Useless Conversation

[Sky]

 

[Sir T]

Fear his Modly power!

[Samwise]

actually anyone can do it   

[Hawkbit]

My wife works in property - this has been making the rounds today in the industry. Pics 31-48. Very mild NSFW. 

https://www.redfin.com/PA/Ambler/1612-Norristown-Rd-19002/home/38907751

[Trippy]

I like how there’s one picture of the master bathroom (and not a very good one) and a couple of the kitchen and then a dozen of that very special place.

[RhyssaFireheart]

BOOO!  It must have been updated, because I didn't see anything risque at all. :'(

OTOH, that freestanding double vanity is kind of cool, the kitchen looks very nice, huge yard, waaaay too much money.

Also, why do home viewing photos all look distorted in recent years?  It really makes things look weird and makes it hard to get a good idea of the rooms, IMO.

[Polysorbate80]

The caption has changed, but the original text underneath said something like "Fifty Shades of Autumn"; that should give you an idea about the "activity room."

[Viin]

Missed the images too. But, damn, that's a nice house for $750k.

[Trippy]

Also, why do home viewing photos all look distorted in recent years?  It really makes things look weird and makes it hard to get a good idea of the rooms, IMO.

Use and abuse of ultra-wide angle lenses.

[MahrinSkel]

https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/02/philadelphia-sex-house-interview-with-realtor-melissa-leonard.html

For those that missed seeing the photos.

--Dave

[Polysorbate80]

Maple Glen...I thought it had something to do with trees but I was further off than I thought

[Mandella]

Yeah I'm not so sure about that island vanity in the bath either.

Otherwise, seemed pretty normal....


 

[WayAbvPar]

I would rather have a vanity island.

[Khaldun]

The weird thing to me is the bright white, pristine look of the basement. Kind of clashes with the aesthetic, you know?

[Teleku]

This is an iPhone generation dungeon Khaldun.  Nobody wants your baby boomer style dungeons anymore.

[IainC]

The kind of kinksters who can afford to fit out a good-sized basement in an expensive house with bespoke furniture, care a lot about hygiene. And so do their guests.

Or so I've been told.

[Chimpy]

They also probably read a lot of Terry Goodkind 

[Salamok]

The weird thing to me is the bright white, pristine look of the basement. Kind of clashes with the aesthetic, you know?

Be genius if that is all it was and the Realtor had it staged "I have just the look to get people interested in this house. do you trust me?"

[pxib]

From the fictional Tumblr of Aaron Smith-Teller:

Most reasonable cultures celebrate the New Year around the beginning of spring, an obvious time of renewal and rebirth.

Our use of January 1st is lost in the mists of time, but one theory attributes it to the Second Celtiberian War. Roman officials were traditionally inaugurated on the New Year. The Romans chose a new general to lead their legions into war, but the military situation was deteriorating quickly and they needed him to leave immediately. They looked over the law code and found there was a taboo against inaugurating generals on days other than New Years, but no taboo against changing when New Years was. They declared January 1 to be New Years, inaugurated their general, and sent him on his way.

The Christians were not really on board with the pagan New Year, and a lot of them switched back to celebrating it in the spring. For a while there was inconsistent New-Yearing across Europe, until finally the celebration was Christianized. Somebody pointed out that since Jews circumcise their children on the eighth day after their birth, New Years Day corresponded to the circumcision of Jesus. Everyone agreed this was a perfectly fine basis for a calendar and agreed to celebrate New Years on January 1st. According to some stories, it became traditional to mock the behind-the-times people who continued to celebrate New Years on April 1st, leading to the tradition of April Fools Day.

Sometimes I imagine a thousand years from now, when humanity is spread among the stars and participates in the pageantries of galactic civilization. There will be an interstellar version of the World’s Fair, and one of the visiting alien dignitaries will approach the human pavillion:

ALIEN: We are trying to learn about other cultures. We date our calendar from the day we completely eliminated poverty on Zorglox - our proudest achievement. What about you humans?

HUMAN AMBASSADOR: We date our calendar from when an Iron Age empire wanted to kill some barbarians more quickly than the laws allowed, but came up with a loophole by redefining time itself.

ALIEN: What? Didn’t people protest?

