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Paul Drye

@ pauldrye @lemm.ee

Posts
17
Comments
44
Joined
1 yr. ago

@pauldrye@spacey.space : Unbuilt crewed space projects, phantom islands, alternate history, Muppets, Atomic Age design, weird-looking galaxies, temporary moons of Earth, languages, cartography, the Ediacaran biota, old cutaway diagrams. Canadian with malice aforethought. Baggage Books on DriveThruRPG.

  • That'll keep me off the police radar!

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  • Nick's hat was coloured to look like a cigarette butt, but the resemblance is uncanny.

  • The P is silent

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  • I would like one violence, please.

  • Spock, the master of using logic to lay down an insult

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  • Misterspock.

  • Is there any practical use for pine cones?

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  • Organic enemas?

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Albert Stevens - Man secretly injected with plutonium as an experiment because he was dying anyway -- except he wasn't dying

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Albert_Stevens
  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    2015 TB145 - An asteroid that looked like a skull in radar images which passed Earth on Halloween 2015

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/2015_TB145

  • "Mysterious poop chucker" might be targeting Colorado woman for not picking up dog's waste

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  • The Mysterious Poop Chuckers is definitely going to be my next band's name.

  • [QUESTION] Tomato puree?

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  • It's often under its Italian name, passata. I'm Canadian too and it's usually sold in glass bottles on the same shelves as spaghetti sauce. It's from Unico for the one I currently have in my fridge, but there's a few brands.

  • Who's fastest, Sonic or The Flash?

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  • Whoever the writer thinks should be faster, so as to serve the needs of the story being told.

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    George Forster (murderer) - After being executed in 1803, his body was "reanimated" with electricity by a scientist

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/George_Forster_(murderer)

  • TIL LU is not French but part of Mondelez since 2012

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  • Cadbury is also owned by Mondelez, so many British chocolate bars are out too.

  • Adobe Express alternatives?

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  • Canva is not European, but it's also not American -- they're from Australia.

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Malaria therapy - Deliberately infecting patients with malaria to cure mental illness

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Malaria_therapy
  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • You probably should not be surprised to learn that the US does not entirely recognize the appellation. If the wine was marketed as "Champagne" prior to 2006, they may use the name in the United States.

  • Out of Context Comics @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    These are a few of my favourite things

  • For every less ethical candy maker that enables real-life horrors, there is always a conscious manufacturer with brands to indulge in during the holiday season

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  • Firefox based European browser alternatives

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  • I haven't been able to confirm precisely, but the Midori browser appears to be from Spain or at least Europe. Their website only comes in English/Español and the only events they have listed as attending have been in Germany. It's Gecko-based, so it's "Firefox-ish". It also takes Firefox add-ins, which is nice.

    I've been using it for a couple weeks now and it's been working fine. Spotify hiccups on it, but that's the only site I go to regularly that doesn't like it.

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Third man factor - Psychological phenomenon where a person having a long traumatic experience feels the presence of an unseen "other" encouraging them to make it through

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Third_man_factor
  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Murder of Bridget Cleary - A woman is murdered when her husband and neighbours think she's been taken by spirits and replaced by a changeling

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Murder_of_Bridget_Cleary
  • Out of Context Comics @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Wait 'til you see what you get for being judgmental

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Roopkund - Icy lake in the Himalayas with hundreds of skeletons below its surface

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Roopkund

  • When people in constitutional monarchies pledge loyalty to the monarch, is it actually for real, or just symbolic / a pro-forma thing?

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  • No, they do -- it's just not a codified constitution like almost all other countries have.

    Uncodified constitution

    Proponents of the idea believe that a constitution that has evolved bit by bit over a long period of time and across a bunch of different charters and unwritten agreements/customs is stronger that one that's done all in one shot. You'll see the unflattering metaphor that "a tree is stronger than a weed", which seems a bit unfair but it's reasonable point -- if not one that's beyond argument or anything.

    Commonwealth countries are politically conservative, small "c" and not big "C", as the general attitude is "if it ain't broke don't fix it, even if it's objectively kind of stupid". There was a good reason for every one of the decisions that led to today, don't &^%$ with it, just in case.

  • When people in constitutional monarchies pledge loyalty to the monarch, is it actually for real, or just symbolic / a pro-forma thing?

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  • The key word in "constitutional monarchy" is "constitutional", not "monarchy". The monarch must follow the parliament's requests, and not doing so is unconstitutional. Parliament is sovereign, at least in all of the countries that derive their monarchy from the UK's.

    Outside of the UK there wouldn't be a fight anyway: in all the Commonwealth countries (except the ones that have since gone fully republican), the monarch has a representative called "the governor general" who is selected by the Parliament and recommended to the monarch at which point see above. The monarch has to take the advice of who is to be their governor-general. Issues basically never get to the monarch for them to mess anything up. The loyal-to-his-country deputy gets first crack at everything the monarch does in theory and has no reason to go against Parliament. If somehow the g-g or the king did speak out, it'd be a legal mess but everyone would ignore them. Practically we'd either get ourselves a new monarch or just say to hell with it and become a republic.

    To answer your specific question then, yes, it's pro forma. The monarch's role is to be the embodiment of all legislative, judicial, and executive power, in a fairly close analog to what the American Constitution is. But the Constitution can't exercise any of those powers and the monarch can't either. It's just a historical oddity that they can walk and talk, unlike a piece of paper.

  • Thiess of Kaltenbrun - A 17th century man claims to be a part of a shadowy group of Devil-fighting werewolves

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  • Nice find! They had me at "the Devil's Balls".

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Thiess of Kaltenbrun - A 17th century man claims to be a part of a shadowy group of Devil-fighting werewolves

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Thiess_of_Kaltenbrun

  • SS Baychimo - Arctic trading ship trapped in pack ice north of Alaska, abandoned but seen repeatedly in different locations over the next 40 years

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  • Actual footage of the ice spirits:

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    SS Baychimo - Arctic trading ship trapped in pack ice north of Alaska, abandoned but seen repeatedly in different locations over the next 40 years

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/SS_Baychimo
  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Death of Christoph Bulwin - A man says he's been injected with mercury by an unknown assailant, then dies.

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Death_of_Christoph_Bulwin

  • What was your favorite shareware game?

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  • Commander Keen is probably the one that I liked the most that is also well known.

    My personal favorite was Bass Class, which is weird because I've zero interest in real-life fishing, then or now.

  • Jerome of Sandy Cove - A castaway with both legs recently amputated, and who never spoke for the rest of his life

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  • The identification depends on how correct Jerome's rescuers were in thinking his amputations were not completely healed and so were recent. Gamby showed up across the bay four years previous and was missing his legs then.

  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Jerome of Sandy Cove - A castaway with both legs recently amputated, and who never spoke for the rest of his life

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Jerome_of_Sandy_Cove
  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Lost Cosmonauts - Rumours and supposed recordings of failed and covered-up Soviet missions and cosmonaut deaths

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts
  • Creepy Wikipedia @lemmy.world
    Paul Drye @lemm.ee

    Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis - surgery that uses a patient's own tooth grafted into their eye

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis

  • Are there historical examples of countries or kingdoms that did a complete 180 on their old allies - not counting vassals or similars changing one master for another?

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  • Though the split happened because the Soviets thought they should be master of all Communist countries and the Chinese had different ideas on the topic.