![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyThe first is make weird noises and strings of words that sound like they ought to be meaningful but ultimately aren't. If I'm very tired, I also get a light show. This doesn't help me fall asleep even a little.
If that doesn't work to keep me up, it likes to throw out random questions and try to make me think about them. This is an asshole move, because I've long since learned that thinking is a sure way to stay awake, so at bedtime I practice *not* thinking. This is tricky, because the underthought is something like "Am I doing it yet? Am I? Wait, shut up. Hm. Hm. Yay I did it! Crap." It is hard to get the underthought to stop thinking, but the effort makes me sleepy. Anyway, a couple of these asshole questions in recent weeks are actually kinda interesting, even though I'm not myself interested in doing the work to come up with answers, so here they are in case anybody else is:
1. So, how would world history have been different if Europeans really had had widespread potatoes and Native Americans had tame/tameable horses prior to 1492? Potatoes are a way more productive crop than grains, really, and don't require you to subsidize a miller, and gosh, horses are just useful amirite? But horses aren't that likely, because you can't carry them on boats (well, unless they're big boats), unlike potatoes and, more importantly, sweet potatoes which is how we know for sure sure sure that there was some contact between Polynesians and (South) Americans in prehistory, the sweet potatoes. I wonder if Polynesians could've given them chickens, though. They certainly could have carried potatoes back to Asia. How much contact was there between Asian and Polynesian cultures anyway?
2. Is the reason so many rite of passage/coming of age stories in kidlit/ya take place during summer vacation because it's a liminal period between one grade and the next? Or, better yet, one type of school and the next? Wait, in order to answer that we'd first have to better define "rite of passage/coming of age" story... and I'm also thinking of stories involving, like, divorce or losing friends due to growing apart or sickness stories, so maybe I mean growing up stories? But like, hardcore growing up stories, because obvs all stories are about maturing as a person or else what the hell is the point? - and then we'd have to show that they ARE more commonly set during summer vacation than other times and who wants to spend the time to do that? Am I only thinking all this because I like the word "liminal"? (Yes, yes I was.)
This was a strictly defined "couple", not a permeable "couple". Most of the questions my brain throws out at bedtime aren't very good at all.
*******
Where you should move to feel young forever, in one chart
The First Dog Ascent of a 7,000-Meter Himalayan Peak
He couldn't hack it as a drug-sniffing dog. Now he's conservation's best friend
These 42 Characters Are Identical No Matter What They're In
Faxing is old tech. So why is it also growing in popularity?
Immigration is beneficial to economies, even after 100 years
How Driving is Encouraged and Subsidized — By Law
On the late-Victorian fetishization of india rubber dildos
In Catholic Rome Italy's Mormons get their first temple
Rabid animals don't always foam at the mouth — here's what to look out for instead
Can Zuckerberg really make a privacy-friendly Facebook?
Zuckerberg's Privacy Manifesto is Actually About Messaging (The article links to another one about the decline in personal posts at FB, but that one is paywalled. Take this link instead.)
Facebook’s new move isn't about privacy. It’s about domination
The Consequences of Teen Motherhood Can Last for Generations
The Right-Wing Weaponization of Classical History
Medicine has a status anxiety problem: The male-dominated and intensely hierarchical field has allowed professional tantrums to feel normal
Actually, Women Do Ask for Money. They Just Don’t Get It.
The Real Aliens in Our Backyard
The NRA Welcomed Maria Butina — Even As She Worked to Arm Anti-American Thugs Abroad
Global 'pandemic' of fake drugs killing children worldwide, report says
Research Shows Alabama's Drug Testing Bill Would Harm Those SNAP Is Supposed to Help (Oh, gosh, no! And it won't save a penny either! Well, now that Alabama knows that they surely won't go ahead with this dastardly plan!)
