Well, if that was practice, then attackers would know about that. Also, there is possibility for someone who is running away to trip.
However, there is a hole in logic - what roof has any strategical advantage? Perhaps, one person will trip - rest of 99 out of 100, that are chasing you would eventually go through. Were there any further routes from the roof? Death from falling is my guess...
The reason why there would be higher step for roof, might have more something to do with dampness and to prevent wearing of that step, or to prevent leakage from the roof, that would stream down the stairs. SAeriously, who is making those stories, that makes no sense and who are so gullible to believe them? Are there any of those stairs seen on money? Drunks from my native town were telling stories about oak(which is recently planted - no more than 50 years), ythat they claimed were pictured on money... usually they wanted to claim that money after a story, if someone wanted to disprove it and brought their vallet out...
I think your mental model of a castle is not quite correct. It's not necessarily a simple stone box. A lot of roofs lead to higher points, or to walls.
Your mental model of what can happen in a castle is also not complete. It's not just sieges, there are any number of reasons someone could be chasing you. It could just be one assailant.
Finally, perhaps I didn't describe the step well enough. The step is not the top one, it is the second one down, and the face of it is around 2cm higher than all the other steps. It wouldn't make any difference to the drainage. Don't get angry that there are features of castles that are not adequately explained, and some people try to explain them.
Starting from ~15th century, the mightiest castles in Europe were blown with kegs of powder. Most of those magnificent castles or forts are now as ruins in Europe because of those wars. The reason why UK have preserved those castles is that they had no such equally devastating wars and they were not used for real defence, but clearly their only role is left as prestige of something that was preserved from past.
It all depends on context - medieval castles lost their meanings as defenses 500 years ago. In modern times they are useless as defences - sometimes not even against squatters...
England blew up a fair number of castles during the English Civil War [1], the ones that are intact were in areas of the country that were not disputed like London.
People clearly have not visited medieval castles and walked on those stairs. They are so STEEP, that your main worry about using those is not to slip on your way down and taking breath, when you are gone through them up to a place where you can rest.
PS those staircases are ideal places to just barricade and set fire and let defenders to die from smoke. People in medieval times were not such morons to fight there...
1. If we are nitpicking this article, then castle is not a fort - it is an office, that houses ruler and his court. Castle is a residence to accept high flow of people and not planned for sieges. Castle also would have enough of army to defend it(and siege is not a defence - it happens when there is a lack of it!) - it really is not something that was planned to be sieged, not to mention any fights indoors.
2. What author meant was that 30% of them who were anti-clockwise clearly does not mean that those other 70% were projected by people who thought of using stairs as battle scene.
3. I've mostly visited early medieval castles, that had anti-clockwise stairs, so meh... it looks like a cultural thing. I even doubt that these were used when carrying sword, because those had not much space to have it there, so it looked like something to be used for practical everyday usage - not battles.
4. If a person was wearing armor in medieval times, he was like a tank. If there was a discussion among nobles and one of them got pissed and decided to wear an armor and return to continue discussion... well, pretty much the discussion was over for rest of party, regardless of presence of swords. Though, despite the trope used in cinema, I can't imagine swordfighting in medieval setting between armored opponents on stairs. If the one on top of stairs slipped, the opponent below would be disabled from the weight of opponent above him. They would also not be able to step on those stairs... and if it all comes to that, swordfight is not requirement to rat out enemy - for that was used fire and smoke. Pretty much it is what author was mentioning - if there is a breach, it is game over for defenders and no real reason to continue defending anymore. The only thing they can try is fleeing.
Fighting, that involves swords and no armor is very late invention, where fortification defenses were useless and could be blown up by a powder and all the "strategical" stairs would be turned into a rubble.
There were definitely castles which were built to withstand sieges. Like Krak des Chevaliers and other crusader castles. Of course it was preferred if seiges could be avoided but I do not think your pedantry about fortress vs castle matters much since there were many types of both.
On the contrary, I am quite aware of those, but op is not. Krak des Chevaliers might not really fit the profile of castles in clasical meaning, but belong to a very specific niche of fortifications of military monastic orders in Middle East.
As for castles in UK - these aparently are representative castles and not really only fortifications. Even the smallests castles in UK were mainly used for something that was manor estate of a local royal family.
Where are you getting your information? Tizen OS is not dead. It is well alive and kicking and being improved and Samsung is slowly implementing that unified OS not only for their phones, but for other Samsung products. The main issue for any phone producer is that any OS that they do not own also Android comes at a price - there is no such thing as free OS.
There are also plenty of other mobile phone OS, that are not compatible with every phone and that is the main issue why they are not widespread. Phone that I own is supported not only by Android(and Android forks), but also couple of other mobile phone OS. The trend is that in future there will be more choices for OS, that might satisfy those users, that are currently not happy about Android, but have no other choices at the moment.
