Useless Facts

A lot of history is like that. Oh cool, that's a nice th- oh racism and violence. Very well then.
It's why I like the historical element of my WIP. It makes the story rather morally ambiguous when everyone is a bit shithouse. Modern world isn't that different, so it's realistic.

 

It sucks to be living in history, as we seem to be now, and I don't believe there's any sort of a Grand Plan or divine influence, but I do think that like individuals, civilizations need to grow and develop mentally and emotionally. I can understand how people who might have lived and died within a few tens of miles of their birth would have been extremely suspicious of outsiders, maybe not even seen them as "human." As I may have quoted (but I now forget the source) elsewhere, it's a difficult thing to be significantly better than the culture you're living in. For a Roman, the idea that a punishment should be anything other than cruel and unusual just didn't make sense; it was all about retribution and deterrence.

But this is getting off-track. Clean water, a sewer system, and fire brigades. Just don't dis Caesar, catfische?*

Spoiler: *

It's a joke

 

Finland seems to be the best country to visit for wildlife travel.


https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/finland-wildlife-travel

 

That bit in a Christian wedding ceremony where they ask for anyone who knows of a reason why the couple should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace... They aren’t looking for personal objections, they’re looking for legal reasons to stop the wedding; one of them is still legally married to someone else, the couple is a little too closely related already, someone is under age or lied about something else. That kind of stuff.

 

Being on the 'I can't see while swimming' end of things,
due to not being able to wear my glasses. Sometimes
my imagination thinks there is something lurking
in the deeper parts that are just dark enough that
you can't tell if anything is lurking there or not.

 

This is precisely why deep waters scare the bejeezus out of me. That impenetrable depth below me, with all manner of things lurking in the black, waiting to glide up silently and take me.

 

If it makes you feel better, humans are fairly unappetizing to deep sea creatures. Most of us don't have enough fatty, high energy tissue to make it efficient to digest us.
Of course they wouldn't know that without giving a bit of a taste, and how rude would it be of them to take a bite and put us back. I'd prefer to think that unimaginable horrors from the deep wouldn't be that crass.

Spoiler

 

It's called "bathophobia" or "thalassophobia" (related terms, details blah blah).

 

Bay leaf tree roots are a gopher's favorite snack. I discovered this when they avoided all my other plants and specifically ate my freshly planted tree.

 

Haven't you heard? The human obesity rate is growing every year. We're getting tastier by the minute. I, on the other hand, am safe. I can't swim, so I stay out of the water anyway, plus I live 500 miles away from the nearest body of water containing any aquatic life form larger than a carp. Unless bluegills are really piranha in disguise, I'm good.

 

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a snack.

 

Also this madhouse story:
https://theconversation.com/why-a-london-museum-should-return-the-stolen-bones-of-an-irish-giant-94774
#whostealsfuckingbones?

 

Add this one.

 

From The Taming of the Shrew:

Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

 

One 500-cubic-inch Top Fuel dragster engine produces more horsepower than the first eight rows at a NASCAR Cup race.

The same engine burns 1.2 gallons of fuel per second, about the same as a 747 at altitude.

 

That's awesome. Saw a lot of these up close at the NHRA Motorsports Museum at the LA County Fairgrounds, and also a couple generations of land speed record setters. It's like setting a rocket on an extended shopping cart and strapping yourself to the middle of it. I don't know if I could do it.

 

Drag racers sometimes exceed the G-forces of a space shuttle launch. This can result in problems with their eyeballs. The deceleration also puts repeated stress on their eyeballs.
(note to self)

 

Found the secret to how they make wine. May be shocking to some.

Spoiler: NSFW-ish

 

Oh, you said EYEballs.

 

Funny, you'd thing the forces would be the same regardless of what they're wearing.