Freed Yazidi woman in Syria endured years of Islamic State slavery
The Western Erasure of African Tragedy
Popular support for militants complicates Pakistan crackdown
If that doesn't work to keep me up, it likes to throw out random questions and try to make me think about them. This is an asshole move, because I've long since learned that thinking is a sure way to stay awake, so at bedtime I practice *not* thinking. This is tricky, because the underthought is something like "Am I doing it yet? Am I? Wait, shut up. Hm. Hm. Yay I did it! Crap." It is hard to get the underthought to stop thinking, but the effort makes me sleepy. Anyway, a couple of these asshole questions in recent weeks are actually kinda interesting, even though I'm not myself interested in doing the work to come up with answers, so here they are in case anybody else is:
1. So, how would world history have been different if Europeans really had had widespread potatoes and Native Americans had tame/tameable horses prior to 1492? Potatoes are a way more productive crop than grains, really, and don't require you to subsidize a miller, and gosh, horses are just useful amirite? But horses aren't that likely, because you can't carry them on boats (well, unless they're big boats), unlike potatoes and, more importantly, sweet potatoes which is how we know for sure sure sure that there was some contact between Polynesians and (South) Americans in prehistory, the sweet potatoes. I wonder if Polynesians could've given them chickens, though. They certainly could have carried potatoes back to Asia. How much contact was there between Asian and Polynesian cultures anyway?
2. Is the reason so many rite of passage/coming of age stories in kidlit/ya take place during summer vacation because it's a liminal period between one grade and the next? Or, better yet, one type of school and the next? Wait, in order to answer that we'd first have to better define "rite of passage/coming of age" story... and I'm also thinking of stories involving, like, divorce or losing friends due to growing apart or sickness stories, so maybe I mean growing up stories? But like, hardcore growing up stories, because obvs all stories are about maturing as a person or else what the hell is the point? - and then we'd have to show that they ARE more commonly set during summer vacation than other times and who wants to spend the time to do that? Am I only thinking all this because I like the word "liminal"? (Yes, yes I was.)
This was a strictly defined "couple", not a permeable "couple". Most of the questions my brain throws out at bedtime aren't very good at all.
Where you should move to feel young forever, in one chart
The First Dog Ascent of a 7,000-Meter Himalayan Peak
He couldn't hack it as a drug-sniffing dog. Now he's conservation's best friend
These 42 Characters Are Identical No Matter What They're In
Faxing is old tech. So why is it also growing in popularity?
Immigration is beneficial to economies, even after 100 years
How Driving is Encouraged and Subsidized — By Law
On the late-Victorian fetishization of india rubber dildos
In Catholic Rome Italy's Mormons get their first temple
Rabid animals don't always foam at the mouth — here's what to look out for instead
Can Zuckerberg really make a privacy-friendly Facebook?
Zuckerberg's Privacy Manifesto is Actually About Messaging (The article links to another one about the decline in personal posts at FB, but that one is paywalled. Take this link instead.)
Facebook’s new move isn't about privacy. It’s about domination
The Consequences of Teen Motherhood Can Last for Generations
The Right-Wing Weaponization of Classical History
Medicine has a status anxiety problem: The male-dominated and intensely hierarchical field has allowed professional tantrums to feel normal
Actually, Women Do Ask for Money. They Just Don’t Get It.
The Real Aliens in Our Backyard
The NRA Welcomed Maria Butina — Even As She Worked to Arm Anti-American Thugs Abroad
Global 'pandemic' of fake drugs killing children worldwide, report says
Research Shows Alabama's Drug Testing Bill Would Harm Those SNAP Is Supposed to Help (Oh, gosh, no! And it won't save a penny either! Well, now that Alabama knows that they surely won't go ahead with this dastardly plan!)
Freed Yazidi woman in Syria endured years of Islamic State slavery
The Western Erasure of African Tragedy
Popular support for militants complicates Pakistan crackdown
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 03:22 pm (UTC)As for potatoes, surely some of it depends on when we introduce them, yes? Potatoes in the 12th century - small impact. Widespread potatoes during the early days of the Roman Republic? Possibly a greater effect!