ecaloshay

[ecaloshay]

TIL there are only around 120 anonymous Michelin restaurant inspectors in the world. They spend 3 out of every 4 weeks on the road, and must vacate a region for 10 years if they think a restaurant suspects their identity.

via reddit.com

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did u go protest today

good evening officer

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I was told recently about a school that was shamed into changing its school motto. The motto was “I hear, I see, I learn.” Nothing wrong with that per se. Unfortunately the motto was in Latin, and the Latin for “I hear, I see, I learn” is “audio, video, disco”.

[ecaloshay]

i was with my mother’s family and they were talking to me about my religious studies major. my great aunt asked me what the definition of hell was, and i responded “well i suppose it depends on who you ask.” and nearly all the protestants in the group decided that hell was “the absence of god” which i suppose is a fair answer, albeit not a universal one. my cousin’s wife was playing with her 3-year-old daughter and she says “well mommy says that hell is a mcdonald’s playplace” asdfghjhgfd

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this is problematic of me (joke) but i really enjoy the splashing of french into english speech or writing. just adds a pizzazz

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It's helpful when they signal so clearly.

This has been going around my work and friend group on other platforms, and I thought it deserved a place here too.

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Yup. Spin for money and the people who don't read deeply. But they're doing very good things for the white rhino, thylacine, as well as other works that support conservation and rewilding that aren't directly genetics-specific research because it's all part of the process.

There are a lot of very smart scientists involved who are experts in their respective fields who are actually getting funding to do the work they have spent their lives figuring out how to do.

this company is so frustratingly misleading. They did not bring back the direwolf (Aenocyon dirus). They modified a modern grey wolf (Canis lupus) into having some direwolf morphology. There has been no de-extinction. This is pure hype slop. As a friend said "these are dire wolves the same way La Croix is a fruit".

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I was about to enquire about OP's feelings towards cheese.

Turns out a lot of other people in the notes would yield information for cheese.

Which is also funny because MICE is the acronym used in intelligence for the reasons why people would commit treason (Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego).

The best part about being asexual is knowing that you will never be honeypotted. I often picture myself as a mark in a James Bond movie who has information or something and Daniel Craig saunters up in his sexiest tux to seduce me and I’m just like “No thank you” no matter what he does and then he has an existential crisis and walks away in a daze then sends in Moneypenny cause maybe I just like women and I’m like “hey girl, no thanks” and send her away as well and they just never get the information. I am an immovable plot piece without even knowing it. Sorry James but I defy the tropes of your genre.

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Are Pinky and the Brain still trying to take over the world? Because at this point, I'm willing to hear the Brain's platform.

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I struggle with sitcoms, but I would give this a go.

Four roommates are extraterrestrials who have taken human form in the hopes of learning about Earth’s culture. Unfortunately, each alien is from a different planet and believes the other three are normal humans.

[ecaloshay]

What’s the oldest record you’ve come across of an individual who resembles what we might call a superhero today?

"Hey Sid, how about you put your foot directly into the biggest minefield in your profession so that no matter what you say one of your colleagues WILL have you assassinated?" Oh boy! How could I resist?!

This post is going to be more qualifier than answer but here we go.

The definition of "superhero" is famously squirrely. We only CALL them superheroes in common language because of Superman's appearance kicking off the current heroic age. In the 40s they were called mystery men, there were heroes like them among the lawmen of the American west, the Revolutionary war, the vikings, the knights of Camelot and ALL of those examples are just those who fit my personal working definition of a superhero which is someone holding 3 distinct aspects.

Has powers, abilities or skill sets outside those of the normal population for their nation, class and time period

Uses an identity, costume or motif separate from their 'legal' identity

Uses said powers and secondary identity to confront crime or injustice within their society and correct it.

You'll note that that 2nd reason is, for instance, why mythological figures like Perseus and Hercules don't count. While they had skills and abilities beyond mortal ken, they did so under their own pedigrees so to speak. Reasons 1 and 3 disqualify many historically attested classes of masked soldiery or specially named military units who had the abilities expected of them for high level military men AND acted upon the orders of military superiors.

