Of course, the easiest simplest killshot on flat earth is the sun setting below the horizon. Flat earth and space deniers tend to say the sun is well, something that’s not a star, but more importantly that it stays in the sky and circles further away from a given location on earth until we can’t see it from a given location anymore while it stays overhead. To think that is to deny easily observed reality of it setting below the horizon. They just wordsalad about perspective until the conversation ends.

One aspect of flat earth/space denial that keeps me engaged is learning from the responses that educated people give to their questions. Details of space programs and astronomy that wouldn’t come up often except to answer flat earth/space denial.

My first tattoo was done in a shack with a DIY tattoo kit ordered online.

Afterwards we had DIY beer made with a Mr. Beer kit ordered online.

Knocking with your feet to pretend there is a ghost is still an alive and well practice. I don’t have exact instances on hand but John Wolfe on YouTube has covered a lot of ghost hunting content and some people in there do it.

Today there are more technological ways to create ghostly knocking using various devices, but if the “ghost hunter”/“medium” is taken to a location they can’t prep beforehand, some of them still do basic knocking tricks.

Space deniers.

They are a sub-set of flat earthers. Not all flat earthers are space deniers, but every space denier I’ve seen is a flat earther.

Some of the more prominent ones like Level Earth Observer spend innumerable hours picking apart International Space Station live footage as “fake”. Things like space rocket launches need to be picked apart to absurd degrees as well. Every camera glitch, every stutter, every little movement is hyper-analyzed and declared to be a fraud.

I find it all fascinating. Some of these deniers put forth their own lay theories, which are usually very Biblical in bent, but many of them like LEO will twist themselves into incoherent knots refusing to admit they have a viewpoint and that they are “just asking questions” despite pushing back in a very particular way to all the answers they get.

Some of them like “CC from New York, Westchester County” are just totally off the deep end, not even playing word games, just conspiratorially ranting without even internal consistency.

I’ve only ever interacted with a space denier directly once and it was as equally interesting as it was frustrating.

There’s a big flat earth/space denier overlap with other fringe ideas like young earth creationism which gets you into Kent Hovind territory. That’s interesting in its own way but also full of slime.

Spears were centrally relevant through the 1600s as part of pike and shot warfare, and even then only went away with the advent of bayonets for firearms. With as long as standard muskets stayed, as well as the continued use of formation tactics and existence of cavalry on the battlefield, these bayonets carried on in use and form factor as spears through the middle of the 1800s.

Modern bayonets and rifles are short enough and used differently enough they are a distinct type of weapon, but that evolution is relatively recent.

You were originally asking why spears hung on so long as a military weapon. Battles were not one on one duels. To ignore this seems to be fishing for some kind of answer that intentionally ignores the historical context.

A unit of spearmen works together to stab you from a further reach than you can respond with a sword. I think you also overestimate the ease with which you could chop a spear. Designs differed, but a Greek dory was about 2 inches in diameter. Try taking a whack at the wooden shaft of a shovel some time and see if you get it in one go. Remember that in combat if you were doing this, the person with the spear and the rest of the front rank would also be trying to stab you rather than standing still like polite mannequins.

A formation unit purely of sword-using infantry against spears would be pushed as the spears could kill the sword-users, while at best the sword-users could damage some of the spears but wouldn’t get close enough to harm any of the spearmen. The spear unit with multiple ranks of usable spears could keep going even if a few spears were damaged.

Some sort of skirmishing formation of sword-users would be in even worse shape, as they’d be overwhelmed by a formation and as light moving skirmishers would likely not have full sized shields so if archers were involved would be easy pickings.

Swords in the Greek ancient world were used for close in fighting once the initial contact between formations had been made or if the quarters were otherwise impractical for spears.

Why not just target the wooden part

How?

Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but I don’t fully understand the question.

I had a blender bottle from which I had drank all the liquid, which still had ice in it. Because the ice was above the 100ml line (the limit for LIQUIDS), they took it and threw it away. They wouldn’t even just dump the ice, but tossed the whole bottle. Being that I was running short on time for my flight and I got my work to pay for a new one, I didn’t fight it (also just because I’m correct doesn’t mean the argument is going to go my way in a situation like this) but I’m still flabbergasted that ice was a liquid according to the pair of TSA seat fillers checking my bag.

I almost had a multimeter confiscated on a different occasion when they couldn’t figure out what it was. That one I put my foot down until a supervisor thankful instantly waved me through when he showed up.

It’s definitely an experiment, but is isn’t Bill Nye.

I’ve been guessing points for six generations.

It’s much worse than that.

“Best seller” depends on the metric being used, this article has some simple explanations, including how Amazon niche categories can be gamed to get a book to technically be a best seller.

Because Amazon refreshes ranks at least once a day (often hourly), a well-timed promotional spike can crown you a #1 “best seller” in dozens of micro-categories. Amazon itself acknowledges that ranks are relative and heavily weighted toward recent activity. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing One TikTok push or email blast can deliver the screenshot—hence the glut of “international best-selling authors” whose lifetime sales barely break four figures.

For a more prestigious listing, like being a New York Times Best-Seller, that’s just lies if the NY Times likes you.

The Times, which had always claimed that the list was compiled from computer sales, countered in court that its list “was not mathematically objective but was editorial content and thus protected under the Constitution as free speech.”

In something like “Rao’s Homemade” sauces, the word “Homemade” is part of the registered name of the sauce (if you look close you can see the little “R” symbol for a Registered Trademark on the label), not a defined descriptor that needs to meet some kind of legal standard. Yes, it is trying to trick you into thinking of it as being less industrially made than it really is. Marketing.

At least you didn’t ask about boneless chicken wings…

Be happy that this is what you’re getting from the picture.

There had been fighting in Alaska.

I don’t think that proves much besides marketing people slapping anything on a cover long after the movie was made.

In the DVD commentary, the writer/director talked about how he’d had the basic idea, including gun kata, since high school. He could have been lying but I think he was honest and this was sort of a case of independent parallel ideas, since somebody turbo nerdy enough to come up with gun kata probably had influence from Hong Kong action movies that similarly influenced The Matrix.

The action style and flow is much different than The Matrix, and while both plots are about fighting the system, Equilibrium is much more straight forwardly grabbing elements from classic dystopias.

Terror? Lake!?

I’ve got to get something to eat!