HUMAN AMBASSADOR: Oh yes, but we established a holiday around insulting those people. We still celebrate it by telling small lies to our friends, then making them feel stupid if they believed them.

ALIEN: That’s horrifying!

HUMAN AMBASSADOR(sweating): Oh, uh, well that’s actually just a pagan myth. The real story is that there was this baby who some of us think might have been God. And we cut off part of his penis. Not because he might have been God; we do that to all babies. But the fact that he might have been God makes this particular incident a lot more memorable. And we’ve dated the calendar from that day ever since!

ALIEN: Your culture is banned from all future fairs.

[Samwise]

I got curious about the actual history (because I was pretty sure that January 1st has been the start of the new year since there was a January -- the month is named after the god Janus after all) so I looked it up and it's here.

tl;dr when Julius Caesar decided to fix the old broken Roman calendar to match the solar year, they needed to add 67 days to the beginning of the year to make the new calendar begin at the end of the last year of the old calendar.

[calapine]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/27/fat-rat-stuck-in-manhole-rescued-by-firefighters-in-germany

 




I think we just hit peak-Germany.  



Too pure. 

[Paelos]

German fire brigade was super bored 

[01101010]

Not to offend the animal lovers out there, but that rat was just waiting for someone with a sledgehammer to come by and Tom and Jerry his ass. Why on earth waste the resources on a pest and disease vector...beyond me.

[Velorath]

Even if you killed it you would probably still not want a dead rat hanging halfway out of a manhole.

[Teleku]

The random super Vegan's on my Facebook feed have been plastering that story everywhere.   

[Cyrrex]

Even if you killed it you would probably still not want a dead rat hanging halfway out of a manhole.

You hit it hard enough, it will just go squirting out the other side.

[calapine]

You guys like GRILS, right?

At the moment the Austrian Bundeswehr is holding Edleweiß Raid 2019, an international contest for mountain troops with 12 countries participating.

The Russians sent 3 teams, one of them all-female.  





Personally, I'd say the Slovenian team is the sexiest  



Also, the Slovenian FN 2000 is a very futuristic looking weapon. If it looks somewhat familar even to non-gunfreaks it's probably because the Westworld security uses the FN P90 submachine gun as prop.





And yes, America is there too, of course:



I'll update when we know who won. :P

[Polysorbate80]

I was going to bitch about Americans not taking their sunglasses off for photos but then I looked at some of the ones who weren’t, and thought “Those goofy sumbitches should hide their face.”

So maybe the glasses are for the best.

 Next question, why are the ‘Muricans not wearing matching ski boots?

[RhyssaFireheart]

Why do the Americans look like derpy weekend warrior militia types?  I mean, besides the whole ski boot thing.

[Rishathra]

Even the camo pattern is wrong.

[disKret]

Even the camo pattern is wrong.

Even if it was right this is still "mountain troops contest" not desert.

[rattran]

The US Army has a huge pile of specialized training troops. They seem to send them to specialized things, but for some reason NOT the specialty they were trained for. So these are probably troopers with special jungle/swamp/bayou training.

I got to avoid the whole Desert Storm by virtue of having training for Tow Missile use in deep desert conditions.

[Trippy]

The Russians sent 3 teams, one of them all-female.  

When did Russia occupy Austrian? Those are Austrian Steyr AUGs they are carrying. Maybe they got them from their annexed portion of Ukraine.

Also, the Slovenian FN 2000 is a very futuristic looking weapon. If it looks somewhat familar even to non-gunfreaks it's probably because the Westworld security uses the FN P90 submachine gun as prop.

The P90 is not a submachine gun despite what Wikipedia might say as it does not fire pistol rounds. (Yes I've played way too many military shooters).

Why do the Americans look like derpy weekend warrior militia types?  I mean, besides the whole ski boot thing.

Part of it may be that it's so easy for civilians here in the US to get that sort of gear now that it's easy to confuse the two. Also they are the most mismatched in terms of uniform/clothing in those 3 pictures.

[Sky]

I believe Stargate SG-1 used P90s, as well.

[pxib]

And yes, America is there too, of course:

Not "of course", apparently. This is the first year the US has participated, and without time to train for the event they apparently threw together a group of soldiers with skills specific to the various challenges who had the ability to "train separately". They're calling this a "training year", do not expect to win, and mostly just seem happy to have been invited to participate.