fefellama's recent activity

  1. Comment on Those who can, teach history in ~humanities.history

    fefellama
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    (Edit: Ended up being a lot longer of a comment than I anticipated. I just really love history and have tons of thoughts about how it is and should be taught. Thanks for sharing, OP.) Interesting...

    (Edit: Ended up being a lot longer of a comment than I anticipated. I just really love history and have tons of thoughts about how it is and should be taught. Thanks for sharing, OP.)

    Interesting article. I agree with a lot of the points (like that teaching history relies on a lot of personality and charisma), but not really on some other points (that a good history teacher needs to be skeptical and anti-establishment). I think, as with almost everything, there's nuance to this and no truth or lesson is going to be 100% accurate with regards to what makes a good history teacher.

    I'll preface some of this by saying that I have two degrees in history, and have worked in public history for a decade now. I've taken tons of history classes, with great teachers/professors and some crappy ones too. I'm not saying that my opinion is factually correct or anything crazy like that, just that I've probably taken more history classes than most people. And I've found that the classes I enjoyed most were often very different from each other, and I enjoyed them for various different reasons that have nothing to do with each other and more to do with either the subject, or how I personally prefer to learn.

    My favorite professor was as formulaic as possible. Took like 6 or 7 classes with him from undergrad to graduate level. Each class was a pure lecture for 1-3 hours and that's it. There was no attendance, no homework, no assignments. Just a mid term and a final that each was worth 50% of our final grade. Some people HATED that. I loved it. Meant I could just relax in class and listen to this incredibly well-versed man talk about something he clearly knew a shit ton about without having to worry about anything else other than what he's lecturing about. Maybe some people would ask a couple of questions every now and then, but essentially it was just him talking at you for multiple hours straight.

    Another super memorable class I had was by a professor who was the exact opposite of that. Only like five or six people signed up for the class, which just happened to be the minimum needed for a class to count at my university. So he basically made a deal with us that if no one dropped the class we'd go on a shit ton of field trips (the class was about our local region's history). And boy were those field trips amazing. Learned so much cool stuff about the place where I grew up and even visited some sites that I had no idea existed despite living in that area for 20+ years. That class was as far from formulaic as possible, and the professor was a soft-spoken old man who definitely did not exude charisma.

    I had another class with a professor who absolutely loved Classical history as well as the Renaissance, and he didn't care if we ate in his class. So every morning at 9 AM I'd show up with a bowl of cereal (provided by the school, I didn't just bring my own from home) and listen to this guy talk about how Plato's ideas or Michelangelo's frescos for an hour.

    I've taken classes on historiography where the entire class was just a round-table discussion and the professor was sort of just a moderator for the group discussion every week, pointing us in the right direction with specific questions about the reading material each week. I've had classes about subjects that I thought would be super interesting, and then turned out to be horrible classes because the professors were too monotone and assigned work that felt unnecessary or forced. And many other classes in between that were neither memorable for being great, nor for being shit.

    All that is to say that different people value different things from their history teachers/professors. Charisma definitely helps, but the actual subject matter helps a lot too (it's a lot easier to learn about something that you already sorta care about) as well as the structure of the class and how it jives with your personal learning preferences.

    And especially on the public history side of things, where I might only have a few minutes to convey some history to people rather than a whole semester or year like history teachers/professors get, I find that the content is even more important. People don't like hearing numbers and dates and obscure names, they want the Hollywood stuff. Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll are what catches people's attention and leaves a lasting image in their head (for better or worse), so you need to use those key interesting points/stories to convey the other important shit you want to talk about. Teach them without making them think you're teaching them. I'm not trying to get you to learn about this history, no no no, I'm just telling you about this cool shit that happened and btw it just happens to relate to the history of this area, hmm what a coincidence. Think back to a historic site or building you might have visited. You probably don't remember the exact year it was built, but you might remember a crazy story that you heard about while there. It's a whole different ballgame is what I'm trying to get at compared to more traditional classroom environments.

