ragbag miscellany

none of the 2,000 wikipedia tabs that are still open in my netscape browser window merit their own post. but perhaps if i aggregate them into a larger collection they may somehow combine like voltron robots into something greater than the sum of their parts.

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gangkhar puensum is the world’s 40th highest mountain. more importantly, it’s also the world’s highest unclimbed mountain. what makes it all the more mystical is that nobody really knows where it is (due to the lack of mapping in bhutan), nobody really knows how tall it is for sure, and the bhutanese government will come after you with all its might if you go near it because climbing mountains in bhutan is considered disrespectful to the gods.

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the three surviving ancient forests in england are: new forest, forest of dean, and epping forest.

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in pre 20th century britain, the name maria was pronounced muh-rye-uh (as in carey). in the 1900s its pronunciation was influenced by the “muh-ree-uh” of romance languages.

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the oldest surviving european place name in the united states is florida. it was named by the biggest ponce of them all: ponce de leon in 1513 and means “flowery land”. he subsequently named the dry tortugas (the turtles, 1513). the third oldest surviving european place name is cape canaveral which means something like “the cape of dense thickets of cane.”