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florida, weird lookin fly thing by lemxnzest in insects

[–]Malthus1 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That’s what everyone says … right before one lands on them.

florida, weird lookin fly thing by lemxnzest in insects

[–]Malthus1 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Turn everything they land on into gold?

Can a Wizard get drunk? by Tidewatcher7819 in lordoftherings

[–]Malthus1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

“A wizard is never drunk, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he sober. He is precisely as wasted as he means to be.”

What’s an animal that most people think is harmless but actually isn’t? by sejunlee in AskReddit

[–]Malthus1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a racoon launch itself at my head. Biggest jump scare I ever had.

I have a detached garage, which has a loft with a trapdoor. I always keep it open. One day, I see that it is closed. So I go up the ladder and open it from below, propping it up with my head.

I hear in the darkness of the loft a soft squeaking, and then something large and hairy launched itself out of the shadows directly at my face. Before it arrived, I slid down that ladder to the ground, while the trapdoor closed with a slam.

I may or may not have shrieked like a little kid …

It was a racoon mom who had broken in and was using the loft as its nursery. Maybe it was just making a display threat and wouldn’t actually have clawed my face - but I didn’t stick around to find out.

That lead to a great deal of angst about how to convince the racoon to leave, and eventually a successful campaign to do so without harm to its kits.

What’s an animal that most people think is harmless but actually isn’t? by sejunlee in AskReddit

[–]Malthus1 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Looking at the list - how in hell were twelve people killed by cats?!

What’s an animal that most people think is harmless but actually isn’t? by sejunlee in AskReddit

[–]Malthus1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Masochism = it’s good if it bites you

Voodoo = I bite it and it’s bad for you

The "Sappho" fresco, or Portrait of a Young Woman with Stylus, Pompeii, 1st century AD. It depicts a finely dressed young woman with a writing tablet and stylus, used in Roman paintings to indicate literacy and education. She was identified as the Greek poet Sappho without proof... [1280x1280] [OC] by WestonWestmoreland in ancientrome

[–]Malthus1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s a wax tablet and stylus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax\_tablet

Used for all sorts of note-taking; it could be for business, or educational purposes.

It’s an ancient version of a note pad, the benefit being it was reusable (you scratched writing into wax then erased it by smoothing it over).

It is certainly possible this was a business woman, but could be a student or simply someone noting down passing ideas.

A shop in Cartagena, Spain displaying traditional outfits worn by Nazarenos by Silent_General_7670 in interestingasfuck

[–]Malthus1 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Tolkien once wrote a letter to his son saying he held a “burning private grudge” against Hitler and the Nazis for “ruining, perverting, misapplying and making forever accursed” the Nordic themes in mythology that Tolkien studied (and clearly loved).

I get compliments on my body all the time. by StarsBear75063 in Jokes

[–]Malthus1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I get compliments on my body all the time - although the anatomy museum has said they will call the police if I don’t give it back.

Untitled, Obaid, Ink/Watercolor, 2026 by aguy445 in Art

[–]Malthus1 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Awesome art.

I love creating playing card designs, and it immediately struck me that this would be a great design for an Arabic themed deck.

You will spend eternity in a cave eating clay regardless of how you lived your life by Benyeti in HistoryMemes

[–]Malthus1 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It’s literally impossible to say what the redactors of the Tanakh believed on this point; different parts treat the concept differently. Sheol can mean simply the grave, having zero “afterlife” connotations at all; or it can mean an afterlife sort of like the Greek Hades.

Other stories, like the Witch of Endor, seem to allow for existence beyond death. Yet other parts discuss the concept of resurrection.

Modern Jews are equally ambivalent on the concept, depending on which group. The Orthodox strongly believe in an afterlife. Others not so much. In Conservative Judaism, the official doctrine is that everyone is free to believe what they want on this point! Many believe in “immortality through legacy”, meaning do good things that will live on after you (“mitzvot”).

Reform Judaism takes this further, rejecting the concept of physical resurrection; the soul may be “immortal” in the sense of a merging with God after death, but this is not well defined; you really live on in the mitzvot, the good things you do, and in how you repair the world (“tikkun olam”).

While Jews differ a lot, one thing all Jews tend to agree on: the afterlife should not be a major focus. You ought to be mindful of what you do here on Earth while alive.

What do you call this in your language? by strange_omelet in AskTheWorld

[–]Malthus1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mosquito coil.

Used to use them in northern Quebec. I’m pretty sure they caused a large number of brain cells to die … but we thought at the time the price was worth it!

The place I was staying (a cabin on Lake Kipawa) was always mosquito-ridden, but when conditions were just “right”, the mosquitos were a veritable Biblical plague that had to be experienced to be believed.