    My wife always talks about how much she hated history growing up because all her teachers happened to be boring as hell, but since meeting me has become way more interested in history because she enjoys how excited I get about it. And yeah I'm sure she's biased as hell, but it makes me a bit sad that there are tons of people out there that grew up with crappy history teachers and end up not caring much for it despite how integral it is to our lives (the 'subject of subjects' as the article puts it).

    Long story short, what makes a good history teacher is different from person to person. No one person is the perfect history teacher to everyone out there, because people learn in different ways and have different interests. Heck nowadays my favorite history teachers are often times YouTube channels like RealLifeLore, Extra History, and Heroes and Legends. Back when I was a kid there was a very over-the-top show comparing different soldiers, like a samurai vs a knight vs Zulu warrior or whatever, and it was dumb as hell in hindsight, but kept me hooked and encouraged my love of history. 12-year-old me had different tastes and interests as current me, so how we learn history should not be a one-size-fits-all approach.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on What are important historical books lost to time? in ~books

    fefellama
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    Cool question, though a bit hard to answer. My first thought was to Classical documents, like ancient Greece and Rome. I know there are a ton of works there that we know about but haven't...

    Cool question, though a bit hard to answer. My first thought was to Classical documents, like ancient Greece and Rome. I know there are a ton of works there that we know about but haven't discovered (like there'll be books 1, 2, 3, ... 7, 8, 9 in a series, so you can probably infer that there were books 4, 5, and 6 as well, even if they haven't been discovered yet).

    Another thought that I had, that you might be interested in reading about are the Herculaneum scrolls. TL;DR when Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it covered not just Pompeii but some surrounding villages as well. One villa in Herculaneum had a ton of scrolls/documents that were carbonized by the heat and ash. So they're basically these super-delicate pieces of charcoal that used to be writings, and thanks to magic the hard work and ingenuity of various researchers, we can now scan them and read through their contents without ever opening them (opening them is basically impossible without destroying them... which is not great). This is pretty novel stuff, so a few news articles have been posted to tildes in the last couple years about this project.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on Russia poisoned Alexei Navalny with dart frog toxin, European nations say in ~society

    fefellama
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    Yup someone else posted the wiki page, here is a BBC clip on it. It's basically exactly what it sounds like. He called up the dude who poisoned him, spoofing his number to pretend to be one of the...

    Yup someone else posted the wiki page, here is a BBC clip on it.

    It's basically exactly what it sounds like. He called up the dude who poisoned him, spoofing his number to pretend to be one of the guy's superiors, and practically interrogated the guy on why he failed his mission, getting both a confession as well as the details of the failed assassination in the process (at the time they did not know how the poison was applied).

    Like imagine you're a hired assassin, you fail to kill a guy, and then your boss's boss calls you and asks you how you managed to fuck it up. You then explain to him how you went about doing it and why you failed your mission. Except unbeknownst to you it's not your boss's boss on the other line, it's the guy you tried to kill. Sounds like something right out of a Hollywood spy thriller.

    15 votes

  4. Comment on Russia poisoned Alexei Navalny with dart frog toxin, European nations say in ~society

    fefellama
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    It's almost exactly two years since his death. I'm curious why this information is coming out now. Read the article but maybe I missed it? Did they just test it now? Did they know before and are...

    It's almost exactly two years since his death. I'm curious why this information is coming out now. Read the article but maybe I missed it? Did they just test it now? Did they know before and are just releasing it now? Does it just take that long to test for these sorts of toxins (I really have no clue).

    Anyways, his death really stayed with me at the time. As someone who studied/studies a lot of history, it's always strange to be reminded that the things you read about that feel like distant memories of the past, like war and slavery and the purging of political dissidents, are actually still going on regularly with absolutely no end in sight.

