h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think it is immoral to experiment with what happens if you put men's body parts in a vice. (or anyone's really)


Head: Brain gets all mushy
Various extremities: They act like they are insane and start taking in lots of alcohol.

(I think I know which vice she really means)

Current medicine is very good at fixing single cause ailments (like broken bones). A combination of small deviations in blood values as cause can take a long time (or forever) to find a treatment.

Yeah, tell me about it. My family specialises in unusual conditions, autoimmune problems, etc.

My family has experience with things like migraine, Eagle syndrome, Ménière, autoimmune problems, lactose and gluten intolerance and one case of long-COVID

Sorry to hear about the Long Covid.

I'd never heard of Eagle syndrome so I looked it up - it sounds painful, ouch. (I've got TMJ, I sympathise.)

There is no such thing as Twitter. It's called X now. The person who owns it has been talking about a wrestling match with the guy who runs Meta. As you would expect from the people who run sites for people who discuss things, this is likely to be discussed to death, and never actually happen.

Female mammals feed milk to their young. So, boobs are necessary to the survival of many species.

I wouldn't get too smug about the ignorance of the best minds of centuries gone by. Those who are alive centuries from now will be pointing to our best minds as ignorant, too. It's not anybody's fault. We will never find answers that later generations will consider the last word. Nor will those later generations fare any bettr. At least once per century, the dominant mindset of the previous century is thrown overboard in favor of something very different, if not downright antagonistic. As soon as someone figures out all the permutations of, say, Baroque music, or the Romantic novel, or Impressionistic art, he (or she) will possibly be forgotten for a century, as happened to J S Bach, or scorned as too pretty for a wartorn populace, or too wordy for the Hemingway generation.

In medical matters, not too long ago we were warned against saturated fat, and told by some of the best authorities that no one could get fat from eating carbohydrates. Now we've gone to the extremes of ketogenesis. You can go on Youtube and see videos urging that you eat butter and lard, but should never touch grains or potatoes. Never mind that every body is unique. I get tired of being offered lists of foods that you absolutely have to eat, knowing that I will not be able to digest some of them. And why do some self-appointed experts insist that you eat exotic foods that cost an arm and a leg, when simpler, locally-grown foods have the same wonderful antioxidants? A hundred years from, maybe people will be told to avoid antioxidants.

Plato got a raw deal. He was one of the first philosophers, so he never got to learn from later philosophers. Not that he would have listened to them anyway. People who are always right don't need to listen.

>>People who are always right don't need to listen.<<

Fair points, Paul.

Now I wonder... Did they rename the Spanish Twitter to X-Communicado?

Only Elon Musk calls Twitter X. By near-universal consensus the users continue to call it Twitter. (People who use Twitter are a lot like h2g2ers.)

I changed my avatar on Twitter to a bluejay in protest because we lost the little birdie.

You can also use a blue finch. (given the paid blue checkmarks introduced earlier)

Dutch for checkmark = vinkje
Dutch diminutive for finch = vinkje

I've seen the use of 'X (formerly known as Twitter)' in several media.

Media can do as they like. Twitter users are in revolt.

The birds around here also refuse to call out X! X! X! when communicating.

Also here.

"I changed my avatar on Twitter to a bluejay in protest because we lost the little birdie." [Dmitri]

Good for you!