One under-appreciated aspect of leaf design is that in addition to being able to spread out and absorb sunlight, they also need to be of a shape such that in a strong wind they tend to curl up on themselves and provide a minimum of wind resistance. Otherwise their collective sail effect would tend to uproot the tree. Fortunately, there are lots of beautiful ways to solve these related problems.

Just replace “togas” with “mass graves” and we’re good to go.

My early 50s had me in the best shape of my life, running 6 miles or biking 25-50 miles nearly every day and being ripped and weighing less than I had since I was a teenager. I’m nearing 60 now and arthritis is creeping into all my joints, though. The breakdown happens eventually no matter how successfully you stave it off.

Lol like I can still squat like that.

Shit, I remember when Nixon resigned. I also remember thinking that Nixon was as bad as Republicans could ever get.

I’m so old I remember when Facebork was just for young people.

This is libelous! That’s a Chuck Schumer quote.

My oil heater makes gurgling noises so that acoustic energy is lost. It would also just heat up the room eventually, but I usually have a window open in winter so a tiny bit is lost that way.

C’mon, killing off Newt and Hicks at the start of the third was unconscionable. It’s in the same category as “somehow, Palpatine returned”.

Alien at least had the second film better than the first, which was a hell of an accomplishment since the first film was great. Fortunately they never even made any movies after the second one.

Liberals.

That reminds me of the old expression “a sucking chest wound is Nature’s Way of telling you you’ve been in a firefight.” I think Sun Tzu said that but I’m not sure.

My favorite is still the killer whales capsizing rich people’s sailboats. Although that would have been even better if the orcas had eaten the free snacks.

I lived in Louisiana for a few years. I’m a white yankee and I used to dread situations where I’d end up in a room full of white native Louisiana dudes that I didn’t know very well. Absolutely guaranteed that within ten minutes somebody would throw out the N-word and then everybody would be laughing and saying racist shit.

The worst was when I was a member at the local YMCA. Fat old white dudes that worked at the courthouse (like judges and prosecutors) would sit around naked on nasty old leather couches in the locker room literally making jokes about sending innocent black men to Angola prison.

The only reason I can’t say Louisiana is the worst state in the country is that I also lived in Mississippi.

little plastic flags that clip on to your window or door frame

I don’t mean to be all nationalistic, but I’m not talking about little clipped-on plastic flags. I’m talking full-on, massive Old Glories.

Excuse me? We’re still the best at mounting flags in the backs of pickup trucks.

The real significance of the term “tragedy of the commons” was that it was part of a campaign of PR bullshit used to justify Enclosure, where wealthy elites seized common land as their private property, land that had in fact been used and managed effectively as a public resource for centuries prior.

TBF the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immediately preceded by far larger slaughters of humanity using more conventional methods, a fact which somewhat minimizes their significance. I’m referring mainly to the Holocaust and the Japanese genocide in China, but even the US firebombing of Tokyo in early 1945 exceeded the death tolls of the atomic bombings.

From the river to the C

My favorite:

for (int i = myArray.Length; i --> 0; )
{
    //do something
}

Perfectly valid in C-style, even if it does look a bit puzzling at first.