At 133 words long, Prince Philip’s full title includes the words duke, earl, baron, royal knight, and just about every other noble designation you can think of. But the highest and perhaps most obvious moniker is conspicuously missing: king.
If you’ve watched The Crown or spent a lot of time reading about British monarchs, you might be aware that women who marry kings are referred to as queens—the most recent example was Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, who was known as Queen Elizabeth after her husband assumed the throne. The technical phrase is queen consort, where consort basically means that you gained your title through marriage. Why, then, did Prince Philip not become King Philip (or king consort) after his wife’s coronation?
According to Reader’s Digest, although parliamentary law doesn’t consider gender in determining the line of succession, it does factor it into the designation of titles. In general, a wife assumes the female form of her husband’s title. This is why Meghan Markle became the Duchess of Sussex when Prince Harry was named the Duke of Sussex, and it’s also why Kate Middleton will likely become Queen Catherine if and when Prince William is crowned king.
Husbands, on the other hand, don’t automatically match their wives’ titles, especially when it comes to the reigning monarchs. As Town and Country explains, queen can still be a symbolic title, but king only ever describes a reigning monarch. In other words, the word queen can either mean “female monarch” or “the wife of a monarch,” whereas king can only mean “monarch.” It’s a vestige of a historically patriarchal system of government that used to value sons over daughters (and it also sheds light on why kings rank higher than queens in a deck of cards).
The USB charging ports that have popped up at airports, coffee shops, and even outdoor stations around cities in recent years are definitely a lifesaver when your smartphone is down to its last bit of juice. A dead phone is annoying at best and downright dangerous at worst, so it’s totally understandable why you’d jump at the chance to revive it at your earliest opportunity.
However, those public ports might not be as benevolent as they seem. According to Afar, hackers can load malware onto those stations—or on the cables left plugged into the stations—which can then deliver passwords and other data right from your device to the hacker’s. If you have used a public port recently, don’t panic; TechCrunch reports that these cases are fairly rare. Having said that, it’s definitely better not to risk it, especially considering what a nightmare it would be to have your identity stolen.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office explains that the easiest way to prevent becoming a victim of this type of scam, often referred to as juice-jacking, is simply to abstain from using public USB charging ports. Instead, invest in a portable charger, or plug your own charger into an actual AC power outlet.
But unoccupied power outlets are notoriously hard to come by in public places, and portable chargers themselves can also run out of battery life. Luckily, there’s a small, inexpensive device called a data blocker that will enable you to use public USB charging ports without worrying about juice-jacking. It looks a little like a flash drive with an extra slot, but it lacks the two wires usually found in USB chargers that can download and upload data. That way, your device will charge without transferring any information.
You can get two of them for $11 from Amazon here.
[h/t Afar]
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If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones or medieval programs in general, you’re probably familiar with action-packed battle scenes during which soldiers storm castles, dodge arrows, and dash up spiral staircases. And, while those spiral staircases might not necessarily ascend clockwise in every television show or movie you’ve watched, they usually did in real life.
According to Nerdist, medieval architects built staircases to wrap around in a clockwise direction in order to disadvantage any enemies who might climb them. Since most soldiers wielded swords in their right hands, this meant that their swings would be inhibited by the inner wall, and they’d have to round each curve before striking—fully exposing themselves in the process.
Just as the clockwise spiral hindered attackers, so, too, did it favor the castle’s defenders. As they descended, they could swing their swords in arcs that matched the curve of the outer wall, and use the inner wall as a partial shield. And, because the outer wall runs along the wider edge of the stairs, there was also more room for defenders to swing. So, if you’re planning on storming a medieval castle any time soon, you should try to recruit as many left-handed soldiers as possible. And if you’re defending one, it’s best to station your lefties on crossbow duty and leave the tower-defending to the righties.
On his blog All Things Medieval, Will Kalif explains that the individual stairs themselves provided another useful advantage to protectors of the realm. Because the individual steps weren’t all designed with the same specifications, it made for much more uneven staircases than what we see today. This wouldn’t impede the defenders, having grown accustomed to the inconsistencies of the staircases in their home castle, but it could definitely trip up the attackers. Plus, going down a set of stairs is always less labor-intensive than going up.
Staircase construction and battle tactics are far from the only things that have changed since the Middle Ages. Back then, people even walked differently than we do—find out how (and why) here.
[h/t Nerdist]
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