“ You type the command into the console. 'Insufficient Guineapigs' the computer responds. Baffled, you retype the command. 'Insufficient Guineapigs' the computer replies again. You decide you should start smaller, with a simpler command. 'Insufficient Guineapigs'
What does cycling the spaceship's airlock have to do with a now-extinct Peruvian rodent?”
“ To purify the water from a certain river the monks have carved a section of the river that goes over a stone bed. Through holy carvings of gods, godesses, and holy symbols and then the river flowing over them, it purifies the water making it safe for drinking and/or makes it holy water. For rivers that do not have natural rock bottoms, large smooth stones can be carved and added to the water to fully cover the bottom.”
“ In the Middle Ages, and even up to the early twentieth century, most of Europe's executioners were related: the Sansons and Deiblers in France, the Pierrepoints in England, etc. The reason for this was that, it generally not being socially acceptable to, well, kill people, executioners and their children could, generally, only marry other executioners or <i>their</i> children.
The parallels with massively inbred, Hapsburg-style dynasties are obvious- imagine a rather clever but politically inept satirist noting this, and being sentenced by the latter to a meeting with the former; even worse, imagine a dynasty of deranged and deformed executioners- think Texas Chaisaw Massacre with government funding.”