What have you learned today?
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
- Start date
Yeah, he had pretty much the same career trajectory as Alan Rickman: someone middle-aged gets a big break from their previous career into showbiz.
Further knowledge: Deep in the Star Wars lore, there is a musical style named "jizz".
Let that soak in for a minute.
Once did a road trip with friends through the Balkans, including Albania. I remember seeing those. These little ~3m wide concrete domes, often in weird, seemingly random places. Also, tons and tons of half-finished and/or abandoned apartment buildings all over. Roads that are on official maps, but didn't actually exist in real life. And not just small roads, like 40-50km of a major freeway to the capital Tirana was not there. You could see it just abruptly end in the distance, and I got diverted onto this small hardened dirt road winding through the hills. Couple hours later, the freeway just as abruptly started again and the little dirt road joined up again. Also, that 10 lane freeway terminated in Tirana into a single lane u-turn that went straight into back alleys.
Also, Albanian corruption is fun. For example, while at the border, we quickly noticed all Macedonian cars got pulled aside for a search (Albanians and Macedonians don't get along). We also noticed the sign in English saying "Please announce all amounts of corruption". Gave us a good laugh. "Good day sir, how much corruption are you bringing to Albania today? Oh, I'm afraid that's not enough." Anyway, we were driving a rental with a Macedonian plate, so expected the same. When it was our turn, I handed the border dude my Belgian id. He just handed it back and we were let through. Later, in a town called Krujë, we got pulled over by the cops. We got some money ready, just in case we'd have to bribe the dude. Again, Belgian id, suddenly there was no problem anymore. Turned out, the Albanian government wanted to promote tourism, so it had more or less ordered law enforcement to basically give Western tourists free reign. We were told you could get away with a lot, including some stuff that would otherwise net your some pretty serious jail time.
In my experience, one should not at all let it sink in. Ruins a good t-shirt.
But seriously, I love how practitioners of jizz are called jizz wailers. Whoever approved this must not have given a shit that day.
Pretty sure it's stuff like this that caused Disney to decanonize everything that isn't in the films and tv shows. Easier to clear the slate then sort through everything.
Also to control the franchise with an iron grip, because this is Disney we're talking about.
This is probably the first Video game, made in 1947.
tvtropes.org
It's essentially a very simple version of Missile Command.
The first sci-fi story which we have access to may be from Roman Era Greece, where some greeks go to the moon.
tvtropes.org
Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device (Video Game) - TV Tropes
The Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device was an early form of interactive electronic game, introduced in 1947. It is considered one of the earliest known video games, if not the earliest. Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. (1910-2009) and Estle Ray Mann …
tvtropes.org
It's essentially a very simple version of Missile Command.
The first sci-fi story which we have access to may be from Roman Era Greece, where some greeks go to the moon.
True History
True History, or A True Story, is a parodic adventure novel by Greek writer Lucian of Samosata. A group of adventurers sail from Greece to the Atlantic Ocean and get shot up to the moon by a giant water spout. When they arrive, they quickly get …
tvtropes.org
Not stereotyping, profiling or generalizing as this sentiment came from the mouth of a Filipino woman (perhaps @Bob_McMillan can correct me or back me up,) but Filipino women in a group have a unique ability to hold multiple conversations simultaneously. This past weekend, we visited my gf's best friend (the Filipina, "Gina") who's niece was having a birthday party for her 1-year-old daughter. Well, 6 of Gina's Filipina friends came, and they congregated in the kitchen, and commenced to all speak Tagalog, at the same time, at the top of their lungs and were covering no fewer than 4 subjects... at the same time. It was incredible. Their husbands (all non-Filipino) were unphased; they're used to it apparently, but I was captivated. I tried to watch the football game, but I couldn't take my eyes off of the women and this strange "hive" conversation. Every now and again, one of them would pop their head out of the group to address someone outside the group in English, but they'd inexorably dive back into the roil of Tagalog followed by a synchronized burst of laughter and more Tagalog. It was like watching a school of piranha skeletonize a cow, except the cow in this case was gossip.
EDIT: I just thought of the perfect analogy! I was effectively Wesley Crusher in this scene Saturday night:
EDIT: I just thought of the perfect analogy! I was effectively Wesley Crusher in this scene Saturday night:
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Definitely something that happens. See it all the time in stores, the staff is just chatting it up about boyfriends or their best friend's pregnancy and yet they're still listening to you and taking your order or something. If this is something unique to Filipino women I would have no idea, honestly I'd see it happening in many other cultures.
Oh, I've certainly seen it to an extent in other cultures; every culture has social habits and traditions, especially when away from the home and congregating with others from their home. But I've never seen it to this extreme, and I was warned "it's what Filipino women do" by a Filipino woman. I can't stress enough: 6 woman talking simultaneously, while holding 4 different conversations with each other.
Huh, the Mediterranean is a lot deeper than I thought. Always kind of assumed it was relatively shallow.
On a related note, there was once a plan to place dams across the entrances to the mediterranean ed to reclaim some of the land and generate a ton of hydropower for Europe
Atlantropa - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Haha! Sad but true, they'd have likely spent billions installing the dams, then tossed Africa a 4-pack of AA batteries with a firm handshake and a "good luck."
Particularly if made in the 1920's and 1930's, when Europe still owned big chunks of Africa. Though African workers would get the "pleasure" of Building it, most likely.
And when someone took a submarine seven miles down into the Mariana Trench, he found a plastic bag and candy wrappers.
Wouldn’t it be something if, in the chance human civilization collapses and thousands of years pass, that our longest lasting legacy winds up being literal garbage?
That the amount of US adults that fail to reach literacy level 3, the level that is deemed required to function in a modern society and read something as complicated as for instance a recipe, is 52 %.
My jaw dropped when I heard that.
My jaw dropped when I heard that.