1. In English cathedral cities, guests are allowed to shoot the host’s birthday cake with an arrow without recieving any form of social opprobrium. This stems from the historical need to defend the city from fire at all times, no matter the form that it may take.
2. Failing to RSVP is punishable by lifelong snubbing in four US states. However, these days the sentence is usually commuted to a pointed eyeroll.
3. Are you concerned about using the wrong fork at formal dinners? Then you might want to invoke the International Maritime Organisation’s 1978 treaty which declared all forks to be equally correct when dining in international waters. You may need to declare the dining location to be on the high seas; this can be done, for example, by staging a mutiny.
4. You may be used to removing your hat when entering a room. But do you know what the correct etiquette is on entering a large hat? Although enterable hats are a novelty item these days, this has not always been the case. Indeed, many itinerant salespeople lived in large hats in the olden days. The correct action depends on the location of the larger hat, but generally in this situation you should keep your hat on, so as to reassure the hat-dweller that they need not step outside in response.
5. Following a historical dispute in the elbow trade, personal space is twenty percent larger when crossing the border between France and Germany than elsewhere. This applies only to entities with elbows; you should not be wary of keeping a larger distance than usual from elephants at the border, for example.
6. Although it is rude to leave your chopsticks sticking upwards in a bowl of rice if you are alive, it is permissable if you are undead. This rule is not more widely known because the majority of the undead do not eat rice and/or are not interested in etiquette.
7. It is never permissible to leave a handbag containing a live bear at a coat check. This applies even if you did not know about the bear. It is everyone’s responsibility to check their baggage for stray bears. This is how bears spread, and one simply cannot hold a polite soiree if every surface is covered in bears.
Blenny is a group of fish which lives on the sea floor. There are many types of blennies. Some of these fishes are very colorful and odd looking.
The above fish is a sailfin blenny. Look at the yellow horns. The blenny looks like a close relative of the dragons.
It’s a tessellated blenny.
It’s a Moyer’s scooter blenny – colorful, is not it?
Yellow watchman blenny.
This blue blenny looks like a cartoon character.
Redspot blenny.
The lawnmower blenny.
The curious blenny comes out to watch the diver.
Panamic fanged blenny
Yellow watchman blenny.
Yellow blenny.
Blue streamed blenny.
Look how diverse and colorful they are.share with friends to see this
They are all very good and wonderful friends, but there are a couple imposters in among them! The moyer’s scooter blenny is actually a dragonet (in the Callionymidae family) while the yellow watchman, yellow and blue streamed are all gobies (Gobiidae). I’m pretty certain the rest are in the suborder Blennioidei which actually is like 5 families but they are all just considered blennies because fish phylogeny is a mess.
That last goby is actually a freshwater goby, a species of Sicyopterus! There are a whole bunch of amazingly colourful freshwater gobies and I adore them all.
But I love all the small benthic fish with all my heart and yes we need more of them all the time forever.
Why I Hate the Phrase “They’re Putting on a Show for Us!”
If you’ve ever been on a whale watching trip and have been lucky enough to see whales breach, cartwheel, spyhop, or participate in other showy aerial behaviors, chances are you heard somebody say “Wow! They’re putting on a show!” or some other iteration of that phrase.
As a naturalist on a whale watching boat, I cringe every time I hear it.
It seems like an innocent comment at first glance, but it’s a very anthropocentric view of these animals. We do not always know why whales breach or do other high energy behaviors, but “showing off for humans on a big piece of floating fiberglass” is probably pretty darn low on the list. They could be trying to remove irritating parasites, communicating with other whales, or perhaps just jumping for the fun of it. Whatever it is they are doing, they’re whales doing whaley things for whaley purposes.
It is my job as a marine naturalist to show the public these animals in a safe, respectful way, and to ensure they leave our boat with a better scientific understanding of whales. I feel it is a disservice to the whales to perpetuate anthropocentric views; their behaviors are interesting in and of themselves without the idea that they could be doing such behaviors for our enjoyment.
Isn’t it weird how you can actually feel the pain in your chest and stomach when something really hurts your feelings
This is actually because it activates your vagus nerve! Basically your body goes “we are so upset! We must be injured! Where???? On the inside guts! Those are confusing and hard to differentiate!!! Confusing guts are hurt!”
Thinkin about plug and play/tactile interfacing toys.
Data chips which run simple sensation programs, which can be inserted to give the feeling of ticking all over your frame, tingling jolts in set and random patterns, the experience of overheating without the danger.
False firewall programs, entirely separate from actual security, for those who get off on the idea of their partner overpowering their systems but don’t want to actually risk getting viruses.
Socket adapters for interfacing multiple partners at once.
Switchboards with different voltage and current for electroplay.
Adapters that magnify, reduce, distort, delay the signals from your partner.
Programming data chips with specific sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc and sending them to your long distance partners so you can essentially interface them from across the galaxy.
Sets of magnets placed on key locations of the sensornet to disrupt and alter electronic signals, induce temporary paralysis, produce pleasurable hallucinations.
Devices that generate small electromagnetic fields swept over bodies, numbing and restoring sensornet functions.
External harddrives filled with various programs and data packets that essentially work like interactive sex dolls, artificial partners. They come in many varieties for specific kinks: dominant type, submissive type, sensual type, rough type, bondage type, cross faction type. Harddrives patterned off of pornstars or what they think famous cybertronians would be like in the berth.
Programs that simulate “heats” for those that get off on the idea of being overwhelmingly desperate for interface.
Data chips that suppress overload, programs that aid multiple overloads.
Rounded finger caps for cybertronians with claws who want to avoid scratching their partners, sharpened caps for those without claws who want to scratch and be scratched, vibrating varieties of both.
Sensory deprivation programs that allow bots to offline auditory, visual, tactile sensors.
Sound generators producing auditory signals that increase arousal.
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