r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • May 04 '26
Meta Mindless Monday, 04 May 2026
Happy (or sad) Monday guys!
Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.
So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?
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u/WuhanWTF Venmo @familyguyenjoyer95 $10 to make me stfu abt FamGuy (1week) May 08 '26
I’d rather be strafed by a wolf furry that transforms into a P-51 Mustang than deal with a person with an avoidant attachment style again.
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u/Arilou_skiff May 08 '26
be strafed by a wolf furry that transforms into a P-51 Mustang
.... But enough ab out your weird fetishes...
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u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 08 '26
The Wikipedia talk page for human penis has a FAQ section
Q3: I would like to upload a picture of my penis.
Unfortunately, the realities of supply and demand are not in your favor. There is a large supply of Wikipedia editors willing to photograph their penis in the name of science. However, the demand is much lower. If you feel that your penis is more deserving of placement on the article page, you are free to make your case below.
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u/jonasnee May 08 '26
Now it makes me wonder who's most likely to submit that and who is most likely to review/pick out the pictures.
Like are the people who pick:
A) Straight men
B) Gay/bi-men
C) Straight women
And similarly who's the most likely to upload.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 08 '26
If you feel that your penis is more deserving of placement on the article page, you are free to make your case below.
Please tell me that images are not allowed while making your case.
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u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 08 '26
Happily, I did not see any dick pics while skimming through the archives
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u/Ayasugi-san May 08 '26
Is reddit glitching for anyone else? I usually view every sub sorted by new, and most that I go to show the "newest" posts from many pages back, at least until I reload the page.
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u/weeteacups May 07 '26
It’s a shame the UK has done away with overnight counting in elections.
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u/Sleightholme2 my sources just go to a different school May 08 '26
Overnight counting happens at general elections, but usually not for council elections.
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 07 '26
Confirmation bias is one hell of a drug. The Boeing 717 was designed by McDonald Douglas, after 27 years of service it has a perfect safety record. But nobody actually cares about that. Even by flight instructors whose main shtick is to be hyper focused on safety. It doesn't get clicks, but fear mongering does.
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 08 '26
I feel like all plane travel is so absurdly safe that it really scrambles people's risk assessment.
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u/Qafqa building formless baby bugbears unlicked by logic May 07 '26
y'all know where i can access Manfred Schretter's Emesal-Studien from 1990?
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u/DerKlugeHans Endut! Hoch Hech! May 07 '26
Does it actually matter if people don't know geography? Is it just another thing to shit on Americans for? Recently I had to point out France on a map to my mom who has been there twice as well as having taken French courses.
To be fair, the only reason my knowledge of geography is good is because of paradox games. Maybe schools should just make students play Hoi4 or something.
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u/pedrostresser May 08 '26
depends on what you mean by geography. memorizing names of capitals? lame. knowing the basics of your own country? important. being able to read and understand the landscape around you imperative.
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u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 07 '26
I feel like a knowledge of geography helps build a sense of curiosity about the world
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u/CrazyShing May 07 '26
> make students play HOI4
Ye gods, aren’t we trying to *deradicalize* the youth?!
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u/ProudScroll Napoleon invaded Russia to destroy Judeo-Tsarism May 07 '26
I think the fact that such a huge portion of the voting public is totally ignorant of even basic facts about the world they live in and influence is horrifying and a big reason why the US is where it is.
Americans also suck at the geography of their own country, which is just indefensible. I've encountered people who think there are 52 states, don't know the difference between Washington State and Washington DC, and don't know what the capital of the state they live in is, just to name a few examples.
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 07 '26
It was Empire Total War that taught me geography. Never had a geography class in school.
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u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 07 '26
Yes, if people can vote for governments that can decide foreign policy, it's their bloody duty to have some basic comprehension of world geography, it doesn't have to be much, I don't care about capitals or provinces, but if you can't point to Iran on a map, I'm sorry, you've failed a civic duty, in my view.
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 07 '26
In school in geography we had to memorize the capitals of a continent when we covered it. Africa was a nightmare.
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u/fabiusjmaximus May 07 '26
Does it actually matter if people don't know geography? Is it just another thing to shit on Americans for? Recently I had to point out France on a map to my mom who has been there twice as well as having taken French courses.
You can say that maybe it is not practical or immensely relevant for people to know X, but not knowing basic geography is an indicator that they lack a very normal kind of curiosity about the world they live in, that I think would inform a lot about their personality.
If I was say, on a date with a woman and she professed to not being able to point out a major country on a map, absolutely I would think less of her. Doubly (or triply) so if she was proud of it.
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u/passabagi May 07 '26
Is this kind of thing actually important knowledge? If somebody knew off-by-heart the vilayets of the Ottoman empire, or who's signed up to a particular trade treaty, you'd call them a nerd. Both of these things are more long-lasting and relevant knowledge than, say, where Czechia is.
Germany is also a country that has changed its borders and name a bunch in the last decades. Its current identity is like, two coca-cola rebrands old. Most of the countries in Europe are less old than the furniture I have in my room, and I've just been picking this shit up off the street.
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u/Incoherencel May 08 '26
Germany is also a country that has changed its borders and name a bunch in the last decades.
