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I'm almost positive Pratchett had a similar joke about an important virtue with a similarly made up name that no one knew what it was supposed to be. I wonder if it was a reference to these unknown sins.
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# ? May 29, 2021 05:38 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 04:56 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:The Juggalos are committed antifa these days, they are very well organized Handshake from Predator meme ::poor white people:: ::being harassed by the police:: ::most black people::
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# ? May 29, 2021 07:09 |
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Duodecimal posted:I'm almost positive Pratchett had a similar joke about an important virtue with a similarly made up name that no one knew what it was supposed to be. I wonder if it was a reference to these unknown sins. Bissonomy and Tubso. Actually probably not without IRL precedent for ideas of virtues and proper behaviour that have been totally forgotten in practice as both language and belief systems change to the point where all that remains is cryptic references.
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# ? May 29, 2021 07:58 |
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Alhazred posted:Cause of death for roman emperors: Does "dying of a stroke caused by rage over some Quadi not showing Proper Respect" count as natural causes?
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# ? May 29, 2021 12:05 |
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Zopotantor posted:Does "dying of a stroke caused by rage over some Quadi not showing Proper Respect" count as natural causes? Val was an angry boy so that was going to happen eventually
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# ? May 29, 2021 12:18 |
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Yeah when dictionary searches and BingTM give you nothing, you do some corpus searches and if the only hit is the text you're reading, it's a decent bet that the author made the words up. It's one of the things I really loving hate about fantasy writers. don't give in to your golarice
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# ? May 29, 2021 14:46 |
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ChubbyChecker posted:don't give in to your golarice But it's so tasty
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:12 |
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Alhazred posted:Cause of death for roman emperors: I want a similar list compiled of famous philosophers. Everyone knows that Athenians murdered Socrates for speaking his mind, but I just learned that the famous Stoic Chrysippos is said to have made his exit by laughing himself to death while watching a drunk donkey try to eat some figs.
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:27 |
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Here's a fun historical fact that is also a really interesting lesson in how popular culture and cultural history trickle down through the ages. The New York Knicks basketball team's full name is the New York Knickerbockers, which is a really weird and anachronistic term that, today, basically survives only through this sports team name. If you look it up, you'll learn that it used to be a nickname for people from Manhattan, and through that association also gave its name to a style of pants, a magazine, a group of writers who wrote for that magazine, and a few other miscellaneous things. But all those things were building off the original nickname, Knickerbocker to mean a New Yorker, so where did the nickname come from in the first place? It turns out that there was a family of people named Knickerbocker who had lived in New York and the New York area since the late 17th century, originating in Dutch immigration to New Amsterdam. The name was actually made up by Jansen van Wijhe, a Dutch immigrant who migrated to the United States in 1674 and signed a contract under the name "van Wyekycback," which over time became Knickerbacker and then Knickerbocker, and became the family name for his descendants. One of those descendants, Herman Knickerbocker, was friends with the famous writer Washington Irving (most famous for his short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) before he was famous, in the early 1800s. In 1809 Irving wrote his first novel, a satire of early 19th-century politics and history books, which he titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, naming the fake author of his book after his friend Herman. As a marketing gimmick, Irving then started a hoax where he contacted various New York newspapers to inform them that the well-known Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker had gone missing, but that he had left this manuscript in Irving's possession and if Knickerbocker didn't return then Irving would publish it on his behalf. This hoax actually worked to drum up publicity for the book, and when Irving revealed it was a trick and he had written it himself, the book became enough of a rapid success to launch his literary career. All the later uses of the term--the nickname for Dutch descendants, the magazine, the literary group surrounding it (which included Irving himself), the pants, the nickname for people from Manhattan--supposedly stem from Irving borrowing his friend's name for this character in his novel, and then widely popularizing it by pretending his character was a real person. Then, when a basketball team was being set up in New York in 1946, the founder (who wanted a name linked to the city) held a vote among his staff, and they voted to name the team the Knickerbockers. And that's how the New York Knicks got their name, derived from a marketing campaign for a piece of popular culture written over two centuries ago.
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:30 |
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barbecue at the folks posted:I want a similar list compiled of famous philosophers. Everyone knows that Athenians murdered Socrates for speaking his mind, but I just learned that the famous Stoic Chrysippos is said to have made his exit by laughing himself to death while watching a drunk donkey try to eat some figs. Who was it that fell down a well and died?
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:30 |
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Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths has many more entries at least as funny as Chrysippos’.
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:32 |
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vyelkin posted:And that's how the New York Knicks got their name, derived from a marketing campaign for a piece of popular culture written over two centuries ago. “Gotham” has a similar history. quote:Writer Bill Finger, on the naming of the city and the reason for changing Batman's locale from New York to a fictional city, said, "Originally I was going to call Gotham City 'Civic City.' Then I tried 'Capital City,' then 'Coast City.' Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name 'Gotham Jewelers' and said, 'That's it,' Gotham City. We didn't call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it."[19]
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:37 |
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Who was it that fell down a well and died? Truth, but she got better.
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:37 |
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She got better, but now she’s unwell.
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# ? May 29, 2021 15:39 |
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Alhazred posted:20 died of natural causes. *nodding slowly in agreement until you realize he's not talking about SA mods*
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# ? May 29, 2021 18:40 |
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exquisite tea posted:*nodding slowly in agreement until you realize he's not talking about SA mods* I mean I guess we can call Benghazi a battle.
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# ? May 29, 2021 18:49 |
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Platystemon posted:She got better, but now she’s unwell.
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# ? May 29, 2021 20:13 |
Platystemon posted:Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths has many more entries at least as funny as Chrysippos’. Cause of death in antiquity: Being a philosopher.
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# ? May 29, 2021 20:43 |
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The Beardmore W.B. IV To quote wikipedia, quote:The design was dominated by the demands for the aircraft to be able to be safely ditching and remain afloat. A large permanent flotation chamber was built into the fuselage under the nose and the pilot was in a watertight cockpit. The entire undercarriage could be released from the plane for water landings. The wing tips were fitted with additional floats, while the aircraft's two-bay wings could fold for storage on board ship. It had one job.
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# ? May 31, 2021 16:16 |
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It was known among the lads, who never lacked for irony, as the Unsinkable.
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# ? May 31, 2021 17:33 |
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Platystemon posted:“Gotham” has a similar history. Well, you'd have to be a fool to live in gotham.
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# ? May 31, 2021 22:29 |
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Platystemon posted:Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths has many more entries at least as funny as Chrysippos’.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 11:55 |
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girl dick energy posted:The "See also" has some real winners, including the surprisingly long list of inventors killed by their own inventions. This was a good one. Many here might be aware that Thomas Midgley Jr. was the man who invented both adding lead to fuel and CFCs, making him possibly the single most environmentally destructive person in history. What at least I didn't know is that he contracted polio later in life and after becoming disabled, invented an elaborate setup of ropes and pulleys to help him get up from bed. He got tangled in the wires and accidentally strangled himself to death. Dude couldn't catch a break!
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 12:20 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4og8wG8VQWM There was a Citation Needed about him, too.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 12:34 |
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girl dick energy posted:The "See also" has some real winners, including the surprisingly long list of inventors killed by their own inventions. Shameful, they don't even have the bludgeoning death of Sir William Blunt-Instrument listed.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 13:34 |
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girl dick energy posted:The "See also" has some real winners, including the surprisingly long list of inventors killed by their own inventions. I was gonna mention the Eiffel Tower "parachutist" and lo and behold, he crowns the page, as is his right.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 14:02 |
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I’m partial to the guy who invented the brazen bull being told “wtf that’s hosed up, man” and executed with his own invention.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 14:09 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I was gonna mention the Eiffel Tower "parachutist" and lo and behold, he crowns the page, as is his right.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 14:10 |
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zedprime posted:If someone opens their coat and says "hey guys check this out" you're well advised to look away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2BVh66XORU
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 15:34 |
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zedprime posted:If someone opens their coat and says "hey guys check this out" you're well advised to look away. Maybe they want to sell me replica watches.
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# ? Jun 1, 2021 15:37 |
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Platystemon posted:Maybe they want to sell me replica watches. Or eights. https://youtu.be/rfelvI_ikf4
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# ? Jun 2, 2021 01:31 |
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Platystemon posted:Maybe they want to sell me replica watches. See anything you like, stranger?
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# ? Jun 3, 2021 15:41 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE6mnPmztoQ I assume people reading this thread know about the Hitler-Mannerheim recording but lmfao if it doesn't feel good sometimes to hear five minutes of candid Hitler going "gently caress how do these people make so many tanks"
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# ? Jun 5, 2021 13:14 |
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Any more good stories of dysfunctional Nazi 'efficiency'?