    I still vividly remember his phone call with the agent who poisoned him where he pretended to be the guy's higher up and was grilling him about why he fucked up the assassination, and getting the guy to explain exactly how he carried out the poisoning (the whole toxin in the underwear thing). Crazy stuff.

    At the time when he turned himself in I really hoped his imprisonment (and eventual execution) would lead to some lasting change, but it seems that was not the case sadly. A real-life martyr if I've ever seen one.

    23 votes

  5. Comment on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast [1991] vs Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête [1946] (2015) in ~movies

    fefellama
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    Really interesting read, thanks for sharing. I'll preface this by saying that I've never seen La Belle et la Bete, but the Disney version of the story is my wife's favorite film, so I've seen that...

    Really interesting read, thanks for sharing. I'll preface this by saying that I've never seen La Belle et la Bete, but the Disney version of the story is my wife's favorite film, so I've seen that version like ten times.

    First off, I like the differences in the French version. Lots of details that are reminiscent of other Disney films. There's the evil sisters (Cinderella, like the author mentions), but also the daughter taking the place of her ailing father (Mulan), as well as a magic mirror that shows her anything she wants to see (Snow White, and I guess Beauty and the Beast too, of course).

    Secondly, I think it's inherently silly to point out plot holes in a kids fiction movie. (You're telling me Gaston doesn't actually eat five dozen eggs every single day?) Still good fun though.

    Also:

    Question: Where in the hell is Beast’s castle located? Belle and Maurice go back and forth between it and the village rather quickly and the mob seems to reach it in a matter of minutes. Did everyone just forget about this castle that was apparently just down the road?

    Uhhh, yeah, they literally did forget. That's the whole spell/curse thing from the beginning of the movie. The old lady beautiful enchantress that curses the beast and his servants also puts a spell on the nearby town so they forget their loved ones (where do you think the servants came from?). There are little hints to this throughout the movie I believe, like in the beginning when Belle asks the guy in town if he's forgotten something and he says yes, he just doesn't remember what. And then at the end when the spell is lifted the townsfolk reunite with their loved ones who were trapped in the castle (the servants). So yeah it totally tracks that they wouldn't remember this castle until Gaston whips them into a frenzy.

    This is France but only one character has a French accent.

    Someone else already pointed out the feather duster lady also has a French accent. Regardless, I feel like most Disney movies don't really have 'appropriate' regional accents. If they did then Emperor's New Groove definitely wouldn't be starring David Spade as the leader of the Inca.

    Sure you can poke holes in the story structure of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast but what you can’t do is deny that it had some fantastic songs. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken put together one fantastic score, one so good that it went on to make Beauty and the Beast a Broadway hit.

    I appreciate that the author mentioned this (how could one not?). These classic Disney movies have a ton of staying power because of the catchy and well-written songs (cough cough Alan Menken cough cough). And I'll say that the couple of songs they added to the remake were pretty good too. One of the best Disney remakes of the last decade or so, if not the best. They kept nearly everything that was good about the original, and just added a little bit more context for some things (like what happened to the mom), and some additional great songs. If only they had kept that formula for the other remakes...

    6 votes

  6. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    fefellama
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    Now I'm trying to imagine other medalists competing against their own phobias. Like a swimmer with a fear of water. Or an equestrian with a fear of horses. Maybe a bobsledder with a fear of...

    Now I'm trying to imagine other medalists competing against their own phobias.

    Like a swimmer with a fear of water. Or an equestrian with a fear of horses. Maybe a bobsledder with a fear of confined spaces. Would make for a much more entertaining Olympics if you ask me.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on After 1,600 years underwater, remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria emerge in ~humanities.history

    fefellama
    (edited )
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    Didn't know that, pretty cool! Hmm actually I'm not so sure that it comes from the same place. I just did some etymological research since I love that kind of thing, and it seems like fyr is also...

    Didn't know that, pretty cool!

