Desire paths are just the best human invention because cities will spend millions on sidewalks and yet. Our little foraging brains will think ‘too far cut thru grass for food’ and others will be like ‘other human have good idea. I follow’ until there’s a beaten path when there’s perfectly acceptable sidewalks to either side
For example
these are called “olifantenpaadjes” in dutch (little elephant paths) (remember this for later it’s important) and there’s a whole facebook page dedicated to it, where people can send in pictures of these “elephant paths” all across the country and they get rated with stars.
apparently, a city renovated its park, and ended up putting a tree branch over a beloved path:
of course, this meant the path had become unusable, which is an utter tragedy, so an anonymous citizen did the rational thing and got up in the middle of the night, went to the park, and cut the branch in half using a chainsaw.
so like.. this citizen should probably get arrested for destruction of public property right??? nah. the city just thought it was funny and even made a joke about it when the renovated park got-re opened. the only thing to come out of it was this photo, posted by a local news site:
and that’s the story of how dutch people really, really, really love their little elephant paths.
This whole cyberpunk 2077 thing is bullshit but also almost comedic in its continual incompetence, like they’re just slowly turning a dial labeled “Trans??” in different directions while frequently glancing back at the audience to see how they’re reacting
On one level this seems unrelated, but actually I think that the whole “Making up answers while looking hopefully at an increasingly unimpressed audience like an uncomprehending kid trying to do math homework in front of their dad” approach is very commonplace among clueless groups trying to be progressive
Ferrai has this bullshit agreement that if you buy one of their cars new off the lot, you have to sign a contract saying you basically don’t own the car and have to uphold their brand standards with it.
It’s sets a startling example of not owning something despite buying it and the court needs to use this as a chance to strike it down as unethical.
This shit again? And I thought it was bad enough with ford and john deer telling farmers they didn’t own the tractors they bought from them….
Yeah, they have this really unethical clause in the purchase contract you can’t modify the car or do anything with it that they’d consider “unbecoming of the brand”, which is why they were able file this suit.
It seems kind of bizarre at first until you realize how horrifying that is in the age of “do you own what you buy?” being a huge a debate (especially in tech).
This is pretty much Ferrari’s philosophy from the start, they are extremely prideful of their cars like if they were made from God’s hands or something.
They are very snobby, infact the owner of Ferrari doesn’t like the people who buy their cars since because they are bought for “status”.
They also never test their cars on public tracks in comparison with other racing cars like when they wanted to test out the Porche 918 Spyder vs The McLaren P1 vs LaFerrari. Take a guess who bailed out on the performance test.
Just an update
Lambo are the perfect people to jump in on this because they make insane cars and they are never above clowning them up because Lambo are all about THE DRAMA ™
It’s worth noting that Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of the company originally only made tractors. His company became successful and at some point he bought a Ferrari, but had a complaint with the car. He ended up taking this complaint to Enzo Ferrari, himself, who told the man he did not take advice from a mere tractor maker. Four months later the first Lamborghini sports was birthed out of pure spite. I’d like to this somewhere he’s enjoying this immensely.
So basically what I’m hearing is Ferrari is Anish Kapoor and Lamborghini is Stuart Semple, but with cars.
Sleeping Beauty AU where the princess was born on a Leap Day, so when the evil fairy curses her to prick her finger “on her 16th birthday”, her family realizes that’s not the same thing as her 16th year of life and she’ll actually be in her 60′s when it happens.
By the time the Royal Counsellor has finished speaking the King looks slightly less like he might faint and the Queen actually looks a little hopeful.
“Are you certain?” she pressed.
“Absolutely,” the Counsellor assured her. “I had one of my clerks take notes during all the fairy’s speeches for the exact purpose of studying their phrasing.”
“What,” the King blinked. “Even the good ones?”
The counsellor sniffed. “Especially the good ones.”
“So…so we can truly argue that it is the birthday that counts and not the passing of the years?” asked the Queen, colour returning to her cheeks.
“Indeed!” the Counsellor said with a smile. “So if my math is correct your daughter will be sixty-four when the curse enters into effect.”
“That is hardly what I would call a long and prosperous life!” the King protested.
“Ah, but it does give her Royal Highness the Princess a lot more time to find this contractually necessary one true love,” his Counsellor explained. “Quite a reasonable amount of time I would say, if she happens to be of a romantic and monogamous persuasion, of course.”
The royal couple looked equal parts relieved and bewildered.
“But there’s no need to worry about that just yet,” the Counsellor said comfortingly. “And besides. Times are moving on. That is the entire reason we have the High Court of Magical Justice. Why, just last month a transformed prince was kissed back to human by his platonic life partner after successful litigation against the original layer of the curse! It is riveting caselaw.”
“…this is a good thing, yes?” the King ventured.
“Very good,” the Counsellor nodded.
“Well then!” Her Majesty the Queen beamed. “In that case, I say we continue the celebrations!”
“Quite right, Your Majesty, quite right,” the Counsellor said with a bow. “If you need me, I shall be in my study.”
It is a tenet of contract law that the meanings of contractual language are construed against its drafters. I think it makes perfect sense to interpret the language of curses against their casters as well.
Better curse breaking through semantic specificity.
