I think “legalese” might be close to what you’re describing. It can still be ambiguous, but it seems to be our best attempt at avoiding that. Some forms of technical writing may also meet your definition.

I love this, but also found it hilarious - especially the towel as a helicopter blade trick and your description of it being “very undesirable for the fly.” I’m picturing your partner or housemate sighing and being like, “there they go again, herding flies.” I can definitely see it working though.

It’s funny to see you comment here because I was literally coming to this thread to mention that I see you in seemingly every comment chain and thus consider you “Lemmy-famous.”

I’ve never gotten around to actually reading up on this, but I’ve always suspected it has to do with the frequency of gratification. In real life you could study for 8 hours and, while you’ll learn a lot, you don’t get that dopamine (or whatever) hit until you complete the test, succeed at the project, etc. Games, however, are constructed so that you get little rewards at regular intervals to keep you hooked, like levels, new gear, etc. Some, particularly a lot of mobile games, obviously prey on susceptible people with that loop, but even “regular” games can get pretty addictive with that sort of progression.

(I’m far from anti-gaming. It’s my main hobby. This is just my guess at how the psychology behind it works.)

From what I remember from writing an undergrad history paper on these dudes, it was used for lots of things such as a treatment for chlamydia (or another STI - I don’t remember exactly). These dudes were banging their way across America, especially the black slave they brought along as apparently the locals thought he had big magic.

I’m not condoning any of this sort of colonialism - just clarifying that these dudes probably single-handedly introduced some new STIs to whole populations, and they were dragging their leaky mercury-riddled dicks along in their boats.

I once bought a Dr. pepper BBQ sauce, so in that case Dr. Pepper did indeed taste like BBQ. Perhaps more aptly, BBQ tasted like Dr. Pepper.