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foo-bar-bat

40 karma · joined May 7, 2023

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foo-bar-bat··on Rabbits were a medieval royal luxury in England until the Black Death
This is false actually. The article OP linked is wrong or incomplete. The Romans brought and bred huge numbers of rabbits to Britain, for eating.

We know people are them because when the Romans left ("dark ages") they were eaten to extinction:

"Butchered hare and chicken bones appear in the archaeological record hundreds of years later, among Roman-period food waste. At this time, Sykes said, hares were farmed for food, and the Romans introduced rabbits to the island, although hares and chickens continued to hold religious associations for Britons. After the Romans withdrew from Britain in A.D. 410, the populations of hares and chickens crashed, Sykes said, and rabbits went extinct."

Source: https://archaeology.org/news/2020/04/10/200413-britain-hares...

So what is going on in medieval times, centuries later, is they are being re introduced and horded by the Anglonorman aristocracy. This could simply be because, of course, half of England then is in today's France. The Plantagenet dynasty is even more French than the earlier Normans, who are of course mostly ex-Vikings. Later, at peak, the "English" Angevin dynasty territories stretch south from say Calais all the way thru Occ country to the Basques; and are intermarried with Spain and France. There's rabbits everywhere, trivial to bring back to Britain.

But they were apparently difficult and expensive to farm (which seems crazy as they breed like... rabbits) but this is perhaps explained by climate change-- the medieval warm period was about 950-1250 and then it began to get much colder. For example by 1315-1317 there was horrific famine caused by crop failures and abnormal cold summers. In this context the rich people are laboriously farming rabbits in artificial warrens inside of managed game preserves and poor hungry people get executed all the time for eating.

A good book for this era is Tuchman's 'Distant Mirror' which is like Game Of Thrones meets zombie apocalypse. Don't read it if you're French. It may be the reputational nadir of French civilization?

foo-bar-bat··on Rabbits were a medieval royal luxury in England until the Black Death
Quiver is another slang word like coney. Same as purse, O, No-Thing (thing being penis, Nothing means vagina), or all the bird ones. Nest is charming.
foo-bar-bat··on Rabbits were a medieval royal luxury in England until the Black Death
Shakespeare played with this intentionally, and repeatedly. He uses conies and cony in multiple plays. One example, Henry VI, Part III, act 1 (beginning of play) he stages a battle and the capture of one noble in the civil war in the scene where famously later he calls the queen dowager "she-wolf of France"... widow of his hero Henry V of Agincourt fame. Reading the play today it seems just a dry history and bunch of pompous nobles prattling on an on with allusions to ancient Greece and Rome etc. But on stage with raunchy actors, the word cony (meaning: coney, rabbit) is surrounded in this scene by about ten different sex and genitalia words. And in the middle of the scene -- where somebody is about to die -- they stop the historical military action and have a sex-word raunchy poetry slam:

"Lord Clifford. I will not bandy with thee word for word, But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one"

Here it may be helpful to imagine peak Tupac vs Biggie, throwing shade.

On the one hand, Shakespeare has to get the play text as written approved by humorless puritanical, literally Puritan censors and the actual Archbishop. So he can't say the c-word or make jokes about giant dongs. But, on the other hand, he does. By leaving it to the innate intelligence of the audience to grok the double entendres even in the middle of a civil war. (There are many other examples in other plays that are less subtle, but this particular one is clearly written for the actors to ham it up on stage).

In one scene we get:

"And full as oft came Edward to my side, With purple falchion painted to the hilt"

"I am your butt, and I abide your shot"

(Note here Shakespear is actually mocking queen Elizabeth's minister IRL, Robert Cecil, who was hunchbacked, by making this hunchbacked character Richard of Gloucester ie the later super-ugly evil king Richard III... who is so ugly women cross the street and dogs bark at him... ahem, prefer the company of men and abide their shot as the literal butt of the butt joke. Simultaneously, Cecil's IRL first cousin Sir Francis Bacon also preferred the company of his male servants and is perhaps the actual crown prosecutor responsible for everything from slander or libel to state executions. Another writer, the perfectly-named John Stubbs, recently had his right hand amputated for slut shaming the queen herself ("a gaping gulf"). So this is not dull. It's high stakes!

[Footnote: Separately, plays and allusions to Edward II or Richard II are always about male favourites getting special access to the king. This becomes scandalous during the reign of James, who was notorious for err granting root access privileges; this led to fair questions later about who was the biological father of Queen Anne's son Charles, then duke of York-- for whom New York is named ever since. James himself was the "butt" of the same jokes, as it was not clear who his father was either, and Henry IV of France mocked him as "Solomon" ie the son of David, his mother's Italian lover, David Rizzio, whose root-access was suddenly terminated in 1566.]

"made an evening at the noontide prick"

"My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth A bird that will revenge" (this is played straight these days but in Elizabethan times and in her actual presence, this is a triple double entendre where ashes is enunciated as 'asses' ; Phoenix is one of the queen's personal metaphors for herself, sewn into her clothes, printed in her designs, worn as a jewel etc ; and bringing forth the revenge bird is yes vanilla the mythical phoenix coming back from the dead... but bird in this era allows the actors/company to play this scene with bird=cock or bird=woman, which still exists in slang today. Here noted in passing when the bird is a Quail, that's always a prostitute joke, which then you want to look for dunks nearby about somebody Burning with crotch-Pox which is STD jokes again about Robert Cecil among others who have sexually transmitted diseases which are serious in era of no antibiotics... in the public theater with randos in the audience this is played for laughs, but in a private court performance with the queen or later king James present this is mocking specific courtiers whom everybody at court already knows have one or more super gross STDs)

"I will not bandy with thee word for word, But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one."

Bandy from the French bander, 'to stretch/erect/thrust' & buckle, colloquially to couple and mate. This works because it's plausibly deniable for the censors and conservative audiences, but the actors can play it for raunchy laughs when they want. Like the entire scene. Note also this begs the question if the "two for one" is a threesome joke, and invites contemplation who was known for the best parties back in the day when two-on-one happened twice, or more exotically, whatever a fivesome is called (twice two 'for' one).

In case the subtext isn't clear enough or you don't want to believe Elizabethan Catholic poets liked to mock humorless Puritan censors, in rapid fire the scene continues with:

#prick #finger #wound (contemporary slang for vag.) #thrust #"spurn" which Shakespear also uses in some weird ways in other plays eg "spurn me like (your) spaniel" so could be a other raunchy slang word we have lost since #so strives the woodcock" #"so struggles the cony"

And the glorious: "triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty"

foo-bar-bat··on Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
This is not a good analogy, because both kidneys do the same thing and we don't need both of them to live.

Whereas the left and right brain hemispheres do different things that enable our species to be what it now is; which is more similar to what the article calls hind and fore/front brains, which again do different things that we wouldn't be us without. We would still be human if we had only one kidney the way we have only one bladder or one pancreas.

Kidneys are more like say lungs, gonads, breasts, or nostrils in that we have +1 extra; but the benefit created by multiplicity is ~doubling or capacity and resilience to local disease and random injury-- not a profound functionality. (Like is created by the second eye or second leg.) Of these, the second breast is radically more useful than the second kidney, and is probably a special case as it changes how we live so evolved.

foo-bar-bat··on U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse
You have no idea what you're talking about. Respectfully,
foo-bar-bat··on Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a (sensationalized) summary:

https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598

Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider whether they can help, and how.

My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial colony technology (which are some of the hypothesized causes blamed) is there is a mix of a) pathogens, and b) global supply chain homogeny distributing the pathogens mixed into various agricultural products eg mulch and soil, and c) environmental factors to include possibly RF which have been observed to destroy previously healthy colonies very quickly and then also scramble or interfere with the colony division/expansion process where a queen starts over. To include in some cases the queens apparently getting lost and/or leading astray their entire swarm of minion bees during the fragile process of relocating. This getting lost is apparently a new puzzling phenomenon.

Anyway, it would be bad if large fragile ecosystems upon which many species including ours depend, were deprived of key pollinators. There is probably some very smart insightful person or team here on HN who could help and profit from helping on a global scale.

Edit. Typos

foo-bar-bat··on Precise geolocation via Wi-Fi Positioning System
I was in such a meeting yesterday where multiple participants were required by law to be each in same meeting from different computers in same room and with their mics and speakers on, and same law prevents use of conference room camera speakers and mic. There was a constant and annoying audio echo for everyone.
foo-bar-bat··on My stages of learning to be a socially normal person
Please go to a therapist.
foo-bar-bat··on The internet is no longer a safe haven
When ever was the internet a safe haven, from what exactly?
foo-bar-bat··on Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
No, it won't. Rabies might.
foo-bar-bat··on Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
Raccoons have been living literally inside of houses for centuries.