    Hmm actually I'm not so sure that it comes from the same place. I just did some etymological research since I love that kind of thing, and it seems like fyr is also fire in Swedish? Makes sense since fyr and fire look so similar. So in that case I'm not actually sure that it would relate to the Pharos-based words like phare and farol. Like in other nordic languages it appears to be things like fyrtårn which combine fyr (light/fire) and tårn (tower) which seems as descriptive as light+house is in English. So seems to be just a funny coincidence that fyr in Swedish resembles phare or faro in Latin languages.

    Edit: did some more digging (again I really love this kind of stuff) since I was curious if fyr and pharos both shared an acestor or something. Turns out probably not. Fyr comes from Proto-Indo-European. That was just their word for fire which explains why its fire/fyr/feuer in various Germanic languages.

    Meanwhile pharos has a murkier history. Per this /r/etymology thread, it seems like the island at Alexandria was named after the lighthouse that was on it, since pharos was the Greek word for lighthouse already. And that itself probably came from either the Greek phao (meaning "to shine") or the Egyptian pharez (meaning "watch tower").

    2 votes

  8. Comment on After 1,600 years underwater, remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria emerge in ~humanities.history

    fefellama
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    I went to go find a comment I made on a previous thread about this lighthouse, and noticed the article from that thread was remarkably similar to the information in this one, even including some...

    I went to go find a comment I made on a previous thread about this lighthouse, and noticed the article from that thread was remarkably similar to the information in this one, even including some of the same photographs. I thought it was strange since that article was from October, so what's actually new this time around? But then I saw that that previous article had been updated on February 11th, so I guess they just added in any new info or photographs.

    Anyways. here's a little tidbit about the lighthouse in case anyone is interested:

    The word 'lighthouse' in many Latin-based languages directly ties into the Lighthouse at Alexandria. It was actually on a small island called Pharos, so we ended up with terms like faro (Spanish and Italian), phare (French), farol (Portuguese), and pharology (English, the study of lighthouses).

    7 votes

  9. Comment on After 1,600 years underwater, remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria emerge in ~humanities.history

    fefellama
    (edited )
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    Super interesting read (and very technical). I'm curious why the government decided to block the retrieval of objects over 100kg. Is it for fear that the objects be damaged? Safety concerns?...

    the Egyptian government has imposed a weight restriction on elements eligible for refloating, limiting them to 100 kg. In contrast, the 30 blocks with inscriptions found at the site each weigh between 1 and 7 tons. Consequently, none of these significant artifacts can be refloated due to this regulation,

    Super interesting read (and very technical). I'm curious why the government decided to block the retrieval of objects over 100kg. Is it for fear that the objects be damaged? Safety concerns? Logistics? At least we can still scan them underwater, but would be awesome to see some of these larger chunks resurface so that a replica or some sort of monument could be made out of them.

    Edit: and wait a second, some of the photos show blocks that are definitely way larger than 100kg being craned out of the water. So now I'm a bit confused.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    fefellama
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    Hey that's pretty neat. Have never seen it before but I like those style of games, so thanks for recommending it! Apparently there is a sequel too that is equally praised.

    Hey that's pretty neat. Have never seen it before but I like those style of games, so thanks for recommending it! Apparently there is a sequel too that is equally praised.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    fefellama
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    A+ taste in games. Every game you mentioned I either love already or have on my wishlist, lol. Monster Train and Slay the Spire as 2/3rds of my GOATs for roguelike deckbuilders (Balatro is the...

    A+ taste in games. Every game you mentioned I either love already or have on my wishlist, lol.

    Monster Train and Slay the Spire as 2/3rds of my GOATs for roguelike deckbuilders (Balatro is the third). And actually I never realized it before you mentioned it but you're totally right that it has some tower-defense elements to it with the way the train floors are set up. Maybe that's part of its magic. I love that it has a lot more variety than StS, since you pick two clans and each clan has a few archetypes, so you can end up with a TON of variety in decks and strategies. StS, while still great, has four characters and like three major archetypes for each one, so less overall variety.

