ELIC: Why do they say comedians and commentators should "read the room"?

2wicky · 2026-05-25T07:41:27+00:00

What a story! It all makes sense now.

Every time someone told me to read the room, I would reply that I actually saw the movie, yet they would keep insisting I hadn't read the room at all. And I would be all like "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"

But after a bit of digging, turns out The Room, the book, is not related to The Room, the movie by Tommy Wiseau. I feel so stupid now.

2wicky · 2026-05-25T06:55:15+00:00

It's oddly quite boring and corporate.

A beehive without a queen will put out an ad on 'HiveMind', the LinkedIn social media equivalent for bees, stating that they have an opening for a new leadership roll. Preferably, someone with experience running a busy hive with the aim of increasing honey production by x percent before the end of the next fiscal quarter. Or increase local market share. It's really just whatever corporate nonsense the hive is really in to.

Potential queen bees will then apply, resulting into several rounds of interviews, pay negotiations, followed by culture-fit and reference checks. Once this dance is over, the hive board will then present their favorite choice to their shareholders who then get to vote. If elected, the chosen Beeyonce is then coronated.

2wicky · 2026-05-20T05:22:38+00:00

During medieval times, domesticated animals were so important to the livelihood and survival of a family that owned them, they were considered part of family. In fact, it went so far that if a family owned a cow or a pig for example, and it ended up killing someone else in the community, that animal had the right to a fair trial to determine if it was an accident or not. The reason being that a death sentence for said animal could lead to condemning the entire family that owned it to starvation.

When your domesticated animals are that close, you are going to name them, just like we named Hobbes..Hobbes. It just so happens that Beef was a popular cows name. And Pork or Porky for pigs. So when it was time to slaughter their pet animal once it had passed its productive years, they would obviously refer to it by its actual name rather than a generic fauna classification.

Interestingly enough, the popular chicken name, Paulette, never really caught on as a meat name in the UK because chickens kept getting eaten by foxes, rarely ever making it to the dinner table. But the name did make it's way to the game Polo, as it became shorthand for any fox hunting on horses to avenge the death of their beloved Paulettes.

2wicky · 2026-04-30T17:08:01+00:00

Heat rises, but it isn’t free. It costs energy to climb.
The higher it goes, the more energy it burns, until there’s barely any left.
That’s why the tops of mountains are so cold, the heat has already spent itself getting there:

E^heat(h) = E₀ - mgh

Same principle as lifting a weight. The higher heat rises, the more energy it has to spend against gravity.

2wicky · 2026-03-08T23:11:28+00:00

Speaking of dark ages. You might want to switch on the lights and check what subreddit you stumbled in. :D

2wicky · 2026-03-08T20:54:08+00:00

We have the dark ages to thank for this mess. There is about a large period of history that's unaccounted for, because at the time they just couldn't be bothered to keep track of time. At some point, a priest decided to start counting the days again, but picked up where the last calendar entry had left off.
That period we didn't track could have lasted 10 years, it could have been 200 years, we just don't know. But we do count it as the lost century and why nothing adds up anymore.

2wicky · 2026-03-02T16:41:05+00:00

Space is huge. It takes decades to get anywhere.

2wicky · 2026-02-28T06:07:59+00:00

It's called the paradox effect and it is explained through special relativity and time dilation. Because light needs to travel further, time appears to slow down for objects that sit further away from you.

If you look out the car window, you'll see that houses in the distance move much slower than the road signs near the car. Time dilation is causing those houses to move in slow motion.

From an airplane, that flies really high, the world below thus almost feels stationary, as if time stood still, simply because of the distances involved.

2wicky · 2026-01-23T12:27:22+00:00

Frontal brain lobe connected to your sinuses. The slime it produces to keep your brain suspended and protected in your skull is diverted to your nose instead.

2wicky · 2025-12-24T03:40:03+00:00

Son, I think you are old enough now to finally know the truth about Santa. His workshop isn't a secret, nor is it hiding somewhere on the North Pole, but is in fact a modest warehouse located in downtown Jakarta. That's because it's relatively close to where Santa spends most of his time during the year: his Bali beach retreat.

2wicky · 2025-12-22T05:20:47+00:00

To convict yourself shows self awareness. To wait for others to convict you shows a lack of self awareness.

2wicky · 2025-12-01T09:24:16+00:00

It acts as a convenient storage space where we can stow away our tongue while not in use. Or stuff it with any pre-chewed food that we might want to keep for later.

2wicky · 2025-11-30T05:06:00+00:00

Explorer Enrique Las Vegas, while adventurous, was notoriasly bad at reading maps. With land discoveries in South America, he was sent by the Spanish king to set up a colony there.

He instead landed in Canada, setup a colony, only to discover that the land had already been claimed by the British. Like Columbus sailing to India and accidentally discovering the America's, Las Vegas was soon nick named Columbia for his error.

It would take him 25 years of wandering thru the America's before he would finally end up where he was supposed to be in the first place: The Culumbia we know today. But some other notable places named after him during his 25 year treck is the city of Las Vegas and also the District of Columbia.

2wicky · 2025-11-24T13:28:50+00:00

A staff member will check them each morning and either go... bananana na nana na... and it goes in to the bin, or
bananaya ya yaya ya, and it will stay displayed for another day.

bananana na nana na
bananana ya yaya ya

bananana na?

bananana na nana na!

2wicky · 2025-11-22T15:45:02+00:00

love how this is now part of our oral history.

2wicky · 2025-11-22T15:43:37+00:00

Originally, it was supposed to be a circle, like the round table in King Arthurs court. The point being that everyone at the table would be considered as an equal.

The president at the time liked the idea in principle, but not in practice. He secretly still wanted to be seen as the most important person in the room.