Every single word of these explanations and definitions can be torn apart by the edge cases. This has to be accepted, there is no universal definition of "superhero" that includes everyone you think counts and excludes everyone you think doesn't. Nature of the game.

ALL of that being said, here's my pick.

(Reconstruction of a marble carved mural from within the villa of the 'Golden Gladiator') Marcus Tiberius (unknown if that was his birth name but unlikely considering how Romans regularly changed their names or the emphasis on their names in relation to societal rank) was a common shepherd living near the city of Segusio (modern day Susa, Italy) whose first appearance in the historical record is being convicted of a crime. Accused of attempting to assassinate Praetor Clodius Crassus, Marcus was indentured to slave galley. Eventually saving the life of the ship's captain when a lion being transported to Rome for the gladiatorial games escaped on board, Marcus himself was recommended for the games.

Now in close proximity to Cinna, the centurion who had actually attempted to assassinate the Praetor, Marcus overcame purposefully rigged challenges against much stronger opponents, defeating a raging bull with a faulty spear and a chariot race against one of Cinna's allies earning his freedom and the lifelong moniker that's most easily translated as: The Golden Gladiator.

The Golden Gladiator would spend the next decades of his life doing everything in his power to foil Cinna's plots for power, even falling in love with and marrying Cinna's niece Lucia in the same year Cinna was recognized as having framed Marcus all those years ago. He served as a close advisor to Emperor Vespasian for many years, being made bodyguard of his son Titus where he eventually perished guarding him from an assassination attempt in 73 AD

This is by no means a perfect answer. Considering the things Vespasian and Titus are actually RESPONSIBLE for even as two of the "good emperors", and Marcus was by no means so hero outside his own moral time and place calling for the liberation of slaves and the end of imperialism, obviously. There's a reason we start the moral and spiritual continuity of our modern heroic legacy at the Crimson Avenger and don't try to tie them back much further than that so we can stay out of the moral thickets that inevitably come from examining the actions of any human being who lived before the previous century at best. But he DID use an assumed persona to fight against criminality and corruption within his society so as far as that goes, that's the hand I've got to play. Now I get to post this and wait for some really STIMULATING emails and voice messages from people I went to college with!

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One under-appreciated breed of fic writer are the ones who hyperfocus on logistics to the exclusion of all canon shortcuts, and thus usually strike upon an awesome way to flesh out the worldbuilding or characters.

Like, I’m not necessarily talking realism here since often it’s still pretty far from realistic, but more like, “someone has to be running spies in this fantasy kingdom, and we’ve seen the whole royal court, so which background character is it? How does that change these three major interactions?” Or “real life historical nobility did in fact have some things to do that were like jobs, how does this human disaster cope with running an estate?” Or “there’s no reason for a sci-fi robot detective to know how to whitewater kayak, where’d she learn?” Or “if this guy is serving the emperor directly he has to be way high up in the space empire servant hierarchy, why is he doing this menial task for someone else? What’s his motive? Does he perhaps have the secret space telepathy?”

Anyway I’m always DELIGHTED to find a fic or writer who asks these questions because the fics themselves are universally bangers.

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First rate jokes.

Do you ever start bullshitting a paper, and then look over it halfway through and think, ’…Wait a minute, I could be onto something here.’

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Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Planers, 1875

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Dad has been waiting for this moment.

Trying to Explain my Sexuality to my Dad

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I love every time this post appears.

My boyfriend is trying to explain cricket to me again. “He’s only got two balls to make 48 runs”, he says. The camera focuses on a man. Underneath him it says LEFT ARM FAST MEDIUM. A ball flies into the stands and presumably fractures someone’s skull. “There’s a free six”, my boyfriend says. 348 SIXES says the screen. A child in the audience waves a sign referencing Weet-Bix

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Was going to repost anyway because genetics, but now we have genetics and puns.

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED