Gymnasium

So, I need to preface this by saying that I have entered a gym several times in my life, but not often and I am the opposite of a gym rat. My information here is limited to the history of the gym and the etymology of the word. This post is unlikely to convince anyone to go to a gym, unless they want to go there with popcorn and giggle. As much as I'd like to convince everyone to be healthy, this isn't going to be like that. It's a different kind of post about gyms. Why?

Because the root of the word and the original rules of the gymnasium is that it's the place you go to do exercise while naked. 

This isn't about sex. That was an entirely different thing. The Gymnasium was the place where athletes came to train, naked, for their sports, which were often preformed naked. 

Greeks had no problems with being naked, or any reservations about walking around naked, so this isn't exactly a surprise, but it's fun to imagine the response of the gym rats of today if they were asked to do things like the Greeks did in the original gyms. How popular do you think Gyms would be with those rules? 

Gymnasiums were also schools. They taught classes, held lectures, and were the main school for children, as much as they had one. They were created near schools and considered a place of learning for the body as much as the minds. Because of this side of things, the word is the root for schools in some European countries, mainly Germany still. (Considering their feelings towards nudity, they might include some of both definitions, but don't quote me on that.) 

This picture is a free download from Classroom Clip Art. 

Now that you know about the history of gyms, how likely are you to walk into one without laughing? I'm blaming this for why I don't go into gyms. Please don't try to spoil that by pointing out that it's also because I find working out incredibly boring and annoying. 

Sources:

Useless Etymology-- the Naked Truth about Gyms

Encyclopedia Britannica-- Gymnasium

Etymology Online-- Gymnasium

World History Encyclopedia-- Gymnasium

Greek Reporter-- Gymnasium

Marshmallow

 Today is National Toasted Marshmallow Day, so I figured I'd I'd go into a quick history of the sticky-sweet treat. 

First thing though-- when I found out about the mallow plant, I thought marshmallows came from that, but...well, I've made marshmallows and there's nothing natural about those fluffy and super-sweet things. Ok, so most of it comes from plants via a lot of processing, but still. 

The first thing in the history of Marshmallows is actually from Ancient Egypt. 4,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians were mixing honey and Mallow sap and sometimes things like nuts and fruit got added. These were reserved for the pharaohs and gods though, so please remember that next time you eat the strangely addictive gelatinous sugar puffs. 

In the 1800's, the French came up with something else and whipped up the sap, then put it into molds. The candy makers couldn't keep up with demand. And probably had arm muscles of steel for being able to do that. My stand mixer considered rioting when I tried the second round of marshmallows. 

Until then, Marshmallows were sweet lozenge type candies. Here, they mixed it up with egg whites and sugar to create the fluffy treat we know now. They also added the corn starch to the molds because they needed to get things out fast, since they were so popular. The treats were harder than what we know now, more meringue like than the gelatin you know, and considered to be a medication for a sore throat. I don't know about you, but I'd really hate to suck on a marshmallow for long. 

This is where the Girl Scouts come in. 1927, they released recipes using this treat and chocolate. The first possible iteration of S'Mores. 

During the 1950s, America came up with the extrusion process to make marshmallows. Everything got whipped up and sent through tubes to get cut into pieces and packaged. Alex Doumak did that and started a company that still exists...I think. Before you grumble about me posting that even though I haven't looked it up, I did. I read their website and they say they're made to order only, and I'm not sure they are actually still around, or if they've faded into the ether. 

Somewhere in the midst of everything, they went from using egg whites to using gelatin to make the fluff. They also traded out the actual Mallow for more gelatin and sugar. Which is now corn syrup, but that's a whole 'nother problem. 

Technically, I could go into the story about Peeps, but I'm leaving that one out too. Weird sugar-coated monstrosities that are now coming in different flavors, they're going to wait until I have to grumble about a new flavor before I tell you about them. 

After all of that, it's the treat you know and love, so I'm going to finish there. 

If you want to try making your own marshmallows, you're welcome to try. It's actually not nearly as hard as you think, and adding your own flavors is awesome. Making peppermint marshmallows to go on your hot chocolate, or chocolate marshmallows to add flavor to coffee, or anything else. 

And if you're a truly awful person, you could make these and not tell anyone what flavor they are until they try them first. Do not tell me if you make those abominations, do not tell me if you like those abominations, and do not ask me any questions about them. 

I'll see you again soon. Have fun, and don't feel too sick at the thought of those abominations above. 

Sources: 

National Forests-- From Medicine to Camping Classics

Mental Floss-- History of the Marshmallow

Redstone Foods-- History of the Marshmallow

S'More'a'licious-- History of the Marshmallow

 Candy USA-- Marshmallows

Marshmallow USA-- About Marshmallows

Delaware Historical and Cultural Affairs-- A Snack by Any Other Name-- A history of the Marshmallow

Campfire USA-- History of the Marshmallow

Gyascutus

 This is a mythical critter I heard about that I find absolutely hilarious. 