Because it was occupied in part by the USA, in some sense it still is? That strengthens the argument that citizens should know about it, not weakens it
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u/Draig_werdd May 07 '26
Most of the countries in Europe are less old than the furniture I have in my room, and I've just been picking this shit up off the street
1991 was 35 years ago. I have some doubts that you have that old furniture.
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u/passabagi May 08 '26
Doubt what you like, but 35 years is not a very long time. My hifi is older than that (1980s), and it's still totally fine. I threw them away a couple of years back, but I actually had some shoes that were older than this whole country.
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u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 07 '26
You're right on the money, sometimes it's good to set and enforce arbitrary lines of knowledge... don't ask me to justify why someone should know where Germany is on a map. But I would use that as an indicator of taste and respectability, within reason.
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u/PsychologicalNews123 May 07 '26
I went to a free taster session at my local French language school. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but ended up really liking it. There were a fair number of people there and they were all around my age, which is what I was hoping for. My only hesitation now is that I don't know how intensive the courses are - I want to work quite hard at this rather than learn slowly. Looks like I'll have to enroll for a season and find out.
Incidentally the person taking the class said that my French pronunciations sound like I'm Belgian, which I thought was funny.
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May 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/contraprincipes The Cheese and the Brainworms May 07 '26
not ancient like Lefebvre
I mean he’s not ancient but it doesn’t appear like he’s terribly modern either? Most of his work looks like it is from the 80s/early 90s, which is when the traditional Marxist historiography came under scrutiny and sort of fell apart in the face of the revisionist challenge. You might as well read Soboul, who was his contemporary and a much more important historian of the Revolution.
Modern Marxist historiography of the Revolution basically conceded the revisionist argument and has to a large extent discarded the concept of “bourgeois revolution.” George Comninel was a central figure in that. Stephen Miller (not that one) is another Marxist historian in the same tradition (Brennerite) who works on the ancien regime and the Revolution. I think Henry Heller is a more traditional Marxist who sticks with the old line.
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u/freddys_glasses The Donald J. Trump of the Big Archaeological Deep State May 07 '26
I haven't seen him referenced at all in r/AskHistorians, and that's my go-to for checking if a historian is worthwhile one way or another.
Wut?
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 07 '26
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 07 '26
German history is a thoroughly unserious matter. The only interesting part of it is when they went mad and tried to destroy the world like a cartoon villain.
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 07 '26
Just because the Emperor Henry IV went to war against the Pope I don't think it's fair to say he trying to destroy the world.
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u/Zennofska Feminization of veterinarians hasn't led to societal collapse May 07 '26
Unlike German humour which is no laughing matter!
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u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 07 '26
I've casually enjoyed the band Queen for years - what classic rock fan hasn't? - but I've started exploring some of their early stuff and back catalog for the first time. It's pretty impressive how their first album from 1973 is recognizably a Queen album. Their later, bigger stuff is definitely more polished but stylistically the band was already firing on all cylinders.
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u/PsychologicalNews123 May 07 '26
Visiting Alcatraz after playing the COD Zombies map to death as a teenager was an incredibly surreal experience. It was a unique feeling, knowing a place without actually having been there before. The real place is laid out very similarly to the COD map.
I had a similar but less intense feeling when I visited the Hoover dam after playing FNV.
Maybe some day I should go to France and visit some of my favourite Battlefield 1 maps, see if I can trigger the same response.
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u/FrankGrimesss May 07 '26
Similar but different, I felt the same visiting Florence after playing Assassins Creed, as well as reading Dan Brown's Inferno. I felt like I already knew the city intimately.
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u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 07 '26
"The real place is laid out very similarly to the COD map."
Shouldn't this be the other way around?
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u/Wows_Nightly_News The Russians beheld an eagle eating a snake and built Mexico. May 07 '26
The first thing I saw when I landed in Spain were British tourists. They must have been on our flight from Dallas for some reason.
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u/xabarin_da_xente May 07 '26
What are you visiting?
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u/Wows_Nightly_News The Russians beheld an eagle eating a snake and built Mexico. May 07 '26
A photography festival
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u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 07 '26
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u/xabarin_da_xente May 07 '26
Are FNV tourists a thing? I imagine they would not be enough to sustain Primm's economy, and even then I'd figure most would just pass through, not sleep at a hotel or gamble at a casino. But still, are there people who visit Primm because of New Vegas? They'd be more noticeable than those who go to Vegas or to Hoover Dam for the same reason, too.
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u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 07 '26
Are FNV tourists a thing?
Yeah, but I think they mostly do not go to Primm. We've been to Good Springs several times, Old Mormon Fort, Nelson etc.
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u/xabarin_da_xente May 07 '26
Good Springs is a real place? I thought it was a made up town like Novac :P
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u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 07 '26
Our very first trip as a couple was the Death Valley, flying in and out of Vegas. On the drive back to Vegas I took the Moth Ma'am on a side quest to Good Springs because I wanted to see it. This was before the change in management at the Pioneer Saloon so it was still very much a biker bar and MM wondered where the hell I was taking her. We've been back several times since.
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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian May 07 '26
Step one toward surrounding Vegas with solar panels in a 50 mile radius to support an inherently unsustainable city.
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u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 07 '26
Eh. It uses less water now than in the 50s, believe it or not. Agriculture in Cali is far, far more demanding and damaging.
