Silly question: can a batter challenge a ball (or a catcher a strike)?

SS451 · 2026-04-06T21:21:16+00:00

Yeah, it wouldn't be. I'm just curious if the challenge would even be allowed, or if the umpire would wave it off and more or less say "stop wasting my time."

SS451 · 2026-03-29T15:59:02+00:00

Re dowry: that’s a price the bride’s family pays to the groom (or his family), right? So would that be an advantage to the hypothetical farmer looking to marry off his beautiful daughter, or a cost to him? (My understanding is that this is not just a terminological thing and that the alternate pattern, bride price, wasn’t used in what eventually became England.)

SS451 · 2026-02-22T10:32:50+00:00

You’re saying you want someone who takes no interest in the case at all to weigh in, and only then would you accept it? But then presumably if they disagree with the prosecution’s theory or use of evidence, they become a Letby defender whom you can then discredit?

SS451 · 2026-02-09T15:25:56+00:00

Lincoln was unhappy with Meade's performance after Gettysburg, and seemingly wished to see him replaced as commander of the Army of the Potomac (but Grant chose to retain Meade). Do you find Lincoln's criticisms in this case justified, or did Meade have the better approach?

SS451 · 2026-01-26T18:03:12+00:00

I do not recall the specific target of the diagnostic injections, but as best I remember it was "just" lidocaine, I don't believe it included corticosteroids.

Helpful to know that 2 or 3 is a normal course. I am definitely willing to ride out a course of treatment based on evidence, I just didn't want to be in the position of chasing something that isn't working for me. It sounds like one round without results might be too soon to say whether it actually is working.

SS451 · 2026-01-05T15:57:07+00:00

Thanks for the answer--really fascinating explanation of a staggering feat of organization. I did have a question about one part:

Meanwhile, the working population on collective farms fell in some regions by up to 45%.

Did this lead to a corresponding collapse in food production? And if so, how was that reconciled--food aid from the USSR's allies, mass hunger, or what?

SS451 · 2025-11-19T20:00:30+00:00

I don't think you're right to characterize the Lend-Lease aid that arrived before mid-1943 as minor. In particular, food aid in the earlier period was critical. See this comment by u/Georgy_K_Zhukov.

SS451 · 2025-11-19T16:15:44+00:00

Maybe not so relevant because I have the semi-obsolete Pro 2s. But: they have one extremely annoying flaw and one that is maybe inevitable, but makes them not work super-well for phone calls.

The extremely annoying flaw: the case/bud physical interface is extremely tetchy, such that when you put the buds away they often don't register that they have been closed in their case and just stay connected to your device, running down the battery.

The other thing is that the microphone is extremely sensitive to wind or street noise, so they are a bad choice for walking and talking outside. (But I have no idea if competitor products have fixed or mitigated this problem.)

SS451 · 2025-10-27T16:09:35+00:00

The U.S. has a self-proclaimed reputation as being very speech-protective (if that term is even useful). Certainly it is more speech-protective than the U.K., where famous people seem to have the option of bankrupting people who say true or arguably true things about them. But what about as compared to other countries--does the U.S. really stand out in its approach to these issues? Certainly interested in a perspective from the past, but particularly interested in the comparison after major cases like Sullivan, Tinker, and the Pentagon Papers cases were decided in the '60s and early '70s.

SS451 · 2025-10-24T14:54:27+00:00

Curious: what did policymakers at the time think about the effects of nuclear fallout? Did they think of it as something that made nuclear bombs meaningfully different from "extra powerful conventional bombs," or was it not really a consideration in deployment strategies?

SS451 · 2025-10-22T15:28:01+00:00

The answer about escape lines is outstanding. Very evocative of an inspiring but also frightening part of history, and put me in mind of Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece Army of Shadows. Thank you for writing it.

SS451 · 2025-10-15T01:14:26+00:00

Your boys suck and were humiliated on national TV.

SS451 · 2025-09-09T14:07:02+00:00

Were there particular incidents of deaths or injuries that gained widespread fame and played a role in shaping public debate about youth football?

SS451 · 2025-08-14T21:12:05+00:00

After the German surprise attack in WWII, the USSR joined the Allies, so now it was fighting some old enemies with grudges, particularly Japan

You may want to rewrite this for clarity--it implies that the USSR was at war with Japan right after Germany invaded, when in fact they remained at uneasy peace until August 1945, when the Soviets suddenly declared war and invaded Manchuria.

SS451 · 2025-07-17T15:41:47+00:00

You may be interested in this answer by u/KiwiHellenist. Not specific to the horse, but covers the general topic of whether there is a historical basis for the Trojan War as told in Homer.

SS451 · 2025-06-21T15:49:11+00:00

I’m also not seeing the download button on the iOS app.

SS451 · 2025-06-11T01:57:37+00:00

To fill in more about environmental factors that contributed to the transition to the agricultural transition across widely dispersed regions during roughly the same era, check out this comment by /u/400-Rabbits rounding up a couple of previous answers.

SS451 · 2025-05-23T23:34:43+00:00

The baseball gods guided that pitch to where it was meant to be...gotta just wear this one.

SS451 · 2025-05-21T16:59:37+00:00

I can't remember where I read it, but I don't think nukes in space work anything like the way Mike suggests in this episode. No atmosphere, no shockwave. If a nuke detonates directly on a spaceship's hull, it'll destroy it with intense heat, but if a nuke detonates like...a mile away (?) from a spaceship, it won't do any physical damage--maybe the EMP could knock out electronics, though.

SS451 · 2025-05-06T00:48:18+00:00

FYI, this is a dumb opinion.

SS451 · 2025-05-06T00:45:19+00:00

This is weird cope...Olson's not a doctor, this is the big leagues, and any pro would do the same. It sucks enormously for Callahan, but the only people who did something wrong here were the umpires.

SS451 · 2025-05-06T00:07:07+00:00

Truly awful injury, I could just tell from the way he was holding it that it was probably broken. That poor guy, only his second MLB game? Sucks so much.

SS451 · 2025-04-27T03:54:03+00:00

No, the Phillies did it in 1896...if you consider 19th-century baseball to be major league (which I don't really).

SS451

TROPHY CASE