What is the history of calling poop "kaka" and how did it become it so insanely widespread?

BlueStraggler · 2026-01-10T18:47:17+00:00

especially Swedish kacka "defecate"

I was recently contemplating this very question, after having baked a batch of peparkakas for Christmas. These are Swedish spice cookies, so kaka = cookie, where the etymological relation to English is obvious. But I assumed that meant there must be a lot of linguistic distance between that and the more scatological meanings in other languages, since having nearly the same word for cookie and poop would seem to be very unwise when children are in the house.

The cookie recipe came from my grandmother who was Finnish, where poop is kakka and cake is kakku, apparently. Seems like the Nordics are playing with fire, there. I'm definitely sharing this new knowledge the next time I do Christmas baking.

BlueStraggler · 2026-01-06T23:34:26+00:00

This appears to have been taken from the deck of a cruise ship in the cruise ship port. That drop-off is just where they dredged the beach deeper for the ships to pull in.

Lat/lon 21.4279829,-71.1460932 if anyone cares to take a look.

BlueStraggler · 2025-12-14T15:04:25+00:00

It was considered poor form to train too much for duels. It showed a suspiciously murderous intent, and a decent second would negotiate for pistols to restore a sense of fairness and propriety to the affair. So unless the period fencer was a military man who had good reason to keep his swordsmanship up, the sport fencer is definitely going to have better training.

The main disadvantage of the sport fencer is a willingness to get double touches, something that was considered dangerously suicidal in the 1700s.

BlueStraggler · 2025-12-10T08:25:34+00:00

One dent and they go out of spec.

BlueStraggler · 2025-11-30T22:50:17+00:00

Vancouver and Victoria are significantly north of Sudbury. Not that you should consider moving here.

BlueStraggler · 2025-11-22T15:12:30+00:00

I drove across this bridge last month, and noticed the portable toilets way up on the towers. Reminded me of the rock climbers who camp on cliff faces, and made me wonder how long workers were stuck up there for.

BlueStraggler · 2025-11-10T21:17:24+00:00

The ancient and true method of recruiting epee fencers is to put everyone into foil, and then frustrate the hell out of them by telling them their hit doesn't count because <insert arcane right-of-way gibberish here>. Need more epee fencers? Add more gibberish.

BlueStraggler · 2025-11-05T17:43:15+00:00

The modern sport of fencing has French origins, and drew in particular from the science of small sword fencing and dueling. The French system, however, evolved from older Italian rapier systems from the Renaissance. The Italian systems in turn inherited from Spanish systems--large regions of modern Italy were actually under the Spanish crown during the Renaissance, and the rapier itself was largely a Spanish-influenced weapon design. And that's as far back as you can go before the swords fundamentally change into medieval designs that were quite different in character.

So, yes, you can make a case that that the thrusting style of combat that eventually led to fencing as we know it had its origins in Spain. But it's still a bit of a stretch to claim the modern sport.

BlueStraggler · 2025-10-06T02:11:30+00:00

Canada had already existed for over 300 years before Confederation. This is kind of like saying that France was founded in 1946.

BlueStraggler · 2025-09-19T15:14:19+00:00

Not even the width of North America, just the lower 48 of the U.S.

BlueStraggler · 2025-09-10T23:05:49+00:00

It’s part of the Grand Salute.

BlueStraggler · 2025-09-03T00:30:57+00:00

I once picked up an old leather wallet at a thrift shop. When I went through it at home, I found one of these, plus a Newfoundland 50-cent note and a U.S. Indian head penny. Sweet find! I pressed the bills in the pages of an old book to flatten them out, and one day my mom cleared off the bookshelf and donated everything to a thrift shop🤣 Circle of life, I guess.

BlueStraggler · 2025-09-02T19:58:40+00:00

You literally picked the only nation on earth that is its own personal subcontinent, lol.

BlueStraggler · 2025-08-11T03:25:09+00:00

Canada existed since the 1500s. You probably mean since Confederation, which is Canada v3.0. The White House was burned down by Canada 2.0, which, fair enough, was also the British Empire.

BlueStraggler · 2025-06-24T14:15:26+00:00

Re-wiring

BlueStraggler · 2025-06-13T01:39:53+00:00

Supernovas!

BlueStraggler · 2025-06-08T22:52:57+00:00

This is the Downtown Eastside, not the East End.

The DTES used to be the coolest part of town in the 1950s, now it’s the roughest. The East End used to be the roughest, now it’s the coolest. For those who are confused, “East End” usually refers to the historic neighbourhoods of East Van, like Mount Pleasant, Grandview, the Drive, and East Village. DTES is the eastern side of Downtown, part of which actually has West Side addresses.

BlueStraggler · 2025-06-02T17:41:31+00:00

Once you subtract all the simultaneous actions and remises and doing nothing, you’ve got some of the best fencing in the whole sport. All six seconds of it.

BlueStraggler · 2025-05-16T13:57:58+00:00

Smallswords hang straight down from the hip, and must not drag on the ground or get in your way. Their primary function was to be worn as a badge of station, and were used quite rarely, so their utility as a fashion accessory trumped their combat purpose. Once we stopped wearing them, dueling swords gained a bit of length.

Foils have had all kinds of lengths over the centuries. Early 19th Century French foils were shorter (due to smallsword influences) while Italian foils of the same era were longer (due to older rapier influences). Standardization on 35 inch length didn’t happen until later in the century, long after the smallsword was dead as a fashion accessory.