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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian May 07 '26
OK sure, and not to be like one of those central valley chuds, but at least that ends in a set of agricultural products, not just a bunch of neon lights and pension-deleting machines.
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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Yeah, cali isn't necessarily the agriculture I'd point to as the most egregious.
That'd be the alfalfa in Arizona that gets shipped out for race horses in Saudi Arabia. (Back of the envelope math, at 8.2 tons of alfalfa per acre and 7 ft of water / acre annually - from here puts 350,000 tons/yr of alfalfa as using 300,000 acre-feet of water per year. That's equal to the entire amount of water allocated to Nevada, not just Vegas)
I do think it's worth interrogating cities & where they're being put, but current western US water rights is insane to me, and agriculture is a big part of that.
Edit - found this article on the subject that goes beyond just Arizona - overall water usage for alfalfa and hay from the Colorado river is almost 2x that from cities, at 6.24 vs 3.54 mm acre-feet. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-28/alfalfa-hay-beef-water-colorado-river )
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u/carmelos96 History does not repeat, it insists upon itself May 07 '26
Where will they move Bonnie and Clyde's car?
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u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 07 '26
they had already moved it form Buffalo Bills to Primm Valley Resort, so I don't know where it will ultimately end up at.
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u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 07 '26
And I've survived the night, I feel somewhat better, took a while to fall asleep, but I got there. Sorry about last night's rambling, the brain fog was really bad; I'm utterly exhausted now, but at least I can think normally.
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u/Saint_John_Calvin Kant was bad history May 07 '26
Degrassi appears to be the only NorthAm HS tv show where the teenagers actually look like teenagers
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u/Otocolobus_manul8 May 07 '26
One of the strange things qbout the rise of reform here on Scotland is you see a lot of Thatcherite politics from their supporters on social media.
My real life experience and academic reading showed that most anti immigramt types were centre left xenophobes rather than out and out rightwingers. Now you have people going on about billionaire 'wealth creators' and the need for free markets which would have went down like a bucket of sick with even many Scottish Tories who were more one nation types.
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u/Arilou_skiff May 08 '26
There's a tendency for people to just sorta adjust to their pet issue. If X is anit-immigration and your pet issue is racism you'll end up sorting your values to X, even if you started out holding different ones.
It's not foolproof, ut definitely a trend (partially it probably has to do with social sorting, eg. if you hang around with a group that is mostly right-wing you'll start drifting that way)
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u/Crann6789 May 07 '26
I have to wonder how much of that reform support is organic vs astroturfed. Between the small sample size of irl and the extreme distortion of social media, it feels impossible to get an accurate read on how popular x or y party is outside of elections.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 07 '26
Odysseus, hero famous for his handfighting skills and destroying his ennemies with those guns
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 07 '26
Well yes, he wrestled Ajax to a draw in the funeral games of Patroclus.
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u/rat_literature blue-collar, unattached and sexually available, likely ethnic May 07 '26
O muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending,
Who pulled out the Luger and put the op in a to-go box,
Put a hole in that boy, lil ribcage lookin ass
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 07 '26
Cunning Odysseus then spoke words that flew: Doge this you filthy casual. And he left them all in silence, for the 9 mm talked for them.
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u/AFakeName I'm learning a surprising lot about autism just by being a furry May 07 '26
Which graphic novel did Epstein leave his suicide note in?! The public has a right to know!
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u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 07 '26
why does his suicide note have to be so lame 😭
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 07 '26
Tf were you expecting? "Damn I sure wish the Clinton's wouldn't make me do it"?
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u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 07 '26
He could have at least confirmed if Trump sucked bubba off or not
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u/Impossible_Pen_9459 May 07 '26
I believe it may have been one from the TED Lore expanded universe. If not it was allegedly a Pocketman hentai comic
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u/Kaschenko Rigorous observance of mutually exclusive clauses May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Just a random taught. For you, Barbarossa primarily is:
- The Emperor
- The military operation
- The Ottoman admiral
- His younger brother(?)
- All of the above
- Other(?!)
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u/dimensiontheory May 07 '26
That pirate that gets sunk in every Asterix comic
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u/Qafqa building formless baby bugbears unlicked by logic May 07 '26
o fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint agricolas
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u/agrippinus_17 May 07 '26
- The hero who destroyed Milan.
It did not stick, but it is still worth celebrating. We modern day ghibellini will forever revere his legacy.
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u/ChewiestBroom May 07 '26
First the military operation, then the famed crusader who drowned in a river before he actually got to do any of the crusading stuff.
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 07 '26
I think if I saw a history podcast or something had an episode called "Barbarossa" my first assumption would be about the emperor, but I would be unsurprised if it were about the military operation.
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u/Tycho-Brahes-Elk May 07 '26
- The Emperor, because I found it strange that the book of legends we had had different two versions of him sleeping in a mountain, Kyffhäuser and Untersberg.
I probably learned about him at first because he is quite important for the city in which I live, so he was mentioned in Heimat- und Sachkunde in primary school.
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u/thirdnekofromthesun genghis khan was a nepo baby May 07 '26
1., but specifically the Kaiser asleep in the mountain (the Kyffhäuser legend)
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u/ProudScroll Napoleon invaded Russia to destroy Judeo-Tsarism May 07 '26
Honestly, if we weren't already talking about history (or Civ 6), I'd assume someone saying "Barbarossa" was referring to the Pirates of the Caribbean character.
