I’m currently Rewiring Your Brain, which is a fascinating book on how can you go about change how you feel about certain things, and remain optimistic throughout difficult times.

The book touches upon good dietary habits in quite a lot of detail and I was quite amused to come across how the term redneck came to be.

Relevant excerpt:

I came across an interesting thread on Reddit which asked how centipedes control their legs, and it is quite amazing because their brain sends a signal to walk, and then each segment has a small brain which controls its own legs, and acts as a brain to it.

A little curious; I searched for more information about them and apparently they can never step on their own toes, but then how centipedes reproduce is far more curious.

An excerpt:

Male specimens initiate reproduction by churning out tiny webs. They use these webs as vessels for packages of sperm, which they leave for female centipedes to retrieve. The females then insert these packages into their genitals. They set their eggs down below logs, stones or tree bark, and sometimes even in the dirt. Many female centipedes do carefully watch over their eggs, but this behavior depends on the exact species. Egg-laying occurs in warm times of the year.

Unlike most people who watch Game of Thrones, I wasn’t heart-broken by Hodor’s gut wrenching death, but instead it left me puzzled, and I was initially unable to put a finger on my source of confusion.

For the two of you who don’t watch Game of Thrones but are reading this post, a little background on Hodor.
Hodor is a mentally disabled character in the show who is only capable of saying “Hodor”, though he understands what other people say. He is the stable boy of one of the royal families called the Starks, and is like a valet to one of the Stark boys called Bran Stark.

The mystery of why Hodor can only say Hodor was explained in the last episode. Bran Stark who is physically disabled and can’t walk is trapped in a cave with a bunch of white walkers trying to get there and kill him.

Bran has the capacity to travel back in time, and watch events although the people there can’t see him, nor can he interact with them. Additionally, he has the ability to get into the minds of other people and animals and take control of what they do. This ability is called warging.

Towards the end of this episode, Bran wargs into the mind of Hodor to make Hodor pull Bran out of this white walker infested cave, while simultaneously going back in time, and witnessing a scene from the past where Hodor can still speak and act like a normal kid.

The present Hodor pulls Bran out of the cave, and blocks the door to stop the white walkers from coming out. Bran’s friend yells repeatedly at Hodor to ‘hold the door’, and at the same time the young Hodor starts to get a fit while he yells ‘hold the door’.

The white walkers are able to punch holes in the door, strangle Hodor, and kill him, while the young Hodor is having a fit, and screaming ‘hold the door’ repeatedly, which gradually morphs into ‘Hodor’ until he stops screaming upon the death of the current Hodor.

This is a very well done scene, and can be quite saddening specially from Bran’s perspective because not only does Hodor eventually die saving Bran; he lives most of his life mentally disabled because of Bran.

However, Hodor got mentally disabled because he witnessed his own death while rescuing Bran, but he would not have been rescuing Bran had he not been mentally disabled in the first place.

So, it’s necessary for Hodor to die and witness his death to be disabled, but it is also necessary for him to be disabled to die and witness his own death.
I believe Bran shouldn’t feel bad after all, and this is also the reason scientists say backwards time travel is not possible.

I’m sure you have noticed it, and perhaps you’ve even wondered why; I didn’t think I would ever find a reason for it until I stumbled upon this article explaining why Greek statues have small penises. 

“Greeks associated small and non-erect penises with moderation, which was one of the key virtues that formed their view of ideal masculinity,” explains classics professor Andrew Lear, who has taught at Harvard, Columbia and NYU and runs tours focused on gay history. “There is the contrast between the small, non-erect penises of ideal men (heroes, gods, nude athletes etc) and the over-size, erect penises of Satyrs (mythic half-goat-men, who are drunkards and wildly lustful) and various non-ideal men. Decrepit, elderly men, for instance, often have large penises.”

Makes sense.