Today I Learned...

[Beebo Brink]

This is a palmetto bug. We call them that because "giant flying cockroach" tends to put the tourists off visiting. He'll take your cockroach's "attitude" and crap bug and attitude in a gulp.

I'm 65 years old and I still have a crystal clear memory of the first time -- as a child of about 6 years old -- I learned that cockroaches could fly. A huge black wood roach (as we call them in Texas) had crawled out on the floor and I jumped onto a kitchen chair. Then it few up past my head to cling to the wall.

Life immediately divided in to a Before and After. I would never feel safe again.

 

[Roxanne Blue]

I'm 65 years old and I still have a crystal clear memory of the first time -- as a child of about 6 years old -- I learned that cockroaches could fly. A huge black wood roach (as we call them in Texas) had crawled out on the floor and I jumped onto a kitchen chair. Then it few up past my head to cling to the wall.

Life immediately divided in to a Before and After. I would never feel safe again.

Never again.

I keep a spare can of Raid in the upstairs bathroom, but Margo hates the smell, so I also keep a Rolling Stone magazine (very nice heft in the current version) nearby for a satisfying WHACK!

 

[Free]

I'm typically not bothered - annoyed, but not bothered - by bugs. But if I had experienced at age six having to watch a crawling cockroach suddenly take flight, I'd be living in a hermetically-sealed bubble made of plastic 3 inches thick.

 

[Isabeau]

Just checking in here to say I now close all my boxes this way and it is satisfying.

 

[Lexxi]

Today I learned . . .
So, I've seen clips of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', but all of the clips were of Audrey Hepburn. I've never seen the film, and today I watched the film trailer. And . . . that young dude who is the male lead look so . . . whoa, that's that guy from the A-Team! Whereupon I learned that Hannibal Smith had also been in romances in the male lead role.

And no, A-Team is not the only thing I know George Peppard from. I'd even seen things when he was young (The Blue Max - only five years after Breakfast at Tiffany's, but I recognize him more in that than when I saw him in the trailer for Tiffany's (where I recognized him, at first, because of his voice)).

 

[Isabeau]

 

[Sovereignty]

Today I learned...about agnotology.

In 2004, Londa Schiebinger gave a more precise definition of agnotology in a paper on 18th-century voyages of scientific discovery and gender relations, and contrasted it with epistemology, the theory of knowledge, saying that the latter questions how we know while the former questions why we do not know: "Ignorance is often not merely the absence of knowledge but an outcome of cultural and political struggle"

Ironically, I now have new doubts.

First, "why we do not know" probably should be changed to "how we do not know", i.e., what is the mechanism that creates our ignorance. Being born would be a primary mechnism. Since ignorance seems to be the default state, the idea of agnotology must be to analyze statements of the sort: if X, then we would know, but not X. People then try to describe how not X is perpetuated thereby maintaining ignorance. Hmm ... have to account for "not X and we do know" in there. In fact, that might be the most important thing.

Agnotology then is the study of the maintenance of ignorance. It seems to boil down to there being lots of special interests that want to keep certain things unnoticed or obfuscated and we want to find ways around them (or prevent ways around it ). Who'da thunk it?

So maybe I haven't learned anything today. Seems to me the academics are busy obfuscating themselves. They thereby justify their employment. I wrote a master's thesis related to that general issue a long time ago. Not a career move.

 

[Isabeau]

TIL

Some people pronounce niche, “nitch”.

 

[Clara D.]

TIL

Some people pronounce niche, “nitch”.

There is a debate about how you are supposed to pronounce niche. There are two common pronunciation variants, both of which are currently considered correct: \NEESH\ (rhymes with sheesh) and \NICH\ (rhymes with pitch). \NICH\ is the more common one and the older of the two pronunciations. It is the only pronunciation given for the word in all English dictionaries until the 20th century, when \NEESH\ was first listed as a pronunciation variant in Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917)

Definition of NICHE

a recess in a wall especially for a statue; something (such as a sheltered or private space) that resembles a recess in a wall; a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted —often used before another noun… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

Of course, I have to go and bastardize the two pronunciations . . . I've been saying "Neetch. "

 

[Isabeau]

I think it may also be a regional thing. Maybe in Canada the ‘neesh’ is more used? I don’t know about the UK. In any case, I’d never heard it pronounced nitch before.

See also, roof, route, foyer, valet...

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I use Neesh, but I've heard Nitch, first from an Abbott and Costello sketch where Abbott tells Costello to find success he needs to find a nitch. Costello tells Abbott, "When I find a nitch I scratch it."

 

[Lady Darnk Juniorette]

Nish for me.

 

[Free]

See also, roof, route, foyer, valet...

So like rootch, routche, foyertch, valetch?

 

[Essence Lumin]

Friedrich pronounces it his own way.

 

[Clara D.]

There are other pronunciations for roof?

TIL...

 

[Isabeau]

There are other pronunciations for roof?

TIL...

Ruff Ruff

 

[Veritable Quandry]

A man walks into a bar with his dog. He says to the bartender "I'll bet you a drink my dog can talk. He'll answer three questions."
The bartender tells him to go ahead and try. So the guy turns to his dog.
"What's the top of a house called?" The dog replies "Roof."
"What's sandpaper like?" "Rough"
"Who was the greatest baseball player of all time?" "Ruth."
The bartender kicks them out. As they are walking down the street, the dog turns to the owner and says "Do you think I should have said DiMaggio?"

 

[Isabeau]

Hot dogs usually come in packages of 10 in the US (elsewhere?)

Here it’s 12, unless they’re jumbo or something.

(Buns still in 8, though.)

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Hot dogs usually come in packages of 10 in the US (elsewhere?)

Here it’s 12, unless they’re jumbo or something.

(Buns still in 8, though.)

It's one of my pet peeves, not being able to buy the same number of buns as hot dogs. Well, unless I buy a ridiculous number of both so that the multiples even out.

 

[Robert Jung]

It's one of my pet peeves, not being able to buy the same number of buns as hot dogs. Well, unless I buy a ridiculous number of both so that the multiples even out.

I make mini subs out of the leftover rolls