Just a thread for different kindsa interesting things

[zn]

Zooey wrote:

Left a bigger impression on me than on you, obviously.

…and you are? (?)

Naw I just “lose” stuff sometimes. Anyway. That whole caveman thing is funny, because….that’s not how our ancestors ate. And we have known this for a while now, long before more recent studies put 2 and 2 together and determined that it’s eating cooked food that led to the development of larger brains (basically the cerebral cortex). That is, there has been evidence for a long time that antecedents of humans going back more than a million years used fire.

A lot of people know this stuff but just to get it down in black and white here’s the wiki entry:

Control of fire by early humans

Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 1.7 to 2.0 million years ago. Evidence for the “microscopic traces of wood ash” as controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide scholarly support.

There are some arguments against the “cooked food causes brains” hypothesis btw. The problem is a lot of them rely on studies of rodents. As your vid pointed out, rodent brains are set up differently from primate brains. So you can’t necessarily draw conclusions on this from studying rodents.

[Zooey]

zn wrote:

That whole caveman thing is funny, because….that’s not how our ancestors ate.

Right. I always thought it was funny that people assume our ancestors scavenged dead birds to eat. Why wouldn’t they just eat a Big Mac instead?

[zn]

Zooey wrote:

Why wouldn’t they just eat a Big Mac instead

Yeah. Where do people think barbecue comes from?

And burritos.

[zn]

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWo3Iylcpgs

[Zooey]

Beavers, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed.

Once in a while, you come across something and ya go, “Damn. Did not know any of that.”

Today is that day for me.

[zn]

9. Holtsós is a magical place in Iceland where a green field, a yellow river, a black beach, and the ocean meet. pic.twitter.com/1jdKLFeb8u

— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) August 17, 2025

[wv]

This young woman is a force.

[zn]

This guy held up a lost phone until someone arrived to claim it with face ID 😭

pic.twitter.com/AXgvKqGuSf

— Be Believing (@Be_Believing) October 9, 2025

[wv]

Ever wonder where Univ of Mississippi gets its ‘Ole Miss’ name?

“The University of Mississippi is called “Ole Miss”
after the name of its first student yearbook, which was published in 1896. The term “Ole Miss” is a Southern pronunciation of “Old Miss” and has origins in the language of enslaved people, who reportedly used it to refer to the plantation owner’s wife.”

[wv]

Pluribus looks interesting to me.

[wv]

Science.

[wv]

Something, i dont think i ever knew. Camels evolved in North America, first.

[Zooey]

What stage of capitalism is it when people can place legal bets on which country the US is going to bomb next?

[zn]

from facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122130172227066949&set=a.122106011391066949

Anthony Hopkins spent an entire day searching for a book—and never found it in a single shop.
Then, by pure chance, he sat down on a subway bench.
It was 1973. Hopkins had just been cast in The Girl from Petrovka, a film adapted from a novel by American journalist and author George Feifer. As any serious actor would, Hopkins wanted to read the original book before stepping into the role.
So he did what actors and writers had done for decades. He walked the length of London’s famous Charing Cross Road, moving from bookstore to bookstore, asking the same question again and again.
Nothing.
The novel wasn’t available anywhere in the UK. Not new. Not used. Not forgotten on a dusty shelf.
By evening, frustrated and exhausted, Hopkins entered Leicester Square Underground Station to head home. As he sat down on a bench to wait for his train, something caught his eye.
A book had been left behind.
He picked it up, turned it over—and froze.
The Girl from Petrovka.
The exact book he’d spent the entire day searching for, abandoned on a subway bench in a city of millions.
Hopkins took it home and began reading immediately. That’s when he noticed something even stranger. The margins were filled with handwritten notes in red ink—careful annotations throughout the text, clearly written by someone deeply familiar with the story.
He didn’t question it. He used the notes to better understand his character, prepared for the role, and quietly filed the incident away as one of life’s odd coincidences.
Months later, filming took Hopkins to Vienna.
One day on set, he was introduced to a visitor.
George Feifer.
The two spoke about the adaptation, the characters, and the process of translating a novel to the screen. Then Feifer mentioned something that stopped Hopkins cold.
“I don’t have a copy of my own book anymore,” Feifer said. “Years ago, I lent my personal copy to a friend in London. It had all my notes written in the margins. He lost it—and I’ve never seen it again.”
Hopkins felt a chill.
“I think I found it,” he said carefully. “On a bench in the Underground. It has handwritten notes all through it.”
Feifer stared at him in disbelief.
Hopkins retrieved the book and handed it over.
Feifer didn’t need long. One look was enough.
It was his handwriting. His annotations. His personal copy—lost years earlier—somehow left on asubway bench at the exact moment Anthony Hopkins sat down beside it.
In a city of millions.
Across countless streets and stations.
The right book.
The right bench.
The right moment.
Feifer recovered a book he thought was gone forever. Hopkins gained a story he would tell for the rest of his life.

[zn]

[wv]

Mid-evil garden plants. (i have Golden Alexander in my yard)

[Author]

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