Random Banter #239 - Now 50% more tangible!

[Peelee]

Goodness! We're all far more genteel that that odious oik. You do realise Downton Abbey was a documentary? Everyone talks like the Queen, David Attenborough, or that luverly Richard Van Dyke's chimmernee sweep.

Experience with William tells me you could have said the same thing by simply going "oi".

Going by my polycule.... Mr Van Dyke is the only one not represented. Plus shame on you for not bringing up Michael Caine.

Monsieur Charcutier does have a bit of a Michael Caine affect, you're right.

[Rater202]

I took four semesters f Spanish in college.

One year the professor arranged something and some college kids from Mexico who were up here on a school trip visited us and we paired off. (this was apparently a regular occurrence)

Our instructions were that we'd talk to them in Spanish and they'd talk to us back in English.

In practice, everyone just ended up speaking Spanglish.

[Keltest]

I took four semesters f Spanish in college.

One year the professor arranged something and some college kids from Mexico who were up here on a school trip visited us and we paired off. (this was apparently a regular occurrence)

Our instructions were that we'd talk to them in Spanish and they'd talk to us back in English.

In practice, everyone just ended up speaking Spanglish.

Being mutually confused is the basis of international friendship.

[Peelee]

Cardiac-centered HIIT isn't actually all that bad. Like, I'm enjoying it well enough. For exercise. Even the strength-focused HIIT isn't the worst.

But burpees. **** burpees.

[Rater202]

Blow Stuff Up cause Murrica day celebrated successfully.

[Lord Raziere]

there is oddly no fireworks happening in my neighborhood. odd, usually I hear them by now, did my neighbors change or did they not decide to them?

oh well, guess playing a bunch of Fallout New Vegas counts as celebrating the 4th of July.

[Anonymouswizard]

Blow Stuff Up cause Murrica day celebrated successfully.

Ah yes, your country's yearly celebration of treason. Hope nothing too important got 'xploded.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Hey! It's nice of you folk in the USA to celebrate the Eve of Tynwald. Most Manx folk celebrate the day itself - oldest continually ruling democracy in the world, founded at the latest in 979 CE.



Sadly, I'm in the UK today, not on the Isle of Man, so I'll not be enjoying the public holiday, or the chance to present any petition directly to Tynwald.

So - what curious ancient customs are there in your neck of the woods?

[Fyraltari]

So - what curious ancient customs are there in your neck of the woods?

Well, next week a lotta people will gather to watch fewer (but still lots of) people with guns and sometimes horsies walk down a street in fancy/silly costumes to music. And one group stubbornly refuses to walk at the same speed as the others so they either go first or last.

Also, planes and fireworks are involved.

[Anonymouswizard]

So - what curious ancient customs are there in your neck of the woods?

Well just over a month ago we had parades for a woman's refusal to die, all because her right ancestor was related to a different one of her ancestors.

And Saturday was Pride, which isn't ancient but was mostly celebrated by the most ancient British tradition still active (i.e. go to a field, get dressaged, and try to convince your partner to take their clothes off).

Otherwise we mainly just refuse to give our police anything invented after the year 1700.

[Peelee]

Sadly, I'm in the UK today

A common lament. You have my sympathies.

[Rater202]

Imagine being a chili or some other plant whose fruit has appreciable levels of capsaicin.

You evolved so that your fruit would have a chemical that would inflict pain, nausea, and in high enough doses possibly death on anything that you did not want to eat your fruit in order to ensure the survival of your seeds... And then here come some primates you not only continue to eat your fruit despite the pain, but some of them enjoy it enough that they selectively breed your species and similar ones in order to make it so that your fruits have more of that chemical agent.

That would like being a human and finding out that the aliens that invaded in order to eat our brains like being shot and set on fire.

[Mystic Muse]

That would like being a human and finding out that the aliens that invaded in order to eat our brains like being shot and set on fire.

I would be unsurprised if this is a published story that exists.

[Keltest]

Imagine being a chili or some other plant whose fruit has appreciable levels of capsaicin.

You evolved so that your fruit would have a chemical that would inflict pain, nausea, and in high enough doses possibly death on anything that you did not want to eat your fruit in order to ensure the survival of your seeds... And then here come some primates you not only continue to eat your fruit despite the pain, but some of them enjoy it enough that they selectively breed your species and similar ones in order to make it so that your fruits have more of that chemical agent.

That would like being a human and finding out that the aliens that invaded in order to eat our brains like being shot and set on fire.

Eh... Fruit is meant to be eaten, and we still propagate the species. This sounds like its still working as intended, if not for the expected reasons. I dont think its actually analogous.

[Lord Raziere]

I would be unsurprised if this is a published story that exists.

closest I can think of is the Orks from Wh40k who love war and can regenerate from being shot to the point where they make more orks because dying makes them spread spores that spread and growing into more ork life forms....but being set on fire does make sure they die for real.

though as Keltest points out, its not completely analogous; the better analogy would be an alien species who like being shot, blown up and burned so much that they see us doing it to them as a form of hitting them on and can somehow reproduce with us, and thus gives birth to more humans somehow.

