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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 7h

And then there are the changes in how Luke and Vader, and Han and Leia, address each other through the movies.

Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 7h

There was a great post on RPGNet about the translation of Star Wars into Vietnamese (which has a huge range of different forms of address depending on respective social positions). Apparently people address droids as animals, droids address people as "very high superiors" and each other as siblings.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 1d

Not quite- there's more weirdness.

The Vatican City has territory and citizens but no foreign policy.

The Holy See conducts diplomacy (and is an observer at the UN) and rules the Vatican, but has no territory or citizens of its own.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 1d

"Printers have persecuted me without a cause"
-Psalm 119:161, King James Version, 1612

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 1d

Every state-funded religious school in the country must accept all religions, though they can prioritize their own.

There is a Jewish state primary school in Birmingham with a majority Muslim student body who learn Hebrew and celebrate Jewish holidays (including IIRC Israeli Independence Day).

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 3d

Everyone speaks with an accent.

(Including some people who have a "foreign" coded accent in their native language for one reason or another)

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 6d

The Cam swans are the ones I have most experience of- I was rowing there during the whole "Mr. Asbo" thing.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 6d

As someone who rowed in Europe for several years, European swans are also assholes.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 8d

AIUI elephants have been successfully tamed for thousands of years but never domesticated.

The same is true for some animals used for hunting, like hawks and cheetahs.

Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 9d

Has a very nice minor league ballpark (on an island in the middle of the Susquehanna, which at that point is a mile wide) and the State Capitol is impressive, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be much there.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 10d

There are reasons why hospitals are on sites outside city centres. Even in the Netherlands, the main hospital in the city where I lived is on the outskirts, next to a motorway, surrounded by car parks.

Of course, it also has good bus links and bike paths and is 5 minutes walk from a station.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 11d

That's also verifiably wrong as we know he was in Sydney, Australia in 2000 competing at the Olympics.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 13d

I mean, the decision to readmit the Jews was probably Cromwell's most lasting impact on British society, and why many Anglo-Jews still have a fairly positive opinion of him.

Though given the status of Jews in Amsterdam, I imagine that William III might well have done it if Cromwell hadn't.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 13d

AIUI the Civil War was the first time many Americans wore a pair of shoes with a left and a right shoe, rather than two identical ones.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 13d

The argument could be made that Flamenpolitik included some things we would now call cultural genocide (like the burning of the Louvain library), but given intervening Belgian language politics nobody really wants to talk about it.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 16d

The statistic I am aware of is that 34 of the 92 boys who took part in the 1914 Eton Procession of Boats were killed in the war.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 17d

MLB is also not sex segregated (since the 90s), and there are a few women playing professional baseball against men in the US.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 20d

New Jersey is America's Belgium, Delaware is America's Luxembourg.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 21d

Maybe Japan, which AIUI requires 10 years of shotgun ownership to buy a rifle, but it is true that if the US did a copy/paste job of British gun laws there would still be a lot of deer rifles.

(There aren't as many in the UK because hunting is only legal on private land with the owner's permission)

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 21d

While it also runs into the "definition of Europe" problem, I think Istanbul's Ahrida Synagogue (on the European side) has operated continuously since its foundation in the 1430s.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 21d

Plus probably anything with chocolate!

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 21d

By that standard the yellow zone loses a lot of traditional baked goods that were invented there, aren't eaten anywhere else, but rely on nutmeg or cloves.

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 22d

Well, Naples (Neapolis, "New City") got the name in the 6th century BCE

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 23d

Goes with "BRIDGE LOW. TRUCKS NO."

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Alex G @alexiterick.bsky.social · 26d

I found one of those on a trail in the Lehigh Valley a couple of months ago. Assumed it was some kind of ARG or treasure hunt.

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