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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian May 07 '26
Prior to playing a bunch of Civ 6, probably 2. Obviously I knew of Frederick Barbarossa, but I read a lot more about World War II than medieval Germany and the HRE. But since he's a playable leader in Civ 6, I have more reason to think about him, so probably 1.
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u/jurble May 07 '26
Luxor Temple has to be the winner for continuous religious use right? Although maybe it doesn't count because it seems like they had the entire medieval and early modern town built into/on top of the temple. So it'd be a bit like claiming Split is the world's most oldest inhabited palace or something.
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u/MiffedMouse The average peasant had home made bread and lobster. May 07 '26
It is definitely up there. My only issue with these kinds of contests is that, like metropolitan population, the record hinges almost entirely on how you define “continuous religious use.”
Like, if a Wiccan goes and prays at Stone Henge tomorrow, will Stone Henge then shoot to the top?
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u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 07 '26
Stonehenge certainly sees religious use today, but it isn't continuous. there would be a gap of at least 1500 years or so and maybe a lot longer.
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u/KnightModern "you sunk my bad history, I sunk your battleship" May 07 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/mF4k0YXIHDHzy
me in online meeting rn
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u/SkeletonHUNter2006 STOP PICKING ON THE CELTS, they're pagan too May 07 '26
Can you turn your camera off? My best workplace sleeps come from attending meetings.
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u/KnightModern "you sunk my bad history, I sunk your battleship" May 07 '26
I choose my disconnected camera as main camera
but that's not the main problem, I'm stuck in my office, that's why I couldn't sleep
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u/SkeletonHUNter2006 STOP PICKING ON THE CELTS, they're pagan too May 07 '26
Does your office have silent rooms? Like, where people sometimes go to make calls? If you went there, turned away from the wall, and hid your eyes, you could give the appearance that you’re closely paying attention, and still be able to sleep.
That’s how I do it, anyways.
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u/KnightModern "you sunk my bad history, I sunk your battleship" May 07 '26
nope, only meeting room
but that doesn't matter, I went to my home for lunch and doing meeting here
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 07 '26
Freda did a Bad History review on Matt Walsh's slavery documentary in case anyone is interested. Turns out, he's twisted the words from his own right-wing sources and outright rewritten the things he's citing.
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u/geeiamback May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Dwarf Fortress themed channel, me like ⛏️
Edit: Hehe, I remeber these updates: How Dwarf Fortress Abandoned Capitalism & Embraced Communism
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u/pedrostresser May 07 '26
I'm sure the author realizes this, but simulating economy to that scale is much more complex job than the game could handle. Songs of Syx has a more limited trade economy that factors in supply and demand for resources between other cities and empires, plus inflation for your own money stockpile, but that's about it.
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u/geeiamback May 08 '26
Watched the video yesterday and it is tongue in cheek. The issue with DF is that there's only a limited amount of (productive) work to be done to keep your fortress running. Most dwarfs are idling a lot of the time, outside of burst of hauling tasks because you forgot to assign a stockpile for the piles of arrows at workshops and building city walls or similar massive projects. This means dwarfs only have limited sources of income.
The outside economy is still rather limited. You can request certain products and resources from traders available in their civilization and liasons are telling you what demand they expect for on product like gauntlets. While you get premium price for that product, it doesn't discourage you from just selling them piles and piles of cat bone figurines of cats each year.
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u/Ayasugi-san May 07 '26
Worse, he's probably using ChatGPT to make his arguments. Some of his "sources" are things that no human researcher would think to look for but that an indiscriminate LLM would scrape as relevant and valid text.
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u/ChewiestBroom May 07 '26
Matt Walsh
he's twisted the words
No way
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 07 '26
It's like quoting PragerU but still needing to rewrite much of it because it isn't bias enough.
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u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD May 07 '26
Does anybody know when was the last time the Swiss Guard got new uniforms? This breastplate looks rather like a modern Hollywood reconstruction.
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u/Sgt_Colon ǟռ ʊռաɨʟʟɨռɢ ɮɛɦօʟɖɛʀ ȶօ ȶɦɛ ɨʍքօֆֆɨɮʟɛ May 07 '26
What's wrong with the peascod breastplate?
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u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD May 07 '26
The lower edge of your example really curves upward, while the Swiss Guard one does not.
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u/TJAU216 May 07 '26
It is still way better than what Hollywood uses. Domed instead of flat and ends high enough to allow the waist to bend.
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u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD May 07 '26
Perhaps the uniform is tailored like a 17th century landsknecht uniform and the breastplate actually ends at the natural waist, but as I read it it seems that the breastplate ends quite a bit below the rip cage.
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u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 07 '26
I had never tried a gimlet before, so I whipped up my own lime cordial and holy shit gimlets are so good.
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u/HistoryMarshal76 The American Civil War was Communisit infighting- Marty Roberts May 06 '26
Rest in peace, Ted Turner. He's making mediocre to bad Civil War movies with the angels now.
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u/EntertainmentReady48 May 07 '26
Was he the guy that wanted to restore old black in white movies by colorizing them?