[LaZodiac]

I would be unsurprised if this is a published story that exists.

I mean that is basically the Predators.

Eh... Fruit is meant to be eaten, and we still propagate the species. This sounds like its still working as intended, if not for the expected reasons. I dont think its actually analogous.

Fruit is meant to be eaten by specific things. Birds cannot taste capaschin and fly far and wide, they propagate the spicy fruit plants. They wanna be eaten by them because their seeds can't be digested by bird style guts. Ours, however, can, and we love to eat pain! We love to eat pain so much that we intentionally grow them, which DOES turn out to help the spicy fruits, but is definitely not the intent of said fruiting plants.

[Peelee]

I mean that is basically the Predators.



Fruit is meant to be eaten by specific things. Birds cannot taste capaschin and fly far and wide, they propagate the spicy fruit plants. They wanna be eaten by them because their seeds can't be digested by bird style guts. Ours, however, can, and we love to eat pain! We love to eat pain so much that we intentionally grow them, which DOES turn out to help the spicy fruits, but is definitely not the intent of said fruiting plants.

Evolution isnt directed. Evolution throws random crap at the wall and sees what sticks.

Sure, we're putting glue on the wall in certain places, but it's still sticking.

[LaZodiac]

Evolution isnt directed. Evolution throws random crap at the wall and sees what sticks.

Sure, we're putting glue on the wall in certain places, but it's still sticking.

Well aware, just phrased it poorly. The "intent" of spicy fruit's spice is to be eaten by birds for those particular reasons. No actual intent was involved, but that is Why they are like this, so one could say that it's the "intended" thing for them.

[halfeye]

Imagine being a chili or some other plant whose fruit has appreciable levels of capsaicin.

You evolved so that your fruit would have a chemical that would inflict pain, nausea, and in high enough doses possibly death on anything that you did not want to eat your fruit in order to ensure the survival of your seeds... And then here come some primates you not only continue to eat your fruit despite the pain, but some of them enjoy it enough that they selectively breed your species and similar ones in order to make it so that your fruits have more of that chemical agent.

That would like being a human and finding out that the aliens that invaded in order to eat our brains like being shot and set on fire.

What about horseradish?

[Rater202]

What about horseradish?

That's a differant chemical and I don't know what its purpose is.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's a differant chemical and I don't know what its purpose is.

I believe it's to encourage humans to move the seeds to beef-adjacent areas

[Keltest]

I believe it's to encourage humans to move the seeds to beef-adjacent areas

If the store I work at is any indication, it's to confuse people who otherwise have perfectly working eyesight.

[Metastachydium]

Fruit is meant to be eaten by specific things. Birds cannot taste capaschin and fly far and wide, they propagate the spicy fruit plants. They wanna be eaten by them because their seeds can't be digested by bird style guts.

Go BIRDIES!

We love to eat pain so much that we intentionally grow them, which DOES turn out to help the spicy fruits, but is definitely not the intent of said fruiting plants.

Sure, we're putting glue on the wall in certain places, but it's still sticking.

I disagree, naturally. The "peace and comfort of slavery" is not the answer! Domesticated species are almost universally made more vulnerable to pests and more reliant on their captors by the process of domestication (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and that's bad.

[enderlord99]

Peelee wasn't saying that artificial selection is good, merely that it is a form of selection

[Peelee]

Corn is man-made. It does not exist in the wild and if all people suddenly disappeared corn would die out quite shortly. It can only continue by direct human intervention.

Apropos of nothing.

[Fyraltari]

Corn is man-made. It does not exist in the wild and if all people suddenly disappeared corn would die out quite shortly. It can only continue by direct human intervention.

Apropos of nothing.

Are you making a distinction between corn and maize? Because I think there's one in English, but I'm not sure and I know that corn/maize existed in the wild before agriculture.

[Rater202]

Are you making a distinction between corn and maize? Because I think there's one in English, but I'm not sure and I know that corn/maize existed in the wild before agriculture.

Prior to the domestication of corn/maize, teosinte was a form of tall grass.

Corn, in any form, is the result of the Mayans noticing an interesting mutation in the tall grass and tinkering with it until it became something edible.

[Keltest]

Prior to the domestication of corn/maize, teosinte was a form of tall grass.

Corn, in any form, is the result of the Mayans noticing an interesting mutation in the tall grass and tinkering with it until it became something edible.

Well, "corn" previously referred to basically any sort of local grain crop. I dont know how common referring to non-maize-corn by that name is in Europe still.

[Fyraltari]

Well, "corn" previously referred to basically any sort of local grain crop. I dont know how common referring to non-maize-corn by that name is in Europe still.

Not much outside of the British Isles, obviously.

[Metastachydium]

Corn is man-made. It does not exist in the wild and if all people suddenly disappeared corn would die out quite shortly. It can only continue by direct human intervention.

Hm. I vaguely remember someone saying something to the effect of "[d]omesticated species are almost universally made more vulnerable to pests and more reliant on their captors by the process of domestication (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and that's bad."