Weird Things You've Noticed Recently

GodfatherPartTwo said:
I've read that it also has to do with Christmas being a time of family and togetherness, and your life not matching up to the ideal that the holiday is built around.
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Absolutely. My family is mostly secular and they were talking about that. It's pretty rough to spend it all alone, only to then have another holiday where there are fireworks and all that celebration while you're spending that time posting alone on a Mozambican flute making forum, reflecting on bad life decisions. Don't take it for granted, frens.
 
bubs said:
Seasonal depression is mostly biochemical and due to lack of daylight around the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Came here to say this.

And it's made worse by the ridiculous Daylight Savings Time changes.

I just get some Vitamin D and Fish Oil supps, switch up my workouts, and find some new projects to work on inside while it's darker earlier. Meanwhile everyone else around me seems to passively accept feeling low and out of sorts as a matter of fact.
 
The schooling system creates the biggest NPCs ever, it's insane. I visited a friend last year while he was studying hard for the national exam year. I talked about some native stuff or something, I forgot the context.
The thing that caught my eye was that he was studying Brazilian history very hard, which is a key subject in the national exam, yet he lumped in one of the tribes as a "quilombola" (escaped African slaves) out of lack of knowledge. It wasn't even a joke.
Then a few days ago I was near some kids playing ball and loudly yelling every word they say. They talk about meeting a feather person, yet they proceed to say "they're the quilombolas" in the same manner.

Both of them were studying hard. I can only think this is due to the schooling system now having an even harder focus on Africans and slavery, and forgot everything else along the way. I took an entire subject on just Brazilian history 2 years ago, and it was that way.

These guys will enter the classroom, have 4 hours of "Portuguese bad demons, (((they enslave)))", 30 minutes of "this fruit changed the trading system!" (on the off-chance it gets mentioned as a trick question), and 30 minutes of actual history. They will leave the classroom knowing every reason why slavery was bad and the Portuguese were bad, then not be able to list more than 5 states in the country or what they had. It's not even a boring subject, there were some interesting wars and incidents in its history. You learn some expressions like "pears with milk = death", being created to scare away plantation slaves eating the merchandise, or "baitola" becoming faggot in Portuguese because of bri'ish pronunciation of train mechanisms.

What broke the camel's back to me was the teacher on the year I took that saying "we are just focusing on this for the national exam". Blunt and to the point.
 
Gyms nowadays all seem to force you to install an app to even get in. I can think of 3, but maybe it's just me, say if anyone has has a similar experience.

When I was younger it was a ten visit card where they punched a hole at each visit.

Otherwise a card with a barcode or magnetic strip to scan upon entry.

Now - an app! This is quite a challenge for some of us who regard all apps as potential data thieves. Typically it's bluetooth which opens the door or turnstiles. One of them insists on using the GPS as well. Thankfully 2 out of 3 of those apps run on my degoogled system but it is still most insulting that they can't have something more minimalist. Maybe to many people's way of thinking an app is more minimalist than a card, even if it requires coding or developers.
 
stadtaffe said:
Gyms nowadays all seem to force you to install an app to even get in. I can think of 3, but maybe it's just me, say if anyone has has a similar experience.

When I was younger it was a ten visit card where they punched a hole at each visit.

Otherwise a card with a barcode or magnetic strip to scan upon entry.

Now - an app! This is quite a challenge for some of us who regard all apps as potential data thieves. Typically it's bluetooth which opens the door or turnstiles. One of them insists on using the GPS as well. Thankfully 2 out of 3 of those apps run on my degoogled system but it is still most insulting that they can't have something more minimalist. Maybe to many people's way of thinking an app is more minimalist than a card, even if it requires coding or developers.
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I still use a little RFID tag on my keychain to get in, but I think I saw a sign at my gym offering to do it with an app instead.

Like you, I hate apps like this. They want to get all my contacts, collect all my map location data to see everywhere I've ever gone, see everything I buy, and every website I visit, etc. I don't want to give them all that info just to go into the gym and exercise.
 
Thomas More said:
I still use a little RFID tag on my keychain to get in, but I think I saw a sign at my gym offering to do it with an app instead.

Like you, I hate apps like this. They want to get all my contacts, collect all my map location data to see everywhere I've ever gone, see everything I buy, and every website I visit, etc. I don't want to give them all that info just to go into the gym and exercise.
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Personally, I find that it also just mildly angers me to be told by someone else that I must install software on my device or else I can't do X thing in the real world, it feels like they're commanding me to change the furniture in my house, like, who the hell do you think you are? My phone and computer are my property.

Also honestly it's just very lame to use an app to do something like enter a gym, or scanning a QR code to see the menu at a restaurant. They're trying to make literally everything high tech and they think it's "super heckin' cool and cyberpunk" or "le safe from le germs" and it puts a big soygrin on their faces and I hate it.

Oftentimes those apps and things just remove bits and pieces of human interaction and movement until everything is automated, inert, impersonal and effortless. This applies to IOT especially. There is literally a computer in one of my electricity sockets, and why? Oh, because that way you can turn off whatever is connected to it through an app, and they soypoint at it like, wow, you mean I don't have to get off my ass and press the lightswitch like an actual human being with a God-given body? Amazing!
 
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Unending Powerhouse Match said:
There is literally a computer in one of my electricity sockets, and why? Oh, because that way you can turn off whatever is connected to it through an app, and they soypoint at it like, wow, you mean I don't have to get off my ass and press the lightswitch like an actual human being with a God-given body? Amazing!
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Virtue signalling idiots patting themselves on the back for being geniuses for avoiding using a switch..
 