There are at least 10 other mobile OS choices - most of them are based on Linux, but current share of those is ~0,1% out of ~6 billion of phones. In total numbers that is only 6 million devices. 6 million device market is a significant number for any company, not to mention, that this number is only playground compared to 1000x larger world market of mobile phones.
Samsung and Tizen OS(that comes with store) is already an alternative for South Korea. Though, so far Samsung has profited from cooperating with Android, as it gained unprecedented share for smartphone market.
iPhone has branded itself as status symbol that people are rich and can pay and maintain lifestyle that includes ipHone - Androids, well - it is replacable and will be eventually.
At the very least, if Samsung is compelled to exclusively make Tizen phones, I think they can pretty much kiss foreign sales good-bye. Though I guess they're in better shape than LG trying to license the OS from their chief competitor.
Android is supported by others as well - it is not effort of Google only...
Yes, it is true, that there are other stores - like Samsung has it's own store on Android, so technically there is a choice of stores. Apparently Google would not fight store wars with the producers of hardware... but there is nothing that prevents them to disable any other stores by any other means - by simply sabotaging their app.
The issue here with Google Play is that it assumes, that Google Play has monopoly of money transactions for that publisher outside of Play store, even if the app has a choice to receive money through oher means - crypto, Paypal or cards. Same issue is with Apple store - they did not wanted to allow to transact money in Epic store(and wanted their cut on those), where you could make transactions in the Epic website from your card.
>>> Everyone keeps repeating this assumed idea that it's "just" a payment processing fee which is simply not true and never has been.
When you are buying a phone, you also pay price that includes price for OS of the phone, that includes development costs of SDK and development tools. Some of the phones nowadays has a choice to BUY and install different OS, that comes with different stores.
Unlike your assumption, payment processing is completelly different ecosystem and Apple is simply using monopoly on iPhones and not letting other stores on their hardware and software. Alphabet does not produce phones... so IMO it is acting worse, that it makes up these stupid tales. This is one of the reasons why I am switching my phone from Android, because that is MY phone, that I paid for! Besides, Android still snoops your data without your consent and I'm not even paid for that data!
Besides, the only concern about payment processing that YOU should have is not development costs(they can't be that HUGE...), but if your payment processing is safe and protected!!! That is the only costs, that stores should have - to ensure protection of those many many transactions, where maintenance and development costs are miniscule and to be even considered is laughable topic.
When you are buying a phone, you also pay price that includes price for OS of the phone, that includes development costs of SDK and development tools.
With the race to the bottom on cheap Android phones, it's obvious that "profit from the device only" is insanely low.
> Some of the phones nowadays has a choice to BUY and install different OS, that comes with different stores.
Just pointing out that this seemingly directly contradicts your line before it. If some phones can install a different OS and come with a different store, why should the phone profit margin go towards developing the SDK and development tools?
What this article assumes is that people in control and in research 1-2 years ago "knew everything about covid" or knew what we know now. They didn't.
What we should assume is that 99% of people in general are morons and not specialists - just like you and me are not specialists and belong to the same 99% and can't comprehend these things and because they can't understand these things, they are also failing in explaining that to public. Explanation takes understanding and thinking. Government officials(including in health) does not do thinking - they only act according to instructions.
We more or less know right now what is going on and IMO it is still debatable if mandatory masks are long-term solution. What general public has forgotten is that eyes are as good open doors for covid infection(and so far only distancing, good sunny weather and relaxed unstressed healthy people has prevented spread of virus or they have getting through covid sickness without noticing it - without symptoms), not to mention that masks does not offer 100% protection, but more like 80%, not to mention that people are 100% unprotected when they have to eat or drink or if they are entering without spacesuit in highly infectious rooms. So, in short - it is easier to tell people to wear masks - but it would take a lot of explaining all iffs, where covid infection can be passed from one to another, so correct information would be that masks can reduce covid infections, but not prevent it fully.
Besides the main problem here is that covid is not deadly virus for healthy people, but it affects mainly people who are already living their last days. It just is mind bogling, that people in general have no idea how many people are dying every year and that that number is too big for what medical services were meant for.
As for seatbelts - some of the deaths in car crashes could be avoidable if seatbelts were not worn, as passenger might have been ejected out of car and could have a chance of surviving impact(if it is not a wall or other car, but grass or bush) after landing, instead of burning alive inside of crashed car. So, everything depends on situation and timing to receive that help where it is possible to help.
However, there is a hole in logic - what roof has any strategical advantage? Perhaps, one person will trip - rest of 99 out of 100, that are chasing you would eventually go through. Were there any further routes from the roof? Death from falling is my guess...
The reason why there would be higher step for roof, might have more something to do with dampness and to prevent wearing of that step, or to prevent leakage from the roof, that would stream down the stairs. SAeriously, who is making those stories, that makes no sense and who are so gullible to believe them? Are there any of those stairs seen on money? Drunks from my native town were telling stories about oak(which is recently planted - no more than 50 years), ythat they claimed were pictured on money... usually they wanted to claim that money after a story, if someone wanted to disprove it and brought their vallet out...