this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

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Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] Dojan@pawb.social 26 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I know this one.

There was a decent amount of debate over the name for Uranus. There was already a naming tradition present, and some argued it should be broken. I think one suggestion was like “George’s Star”, thank fuck that didn’t stick.

Eventually it was settled on being named after the Greek sky deity Ouranos, which is the father of Kronos (Saturn in Latin), who is the father of Zeus (Jupiter in Latin), who is the father of Ares (Mars), who is the spouse-brother of Aphrodite (Venus), and sibling to Hermes (Mercury).

Old astronomers had big old hardons for Greco-Roman mythology.

Naturally the father-of father-of scheme didn’t stick since Poseidon (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto) are brothers of Zeus.

Eris (Discordia) is named after the deity that sparked the Trojan war. She wasn’t invited to a wedding on account of being a party pooper, and in true party-pooper fashion she sowed discord by throwing in a golden apple “for the fairest”, which Aphrodite, Athena (Minerva), and Hera (Juno) promptly started fighting over.

It’s thus quite appropriate that the planet that caused much debate in the astronomical community, leading to a change in definition of what a planet is, and Pluto being classified a dwarf planet, is named after her.