https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/05/the-mysterious-gob...
I wish people would stop linking to phys.org. It's primarily a spam ad promoting agregation site...
I didn't find it in my search...
> The paper is published in the journal Land.
the word 'published' links to the MDPI paper
When I have interest in an article at that site, I search for the text of the headline, and try to identify the original source.
I scan/read ~20 journalistic websites each morning. In the modern meaning of "journalism", obviously these sites are also publishing news from elsewhere, but they also have their own staff, and generate original articles.
The usual ones: Wash Post, NY Times, Guardian, El Pais, Asahi Shimbun. But also a number of local news sites: San Diego Union, LA Times, San Jose Mercury, SFGate (aggregator?). I used to have tabs for Ars Technica and El Reg, but now I only open those in response to a specific article.
Probably the only true aggregator I use, is HN. Which I monitor via the ##hntop IRC channel on libera.chat.
I also subscribe to RSS feeds from about a dozen blag sites.
Here’s an interesting link that gives place names so you can look up the wall on Google maps (not much to see): https://www.escapetomongolia.com/blog/wall-of-chinggis-in-do.... According to it the wall starts at Bayan-Adarga (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayan-Adarga,_Khentii) and continues to Gurvanzagal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurvanzagal).
burnte•8mo ago
I'm pretty sure we know its function, though. Walls have one function, to be a barrier.
ceejayoz•8mo ago
pixl97•8mo ago
notherhack•8mo ago
card_zero•8mo ago
Or it had moving parts maybe, this mechanism? Oh, I guess they're thinking of soldiers. Part of the wall in a way.
BurningFrog•8mo ago
beloch•8mo ago
madaxe_again•8mo ago
nkrisc•8mo ago
So the question regarding the wall's function is what was it a barrier against? When we build houses, we put holes in the walls so that they are less of a barrier to people, yet remain an effective barrier against the external environment. Other walls are meant to be barriers to specific animals, yet completely permeable to others.
arp242•8mo ago
"Contrary to the traditional view of such walls as solely defensive structures, the research highlights the Gobi Wall's multifunctional role in boundary demarcation, resource management, and the consolidation of imperial control."
AStonesThrow•8mo ago
wall(8) (previously invoked from /bin) is a Unix command to "write all", and wall used to emit a humorous error message, which IIRC was output when you provided no text to send as a message:
And I believe this was, in turn, a reference to adventure games like Infocom's, where the parser may detect that you typed a recognized noun without a verb in front, like "hit wall" or "push wall" and give exactly the same message as a prompt to include a verb.burnte•8mo ago
It's a retaining wall, it's a barrier holding back earth, supporting the man-made Temple Hill next to it. There used to be a Jewish temple there, and this wall kept the temple stable. That's why people pray there today, there used to be a temple. The wall itself was never meant to be a religious site.