    Haven't picked up MT2 yet but I've heard it's a decent sequel.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games

    fefellama
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    Yeah region locks feel so... artificial nowadays. I get that different currencies mean games can cost cheaper or more expensive depending on where you are in the world, but it just feels so...

    Yeah region locks feel so... artificial nowadays. I get that different currencies mean games can cost cheaper or more expensive depending on where you are in the world, but it just feels so ridiculous to tell the customer 'hey sorry this set of numbers and letters that we generated only works for people in that other country, you'll need to purchase this other set of numbers and letters to be able to play in your own country'. I'm sure there are economic factors that I'm missing, but from a user perspective it just feels dumb.

    Anyways, enjoy the game!

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games

    fefellama
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    Hey no worries at all. I pm'd the key over to @psi so hopefully they're able to redeem it just fine in Germany. If no one else takes Bus Simulator 21 I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. I've played...

    Hey no worries at all. I pm'd the key over to @psi so hopefully they're able to redeem it just fine in Germany.

    If no one else takes Bus Simulator 21 I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. I've played PC building simulator and loved that, but I've never tried those bus/train/truck simulators before. I've heard they can be relaxing, just driving around aimlessly.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games

    fefellama
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    Hey, awesome! Unfortunately Steam did not let me redeem the code because it is region locked to Europe (I believe). So if anyone else would like Resident Evil Village, and happens to NOT be in one...

    Hey, awesome! Unfortunately Steam did not let me redeem the code because it is region locked to Europe (I believe). So if anyone else would like Resident Evil Village, and happens to NOT be in one of these countries, then feel free to dm or reply here and I'll happily pass it along.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games

    fefellama
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    Steamworld games feel almost perfectly made for the Deck. Haven't played Build yet but I'm glad to hear it runs well too.

    Steamworld games feel almost perfectly made for the Deck. Haven't played Build yet but I'm glad to hear it runs well too.

  16. Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games

    fefellama
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    Hey if no one else takes you up on it I wouldn't mind checking out RE Village. Haven't played a Resident Evil game since 4 (and a tiny bit of 5 at a friend's house way back). I was thinking about...

    Hey if no one else takes you up on it I wouldn't mind checking out RE Village. Haven't played a Resident Evil game since 4 (and a tiny bit of 5 at a friend's house way back). I was thinking about checking out some of the newer ones but wasn't sure where to start (even asked in one of the weekly 'what games have you been playing' threads here). But if someone else wants it please feel free to give it to them instead!

    1 vote

  17. Comment on A site explaining every known juggling trick in ~creative

    fefellama
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    Cool site! Those animations are almost hypnotic, especially for some of the more advanced tricks.

    Cool site! Those animations are almost hypnotic, especially for some of the more advanced tricks.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    fefellama
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    Tilderanians for some reason made me think about Tildemaniacs.

    Tilderanians for some reason made me think about Tildemaniacs.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    fefellama
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    Tildonians sounds like we're from Planet Tildo. Tildese sounds like we were colonized by Portugal. Tildians sounds like we are a proud ancient civilization of elves. There are no wrong answers...

    Tildonians sounds like we're from Planet Tildo.

    Tildese sounds like we were colonized by Portugal.

    Tildians sounds like we are a proud ancient civilization of elves.

    There are no right wrong answers...

    4 votes

  20. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    fefellama
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    First thing's first: there are regular ongoing debates on what exactly members of this site should be called and every answer is correct. Tildoes is clearly the funniest. Tilderinos. Tilderites....

    First thing's first: there are regular ongoing debates on what exactly members of this site should be called and every answer is wrong correct. Tildoes is clearly the funniest. Tilderinos. Tilderites. Tilderistans. Tildes Users if you're formal. Tildidlierinos if you're Ned Flanders.

    Also, I'd highly recommend the Tildes ReExtended addon/extension for your browser. Adds a few useful features and was made by members of the community!

    8 votes