Spyke
lemm.ee

My favorite Halifax fun fact: In 1917, a munitions ship exploded in Halifax Harbor. To commemorate the event, the City Council created ‘Splodey, the Halifax explosion mascot.

In addition, each public broadcast of Shaggy’s “Mr. Boombastic” is followed by a moment of silence

77

IIRC that event is, to this day, the most powerful non-nuclear man-made explosion to ever happen.

48

I'd rather have that than be preserved for centuries. I honestly prefer cremation to burial. Heck, feed me to the birds for all I care, just let me unexist completely.

There's a sort of solace in that. That one day I'll completely cease to exist. I don't know why religious people like the idea of eternal life. I'd very much prefer not to exist after a while.

46
lemmy.ml

I got to tour a terramation (human composting) facility a little while back. You come out in a few burlap sacks of mulch. They even threw in some wicked t shirts.

32
mycatiskaireply
lemmy.one

The atoms that you are made of will not cease to exist until our sun explodes and makes them into something else.

You will either get buried and rot into sustenance for worms and bacteria or you will get cooked into carbon and calcium to be spread out and become intermixed with the soil.

So will everyone that currently exists barring nuclear annihilation. I find solace that my atoms will maybe be a tree or a bird or even just grass.

20
sh.itjust.works

The sun isn't massive enough to explode. It will just expand and get hotter, making Earth too hot to support life, and then burn out, making Earth too cold to support life. And even a supernova probably won't destroy atoms. Most of our atoms will probably survive the 'death' of the sun.

9

I'll just have to be happy knowing matter breaks down and I won't be me but the things that were me will be other things, unaware of what they were.

5

I thought the sun will become a red giant, and the earth will eventually be pulled into the sun. Which I believe will still leave most of our atoms intact.

1

Well, no, but we're all made out of atoms but I don't think anyone would say that a human and an equivalent pile of raw material are the same.

1

I do like the idea of eternal life, but I also like the idea of my earthly remains -- be that all that exist sof me or not -- being absorbed back into the earth when I'm gone. That doesn't seem so bad.

1
lemmy.world

My favorite facts about Halifax is that the first French people to get there starved to death the first year because they wouldn't eat that weird vegetable the natives from the Mi'kmaq tribe gave them, because they didn't like the taste. Turns out it was potatoes. Can you imagine that?

46
havid_dumereply
lemmy.ml

I mean, do we know how they were cooking them? Maybe the natives told them to eat them raw as a prank.

Also, they were presumably unsalted?! I may rather die too

20

I do think some French dudes would have tried to at least boil and salt them. While it's true Mi'kmaq people didn't put salt in their food as they thought it was toxic, those French settlers couldn't care less. Salt was used as a conservant pretty much everywhere in Europe, and Nova Scotia has very long coast line (meaning salt was abundant).

My guess is that our tastes changed a lot since then. And "French" fries wasn't possible yet, because frying grease was too costly and rare.

9

Did you know that potatoes contain all essential amino acids? They are a really good base for your diet.

7

Sure, I don't like them either. Now would I rather starve then eat potatoes? Can't say until I've lived through it... well or don't

3

That's just flat wrong. Soil pH out that way is about 4 at the lowest.

On top of that bones are large, with low surface area, meaning it'll take a long time for them to 'dissolve'. Ok top of that, you would expect to see this in other locations

18
Orbituaryreply
lemmy.world

Goddamn them all. I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold.

16

This is something I like about the internet. Basically any platform that allows any kind of chronological comments/replies between strangers like this, you'll quickly find people replying individual lines of songs like this. I saw this in Yahoo! Chatrooms, I saw this on Facebook, I saw this on Reddit, I see it here. Even only through text, we sing to each other.

1

This isn't your every day graveyard. This is A D V A N C E D G R A V E Y A R D

5

Then how is it we often times find the skeletons of our ancestors deep in the soil?

(Don’t want to sound sour though)

8
kbin.social

Somewhat interestingly, in acidic soils the minerals, bones, teeth and metal vaults dissolve more easily, but organic matter, wood, flesh, fats are more preserved.

19

This isn't true. They are always reporting on old unclaimed bodies that got lost due to building over graveyards.

There is no soil in Halifax or Nova Scotia with a PH low enough to disolve bone.

17
lemmy.world

I feel like if Halifax had some weird super destructive dirt like that I'd have heard about it, I may be in Manchester but I'm not that far from it haha.

9

Wrong Halifax. If it was that Halifax they'd probably had an exhibit about it at EUREKA and I'd definitely know about it.

5

Save on archeology assessments by not having any remains.

Modern problems and all that.

8

There are better ways than waiting for the natural processes of Great Mother Earth.

2

Legitimately interesting fact. I was recently in Halifax and wandered the Old Burying Ground, really neat place. Weird to think there's nothing under those stones.

6
lemmy.world

I used to see her tweets on Reddit. Is she still there? Or did she left?

6

I mean, it the same everywhere it just that someplace it take suuper long. In who much time do with happend ? Is it quicker than the famous 40 days of the calcareous sarcophages ?

5