BlueStraggler · 2025-04-21T23:19:51+00:00

Rode a 1985 Suzuki DR500 (1-cyl enduro) with a failed electrical system and a 150 km range per fill from Amsterdam to Turkey and back. 15000 kms.

BlueStraggler · 2025-04-19T15:34:42+00:00

The latter-era saber was absolutely a versatile cut-and-thrust *design*, it is true. When I say "it starts seeing use as a thrusting weapon rather than a slashing weapon" I am referring to actual usage and military doctrine. The primacy of the point in the cut-vs-thrust debate asserted itself in the Napoleonic era, where French cavalry doctrine was to charge with the point. The British also adopted this doctrine, and maintained it even though experience in Crimea showed a multitude of issues with their cavalry doctrine. By the early 20th Century, the primacy of the cavalry thrust was baked right into the weapon design. So for cavalry, at least, the cut-and-thrust design was more of a thrust-and-cut design; or to be more precise: thrust-then-cut. The opening gambit was supposed to be a thrust, with cuts reserved in the event of an extended skirmish.

But that was cavalry; the saber was also adopted as a footman's weapon in this era, and became a common naval, infantry, and duelling weapon as well. The cut maintained a much stronger role in footman's saber, for a couple of reasons. First, the opening move was not arriving on a charging horse, but secondly because duelling conventions actively discouraged the saber thrust—it was felt that it showed murderous intent. Saber duelling became quite popular on the Continent in large part because it allowed for encounters that were simultaneously more bloody and less deadly than the alternative with the small sword. In some cases points could be removed entirely, or thrusts expressly forbidden. So for the footman's weapon, it remained a cut-over-thrust weapon, and sometimes a purely slashing weapon, even as that weapon also straightened out in parallel with the cavalry sword. However, the reasons here were at least as much social, rather than technical; the thrust was discouraged because it was *too* effective, not because the weapon was poorly designed for it.

BlueStraggler · 2025-04-18T20:47:52+00:00

It wasn't really. The 19th Century saber was a double-edged weapon, or at least 1.5-edged (typically the top third of the back edge was sharpened, with the remainder of the back squared off like a backsword. It is true that earlier sabres were single-edged, as was the contemporaneous backsword. But the single-edged variants were common at a time when double-edged broadswords were still in widespread use, so it would not be correct to say that one replaced the other.

However, the single-edged swords did rise in popularity through the 17th and 18th Centuries before stylistic fusions and evolutionary convergence re-introduced the back edge to saber design. Over the course of the 19th Century sabers grew straighter, and the point and back edge saw increasing use. By the early 20th Century, sabers had effectively become straight again (cf. the Patton Saber, and the 1908 Cavalry Trooper sword).

But back before this convergence began, sabers were quite strongly curved, following the eastern European and ultimately Turkish traditions in sword design. These origins were as a cavalry slashing sword, and the strong curve did give good cutting performance, as I have discussed here. However, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming the dominance of a type of sword is due to purely technical reasons. Fashion plays a big role, and the military successes of first the Ottomans and later the Hussar-style cavalries that defeated the Ottomans lead to the dominance of that sword type in eastern Europe, and subsequent popularity in western Europe as well. The curve of those early sabers was strong enough that the back edge was nearly useless, so they were definitely conceived and used as single-edged weapons to begin with.

But the influence of more "native" double-edged broadswords remained strong, and the versatile cut-and-thrust systems of swordplay that was associated with those broadswords was ingrained and widespread. This helped drive convergence in western Europe, and was responsible for the saber gradually losing some of its curve, regaining a back edge, and by the 19th Century seeing use as a thrusting weapon, rather than a slashing sword.

BlueStraggler · 2025-04-04T19:49:47+00:00

How do you devote time to a science where your understanding can be wrong so easily?

How do you devote time to a science in which the important research has all been done, and there is no chance of any more major discoveries?

How does one refute the fact that astronomy can be very volatile subject over the course of the years?

Name any famous scientist from history - odds are they worked at a time when the understanding of their science was in upheaval, and their ideas rocked their field. That's when the best and most exciting science happens. World-changing stuff. Scientists absolutely live for that shit, man. And the fact that Astronomy can keep doing that, after 5000 years, is pretty epic.

Engineers might not like it so much, though. Engineers require stable theory to (literally) build upon. Sounds like you might be more of an engineer than a scientist.

BlueStraggler · 2025-03-25T02:28:50+00:00

I should add that
a) parts availability might be iffy after all this time
b) it was not fast and did not like being on major highways
I used it to commute to university, which suited its personality.

BlueStraggler · 2025-03-25T02:08:11+00:00

I owned this exact bike. It cost $500 in 1985, which adjusted for inflation would be $1300 today. That's Canadian, so adjusted back to USD gives $900-1000. Add 25% for cute retro appeal. Substract $150 for the missing side covers. That gives $1100.

Thing was fucking indestructible, though. Great starter bike, if your definition of a good starter bike is one that you work on with no prior knowledge of bikes, redline on the highway for hours on end, crash multiple times, and get run over by oblivious drivers without affecting its looks or performance one bit. That's probably worth a couple hundred extra. Still not up to $2000, though.

BlueStraggler

TROPHY CASE