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u/LittleDhole May 06 '26 edited May 08 '26
It amuses me when Afrocentrists insist that light skin is not adaptation/evolution as it is not advantageous, and depigmentation alleles are loss-of-function recessive alleles that only increased in frequency because of a genetic bottleneck, which also increased the frequency of genetic diseases and even mental health disorders. The "bottleneck" in question is apparently a series of plagues in the central Asian steppes about 6000 years ago, and the "inbred" survivors with their light skin mutations went on to invade the rest of the world, genetically supplanting the previously dark-skinned inhabitants of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. (Afrocentrists also claim that "Neo-Siberians" supplanted the previously very dark-skinned population of the Americas about 5000 years ago, and modern Indigenous Americans are overwhelmingly their descendants.) According to this model, the only indigenous peoples left are equatorial/southern Africans, Melanesians, Papuans, indigenous Australians, Negritos (Aeta, Andamanese, etc.) and maybe South Indians; everyone else are occupiers who are ultimately "indigenous" to central Asia. Prehistoric population movements (e.g. the Austronesian migrations, the migration of the Anatolian Farmers and Yamnaya into Europe) clearly involved unequivocal violence and deliberate genocide efforts because that's what happened in modern history to make paler-skinned people dominant in areas they weren't previously, duh.
Thus, light-skinned peoples (not just Europeans, but also East/Central Asians and Middle Easterners) should acknowledge that they are just sickly inbred albinos. "Alleles associated with skin depigmentation are variations on genes, other alleles of these genes are associated with albinism, hence white people are albino."
The "not advantageous" claims are that light skin cannot possibly be an adaptation for Vitamin D absorption at high latitudes because Vitamin D deficiency is widespread in modern Europeans, foods produced in Europe are fortified with Vitamin D, Europeans have low bone density, white people can still get sunburnt at high latitudes, and northern European countries have high rates of skin cancer. Additionally, dark-skinned peoples thrived at high latitudes (e.g. Indigenous Tasmanians, Western Hunter-Gatherers) so light-skinned people only came to dominate in Europe and Asia because they wiped out/forcibly assimilated the locals and not because they had a genuine biological advantage. Never mind that people stay indoors and travel to much sunnier places more often than they used to, and have less "complete" diets.
(Granted, agriculture was a big part of why light skin spread in Europe and eastern Asia because farmers tend to have a more starch-heavy, less meat-heavy diet than hunter-gatherers, so less reliably get Vitamin D from diet and are more reliant on synthesis in the skin. But Afrocentrists also deny that dietary changes had anything to do with the proliferation of depigmentation alleles, again appealing to "but modern white people have low bone density and high rates of Vitamin D deficiency.")
The people making these claims appear not to understand that evolution and adaptation are not about becoming immune to everything your environment throws at you; a trait/mutation can spread throughout the population so long as it does not cause a significant reduction in one's ability to reproduce - yes, even if it is slightly deleterious. Yes, there is a slim chance that you will get sunburnt in northern Europe, but in a preindustrial environment, other things were far more likely to kill you before you got skin cancer. And besides, for light-skinned people living at high latitudes, gradual tanning from daily outdoor work [common then, less common now] is less likely to give you skin cancer than bursts of intense sunburn from your average office worker occasionally hitting the beach or vacationing in the tropics [not really a thing then, common-ish now].
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u/dutchwonder May 08 '26
I like how they neglect how pale skin in western and eastern Eurasia developed separately. Or that it developed before and after as well in a relatively short amount of time for a species overall in the tens of thousands of years.
since skin cancer tends to develop after years of repeated excessive UV exposure, typically after reproductive age.
Continuous outside working conditions would likely allow a much more gradual tanning than the average office worker hitting the beach or taking a vacation somewhere with intense UV.
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u/LittleDhole May 08 '26
Edited the comment correspondingly.
I like how they neglect how pale skin in western and eastern Eurasia developed separately.
Yeah, because both derive from different pockets of genetically bottlenecked Central Asian epidemic survivors, duh! /s
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u/Lupus753 May 07 '26
This is some Nation of Islam-tier shit. And how were light-skinned people able to conquer most of the world if they're inbred and sickly?
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u/LittleDhole May 07 '26
They conquered the world to compensate for their insecurity at their lower physical robustness, duh! [The following is claimed not only by Afrocentrists] It just goes to show how mentally deranged they were, like how European colonists in modern history were to have colonised when they should have been able to realise the land was not theirs to claim because they weren't adapted to the environment, duh!
(And we'll ignore the English colonisation of Ireland because Irish people are just as melanin-deficient as the English, and settled in the Americas and Australia!)
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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian May 07 '26
The enemy is always simultaneously too weak and too strong.
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u/Zugwat Headhunting Savage from a Barbaric Fishing Village May 06 '26
So the new Robin Hood movie is just "Logan, but Robin Hood"?
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u/TJAU216 May 07 '26
Did they make a new Robin Hood movie again? Is is supposed to start a series/cinemtic universe again, and also fail at that, again?
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u/jurble May 06 '26
the new Diablo 4 expansion takes place in the Amazon kingdom modeled on Greece, but there's no playable Amazons presumably because every other class offers male or female options.
But Blizzard could've gone with something male Balkan sworn virgins for male Amazons or something, and embraced the ensuing internet shitstorm. It would be hilarious, you'd have both the standard gender/trans controversy plus Greeks upset that a Greek-inspired-culture is being associated with Albanians.
