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andrewtheblueskier

@andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social

590 followers 130 following 12K posts

Србија, nerd things, some politics. pfp by stairscased originally from chessvariants.com

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · Sep 7

Total lunar eclipse on 07/09/2025

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

upload.wikimedia.org

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Petanque is supposedly so new we can be sure of the invention story (1907 guy couldn't run up to bowl and they figured to shorten the field so you could throw in place) but they've been throwing rocks at targets since time immemorial

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Yeah Volkswagen wasn't a thing back then

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Yes that's how it goes with games. Rough guide: people come up with the concept in prehistory, a few 1500s-1700s people say "we throw this ball around subject to one rule", some fop in 1812 says "it's time to figure out DA RULZ" and everyone else complies

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

...that sees the complainers as, at best, pipe dreamers promising hot air. Your average Englishman couldn't have conceived that the Levellers had any more of a point than "in a hypothetical Heaven..."

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

The <o> is not an /ou/ vowel as in road *or* an /oa/ vowel as in Noah

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

In some ways that adds to the horror, honestly. While it's always true that there's *someone* opposing societal injustice -- cf the pitfalls of "in their time" -- it's always true that there's *someone* supporting it and that *someone* is more than one, and they even make a majority...

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

The Dutch even had the time to paint it

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

I mean it's not like the English plains are well known for freezing over and yet they found a way to talk about field hockey

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Reposted by andrewtheblueskier

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Also in the 1850s some guy named Robert Waller says cricket in Philadelphia is never going away, ever

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

bsky.app/profile/andr... Maybe the good people at the ICC saw visions of what the series would become

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

In cricket's case, entirely self inflicted by the ICC's decision to ban non-Commonwealth teams. The I used to stand for Imperial but in a move probably too little too late it's now International

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Super complex for a kids' game that

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Also in the 1850s some guy named Robert Waller says cricket in Philadelphia is never going away, ever

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

In cricket's case, entirely self inflicted by the ICC's decision to ban non-Commonwealth teams. The I used to stand for Imperial but in a move probably too little too late it's now International

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

I'm no expert but for a start the game's name probably has nothing to do with the animal and something something it caught on now it's 1877 and they're playing matches they call Tests because they Test the players' skill haha get it

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Oh and in relation to world news the match bill was "the United States versus the British Empire's Canadian Province"

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

Dating baseball is notoriously tricky business but in relation to Bob Cratchit the US and Canada had just started the first ever international cricket match

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

By the by the legal successor of the "Ireland" that was there at IFAB is the football team of Northern Ireland, and that won't be more than a census category for another 80 years from the time of Tiny Tim

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

IFAB was founded on the premise that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (which was at this point the *whole island*) would agree on the rules

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

If you described the conceit of the 2022 World Cup, the participating nations, the broadcasting all over the world to Queen Victoria she would've put you in an insane asylum and this is all before you come to explaining what people did with the Moon

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

1863 for the FA which is still 20 years off. Hell, "rugby" isn't even a thing yet because that's just Another Football and they won't come to hash that out until Blackheath snubs the FA

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 5h

You may intone "what about association football" and in the 1840s they still haven't figured out whether you should be able to pick up the ball with your hands

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 6h

> For the average, educated, thoughtful theatregoer
who is being spoken of in third person because this person is aware they're none of those things

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andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 6h

A Pole (Posobiec) and a Jew (Miller) expressing beliefs ripped off from Mein Kampf. Normal people I'm sure!

andrewtheblueskier @andrewtheblueskier.bsky.social · 6h

Political agreements are the best signals you can get -- even better than any amount of nominal claims on the left/right and any other spectrum -- and *these* agreements are the *weakest* in an otherwise strong and helpful class