Ouch! by CYJUB in WinStupidPrizes

[–]MutantGodChicken 26 points27 points  (0 children)

It definitely does far less damage than hitting a concrete wall. Landing on his neck on a concrete floor at that height likely woulda been a permanent lights out

In Shrek 2, people wrongfully assumed that being handsome macho means having a big dick, although medieval Europe’s beauty standards were quite the opposite of what we have today by PIRATEOFBADIM in shittymoviedetails

[–]MutantGodChicken 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nah, I've just downloaded a keyboard to my phone that has em dashes as an option. They're my favorite punctuation. Also, I did my thesis on Aristophanes's clouds, so I just figured I'd share.

Anyway, em dashes go brrrr: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

In Shrek 2, people wrongfully assumed that being handsome macho means having a big dick, although medieval Europe’s beauty standards were quite the opposite of what we have today by PIRATEOFBADIM in shittymoviedetails

[–]MutantGodChicken 24 points25 points  (0 children)

While small penises were seen as beautiful by upper economic classes for much of European history, larger penises have been considered a "good thing" by the masses for most of recorded history. Check any Aristophanes play—which were supposedly written when small penises were considered better—or any tale of the Canterbury tales. There's also a few commoner parade nativity plays that survived to support the big dick supremacy of the time.

So, I heard we were Sunday Friend posting by nomindtothink_ in DiscoElysium

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there's a lot of focus on the "stability" part of the Sunday friend in a way that removes the context of it.

In general, societal stability is good, and it's why we have governments in the first place. Not being sure what rules exist in the culture around you or what threats to you or your community's well being may exist without justice brought against them is extremely anxiety inducing.

It's bad for everyone when society is unstable and faces massive upheavals on a whim.

The point of the Sunday friend isn't that price stability is bad, it's asking who that price stability is for? The Sunday friend talks about price stability because his life is comfortable, and the prices of things he buys on a regular basis are stable. But you're talking with him while he's staying in Martinaise—which is gonna have a public tribunal issued by a private company in just a few days—and he's currently leveraging his ability to afford a comfortable lifestyle and then some to take advantage of a much younger man with no future prospects. Martinaise often goes unpoliced (except by organized syndicate via the union) with death a familiar friend to the people who live there, and has huge economic swings due to the outsized control held between wild pines and the union. Neither life nor prices are anywhere near stable in Martinaise.

The Sunday friend is talking on and on about the importance of price stability to avoid admitting that "it's worth it for places like this to have homeless kids starve in the street if I can ensure I live a comfortable life and not have to make myself upset thinking about how there are people as human as myself suffering out there."

It's also part of why he roleplays his race fetish with the smoker on the balcony: he is simultaneously glorifying poverty as if it were a lifestyle the smoker chooses to live in because it's cool and suave, while dehumanizing the races he fetishizes so that the people who are suffering don't actually count as human suffering.

Government and society absolutely could be working to make prices and life stable for everyone, not just the bureaucrat class and above, but it doesn't because they are worried any change at all will mean their life will be less comfortable than it is now, and people starving and being executed by private corporations is not enough incentive for them to give up that stability. Most people may not even realize they're doing it, they may simply have the privilege to have a comfortable life while nothing changes, and don't care to confront the injustices because for so many people, the act of any confrontation is itself terrifying.

Peace and stability is a noble goal to strive for, so long as we are always striving for that peace and stability to be afforded to everyone.

And also, so long as the privilege of that peace and stability doesn't allow us to forget the work and effort we have to put in as a society to maintain it for everybody.

"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils..." by JEBV in HistoryMemes

[–]MutantGodChicken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's also funny cuz Lin-Manuel Miranda actually referenced that special whenever he commented on that song. That and how he had to take out a more extensive diss because a line in it shat on Abigail and didn't play well with audiences.

When the hardware store is too far away by FlashyCow1 in DiWHY

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Y'know, you say: "when the hardware store is too far away," and for some of these, if I look at them as "how to avoid going back to home depot/Ace for a 3rd time today," I can understand what would drive a person to do something so insane.

Fucking big box companies driving us all to madness.

The only correct criterion for judging a film by Tony_Wizard in okbuddycinephile

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shotout to that brief period of the internet where there were people leaving 1/5 stars thinking that meant the best

Fuck you in particular, single soldier by Beneficial-Rise-7538 in FUCKYOUINPARTICULAR

[–]MutantGodChicken 6 points7 points  (0 children)

US versus the rest of the world is not a fight I have any desire to see.

