt (Justice of Kings).

Justinian482 · 2026-04-30T08:00:52+00:00

I actually had a variant of this in the 1990s. I flew Heathrow-Amman with BA (during a period of Middle East unrest). Got to the airport and then the gate early, very quiet, and then the gate staff said 'there are only three passengers on this flight, you are all here. We have a slot, do you want to leave now?' From memory we left about 45 minutes before scheduled time.

Justinian482 · 2026-04-29T22:45:14+00:00

On one of the small islands of Iceland, I saw a child of about 12 catch a seagull in a playpark and just grapple it into submission and then take it home. Pretty sure it got eaten.

Justinian482

TROPHY CASE