TIL: Today I Learned

[Synobun]

I can see how one would think Ayn Rand is a man, due to Rand Paul and the fact that all her biggest fans are men who bring themselves to climax over the idea of stomping on the poor in the name of holy self-interest.

Her books and philosophy are just an absolute nightmare to suffer through. But being a supporter of her creed seems to be a necessary stepping stone for every impressionable American male youth who goes to private school and hasn't yet decided if they want to throw their lot in with Glenn Beck or, like, John Stossel.

You want to poison a bear?

A bear would probably find me good enough to eat. I doubt they care much about fatty tumors and the like. But I am confident I'd be rather unpalatable to our resident cannibals.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

More Google Street View oddities: I'm not sure what I was expecting.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I wonder if they pay people to wear the Google cam hat while hiking, or if it is a labor of love type thing?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I found this
https://www.google.com/streetview/loan/

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I found this
https://www.google.com/streetview/loan/

I just checked, and I am astonished to find that no one has taken one the length of the Pacific Crest Trail.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Likely not enough examples to shoot down a premise. Dickens was extremely famous, yes, but so was his friend, Wilkie Collins. I have to suppose he isn't equally famous now, wouldn't you think?
At least he can still be googled and read, if you try - which is more than can be said for others who were known in the past.

I gave examples I'm personally familiar with, as I have some Dickens, several Shakespeare plays as well as sonnets, and some Dumas in my personal library.

One thing to remember about Shakespeare is that he was more popular with the common people in his own time than he was with the aristocracy (the "pop culture" of its time). But fast-forward 400 years, and it seems to be the other way around. Shakespeare is something high school students have to slog through (there were maybe 3 kids in my English classes who actually liked it), but adults who can afford the no-longer-cheap price of theatre tickets can enjoy the plays performed live, by classically-trained actors.

(fun fact: both William Shatner and Patrick Stewart are trained Shakespearean actors, which is partly why they could really pull off their larger-than-life starship captain roles)

But let's go back farther. I'll readily admit I don't know much about the Greek playwrights, although I do have some translations in my personal library. Were they really successful in their own times?

 

[really]

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/heres-googles-new-street-view-trekker-backpack/
It's a backpack.
The local tourist authority borrowed it for three months one summer to walk various tourist sites and walking trails.

 

[Kyriakos]

I gave examples I'm personally familiar with, as I have some Dickens, several Shakespeare plays as well as sonnets, and some Dumas in my personal library.

One thing to remember about Shakespeare is that he was more popular with the common people in his own time than he was with the aristocracy (the "pop culture" of its time). But fast-forward 400 years, and it seems to be the other way around. Shakespeare is something high school students have to slog through (there were maybe 3 kids in my English classes who actually liked it), but adults who can afford the no-longer-cheap price of theatre tickets can enjoy the plays performed live, by classically-trained actors.

(fun fact: both William Shatner and Patrick Stewart are trained Shakespearean actors, which is partly why they could really pull off their larger-than-life starship captain roles)

But let's go back farther. I'll readily admit I don't know much about the Greek playwrights, although I do have some translations in my personal library. Were they really successful in their own times?

The ancient drama is a particular case, since afaik if you didn't win the festival chances are your work wouldn't be archived, and thus lost anyway

 

[Birdjaguar]

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/18/heres-googles-new-street-view-trekker-backpack/
It's a backpack.
The local tourist authority borrowed it for three months one summer to walk various tourist sites and walking trails.

Very cool. Thanks.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The ancient drama is a particular case, since afaik if you didn't win the festival chances are your work wouldn't be archived, and thus lost anyway

So all of the people whose works are in my library are still known today because they won a drama competition?

 

[AmazonQueen]

So all of the people whose works are in my library are still known today because they won a drama competition?

I like to think of it as the Greek equivalent of Britain's Got Talent.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I like to think of it as the Greek equivalent of Britain's Got Talent.

Ah, so whoever has the biggest sob story. (Or is that just the American version?)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ah, so whoever has the biggest sob story. (Or is that just the American version?)

That must be why the phrase "Greek tragedy" was coined.

By a coincidence, one of Friday's episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess involved a crooked promoter trying to fleece a couple of warlords who invested significant amounts of dinars in a production of one of Gabrielle's plays (the promoter promised both warlords 75% of the profits, expecting there to be no profits given how boring they thought the play was).

 

[MaryKB]

That must be why the phrase "Greek tragedy" was coined.

By a coincidence, one of Friday's episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess involved a crooked promoter trying to fleece a couple of warlords who invested significant amounts of dinars in a production of one of Gabrielle's plays (the promoter promised both warlords 75% of the profits, expecting there to be no profits given how boring they thought the play was).

Was he played by Gene Wilder?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ah, so whoever has the biggest sob story. (Or is that just the American version?)

I think it's America's Got Talent AND a Sob Story. I don't think you can win on sob story alone. Plus, sometimes cute kid trumps sob story.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

But if it's the cute kid that has a sob story, they've hit jackpot.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

More Google Street View oddities: I'm not sure what I was expecting.

It looks like a perfectly normal colony of Chinstrap penguins, just going about their daily lives...

Was he played by Gene Wilder?

Xena: Warrior Princess was a TV show in the 1990s, one of the spinoffs of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. I should have specified that there were actually two promoters, but one of them did all the planning. That one was female and her sidekick was male.

No, Gene Wilder was not in this.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But if it's the cute kid that has a sob story, they've hit jackpot.

Not really as well as they pretend. The million dollar prize is an annuity paid over forty years, so it's really $25,000 per year. In the US that's a nice bonus, but not really enough to even live on. On the flip side, the people who actually do have talent get enough exposure, and most likely a contract with Simon Cowell's management and production company, so they will generally make more than the winner gets.

 

[Synobun]

The million dollar prize is an annuity paid over forty years, so it's really $25,000 per year. In the US that's a nice bonus, but not really enough to even live on.

More than triple my income.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Would you turn down an extra $25,000 a year?