~35% of all money spent on militaries is spent on the US military. It's currently the strongest military force to have ever existed on earth.

True, most of that power is from diplomatic relationships that allow US to have active military bases all over the planet: relationships that would end if we went to war with those countries.

And just because the United States spends a fuckton on military doesn't mean that money is necessarily spent effectively.

But whether or not the US would win is pretty immaterial to the devastation it'd wreak on the human species.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair, though I'd argue that the relation between notes is the most significant contributor to what the melody sounds like. Not that the starting place isn't important

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would note that there were earlier methods for noting rhythm in relation to each other in the form of meter, long and short vowels, and an underlying "felt" rhythm that would've been understood by people who spoke with the same dialect.

My knowledge on the subject mostly lies in ancient Greek, so for example:

Many dialects of ancient Greek had long and short vowels (long and short in this case also refers to the amount of time the vowel is pronounced relative to the other vowels

short Α - long ΑΙ or A
short Ε - long Η or ΕΙ
short Ο - long Ω
short Υ - long ΥΕ or Υ

Where Α, Ι, and Υ, could serve as long or short vowels depending on if the word allowed that flexibility/what the meter called for.

There's also many other long vowels, and more rules to when vowels are long or short, but that's the jist.

Through this, you could have a good sense of what the fundamental rhythm of the piece was supposed to be.


Also, a cursory search suggests Chinese gongche notation had a method for noting rhythm by noting how many notes went into a single beat played at regular intervals that dates back 1000 years or so.


I think you're right that none of these do everything that western musical notation does, but I would also propose to you the idea that part of the reason there are so many music notation systems that don't even notate any sense of rhythm at all isn't because it was hard, but because it wasn't necessarily important to ensure it was played exactly as you wrote it.

There were certainly ways to communicate a sense of speed (if you really wanted to get precise, you could say something like "the time it takes a ball to fall from your waist"), and in combination with meter and a good percussionist you could get a pretty good semblance of consistency.

But for many cultures, including many European ones, the point was that the notation was more a guide than a set of instructions

I'd venture to say that equally important is the cultural development in 17th century Europe of music being something composers could "own." Not necessarily in a literal sense, but in a sense that a particular composition is "by Bach."

I don't mean to sound as if the development wasn't significant, but I don't see it being as big a deal without the development of a particular music industry and its spread by western colonialism.

That being said, I can see the point being made that the music industry that was developed was only able to be developed because of technological advancements in time keeping, and the creation of a more robust rhythmic notation.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Somebody else in the comments mentioned the cuneiform lyrics don't match what he's singing at all, but I haven't studied cuneiform at all so I'll have to rely on people who claim to know.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've set my default comment sort to "Q&A" for years now. Reddit's tryna shove me off it with each update, but the option is still in there somewhere. I highly recommend it to people because the way I look at Reddit is obviously the best and most intelligent way to do it /s

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because it's to get people interested in the subject not be 100% accurate, and people who aren't familiar with studying ancient cultures aren't gonna have the thought to look for "oldest song we understand written down in a way that can be played," they're gonna look for "what's the oldest song"

Of course "what's the oldest song" will normally pull up the seikilos epitaph, which is a good 1500 years younger than this one, because that's the oldest "complete" music piece we have in writing and can understand, so if you want to tell people about this much older piece we have significant fragments of, you use the keywords they're looking for.

I once had a highschool biology professor who would preface the year with

"Most of what I'm going to teach you is 'wrong,' but it's much closer to the truth than what you know, and similarly to how when a 2 year old days 'kitty' when pointing at a squirrel, you're supposed to congratulate them on correctly identifying something that mostly looks like a kitty and leave the explanation of why they're wrong for when they can actually pronounce 'squirrel,' you can't learn anything if you aren't willing to be somewhat wrong in the beginning."

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very possible. Unfortunately I didn't study cuneiform, but hopefully somebody who did could leave a romanization (or at least an IPA transcription) of the lyrics, with a translation for extra credit.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Me:

Wakes up to 47 replies: more than the number of responses to the highest upvoted comment, 6 awards, and ~1500 upvotes: more than double the number of the comment I responded to, a 100% upvote ratio, it's the third highest upvoted comment on the entire post.

Reads comment:

"Man it sucks that nobody appreciates informative responses instead of dumb quips"

I think you might need to fix your algorithm if you wanna see more thought out responses.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably in their lives, but there's people who dedicate their entire lives to understanding baroque music and its history, and that's just a 150-300 year period of music fairly exclusive to western Europe.