I've been noticing that gas prices in my local area have been wildly fluctuating from station to station. For example, today at a station I saw gas for $2.62 a gallon and then 10 minutes up the road it was $3.02 a gallon. So I started thinking, what's the difference between these two geographical areas? And then it hit me... The area where the gas was cheap is a very pro-Trump conservative area, and the place where the gas was expensive is a very "multicultural" pro-Biden area.

My hypothesis is that Basement Biden is not physically or cognitively capable of campaigning against Trump in 2024 and therefore Biden's JQ overlords are lowering the gas prices in pro-Trump areas as a 4D chess move to subliminally try to persuade Trump supporters that "things aren't all that bad under Biden."
 
I'm reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (from the Complete Works, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen) and something I've noticed is that the footnotes often claim he was using vulgar double entendres.

Here's a passage early in Act I, Scene I, with the footnotes in parentheses:
Truly sir, all that I live by is with the awl (shoe-mending tool used to prick leather/penis). I meddle (get involved/have sex) with no tradesman's matters (professional issues/sex/prostitution); but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes (plays on sense of 'vaginas'): when they are in great danger, I recover (patch/restore to health/may play on sense of 'cover with my body during sex') them. As proper men as ever trod upon (plays on sense of 'had sex with') neat's leather (could also be slang for 'vagina') have gone upon (walked on/had sex with) my handiwork (possible connotations of masturbation).
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It's interesting how some of the footnotes offer interpretations as if they were fact, while others betray conjecture ("could be," "possible").

Was this Shakespeare's intent? Was Elizabeth England just Weimar underneath the surface (keep in mind Jews had been expelled and barred from entering England for centuries, and Shakespeare never laid his eyes on one)? Or is it just modern prurience, quite widespread in academia?

I'm long past giving scholars the benefit of the doubt, so I looked up editor Bate, and he certainly seems to have his fixations (a journal article "Sexual Perversity in 'Venus and Adonis'" in The Yearbook of English Studies).

The e-trad sphere tends to promote "reading the classics," which isn't bad in and of itself — but it's best to be mindful that it's often these types editing, annotating and interpreting the material.
 
FrostBITE said:
I'm reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (from the Complete Works, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen) and something I've noticed is that the footnotes often claim he was using vulgar double entendres.

Here's a passage early in Act I, Scene I, with the footnotes in parentheses:

It's interesting how some of the footnotes offer interpretations as if they were fact, while others betray conjecture ("could be," "possible").

Was this Shakespeare's intent? Was Elizabeth England just Weimar underneath the surface (keep in mind Jews had been expelled and barred from entering England for centuries, and Shakespeare never laid his eyes on one)? Or is it just modern prurience, quite widespread in academia?

I'm long past giving scholars the benefit of the doubt, so I looked up editor Bate, and he certainly seems to have his fixations (a journal article "Sexual Perversity in 'Venus and Adonis'" in The Yearbook of English Studies).

The e-trad sphere tends to promote "reading the classics," which isn't bad in and of itself — but it's best to be mindful that it's often these types editing, annotating and interpreting the material.
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I was surprised to see such vulgarity in the Canterbury Tales, which written a few centuries before Shakespeare. Chaucer even added a retraction asking for forgiveness, I think for The Miller's Tale.
 
FrostBITE said:
I'm reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (from the Complete Works, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen) and something I've noticed is that the footnotes often claim he was using vulgar double entendres.

Here's a passage early in Act I, Scene I, with the footnotes in parentheses:

It's interesting how some of the footnotes offer interpretations as if they were fact, while others betray conjecture ("could be," "possible").

Was this Shakespeare's intent? Was Elizabeth England just Weimar underneath the surface (keep in mind Jews had been expelled and barred from entering England for centuries, and Shakespeare never laid his eyes on one)? Or is it just modern prurience, quite widespread in academia?

I'm long past giving scholars the benefit of the doubt, so I looked up editor Bate, and he certainly seems to have his fixations (a journal article "Sexual Perversity in 'Venus and Adonis'" in The Yearbook of English Studies).

The e-trad sphere tends to promote "reading the classics," which isn't bad in and of itself — but it's best to be mindful that it's often these types editing, annotating and interpreting the material.
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I would say this is legit. If there are nine different terms that can reasonably be seen to have a sexual meaning in the vernacular of that day, it's probably intentional. Shakespeare's plays were popular entertainment at the time, almost like Vaudeville or a typical action adventure or romcom movie today. This was at a time where cock fighting and bear baiting were popular entertainments. Hangings were popular attractions as well. Crude entertainments were pretty common, so I'm not surprised there would be crude innuendos in Shakespeare.
 
I notice over last 10-20 years lots of condo or resort complexes have put in very nice outdoor grill areas, usually around pool or other outdoor common areas. Has anyone ever seen people actually using the grills? I’ve seen it once only and that was a young man and his son grilling some dinner at a condo resort in Orlando,FL. But no other times in my recollection ever. Seems like all show mostly, but no practical demand for it.
 
bubs said:
I notice over last 10-20 years lots of condo or resort complexes have put in very nice outdoor grill areas, usually around pool or other outdoor common areas. Has anyone ever seen people actually using the grills? I’ve seen it once only and that was a young man and his son grilling some dinner at a condo resort in Orlando,FL. But no other times in my recollection ever. Seems like all show mostly, but no practical demand for it.
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I've noticed this in illustrative pictures. The thing you seem to be missing is that America doesn't have as much of a barbecue or grill culture as Brazil or Argentina. Brazil in general is the churrasco country, and Argentina has arguably the best meat in the world. Every house here worth its salt has a grill by a pool. Condos and resorts get complicated as they tend to have rules to share with all the residents instead of just having a private family barbecue (had one last Christmas at an actual house).

What I might be missing are those Americana pictures with the burger grill white family, but those have a weird and controversial political history nowadays. Hard to tell from an outsider standpoint. A lot of things point to Florida having the grill culture as well.
 
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