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Neither do many humanoid cartoon characters. Stylization of natural forms is one of the first things we see once we start seeing representational art. Interestingly, it is possible to have highly stylized art that is also highly realistic, as in European cave art. I don't really know anything...

Last night, I went to bed at 2:00 A.M. I had finally gotten tired and was sure I would fall properly asleep within two hours and probably be drowsing in thirty minutes. (I know, I know, but that business of falling asleep in ten minutes? Never known it to happen. Ever. Being positive I would...

You obviously didn't pay attention to the part where I didn't sleep as a baby. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy assumes that a problem is not a physical one, but a matter of maladaptive learning, and I'm sure it works fine when the cause is maladaptive learning. But that's not my life. All CBT did...

CBT probably works just fine in situations where its assumptions actually apply. If someone who has never had a sleep disorder goes through a period of sleep disruption (new baby, illness, whatever) and continues to have trouble sleeping after the conditions creating the sleep disruption are...

I dislike the taste of alcohol. I have never, ever, not once in 60 years, found any technique to help me sleep that was any use at all. I sleep, or I don't. Sleep aids like antihistimines, valerian, or melatonin make me fuzzy and thick-headed the next day without putting me to sleep any faster...

... I have never, ever, not once in 60 years, found any technique to help me sleep that was any use at all. I sleep, or I don't. Sleep aids like antihistimines, valerian, or melatonin make me fuzzy and thick-headed the next day without putting me to sleep any faster. Cognitive behavioral therapy...

As a lifelong insomniac, I say it's time and past time that sleep deprivation got taken seriously as a disorder, and part of that is good solid scientific studies on why it happens and what its effects are. Discussion focused on insomnia can be pursued in this new thread: Insomnia (Inability...

As a lifelong insomniac, I say it's time and past time that sleep deprivation got taken seriously as a disorder, and part of that is good solid scientific studies on why it happens and what its effects are. Discussion of sleep deprivation (whether caused by insomnia or not) can be pursued in...

I don't want flying cars. I want competent public servants. Utility companies that maintain their infrastructure so minor snowstorms don't turn into catastrophes. Senators who ride out the crisis with their constituents and think of useful things to do instead of taking their private jets to...

What it means is, if you're out hunting and you shoot a large unknown primate, during the season, and you have a license, you don't have to worry about the legal repercussions of bringing it home, taking it to the taxidermist, etc. It's a legal kill and you can't be prosecuted; though it's...

Wow. That's just - wow.

Why assume that Basque is the closer language to the original? The indigenous languages of Alaska are part of a language group that also includes Navajo. It is far more likely that an Asian language spread both to Western Europe and to the Americas from a common source, and that it throve in...

Why assume that Basque is the closer language to the original? The indigenous languages of Alaska are part of a language group that also includes Navajo. It is far more likely that an Asian language spread both to Western Europe and to the Americas from a common source, and that it throve in...

There is also the consideration that animals and humans have different visual priorities. When a human faces a window, we generally focus on the other side of the window, while an animal is more than likely focusing on the surface of the window. It takes a major reorientation of attention for...

Animals unfamiliar with cows can be afraid of cows - and with excellent reason. Those things have big stompy hooves. Animals who are accustomed to cows are not afraid of them unless the cow is behaving erratically or aggressively. Depending on the personality and training of the dog, any...

So, some weeks ago I realized that instead of two pairs of sweatpants I only had one. I checked very thoroughly - went through my husband's stuff, laundry room piles, laundry bins, odd places I might've absentmindedly gotten undressed, nothing. This was inconvenient because I am very hard to fit...

The people of his own time accepted Shakespeare as the author of the plays, which were considered lowbrow at the time. If he'd been a highbrow he'd have been writing masques for court that nobody'd perform anymore. I have never seen an argument against his authorship which didn't boil down to...

It's not just a matter of "egg on face," it's a matter of "huge evidence gap." Now, as disposing of the Clovis First paradigm has shown, huge evidence gaps can be the result of many things. In American archaeology in particular, these things can include "racism," "poor preservation...

The sun was bright, there was no epidemic, I was out along the San Antonio River, the hippos were sunning themselves, Too-Ticky from the moomin stories was fishing (even though she's normally only seen in the winter) - it was all very pleasant. My neighbor stopped me to show me a kitten she was...

@Zeke Newbold, "the apple of the eye" refers to the pupil. It's biblical so the full translation history might be enlightening.

It's not an exposed surface - it's a rock shelter, which is a kind of half-cave, a deeply undercut area in a rock face, normally carved out by water along a river. During times of low water these are handier for human shelters than most caves, since the ventilation is good and there's less...

"Dogs" was common slang for feet in the middle of the last century, presumably because you're always walking with them.

I think you'd be surprised about that. Lots of birds in the desert, actually. However, there's even more dust and that thing is shiny. I think they cleaned it off for the photo ops.