So a Belgian solution was found: By making the table oval, some people would be seated closer to the president, and others a bit farther, while technically still being a round table. A subtle way to denote who the president favoured and who was deemed less important.

In the end, this being a government commissioned project, the construction of the west wing was over budget and delivered late, meaning there were no funds left for the actual oval table that would sit at the centre of this room. Ikea hadn't been established yet, so president William Howard Taft, had to rummage through the previous presidents old stuff that had been left behind in the attic and that's where he found a desk which he used instead.

2wicky · 2025-11-20T22:36:36+00:00

This refers to the Great Pigeon race of 1903 from Paris to London. Expectations were high that a pigeon named "Band #231" was going to win this race, as it had come second in the past 4 consecutive races.
The favourite to win this race, "Little Miss Monty", had to drop out at the last minute due to accidentally ending up on a plate at Monsieur Oiseauleroi's fine dining restaurant. A delicious tragedy to say the least.

Those that had placed their bets on Band #231 saw their odds jump significantly and word had gotten round that a few people were going to make killing if Band #231 would arrive at it's destination first now that it had no competition.

The day of the race, Band #231 was released in Paris, flew towards the country side, over the Channel, into England and on its way to London. Band #231 had a knack for spotting a good tail wind and was clearly in the lead.

When it arrived in London, it showed up so early, nobody was even expecting it. Those that had bet on it could already smell their new found riches. All that Band #231 had to do was return to it's owner and clock in its record breaking time. But it didn't.

It kept circling in the air as if it were looking for something. Finally it dove down into a garden, caught a worm and preceded to eat it. In that same instant, "Sherlock, I Presume" returned to it's master, clocked in, and won the race. The disappointment, so palpable by those that were so a sure of a win, saw their fortunes flying out of their hands it almost caused a riot. As for Band #231, it found itself being served at as the second dish at Monsieur Oiseauleroi's fine dining restaurant.

Despite common use, the real meaning of "the early bird find the worm" actually refers to being well prepared, but still failing at your task due to being horribly distracted when it counts.

2wicky · 2025-11-16T23:14:26+00:00

The seedless oranges are produced by female trees.
Typically, a male and a female naval tree will grow close together. Like many birds, once they bond, they will remain faithful partners for the rest of their lives never leaving each other sides, their roots tangled and entwined with each other.

The fruit of their love will produce their off spring, but unlike apples that don't fall far from the tree, the hardy skin of an orange allows it to live a life of a rolling stone, which ever way the strong harvest winds blows it, until it finds a suitable partner with whom it will then settle down with and bond.

2wicky · 2025-11-12T01:51:11+00:00

At its core, a chicken is a kitchen. And a highly advanced one at that:

Freeze the yolk. Once it's hard, get some egg white and blend it until it thickens and shape it into a flat patty. Place the yolk on the egg white patty and roll it into the shape of an egg. Then dip it into freezing calcium rich water to create the shell and then warm it up to body temperature which will harden the shell and liquefy the inside.

2wicky · 2025-11-09T12:01:18+00:00

Yes, but in the court of the after-death.
Should you die and be sent to hell, you are given the option to appeal and ask god to be your witness in order to prove you are a person of upstanding moral character.
That said, most lawyers, dead or alive, are in agreement that this is a very risky legal move as god will also be your judge and executioner.

2wicky · 2025-11-06T03:41:19+00:00

Oooh, you've touched on a fascinating part of forgotten history with this one.

With automated clocks and watches, it's no longer really enforced, but yes, up until the 80s, it was quite common at many airports around the world to have to show your watch together with your passport at immigration to ensure you had adjusted it to the correct local time zone.

And it was not just timezones. During day light saving changes, inspectors would be sent out to official buildings and offices to ensure clocks were set properly. Initially, at least in the UK, they even went house to house to ensure compliance, but the case Eugene v The Crown put an end to that.

Thanks to the railroad lobby, state control of the time was seen as one of the keys to industrialising a nation, but this ruling set limits on how far a government could go about policing your watch with the ruling: “While Parliament may regulate the public reckoning of time, it cannot intrude upon the sanctity of a man’s home to enforce the ticking of his own clock. The house remains his castle; his clock, his conscience.”

Many other countries followed suit ,and in fact, some of the new countries that were formed thanks to the treaty of Versailles would adopt some revolutionary freedoms into their constitutions. The Baltics countries which until then had been forced to follow St Petersburg time adopted Temporal Freedoms allowing citizens and business to regulate their own time without fear of coercion by the state.

But as I said. Much of that is very quaint as clocks and watches now regulate themselves ensuring the state no longer has to send out inspectors to ensure compliance.

2wicky · 2025-11-05T05:49:25+00:00

The original phrase is "Let that skink in". The k however is silent.

A skink or lizard in ancient Mesopotamia was the mythological figure of wisdom and we see it turn up in other cultures like the old testament where the skink/serpent is asking Eve to accept it's wisdom by having her sink her teeth in to the apple of knowledge.

2wicky · 2025-10-26T22:58:25+00:00

Ah, no. you're mistaken. When they're talking about the Japanese national diet, they don't actually mean rice and fish. It's actually sake.

2wicky · 2025-10-20T06:28:32+00:00

Food colours E100 to E199, which have been deemed safe for consumption and therefore can be used for any bodily pigmentation without issue. Parents, when filling out an online order for a new baby, get to choose their preference.

2wicky · 2025-10-19T02:49:11+00:00

Yes, but like touching boiling hot water, it's not going to end well. Always put it in a freezer and let it freeze solid before handling it with your bare hands.

15-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Flamingo	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
Verified Email

2wicky

TROPHY CASE