Shamelessly Currying Favor with Ellie

[lshap]

Tablets from a Mesopotamian first grade class.




Scroll down and you'll see a tablet from a kid who was just fed up.

Keep it up and we'll have to modify the thread title to "currying favor with Ellie (and linguist)"!

This stuff is awesome.

[thoreau]

I've gotten infatuated with Mesopotamian history lately. I think I heard one too many people in my professional world downplay math and reading (yes, really), and I'm like "Fuck it. I'm more interested in the people who invented math and reading."

I have 3 different Gilgamesh translations on my shelf right now.

[lshap]

As an undergrad I minored in Classics. Meaning I've held one of these tablets. They are sooo much smaller than you'd think.

Nowadays I love to contemplate all of the lost cultures and languages. Linear A, minoan, etruscan, harappan. The Harappans had indoor plumbing and roman style sewers while the Mesopotamians were still in huts. It's crazy to me what ancient people accomplished, and was subsequently lost.

[Warren]

I always thought cuneiform was the most sensible of pre-paper writing systems. Some clay and a simple stylus and you're in business. And you can choose to erase or make permanent as you wish.

I truly love looking at the surviving walls covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's so ornate. I think about the effort that went into carving it.

[dbcooper]

[JD]

Tablets from a Mesopotamian first grade class.

It's also funny to think that somebody's discarded homework ended up as part of the archeological records to be discovered thousands of years later.
"OK, class, assignments are due today. Belteshazzar, where is your homework?"
"I lost it...TO HISTORY"

[Kolohe]

I've gotten infatuated with Mesopotamian history lately. I think I heard one too many people in my professional world downplay math and reading (yes, really), and I'm like "Fuck it. I'm more interested in the people who invented math and reading."

I have 3 different Gilgamesh translations on my shelf right now.

There's twitter account whose schtick is that he's Ea Nasir


https://twitter.com/OldDreyfusard?s=09

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complai ... o_Ea-nasir

But he has said already that he's kinda out of ideas for the gag

[dbcooper]

[JD]

Sorry, Ellie (the URL is also one of the best parts of this story)

This funky little robot’s name is Nicobo, and it was created by Panasonic for companionship. It’s loosely catlike; it farts. It cannot do more than wiggle its head and its tail and blink its unnervingly digital eyes. It can sort of talk. And no, if you’re interested, you cannot buy it.

[lunchstealer]

That's right up there with OwlKitty.

[Ellie]

I LOVE THEM

[Ellie]

This was meant to reply to a particular post but it works better in general

[JD]

Yesterday afternoon:

Mrs. JD: look what they have for sale at Target

cat_villa.jpg (134.1 KiB) Viewed 67 times

Me: haha, cute

One hour later:

cat_villa_occupied.jpg (164.38 KiB) Viewed 67 times

[dbcooper]

[dead_elvis]

These two cats should play each other.



(for the curious/confused the video beyond the first 5 seconds is fairly standard cute-pet-video fodder and can easily be skipped)