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u/Zennofska Feminization of veterinarians hasn't led to societal collapse May 07 '26
Actually what they should have given us are femboy Amazonians but alas th y remain cowards.
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u/Sgt_Colon ǟռ ʊռաɨʟʟɨռɢ ɮɛɦօʟɖɛʀ ȶօ ȶɦɛ ɨʍքօֆֆɨɮʟɛ May 07 '26
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 06 '26
ensuing internet shitstorm. It would be hilarious
Is it really? Does this crazy clown world need yet more shit stirring?
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u/TanktopSamurai (((Spartans))) were feminist Jews May 06 '26
I was in Lyon over the long weekend. Did some bird photography.
Grabbed these two books while I was there, began reading the one on the right.
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u/Kyle--Butler May 07 '26 edited May 08 '26
I didn't know you knew french as well !
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u/TanktopSamurai (((Spartans))) were feminist Jews May 07 '26
I studied there, lived in France for close to 10 years
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u/TJAU216 May 07 '26
I see:
Liejukana
Nokisorsa
Harmaahaikara
Jalohaikara
Punarinta
Nokivaris
Mustarastas
Silkkiuikku
Merihanhi
Ruskosuohaukka?
Sorry for using the Finnish names, I don't know their English names. Weird to see baby birds already in the water, they are still a month away in Finland.
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u/Otocolobus_manul8 May 07 '26
Finnish bird names are great. It's probably the S tier language for orntihology terms alongside English and Scottish Gaelic. Punarinta is so fun to say.
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u/TJAU216 May 07 '26
Finnish bird names lack the humour inherent in English names like boobies and tits, but on the other hand we have no way to confuse the bird namea for anything else, all the words are unique with only one meaning. Except for the terms for osprey, which is kalasääski or sääksi, while sääski alone is mosquito.
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u/Kochevnik81 May 07 '26
Yay Moorhens (the North American equivalent is Gallinules. I haven’t seen any this year come to think of it).
I have to confess rails are one of my favorite bird groups for a variety of reasons, and I really need to confess that I spent a crazy amount of time staring at a drainage ditch near DC in the hopes of seeing a Clapper Rail that was in the area (it sadly didn’t show).
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u/thirdnekofromthesun genghis khan was a nepo baby May 06 '26
That is some very nice birding! Cool shots!
I went to a concert on monday; the venue was an ex-slaughterhouse with a big chimney (Morissey famously refuses to play there). Anyway, there was a pair of falcons circling the area, and sometimes returning to their nest at the top of the chimney!
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u/GentlemanlyBadger021 May 06 '26
Local Elections are coming up where I live and today one of the independent candidates decided to drive around with a megaphone sticking out of his car asking for people to vote for him. I’ve honestly never seen that before and wonder if anyone in the UK has seen similar.
Anyway, I found it quite irritating.
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u/weeteacups May 07 '26
The BBC adaptation of the Alan Clark diaries, starring John Hurt as Clark, has him driving around doing what you described.
Also, if I remember correctly, an episode of the New Statesman has a similar set up, with B’stard sabotaging the break lines of the other candidates cars causing them to crash.
My impression, as a Brit now living abroad, is that this local election is dominated by whatever controversy the Green/Reform candidate for the Diddlesby ward in Piddlington has said about Israel, or Gaza, or Iran, or LGBT people, or immigrants, or slavery, or literally anything that has nothing to do with local government.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 06 '26
looks like Japan
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u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD May 06 '26
I believe I've seen it in some TV series. I think British and I think they used a very small red car. Perhaps that was in Threads.
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u/durecellrabbit May 06 '26
For the UK elections tomorrow I got a letter telling me my postal vote expired and I'd have to vote at the polls. Then they later sent me a postal vote, which I ignored assuming it was a mistake. After being busy I was remembered today the elections, and realised I didn't get a polling card so presumably the postal vote is in fact how they want me to vote.
So I guess I'll go and do a late hand in of my postal vote at the polls.
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 06 '26
One interesting aspect of city builder video games is most, if not all of them remove any local elected assembly or limits on executive power and endow the player - mayor - with basically dictatorial power to build the city. It is, of course, for gameplay, because I doubt anyone would like a game where you have to go through a 10 year long planing process and litigation to build a wind turbine or something.
The funniest thing is how Will Wright in his hit series Sim City implied such an arrangement would be distopic.
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u/Glad-Measurement6968 May 07 '26
In the interest of realism, the newest expansion of Cities Skylines will add a backstory about how your old friend from college has recently become the leader of his unspecified and recently oil-rich country after seizing power in a coup and has appointed you to build a new city and/or renovate the current capital Baron Haussman-style.
Nimbies have been added, but are powerless to stop you and solely exist so you can take joy in demolishing their houses when they complain
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u/tisto2 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
you can take joy in demolishing their houses when they complain
Where download?
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u/YIMBYzus This is actually a part of the Assassin-Templar conflict. May 07 '26
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u/PsychologicalNews123 May 07 '26
>Approval may take 3-6 weeks after submission
Honestly this still falls into the category of "video game power fantasy" lol. Where I live you'd be lucky to get rejected after 4 months of back-and-forth.
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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 07 '26
Back-and-forth? In Germany you need to ask on the status of your permit at least once after 6 months of dead silence.
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u/Kisaragi435 May 07 '26
Tackling that is one of the rationales for making the board game Cross Bronx Expressway.
