What interesting things have you only recently learned about?
To be clear, this is about things which have been true for some time and you only recently learned about, not things that only happened recently. In particular, recent deaths of celebrities and other high-profile individuals should go in the General RIP Thread
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So, what interesting things have you guys...and gals...only recently learned about?
Edited by Twiddler on Apr 8th 2023 at 1:07:55 AM
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
The Iliad is pretty much 80% fight scenes. I should have just skipped it.
edited 9th Jul '12 7:14:38 PM by dRoy
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
'80s TV Action Hero
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Brigit?
Until further notice
No, it's worse: most of the fight scenes are actually the literary equivalent of Stock Footage.
You do want to have a look at the non-fighty bits, though.
edited 10th Jul '12 12:55:18 AM by Pyrite
Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Pretty much. Also, the descriptions are incredibly violent. Homer must have been basically the prototype of Quentin Tarantino.
I have to admit, I really enjoyed the bit where Hera...ahem...manipulates Zeus. Didn't that scene also feature what has to be the Ur-Example of Victoria's Secret Compartment?
edited 10th Jul '12 1:02:12 AM by dRoy
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Until further notice
No, it wasn't. To qualify as Victoria's Secret Compartment something has to be hidden in the cleavage. This was just Hera cheating and using Aphrodite's Wonderbra of +12 Charisma.
edited 10th Jul '12 1:21:26 AM by Pyrite
Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Oh yeah, I forgot that it wasn't literal.
Say, which is the translation you read? Mine is Richmond Lattimore.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Until further notice
Robert Fagles, but I'm nowhere near qualified to judge the accuracy of the translation or the literary merits of poetic versus prose structure. I just picked it because it was easier to read.
Concerning that scene, I've heard it said that the scene of Hera putting on her clothes and makeup follows the same structure as the armouring-up sequence most of The Iliad's major combatants get before going into a fight, and is supposed to be a deliberate parallel. Especially for the guys, because it's so ridiculous.
...Sadly, this now means that every time I read one of those passages, Magical Girl Transformation Sequence music starts playing in my head. 
Other random thoughts:
- Some argue that Homer's elaborate descriptions of death and throwing in bits of backstory for the fallen characters (even the really minor ones!) suggests that he was trying to push the War Is Hell message across. YMMV.
- Athena x Diomedes 4eva. (I know, I know, completely contradicts everything we know about in Greek Mythology, but what the hell.)
- I always wanted to do a sporking of The Iliad and The Odyssey (and The Aeneid for good measure), but I don't think I'd do a very good job of it. I'm sure better minds have done it before, anyway.
edited 10th Jul '12 1:51:53 AM by Pyrite
Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
I see. I was torn between Lattimore and Fagle and I chose to read Lattimore for Iliad and Fagle for Odyssey. I should have went with Fagle for Iliad as well.
Hera doing magical girl transformation...I would watch it.
Oh, and Diomedes is freaking BADASS.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
someone
The Grimm Brothers had another character called Snow White, entirely unrelated to the one with an evil stepmother in their fairy tales.
Until further notice
Space Wizard
You can use C-4 for cooking and it even does the job quite fine.
edited 10th Jul '12 10:23:49 AM by Lock
Programming and surgery have a lot of things in common: Don't start removing colons until you know what you're doing.
That the "Human beings in a mob, what's a mob to a king, what's a king to a god, what's a god to a non believer" quote I've seen a lot on tumblr came from a song by Kanye West.
I should have googled that before. It was easy.
wak
Daikatana had a GBC version. And apparently, it's actually pretty good.
Come sail your ships around me, and burn your bridges down.
How fleeting...
There's a place in Hong Kong called Fuk Village.
I don’t even know anymore.
The great big orange ball that appeared in the sky is called "the Sun".
I don't know what this "The Sun" does, but it seems scary.
ETERNAL
The Sun? isn't that a really bad tabloid? -laugh track-
That's a tabloid? I thought it was really cheap toilet paper. -laugh track-
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Corporal punishment in school is prohibited in most parts of Europe.
Huh, is it actually officially outlawed in Korea as well? I don't like the sound of that.
edited 15th Jul '12 11:22:57 PM by dRoy
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
'80s TV Action Hero
Yeah, we need to sort that out.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
I am not sure how this might sound like, but I actually support corporal punishment. And yes, I grew up with stick-happy elementary and middle school so I know what it's like.
edited 16th Jul '12 8:09:45 AM by dRoy
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
'80s TV Action Hero
Well, the complete collapse of discipline in British schools since it was banned suggests that we need it.
'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Oh man, it's same here in Korea. Yeah, I am in favor of bringing it back.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
'80s TV Action Hero
The kids are just too shortsighted and/or downright dim to grasp consequences that don't entail short-term agony.
'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Aye. Children and teenagers, for most cases, cannot grasp the concept of long term. That's why they need to be given both long and short term goals.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
My RL name is a girl's name in Irish.
...
Befitting.