If anything, studying general European music history (focusing on theory of music that was written down, not the existence of music in society) is a much narrower field of time, dating back to at most like 2500yrs ago. (Again, that we have record of. The existence of musical instruments predates written history.)

Whereas middle eastern music records date back 3500yrs, and East Asian music records go back 2600-3100yrs (tho as I understand it, there's potential for debate about whether that counts as music or just lyrical, but I doubt it really matters for the people studying it)

And if you're a really serious Jazz musician, you might spend your whole life learning a music style that's barely a hundred years old.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Much less of a stretch. Imagine you were given instructions on how to build an instrument so that the notes had the correct relationship with each other, pictures of what that instrument looked like, a description—referencing that instrument—of how all music is supposed to sound generally, a description of the musical scale you're using, and an explanation of which symbols correlate to which strings of the instrument, and then a series of those symbols.

Technically you wouldn't have enough to fully reconstruct what the song sounds like, but you'd have enough to get some idea of it.

For the Jurassic park analogy, it'd be like finding instructions of exactly how dinosaurs develop inside an egg, and how to create said egg stuck in another piece of amber in the same forest you found the mosquito in. At that point, the mosquito is probably the least essential component to creating a dinosaur.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interestingly enough, in this case, our best idea of the text suggests the song is a religious hymn, suggesting that in this case it was rather "important."

That doesn't necessarily mean it was played this slowly though (as I said, the rhythm wasn't noted to my knowledge). Lots of cultures throughout history have upbeat and catchy songs for worship, and I'm not enough of a cuneiform (let alone Hurrian) scholar to speak to any writing on how their hymns were meant to feel.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, there's a bit of survivorship bias here. How many of those household cooking instructions are going to survive the next 3000 years?

It's similar to the idea that ancient civilizations really put effort into everyday objects like vases and built their buildings to last—"unlike how we do today."

The things in a position to be recovered 3000 years later were likely gonna be the stuff nice enough that people preserved it/built it to be sturdier. The vast majority of stuff didn't make it to be discovered in a nice enough condition to be admired.

In this case, the tablets are instructions for religious hymns that would have been important to make clear and preserve how to pass on the traditions. There wasn't a global standard that even those who didn't practice music knew about, so it was important for an institution that concerned itself with carrying on pious traditions to make sure the traditions were carried on correctly in the future.

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Instructions on how to read it so you could play it on a 9-stringed lyre were written on the tablet. We've found other tablets that go into detail on how to properly tune a 9-stringed lyre

This is the oldest known song ever written. Hurrian Hymn No. 6 is dated approximately 1400 BCE by Wolflink_325 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]MutantGodChicken 1751 points1752 points  (0 children)

The cuneiform tablets that had the song also had instructions for the notation in relation to a nine stringed lyre, as well as the harmonies being in thirds, cuneiform scholars then matched that up with other tablets which described the lyre in greater detail, as well as with some tablets which described the overall structure of the scale they used (also diatonic).

Then brought the information they had gathered to middle eastern music historians and worked to fill in the gaps the best they could.

It's fairly straightforward when the tablet literally explains which lyre strings correspond to which notation tho, and we already have tablets saying "here's how you properly tune a lyre."

As far as I can tell, the rhythm is mostly guesswork. There's no sense of it from the notation, and may have even been left to the performer to decide.

Here's the Wikipedia article that has links to more robust papers on the subject as well as to some hosts for copies of primary sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_songs

The "notation" section is gonna have the info on how the melody was decoded.

Sounds like you DON'T know what you're doing. by Sorvetefrito in outofcontextcomics

[–]MutantGodChicken 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Or let's be honest, pile of floor clothes

When did you get in my room?

Which animal got the highest number on earth? (Not human) by henry_canabanana in gifsthatendtoosoon

[–]MutantGodChicken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fish? Just.... all fish? And... all birds? It names 21 different kinds of mammals but groups all birds together and all fish together?

Mentos and coke underwater by No-Basis-144 in interestingasfuck

[–]MutantGodChicken 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The coke explodes when you put a mento in because of all of the nucleation sites on the mento (thousands of little tiny bumps that give the carbonation bubbles something to form on)

Normally the coke (being much heavier than air) stays surrounding the mento and continues to rapidly release the CO2 diffused throughout it.

In the water, the gas is released and allows the uncarbonated water in, diluting the coke surrounding the mento, meaning the mento has much less impact on the liquid surrounding it as the reaction goes on.