I dreamed that my husband and I gave up our house because we couldn't look after it properly and moved into a new apartment on a country club which, unlike most country clubs, had a stable and vast acreage of riding trails instead of a golf course. Our fellow tenants were sims I can't play...

It's been a long time coming, but the final book of The Queen's Thief series, which I recommended here ages ago, came out in October, and it wraps things up in a satisfactory way. The latest narrator is straight out of Rosemary Sutcliff and shows us Eugenides at his most scary and at his most...

Y'all should check in with her blog occasionally. It's a very good one. http://victoriaphantasmagoria.blogspot.com/

All those spoon offers are very cheering. Thank you all!

I'm afraid I don't have the spoons for this place anymore. There's so much of it, y'know. But it's nice to be missed, so thank you.

Hmmm...since I have read that James story that's one reference I couldn't remember sorted out. It's possible that the other places I've read it were all referring back to James rather than to their own oral history; but that's the thing about folklore, isn't it? It gets in everywhere and...

"Only you and I here" and "Now there are two of us" are reminiscent of a story I've only seen in print, but in contexts which make me think it was part of oral tradition in the 20th century (it is referenced anecdotally by characters in fiction and in editorial matter in ghost story collections...

Oh, no no, that is not a tribble. It has the deceptively cute name of the puss caterpillar and if Kirk were buried in them like that he'd be dead. Perhaps I have already told this story in this thread but I will tell it again. Years ago, as I stood up from eating lunch outside to go back to...

Full of plants and bugs. So, successful ecosystem.

Jargon often uses words that are value-laden in everyday speech in a neutral way. In evolutionary science, the term "primitive," which laymen tend to hear as pejorative, means "hasn't changed much over time." The term "advanced" means "has undergone a lot of adaptations." The human eye is an...

They were the Lovers of Modena until their biological sex was determined, but now suddenly it's a mystery. Men and women can hold hands for non-romantic reasons, too, but nobody's bothered about projecting modern romantic assumptions onto the past until it stops being heterosexual.

"Remains a mystery." Right. Because only heterosexuality can be safely projected back through time. :rolleyes:

Of course they happen! They just don't make the news. Perfect families don't exist but happy ones do. Don't confuse the two.

You know what they say. Poltergeists don't happen in happy families.

It's interesting that in both of us we got the classic nightmare or old hag feeling of weight on the chest, and both channeled that sensation into our kitties! This may be common among cat owners, who don't think of it as "old hag" or "Sleep Paralysis" but as "weird dream about the cats."

Delighted as I am to learn that Britain has overcome centuries of cultural inertia in a single lifetime, I personally live in a society in which the most privileged class of women (able, white, cis, het) makes $0.77 to the $1.00 made by men from the same class, media overwhelmingly cater to the...

Surely you jest, Myth? I, like anybody else in this male-dominated society, have read so many books from the male gender perspective I could never read another one, and never get the women caught up. Heinlein's female characterization is that of someone who mistakes the feelings he projects...

Well, it takes all kinds of course, but I'm with GNC. I left Michael Valentine Smith sitting on the floor of a swimming pool and never cared if he got out again. A number of people have pressed Heinlein on me over the years, and I don't require modern feminism in my books (I read Dickens with...

One of the many, many things wrong with the Devil Program, Word, is how backward compatible it isn't! Different versions tend to refuse to talk to each other. For the older programs, many of them need to be "run as administrator" in Windows 7. Basically it's old or funky enough that the OS...

So if you eat spagheeeeeeeetti! All covered in cheese hang onto your meeeeeeeeetball and don't ever sneeze! (I was courteously giving other people a chance to finish.)

That mush was as taaaaaaasty as tasty could be and early next suuuuuummmer It grew into a tree. The tree was alll cooooooovered with beautiful moss! It grew lovely meeeeeeeeatballs And tomato sauce!

We've got the mooing and the cock-a-doodle-doo here in San Antonio, too. There's probably a regional tape maker who supplies Texas ice cream trucks; or possibly the trucks are franchises of a larger corporation that supplies them.

I had an unusual case this morning. It's one of those rainy weeks when everything feels slightly tacky and it's hard to stay awake, plus I'm always tired lately, so after getting my husband off to work this morning I went back to bed. I was lying on my side when I heard some yowling downstairs...

And making backups!

I don't see why you interpret that silhouette as a trench coat, Vardoger! You can't tell anything about the neckline, presence or absence of buttons, beltedness, or even if there's sleeves. It could just as well be a cape or cloak with a collar. It reminds me of Zorro. But when you say Shadow...

I believe in fairies. I just don't know what they are. I believe that people experience weird things. These make them uneasy, so they look around for a comfortable label to slap on them, making it difficult to discuss the experience without discussing the label. I believe that the universe is...

I quite liked both Blair Witch movies. The first one is essentially a filmed LARP and the second is an extended commentary on public reaction to the first. They're Fortean right down to the bottom - weird, at one level ludicrous, at another level terrifying, both making the point that the world...