Morse Code

I know half the Morse alphabet, and have known since I was a child. This is not quite as random as it may sound: Some letters are quite well known: S and O, due to their role in "SOS"^*; and now M for those who realise their 'phone chirping •••——••• is actually telling them they have received an SMS message. E, as the shortest letter, a single dot, and T as a single dash, and I as two dots and H as four. N and W I know from finding the Newcastle Airport beacon on my radio, constantly repeating —• • •——: NEW. A is N reversed: •—. B is the rhythm of "Rule Britannia": —•••, and D the same minus the terminal dot. R and L I know from a piece for the Hybrid Music System on the BBC Micro in the 1980s called Merlin, which began with the Morse for "Merlin" repeated several times: —— • •—• •—•• •• —•.

* Though I believe technically the emergency signal is not actually "SOS" because it lacks spaces between the letters.

So, half the Morse alphabet.

And during the whole of the nearly thirty years that I have known this, I have never found a single use for this knowledge.

Occasionally during my car ownership days, I would flash "HELLO" at the car behind using my brake lights whilst queuing in traffic; I never got a response back. Likewise, occasionally I buzz "HELLO" on people's door buzzers; that never gets a response apart from "All right, all right, I'm coming!"

Waste of brain cells, really.

Antiquities of the Jews, fit the twenty-sixth

From time to time Josephus gives an explanation of the differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees; that in XIII.10.295 agrees with what I would have generally have thought to be their biggest difference:( The Sadducees reject the Oral Law of the Pharisees. The question is to what extent the Oral Law goes back to antiquity, and the value of _Antiquities_ in providing evidence for this going back three and a centuries before the time of the Mishna )

[Please comment at my collected Book XIII notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes