TIL: apparently at some point in the past (century?) it was popular for home bathrooms to have a little hole in the medicine cabinet labeled for razor blade disposal, and people would just drop their fucking used razor blades into this slot in the wall……………where hundreds of used razor blades would just accumulate???? behind the drywall????????
so now people are renovating these old houses, busting out the walls, and basically finding rusty razor blade piñatas
so in my greek class we were talking about oral composition and how something like the iliad must have been composed, and my prof asked us to consider how we would rapidly compose something like poetry on the spot. and i think it was a really important exercise not just for understanding the construction of an oral epic but also for reminding us of how great works can come from supposedly “humble” origins. so if anyone is ever snobby about their homer, just remind them that, as my professor put it, the iliad is basically ancient freestyle rap, and homer is much closer to jay z than to f. scott fitzgerald
basically what i’m saying is please imagine homer asking someone to give him a beat on the lyre and then dropping the sickest fucking meter ever. the ill-iad, by lil homie
the freshest poet this side of the adriatic
drop that meter like odysseus dropped the ball getting home
For those that are unawares, these are patch notes to Crusader Kings 2.
These are actual patch notes from a real video game.
Paradox games are wild.
art mirrors life
“…so how did they fix it? does everyone sublimate their castration desires into pressing olives? or did they just optimize the castration process? maybe the Greeks reach industrialization solely for the purpose of castrating more people.”
-the Girl (approximately, she went on about this for about 20 minutes)
Fun fact: According to Greek legend there was a famous prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her boobs and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful.
Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, they’re amazing.
No, but this is one of my absolute favorite bits of history!
The courtesan named was named Phryne and she was indeed a renowned beauty, and was indeed was put on trial for a capital crime. And yes, the sum of her defense consisted of her stripping in court (helped by her lover/defendant) and asking the jury (all males) if they were prepared to destroy this.
But this is actually a very interesting case of Values Dissonance – the capital crime she was accused of was blasphemy. In Ancient Greek society, exceptional beauty was a sign of favor from the gods, and they took the idea that beauty indicated goodness with great seriousness. They even called their nobles Kaloi k’Agathoi, “the Beautiful and the Good.”
So by showing off her great physical beauty, Phryne was being very clever indeed, her argument essentially being “How could I possibly commit blasphemy if the gods have given me this body?“
In weird thoughts, FDR became President on March 4, 1933. Steve would have been fourteen at the time. FDR remained president until Steve went into the ice.
Huh. Did he go into the ice before the 22nd Amendment was made law?
Well, it was ratified in the ‘50s, so…
It was ratified in the ‘50s so there could never be another socio-communist with three terms.
Four, actually, although he died shortly after beginning the fourth one. And OH BOY were they mad they’d pushed that amendment through 30-odd years later.
Kimchi and Justice 