One was kept as a pet in Jamestown Virginia in the 1600s. Another lived in the White House in the 1900s. Surely, not a decade has passed between have there been NO domesticated raccoons in the US? If living near humans changes animals, that started at least 25,000 years ago here in North America. Not recently.

My neighbors had a pet raccoon growing up. It lived inside but would come and go.

The people who wrote this article seem out of touch with the topic they chose to pretend to be experts about?

foo-bar-bat··on Acronymy (Can we define every word as an acronym?)
These words all have different meaning. Because they all have different origins. Modern English (say post Shake-Speare, but especially American TV and music that is marketed globally) have grotesquely collapsed these words already.

For example

- Happy means "I'm feeling lucky." Like the old Google search button. You're happy when you say, hit your full house on the river... precisely because what just HAPPENED fulfilled your hope, but randomly and subtley perhaps without agency. This is a Norse germanic word. Its romance synonym is not pleased, rather fortunate. For example a baseball player hitting a home run off the bottom ten feet of the foul (fair) pole is and should feel happy; the same player hitting a home run entirely out of the park having successfully predicted the pitch with skill and agency, this is different. They are experiencing a different feeling. We've just forgotten the meaning of words. For example see Shakespeare "Oh happy dagger..." for a juxtaposition that is already playing with this. Obviously the inanimate object doesn't have feelings. And she is not glad or delighted, she's suicidal at that moment. It's the dagger that has won the lottery of sheathing itself in her tragic bosom?

- Glad means not pleased or happy but rather "bright and shining" or what a third party would perceive as radiant or glowing, even joyful. So Achilles in his touched/trance zone, bride walking down altar? Shakespeare uses it to connote an inside feeling in response to again something out of your control but not, as with happy, having any concept of fortune or luck. Rather like, I am glad of you, seeing you, being with you. It wants a other person and speaks intrinsically to a subject-object interaction: it's about perception and reaction. Happy is about being stoked because YOU were lucky, nobody needs to witness it. Glad requires an other. Notably Neil Sheehan chose "A Bright Shining lie" for his amazing book. This is another very intellectual choice (like Juliet above by Shakespeare) by an author who clearly knows his etymology? It's about the tension between what was really going on (objectively) and what people thought was going on (subjectively).

- Pleased is our first non-Germanic word. Broadly, English from German/Norse origins are a) older, b) shorter, and c) experiential not analytical. Pleasure is not that. It's going to be arriving with the Normans circa 1066 (a few generations before and after, by location in physical geography of the Anglophones ie Bordeaux vs Yorkshire) and the key concept is satisfying somebody's expectations: Pleased means a state of Acceptableness. Your home run above satisfies the expectations of the coach and your fans. That's why they are cheering. Not because you are happy to be lucky; or glad to be on fire; but because you accomplished THEIR goals. It's a technical analytical state of being, eg you should be pleased your candidate release passes acceptance/regressio testing. I hope you don't feel happy or look too glad. Act like you've done this before etc. A football player who puts down the football after scoring without a stupid celebration dance is pleased.

- Delighted is obviously another non Germanic admix word in via the romance languages with the Frenchies. The key concept is your experience of something alluring, charming, seductive, delicious. It's a .. sensual word but also, like so many romance language words is a bit detached and analytical. Smart guy word for the feeling at the end of a process of getting what you wanted. Unlike happ and glad, which are for... bros verbing/living in the moment? The fact delighted just means "super pleased" or "double plus glad" now is a sign we already live in the collapse you envision. Which is a shame.

Ps you can fix it by reading books that are merely 50+ years old.

foo-bar-bat··on Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine
The patient would be 100% correct to blame the hospital staff for this incident. The only possible explanation is human error by the staff. The only reason this doesn't happen every day in hospitals around the world is MRI staff are not incompetent.
foo-bar-bat··on Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine
This is only comment in this entire thread that's worth reading.
foo-bar-bat··on Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine
I think the sorting hat outcomes for technical polymaths and driven entrepreneurs is the hat is sometimes quantum, and can rightfully put you into any or multiple houses at Hogwarts? Like Harry.