The Gyascutus has legs that are longer on one side than the other so that they can walk on hills. Only one way, of course. If they somehow get turned around, they have some real troubles and probably fall to the bottom of the hill, where they have even more troubles. 

It's an American creature, part of the whole American Mythos around Paul Bunyon and others like him. Interestingly, this guy was probably created as something of a joke by lumberjacks, to see what they can convince the greenhorns of. 

There's also a beetle named after them now, which might be fun. I might look into that next time. 

I'm just going to leave this one here because I don't know what I can add, and I want you to take a few moments imagining this creature yourself. The legs are the only real description I could get. One imaginary picture was of something canine, while another was more of a scaled gorilla. What are you imagining? Feel like telling me, or drawing me a picture? Either way, I think you'll have more fun if I'm not more specific. 

Sources:

Encyclopedia Britannica-- Gyascutus

Merriam Webster-- Gyascutus

New England Historical Society-- Before BigFoot, the Mysterious Gyascutus

Gods and Monsters-- Gyascutus--this one is a bit darker than the others, so it could be more accurate or less. I don't know. 

There are also a few twitter pages and Wikipedia, but I'm not going to add those here. 

New Age Bullshit Generator

 I came across this website a while ago and it's a bit ridiculous, which I feel right now, so here it is for you also. 

The guy that put together this website did it to point out how easily people get fooled by the language of most New Age philosophies that try to skip past rational thought. He wanted to encourage skepticism, so people don't fall for fakes, but he doesn't actually hate the whole New Age style. He just hates the fakes, and wants us to think more on the things we profess or want to believe in. 

There is a button on the top of the page that lets you generate some bullshit. I hit the button and took some screenshots of it. That's below. It feels like someone who was stoned wrote it up...so probably not too far off what a fake would say. 

If you want to read some for yourself, the website is here: sebpearce.com/bullshit/

They don't have options for what kind of bullshit you want to read, but it can sometimes come up with hilarious things. I mean, 'The totality is calling you via electrical impulses'? Really? That's...not bad, but it should be. The writer in me objects to some of the capitalization (or lack thereof), but I'm a bit impressed by it. Add in a passionate voice and you'd probably get a few believers. 

I hope you find this website as fun as I do and maybe read a part or two, or the reviews at the bottom. Let me know if you come across anything particularly good or bad.  

Girus

 I'm sorry to disappear again, but, unfortunately, I apparently have carpal tunnel and I've got one hand that hurts if I move it too much, and one that goes numb after a paragraph or two of typing. This is ultimately very annoying and distracting. It also makes things a little less interesting to tell you about things when I know I'm going to be trying to figure out how to ice my wrist again, with one numb hand and a wrist that I need to keep straight, and I'm just really annoyed at my hands right now. I never gave them permission to have problems like this. 

Since I am mad at myself for some health problems, I'll let you in on a rather hilarious scientific term I found out about a while ago. 

Girus. 

This is a term used for viruses with a lot of DNA in them. All viruses have DNA in them, but some of them have rather simple DNA, versus these, which have a lot of DNA in them, 

It literally comes from shortening 'Giant Virus'. It's hilarious to me. 

Let's hope we don't have to worry about one of those coming up soon. Covid was bad enough. 

I'd list sources here, but...well, if you google Girus Virus, it'll tell you all about them. Just be careful, because gyrus is a term for folds in the brain also, so try not to get them mixed up.

Have fun. Hopefully, I'll be back soon. Unfortunately, I can't promise anything. 

The Beginning of Wisdom

 I've got a lot of yard work and things like that to do and I keep getting distracted by it. Plus, there's a thousand and one interesting rabbit holes to go down online, so it's hard to pick one thing to tell you about. Plus, I'm a night owl, so midnight tends to wander past earlier than it should, then I have to remember to head to bed instead of trying to write up something here. I'm trying to do better about that, but...well, midnight happens fast. 

I don't know why this is going on my fact blog instead of my creative side, but I think it's because it's a bit of an explanation for why I love science and totally support scientists even if I also tend to roll my eyes at them and huff about them being ridiculous. 

Science is about asking questions, about accepting a failed experiment and learning from it, and about looking for proof of what we think, then discovering something entirely different. 

The beginning of Wisdom is saying 'I Don't Know'. 

That's often attributed to Socrates, but it shows up in several spots. 