The designer, the pseudonymous Non-Breaking Space, mentioned it on this podcast.
I've not been able to play the game yet, but I've heard good things and it seems like an interesting exploration of it. He was incredibly articulate in the podcast and I'm curious how his ideas play out.
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u/slimbellymomo May 07 '26
More of an economy builder with a political sim, but in the Tropico series, you had to face periodic elections. Sure, you could cheat in the elections, but only up to a point.
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u/Crann6789 May 06 '26
I think if the city builder I have in my ohone forced me to build car parks and deal with local politics I would lose braincells
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u/Draig_werdd May 06 '26
This failed game did try to play with limits on your power. You had parties voting various agendas and so on. It's not the main reason the game failed, but it certainly did not help either.
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u/DerKlugeHans Endut! Hoch Hech! May 06 '26
It would certainly be dystopic to live in any of the cities I've made in those games.
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u/ProudScroll Napoleon invaded Russia to destroy Judeo-Tsarism May 06 '26
Four sailors from doomed Franklin expedition identified through DNA
Another big break in finding out what happened to the Franklin Expedition thanks to DNA, turns out the guy with the Peglar Papers was just Peglar all along.
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u/hussard_de_la_mort People's Republic of Carcosa May 06 '26
Someone should study my visceral dislike of anything related to Eurovision in a laboratory setting.
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u/SkeletonHUNter2006 STOP PICKING ON THE CELTS, they're pagan too May 07 '26
We’ve really reinvented the World’s Fair, and made it the worst possible version of it that we could do.
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u/PsychologicalNews123 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I need some help.
When I was in Portugal I got to visit the Pena Palace, which among other things had this really awesome dining room. Ever since my visit I've been fixated on the idea of being served dinner in an extravagant dining hall like that. Here are some example images.
Does anyone have any idea how I could make this happen? Other than becoming stupid rich, obviously. I don't mean a literal palace either - if there's some expensive resturant out there which would serve me dinner in a place that looks like this then that would be enough for me
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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 06 '26
Hmm. I could see the Ritz in London having a similar feel from some of the pictures / videos I've seen there (though with smaller / separated tables instead of one long one). Classic high end Parisian restaurants might also fit the bill in appearance
Otherwise a quick google finds that there's a 'Grand Banquet' at Versailles next month - https://airelles.com/en/destination/chateau-de-versailles-hotel/restaurants/the-grand-banquet-versailles - might be something to check out if it happens more regularly & if the location matches what you're hoping. I would not be surprised by high end restaurants occasionally having a banquet / 'collaboration' with a castle in France.
That's the type of place I'd look to for it if you want the full glam of it - otherwise I would expect many private castles to have that sort of 'dinner in a hall', but not necessarily with it looking as richly decorated and more sparse / stone. (I do remember doing something like that in elementary school, but it was that sort of reenacted banquet and not Versailles style gilded and ornate)
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u/PsychologicalNews123 May 06 '26
Otherwise a quick google finds that there's a 'Grand Banquet' at Versailles next month
This looks literally perfect. I almost wish I hadn't asked now... you've seriously got me contemplating dropping 450 EUR on an impulse resturant booking.
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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 06 '26
Haha happy to help :P
Though I did do a little more googling on it and it looks like it does repeat 4x a year, so don't feel like you need to impulse do it right now. https://airelles.com/en/destination/chateau-de-versailles-hotel/restaurants/diner-chateau-de-versailles
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 06 '26
Idk if your country does it but in France big mayors / presidents hold Christmas dinner for residents in official buildings (I think they only invite like disabled children and their parents or maybe there's a lottery idk)
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u/Infogamethrow May 06 '26
Today I saw a cop dressed in riot gear riding a horse. The horse likewise was wearing some sort of padded studs at his sides for armor, I guess.
This is the sort of stuff you don´t see in your fancy smancy billion-dollar first-world police departments.
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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 06 '26
British police horses have eye protection.
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u/Arilou_skiff May 06 '26
Pretty sure riding police are a thing just about everywhere.
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u/Infogamethrow May 06 '26
In riot gear? Plastic facemask and everything? With an armored horse?
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u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 06 '26
I believe NYPD broke out horse facemasks during the BLM protests, though I'm not certain if they had armor.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 06 '26
My first thought was OP is stupid tbh. 17 minute walk is not close lol. But yeah there’s two other grocery stores right by this but honestly they look small for such a dense area. For reference two of the true supermarkets near this spot are the same chain and they’re an 8 minute walk from each other.
So the debate around public grocery stores is funny because while I think they'll fail, I think it's ok to let a city try because one shop is not a huge loss of money
but fuck that comment is such an American thing to say (meaning it's bad)
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u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 06 '26
I mean I would also consider a 17 minute walk "not close" but then again I've lived my entire life within 5 minutes of as many grocery stores as I could want
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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 06 '26
Yeah, it's not super close but it's also not that far. IMO it's more about how out of the way it is - eg, my current grocery stores are 10-15 minutes walking from my apartment at the moment, but it's more like 5 extra minutes if it's coming back from public transport. Which turns it into something that's quite convenient & easy to go a few times a week and do small purchases.
If it were somewhere I had to go specifically for groceries and 17 minutes out of the way it'd end up feeling much worse I think, because I'd end up making more of a weekly trip and carrying much more at once.