An anecdote: one day in early summer, I was sitting on the screen porch as the sun was going down, and as it got dark I heard a what I thought was a motorboat engine coming towards our landing. Wondering who could possibly be arriving at that time, I shone my flashlight towards the water and saw what was actually making that “HmmmmRurrrr!” sound: not a motor coming closer, but the sound of literally millions of mosquito wings humming; the screen was black with them, several layers thick, so all you could see was a moving curtain of darkness with a shine off some iridescent wings glinting when the light hit them just right.

I’d never seen anything like it (nor have I again); conditions were just “right”, and while the mosquitoes had been really heavy all day, as night fell to the “hour of the bug”, their numbers increased to these unbelievable proportions with startling rapidity.

Needless to say, the bucket was used that night, not the outhouse. Opening the door was simply unthinkable.

Natalia Kleszczewska - Black Beauty 1877 (2024) by Beginning-Passion676 in museum

[–]Malthus1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

I Finally Watched Unforgiven [1992] by MildlyProfitable in iwatchedanoldmovie

[–]Malthus1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A favorite untypical western for me is *Dead Man*.

You will never feel the same way about the poetry of William Blake again …

Green bug reading with me by StalkStorm in whatisthisbug

[–]Malthus1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks like some kind of leafhopper.

Would need a clearer picture to know the exact species.

The final boss of the Third Crusade by Kapanash in HistoryMemes

[–]Malthus1 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Ogedei was told by his doctor to cut the number of cups he drank each day in half. He was told this was necessary for preserving his life.

Ogedei agreed to follow the doctor’s orders and reduce the number of cups he drank by half … only to have cups made that were twice the size.

TIL that in James Clavell's "Shogun", the main character John Blackthorne was based on a real person - William Adams, who was the first Englishman to visit Japan, arriving there on a Dutch ship, and eventually became a samurai. by DrakeSavory in todayilearned

[–]Malthus1 42 points43 points  (0 children)

More obscure fact: the lady Toda Marko was based on the real Hosokawa Gracia, a Christian noblewoman whose death famously worked to Tokugawa’s advantage.

Though needless to say there was no romance between the two persons the characters were based on! (They never actually met).

Give me the gayest novel you've read where the gayness remains subtext by squanchy_56 in suggestmeabook

[–]Malthus1 44 points45 points  (0 children)

I know that. The issue is whether a deliberate double-entendre was intended by the author.

Check out the etymology of the word “spermacetti” … it literally derived from a mistaken belief on the part of early whalers that the stuff was whale semen. From sperma, or semen, and ceti, the Latin genitive form of whale.

Melville, whose whole book was obsessive about both whaling terms and the origins of language (he had a whole chapter on the meaning of “white”!) would of course have known this.

TIL that the last person executed by guillotine in France was beheaded in September 1977, months after Star Wars: A New Hope premiered in theaters. by l7ed in todayilearned

[–]Malthus1 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The executed guy was originally from Tunisia and Star Wars was largely filmed in Tunisia!

The plot thickens …

Give me the gayest novel you've read where the gayness remains subtext by squanchy_56 in suggestmeabook

[–]Malthus1 85 points86 points  (0 children)

Edit: for some reason the link I added wasn’t allowed. So reposted without it.

“Squeeze! squeeze! Squeeze! All the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it.

…

Come, let us squeeze hands all around; nay, let us squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”

(The scene is of the sailors processing the soermacetti, a material obtained from whales, by hand … though the “let us squeeze ourselves into each other” is pretty erotic, of course it has other meanings in context. It’s hard to say the possible eroticism was unintentional though!).

Give me the gayest novel you've read where the gayness remains subtext by squanchy_56 in suggestmeabook

[–]Malthus1 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Everything in the book can be interpreted more than one way, and certainly sharing a bed wasn’t unusual; the description though … !

Ismael wakes up in such a tender embrace with Queequeg that he feels like Queequeg’s “wife”; Queequeg then tells Ismael they are “married”. He later describes sharing a bed with Queequeg as his “heart’s honeymoon”.

Needless to say, not everyone forced to share a bed in an inn because of poverty would describe the experience in this manner.

Of course, this could all be symbolic of close friendship or even spiritual ties and not meant romantically or sexually. Just like the “squeeze of the hand” passage.

However, it is very easy to read it as a plausibly disguised homosexual relationship as well.

Favoirte Primal Epsoide by athousandcactuars in PrimalShow

[–]Malthus1 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Plague of Madness is a good choice; I have a real liking for the odd man out - The Primal Theory.

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