My knowledge of things is miles wide and inches deep. I know enough about most science things that I can accept and understand the news articles that I come across, enough to understand the podcasts on a lot of different subjects, but not enough to say that my opinion of anything is worth more than that of a professional. So, I might think that what I know matches up to the average person on pretty much any scientific topic, but I will not and cannot suggest I know as much about any science subject as a scientist in that field. Even if what I'm thinking about is not their exact specialty, such as my knowledge of the anatomy of primates versus a doctorate in biology with a specification on felines. 

That's actually something that annoys me with a lot of people. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you know as much about a subject as someone that has made it their life's focus. So, if a scientist tells me that something will keep me from getting sick and is willing to at least try to explain their proof of why, and it makes sense, I am pretty likely to trust them on it. If the entire scientific community agrees on something, I'm not going to argue with them. 

They might not always be right, but they're usually willing to admit that, and change their minds. 

There's a quote saying, essentially, 'When the facts change, I change my mind'. Science does that a lot. That's why I trust them. Because I know that what they say is the best that they know, and they will tell me if they are wrong. 

Another quote I adore about science is that the best inventions don't come with a call of Eureka, but an 'hunh, didn't expect that...'. I tend to roll my eyes at scientists a lot because of the number of times a scientist comes out with something like the statement 'the likelihood of a cow standing up increases over time after they lay down'. Yeah, science. Duh. Thanks for proving that though. And, sometimes I think scientists have too much time on their hands if that's what they are studying. But, that was a side-note on a study that had other interesting discoveries. 

So...that's why I love science. I hope it helps you understand why I think this is so cool and why I decided to write up a blog of the fun parts of it. I hope you enjoy the bits I think are the most interesting for you. 

 

My Birthday...and more proof of me being ridiculous

 Happy birthday to me! I had a really awesome day and made two kinds of cake to share with everyone I could find. I like baking and making people smile, so that was kinda my gift to me. Either way though, I had a really awesome day and wanted to explain that I wasn't here yesterday because I was baking my cakes. I made a chocolate sponge cake that I sandwiched with whipped cream and raspberry jam, plus a butterkuchen, which is a fun yeast cake that I've made a few times. My brother, who works at our local invasive weed control board, once took some to work and came back to report that he's not doing that again because his boss kept calling is the 'butt cushion cake' and therefore he was retracting her permission to have some. Since I haven't made it much, I didn't bother arguing. 

I'm kinda tired after everything and I have a ton of stuff to do over the next couple days--including getting a start on a mountain of research I've been avoiding for a while, which might show up some here too--so I'm going to let myself be lazy about this and just post a meme I came across a long time ago that makes me giggle and is birthday themed. 

This particular version came from Reddit, which I kinda try to avoid because I've got enough rabbitholes to get lost down, I don't need more, but it's originally from Tumblr, so I don't really know how to cite it. 

Either way though, I hope it made you laugh and I'll see you again soon. 

1828 Websters Dictionary Definition of a Cat

 I feel the need to apologize for things again. I didn't mean to disappear for two weeks, but it was a mental health thing. Part of depression that people tend to overlook, but is really annoying, is the apathy side. Apathy doesn't mean I don't care about things, it means I don't have the energy to care about things enough to do anything about it, and it makes everything about 20x harder. When I start feeling that more than usual, I have to start picking my battles. I like this blog, but I want to do the posts when I care because otherwise I lower my standards for posts and that just makes me feel worse in the end. Hopefully, I'll continue feeling better and be back again for a while. 

This is going to be the last post for a bit about cats. I love my kittens, but I'm not going to go into the others right now. This though...is an amusing end to it all. 

In 1828, Webster released a dictionary with a very interesting definition of a cat, which I actually can't disagree with much. This is taken straight from the Websters 1828 site. They claim to have copied it exactly, and it matches the quote I heard about them along with several other sites that claim to have gotten it from other sources, so I'm going to be lazy and just leave it at that. 

CAT, noun

1. A name applied to certain species of carnivorous quadrupeds, of the genus Felis. The domestic cat needs no description. It is a deceitful animal, and when enraged, extremely spiteful. It is kept in houses, chiefly for the purpose of catching rats and mice. The wild cat is much larger than the domestic cat. It is a strong, ferocious animal, living in the forest, and very destructive to poultry and lambs.

The wild cat of Europe is of the same species with the domestic cat; the catamount, of noun America, is much larger and a distinct species.

It is a deceitful animal, and when enraged, extremely spiteful? Wow. Someone annoyed their cat. Or maybe they're jealous because their wife likes their cat more than them. 

Also, wild cat is larger than the domestic cat, but the same species? Hunh? 

Either way though, I'll leave this here and you can all rush off to reassure your magnanimous, fluffy, overlords that you adore them entirely and don't agree with the meanie. Even if you maybe do a bit. Not that you'll tell them that.