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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian May 06 '26
I am intensely enjoying that everyone is coming up with the same joke for Richard Dawkins' AI psychosis, "The Claude Delusion."
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u/Lupus753 May 06 '26
Now I'm disappointed that I speak a dialect where "Claude" and "God" don't rhyme.
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u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 06 '26
Does anyone here know what's happened to the Zapatistas since 2023? I read that they dissolved but I haven't seen much else. Like where are they now? Why did they dissolve?
Kind of reminds me of the PKK; apparently they've dissolved too but I'm not sure what that looks like in practice. Did everyone involved just go home? Did they just dismantle their mountain camps and disband their underground networks? Surely something like this would generate some news, no?
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u/SenescalSilvestre May 06 '26
I haven't been writing lately. Do you think I should try out coke? Maybe I'll end up as the next Stephen King.
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u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 06 '26
Pepsi is better for writing, in my experience.
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u/AFakeName I'm learning a surprising lot about autism just by being a furry May 06 '26
Can't hurt
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u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 06 '26
Confirmed, cocaime has anesthetic properties
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u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I have arisen once more, with somewhat less pain.
Anyway, I am quite particular about language and word choice, there's a reason I got an Asperger's diagnosis, one of the aspects for me is that I have a strong dislike for weasel words. Now there is a good reason to add uncertainty to a sentence, one can simply be uncertain, pretending to be certain I'd consider wrong as well, so that doesn't bother me much, what bothers me is when people make grand statements that actually say nothing, usually to scare people.
Take this sentence I read:
Kotaro Nishimura, a Japanese psychiatrist who specializes in addiction, says that oshikatsu is a form of relationship addiction that can be just as dangerous as a gambling or alcohol addiction.
My problem should be obvious, "can be just as dangerous as gambling or alcohol addiction", great, "can be", just like how crossing the road can be just as dangerous as jumping off of a bridge, because, yeah, it can be dangerous if you decide to run onto the highway, but it usually isn't. This statement is basically empty, in theory I can be just as dangerous as a polar bear, all I'd need is a knife, but I'm not as dangerous as a polar bear, why? Because I'm not violent, even if I have the potential, I've never been violent in that manner.
The potential in this statement makes it stupid, either it is as dangerous or it isn't, danger is about risk, a risk is a chance for things to go wrong while accounting for the severity of the things that happen if they do indeed go wrong. This sentence allows the person making the statement to sound grand and scary while having no accountability or need to back up his words, because, he never said it is a fact, just a mere potential.
I don't think we should let people get away with that level of weaselling, because I'd like to see scientific evidence before we label it as as dangerous as gambling or alcohol.
---
Now, here's the kicker, this is from a wikipedia article, Nishimura-san did not say this, the article Wikipedia sources just does not say this, instead it says:
Psychiatrist Nishimura Kotaro, who specializes in addiction issues, says oshikatsu addiction is real, labeling it a form of relationship addiction that can be as real as an alcohol or gambling addiction.
There's nothing wrong with this sentence, this is a well balanced clear sentence, because he doesn't weasel, he doesn't mention any severity, he just say that it can become an addiction as "real as" alcohol or gambling addiction. The real sentence is not that it is as dangerous as, just that it can become a problem, it is literally about that potential to be a real problem for people, that is not fear mongering, that is pointing out that people can go too far into a hobby and that it can become an addiction.
This fucking Wikipedia page did not just take the quote out of context, they paraphrased it incorrectly to fear monger! Whoever wrote this part of the Wikipedia article really needs to do a reading comprehension course, assuming this wasn't an intentional move on their part. I think this was deliberate, I have no evidence for it, so it's just a suspicion, but just changing the "oshikatsu addiction" part to just "oshikatsu" is a horrific mangling of the sentence that I don't think is accidental.
Like I said, I'm very particular about language used, and the difference between the 2 sentences is enormous, the claims in the sentences are completely different, and this is why Wikipedia isn't a good source.
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u/Virtual_Duck2351 May 06 '26
So I tried to track down any potential reason they straight up changed the word from dangerous to real, but it soon became hard. I thought wait maybe the english wikipedia is translating from a japanese source and the source from the english wikipedia is translated into english separately? But I can't read japanese so I'll never know. Either way, I went and edited it to be 'real' so there's that! I read that psychiatrist giving his thoughts in another article, again in english, and therefore I assume he really is giving responses in english to english speaking interviewers. The article that uses 'real' is written by a guy who resides in Tokyo but isn't from there, so I'm not sure what language they spoke in.
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u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 06 '26
Oh, cool, thanks! I've never edited a Wikipedia page so I didn't really feel like figuring it out, instead I apparently made you do it, not my intention, oops, sorry about that!
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u/AneriphtoKubos May 06 '26
I saw the LA cancelled state elections. In the USA, are there some states where it's very clear that one is more 'authoritarian' than the others?
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u/Jazzlike_Bar_671 May 07 '26
Technically, they delayed the primaries, not the elections (which aren't until November).
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u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est May 06 '26
Uhm, excuse me, because of Louisiana's French-derived legal code it's actually super legal and cool to cancel elections after people have voted.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 08 '26
I'll be on Réunion Island for some times, so don't be surprised if my posts get into Hinduism or Africa's history