[conspire] Federales in Portland?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Leif's "problem" is that his discovery was not well known outside of
> Scandinavia.  And the settlements that followed his exploration didn't
> last.

Like a lot of early settlements, the make-or-break factor was
economics.  Which also apparently doomed the Norse colonies in
the two settled valleys of Greenland.  Even Iceland and the Faroe
Islands were ever only barely sustainable.

To be a settler in the boonies, in those days, was to be at the mercy
of a very long, very slow, very tenuous supply chain.  

Also, in the Newfoundland area _and_ in Greenland, the Norse seem to
have antagonised the native Amerindian population, which was a
particularly stupid thing to do.  Their arrogant attitude was apparent
in the name used for the locals, 'Skrælings', which basically means
'primitive ones'.

(Like, dudes, have a little respect for the people who could have taught
you how to survive there without metalworking.  The Inuit are still
there and you variously starved to death and had to evacuate in panic,
so who are the primitives, now?)

[Columbus:]

> Actually IMO, he was the world' worst navigator.  He claimed he was
> halfway around the world from where he actually was.  Can't get much
> more wrong than that. 

I've heard claims that he knew perfectly well that his estimate of 
the distance sailing west to China was low by about half.  The
correct size of the planet had been known since Hellenistic times,
courtesy of Eratosthenes of Alexandria.  (You may remember Carl Sagan
demonstrating how he did it, using elegant logic and measurement of
shadows.

Unlike the wanderings of Leif Erikson and the Norse, Eratosthenes's 
achievements were common knowledge all over Europe, North Africa, the
Middle-East, and South Asia, and were the best available (and damned
good, considering he did it in about 240 BC) until better methods were
found in the 1600s.

Anyway, it should be remembered that one of Columbus's key skills was as
a salesman pitching his expensive proposals to the marks.  Today, he'd
have been a stockbroker.  ;->