Content-Type: text/shitpost


Subject: Yacht
Path: you​!your-host​!warthog​!goatrectum​!plovergw​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T03:24:11
Newsgroup: alt.mjd.yacht
Message-ID: <8ebbaca4b406b50b@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

"Sunk Cost Fallacy" would be a good name for a yacht.


Subject: Artificial stupidity
Path: you​!your-host​!walldrug​!epicac​!goatrectum​!plovergw​!plover​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T02:59:13
Newsgroup: talk.mjd.attractions
Message-ID: <ac9c85413665e0a6@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

Google Maps has a new button that says “attractions”. I clicked it to see what attractions were near me. It just does a canned search for “attractions”.

Screenshot of
Google maps information about the Liberty Place observation deck

But there must be some sort of metadata, because the canned search has found the Liberty Place observation deck, very nice.

Screenshot of
Google maps information about the Franklin Institute

Also it found the Franklin Institute, home of the Benjamin Franklin national memorial.

Screenshot of
Google maps information about The Main Attraction Unisex Hair Salon in
West Philadelphia

And of course it also found this barber shop that happens to have “Attraction” in its name.


Subject: Little Philadelphia
Path: you​!your-host​!warthog​!goatrectum​!plovergw​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T02:50:40
Newsgroup: sci.math.little-philadelphia
Message-ID: <f6c0393ac13e6e13@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

Sometimes Philadelphia can seem really small. Last night I went to a Secret Cinema show. Secret Cinema is this guy named Jay Schwartz who owns a large collection of obscure films and some film projectors, and who puts on a film show every so often. Secret Cinema is where I saw Billy Jack.

Last night's show was a bunch of short comedy films from the 1930s. (Most of which I thought were awful.) Afterward I went to the Secret Cinema web site to find out more about what I had seen, and I noticed this item at the very bottom of the page:

The bottom
of the page says “WebMasters: Rodney Linderman & Jay Schwartz”

The name Rodney Linderman rang a bell, but it took a minute before I could put my finger on it. Rodney Linderman is better known as Rodney Anonymous and is the front man for the Dead Milkmen.


Subject: Chariots in chess, again
Path: you​!your-host​!walldrug​!epicac​!thermostellar-bomb-20​!twirlip​!glados​!extro​!forbin​!berserker​!plovergw​!plovervax​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T02:39:28
Newsgroup: misc.misc.chariots
Message-ID: <8a3b3bfe91c14d4d@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

Even if the chariots were an anachronism in chess at the time it was invented, maybe it's not so strange. Indian legend is still full of chariots. For example, Krishna served as the charioteer for Arjuna in Mahabharata. In the Ramayana, Lord Indra himself sends his charioteer, Matali, to assist Rama. Maybe they put the chariots in because they were cool, the way we have videogames about fighting with giant swords even though nobody around here has done that for a long time.

Then when the game came to Europe, where chariots were unknown even in legend, so they decided to change them. To the always perplexing castles or towers. Because apparently the European mind had an easier time accepting a tower scooting around the board than a horse-drawn cart with an archer in it.

Europeans can be pretty weird.


Subject: Chaudhuri again
Path: you​!your-host​!wintermute​!brain-in-a-vat​!am​!plovergw​!plovervax​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T02:29:49
Newsgroup: misc.chaudhuri
Message-ID: <63c9c872c6d04d90@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

It occurs to me that the “chaudhur” in “Chaudhuri” is also the same as in the name of chaturanga, which is the original name for the game of chess. It refers to the four components of the army. (In the original game, there were infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots.) I think that in Persian the name is still the same, shatranj.


Subject: Exclusive?
Path: you​!your-host​!warthog​!gormenghast​!extro​!goatrectum​!plovergw​!shitpost​!mjd
Date: 2019-04-14T02:14:40
Newsgroup: talk.mjd.exclusive
Message-ID: <1cc93986840e47b0@shitpost.plover.com>
Content-Type: text/shitpost

Today I went to check in for a flight to Los Angeles. They must have overbooked, because one of the things they showed me was this:

They are
offering me a discount on a future flight if I agree to switch off of
the overbooked flight.  The offer is labeled “Exclusive flight change offer”.

Now my question is, what exactly is the meaning of “exclusive” here?