Last time I had a major surgery the anesthesiologist at Stanford was also simultaneously a full time employee of Apple. (At the time we were competitors; we figured out during surgical prep that we had friends/colleagues in common.)

Similarly, while working at another FAANG company, one of my colleagues was simultaneously a practicing MD (PCP) at Stanford. He later left both jobs, to start own biz.

At one point he referred me to another Stanford doc who was simultaneously the founder of a diagnostic-tech startup, which sadly has since fizzled.

Lastly, I know a practicing anesthesiologist married to a serial entrepreneur who's built and sold stuff you've heard of. They or some of their hundreds of employees may be here, dunno. Won't out them.

foo-bar-bat··on Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
"Live outside of society" has a nice ring to it, but the meaning of those words when choosing to disobey court orders converts via bailiff to residing in jail cell. That's not living "outside society" or its constraints. It's very inside of them.

If you want to actually live outside of society, perhaps the only way to do that is on a simple sailboat like Moxie did for a while:

https://archive.org/details/holdFastADocumentaryByMoxieMarli...

But even that only works temporarily because eventually something breaks or runs out, and you will be re-confronted by reality (some society somewhere) once ashore. For example your hypothetical phone unlock is what happened to Moxie. From Wikipedia:

"While entering the U.S. on a flight from the Dominican Republic in 2010, Marlinspike was detained by federal agents for nearly five hours, all his electronic devices were confiscated, and at first agents claimed he would only get them back if he provided his passwords so they could decrypt the data. Marlinspike refused to do this, and the devices were eventually returned, though he noted that he could no longer trust them, saying, "They could have modified the hardware or installed new keyboard firmware."

source: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/hacker-border-search/

foo-bar-bat··on Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism
No, WhatsApp is not part of Signal. That's false. The opposite is true: Signal is part of Whats App. The problem is we have no idea what else is.
foo-bar-bat··on Tor’s history of D/DoS attacks and future strategies for mitigation
Wait so your point is that if Cloudflare (or anybody?) doesn't want to do business with lying Nazis, then, the world is on an inexorable slippery slope to totalitarian fascism? That's obviously false.
foo-bar-bat··on Why Nvidia Keeps Winning
Sources please.
foo-bar-bat··on Tech execs are stressed out. Half are heavy drinkers and 45% take painkillers
This is obviously not representative. The survey data may be true but it doesn't describe the industry, only the rehab patients. Article is clickbait BS.

"Along with controlled substances, heavy alcohol use was reported by tech executives. Half of APN's respondents self-identified as heavy drinkers, or those that consume between three and seven alcoholic drinks a day. 51% of respondents report smoking cigarettes or nicotine vapes within the last three months."

In reality, tech execs generally don't smoke. Or vape. Preposterous.

A "random" group of alcoholics in rehab in Colorado however, sure, I buy that half of them smoke or vape.

foo-bar-bat··on TeleSign profiles half of the world’s mobile phone users
Gross
foo-bar-bat··on TeleSign profiles half of the world’s mobile phone users
Thanks for posting this here. Does does like neat party trick.

I got randomly assigned a "troubled" phone number once. It was a PITA. It should probably be illegal for phone companies to recycle numbers from old users with certain types of legal or financial problems, to innocent random new users who are literally paying for the privilege of inheriting a hot mess.

foo-bar-bat··on Every person on the planet should have their own website
Seems very difficult to define "safely managed" or even "services" without projecting one society's values onto many others, which is always risky.

Suggestions how to be objective about subjective topics?

foo-bar-bat··on Every person on the planet should have their own website
It's probably more like 7.9 now.

Regardless how does 3.6:7.8 ie 46% constitute a majority? Most is a word. Words have meaning.

Respectfully, what you said would be less wrong if you had used the word many.

foo-bar-bat··on Meta says 30M people have signed up to Threads
Can we just skip the tech hype cycle and go direct to Elon vs Zuck duelling at dawn?
foo-bar-bat··on New analysis of tooth minerals confirms megalodon shark was warm-blooded
Suggestions?

Fast-following you sounds good!

foo-bar-bat··on Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitor's business?
Just curious why you guys do this and for free?
foo-bar-bat··on Plastics are poisoning us
Sorry, who suggested sleeping the day away? The suggestion above was sleep 8 hours, ie per night, not 8 extra hours during the day.
foo-bar-bat··on Plastics are poisoning us
Where is here?
foo-bar-bat··on Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables
Internet points for you!
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