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# ? Jun 5, 2021 14:03 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Any more good stories of dysfunctional Nazi 'efficiency'? This series of posts about their uniforms from the Military History thread is incredible. Cessna posted:It's a baggy cotton duck (Edit: with increasing rayon/synthetic content as the war goes on) smock with elastic at the waist and wrists. Cessna posted:I've had my hands on originals, and they're sooooo bad. The smock is that canvas-y duck material. It does NOT breathe at all; it's like a canvas trash bag. So your Nazi soldier is wearing: Cessna posted:[what dye and mordant did they use, i might be able to tell if that would have happened] Cessna posted:[holy loving hell! i'm remembering all those holocaust survivor testimonies where the old hands sneak up behind the author during intake and whisper to them "tell them you're a tailor" and it saves their life! i thought just yeah, useful skills, pretend to have useful skills, but there was a specific reason the SS wanted tailors] Cessna posted:[germans! ] Cessna posted:No, sorry... Cessna posted:[this is the most German poo poo of all time] Cessna posted:The stahlhelm - and so help me, now I prefer the term "naughty German helmet" - WAS a bad way to go. It required vastly more labor to produce, and it wasn't really that much better than comparable helmets of the time. Cessna posted:In 1939 the Iron and Steel Specialty Division of the Third Reich Research Council (don't make me type it out in German) tested a bunch of helmets from other countries, some captured, some purchased pre-war. They found that none of the helmets were ideal for protection or ease of manufacture. In 1942 they designed a new helmet that had really good ballistic protection and was easy to make. This was initially designed "on the down low," but the design was so good that they decided to show off the results to Hitler. Hitler liked it, but vetoed production because it didn't look German enough. Cessna posted:[https://www.tankarchives.ca/2017/08/whose-helmet-was-better.html] Cessna posted:The rationale was that they didn't want the "little guy/big helmet" look, so their soldiers wouldn't end up looking like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. And it goes back to the "tailored" mentality behind uniforms. Cessna posted:[honestly my takeaway from this all this uniform chat is that fashion considerations play a larger role in military uniform design than most people realize]
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# ? Jun 5, 2021 19:40 |
Ghost Leviathan posted:Any more good stories of dysfunctional Nazi 'efficiency'? The Messerschmitt Me 262. The first jet-powered fighter aircraft, which might've been devastating if it was used to fight planes. Instead it was used as a light bomber, something it was completely unsuited for because of it's speed. Luftwaffe started to bomb factories and airstrips in England in june 1940. This tactic actually worked until Hitler decided that they should bomb cities instead as revenge for the RAF bombing german cities. Unlike USA and Britain, Hitler banned women from working in factories because such work was unsuited for them. Luftwaffe came up with a tactic where they managed to ambush british bombers by attacking them when they were about to land. Then Hitler decided that every bomber should be shot down in Germany so that people could get a morality boost of seeing the burning wreckage. Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze was supposed to be the ultimate military headquarter because it was built in a dense forest which made it almost impossible to spot from the air. Unfortunately this also meant that the lair was shrouded in darkness and fog. It was also plagued by mosquitos. Kerosene was used to kill the mosquitos, this also killed the frogs which amde a sound that Hitler found soothing so new frogs had to be introduced to the area around the lair. Hitler also wanted to build really big tanks. One of those was Landkreuzer P.1500 Monster. It would've been 42 meters long, fire shells that weighed seven tons and the tank itself would've weighed 1500 tons. Speer stopped it from being built. but he couldn't stop Hitler from building Panzerkampfwagen Maus, weighing in at a mere 188 tons. On it's first testrun it sank into the mud, Hitler then ordered that more should be made. In the end only two was made. One was blown up by it's own crew when they escaped from the soviet troops while the other was simply abandoned.
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# ? Jun 5, 2021 23:04 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Any more good stories of dysfunctional Nazi 'efficiency'? British analysis of captured Panzer IV tanks came to the conclusion that German ball bearing manufacturers had a powerful lobby, since the tank was chock-full of ball bearings in areas where it made no sense to have so many. Since the Germans never mastered assembly line tank manufacturing, all their welding and fitting was done by hand. This meant that there were more often than not gaps between plates when all was finished. The solution was to hammer a shim in and then weld over it again. This was a very time consuming process that resulted in weak welds.
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# ? Jun 5, 2021 23:34 |
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Oh the heavy tanks they produced for the Eastern Front had to be transported by train but were so wide they could only go by one main trunk line which was constantly backed up. The other railroads that went east went through tunnels the tanks couldn't fit through. And if the heavy tank had any problem more serious than could be fixed with a wrench and crane they had to be shipped back to Germany along that same single rail line. But to get them to the train they needed to use massive heavy lift trucks and cranes that were in predictably short supply and would need to travel on solid reliable roads using a lot of fuel, things that were also in short supply. They were also planning to invade Britain in river barges and boats made out of concrete Pook Good Mook has a new favorite as of 03:23 on Jun 6, 2021 |
# ? Jun 6, 2021 00:25 |
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Alhazred posted:the other was simply abandoned. And now it lives in Kubinka
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# ? Jun 6, 2021 00:52 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 04:56 |
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Pook Good Mook posted:
That same hypothetical didn't leave them with enough boats to make one trip, nor even enough life jackets. The solution was that the first wave would leave their life jackets on the beach, and (somebody?) would pack them up and bring them back to the continent to equip the next wave. Imagine a bunch of infantry pinned down on the beach under machine gun fire, and sergeant Helmut with arms full of life jackets is running around tapping people on the shoulder asking for their life jackets. "Bitte, or I vill get in a lot of trouble. Zee boat captains are very annoyed they are not allowed to leave yet"
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# ? Jun 6, 2021 01:17 |