https://www.etymonline.com/word/sheik

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=chic%2C+sheik&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3

e: found some more solid evidence of the 20s crossover

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a10095/the-history-of-chic/

1925: During the height of the jazz age in America, being chic was all the rage in fashion circles. Anita Loos's novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (originally published as a series of essays in Harper's BAZAAR) follows blonde Lorelei Lee as she documents her life, diary-style, with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes retained. She writes, "the French use the word 'sheik' for everything, while we only seem to use it for gentlemen when they seem to resemble Rudolf Valentino." (Rudolf Valentino was an Italian-American actor who appeared in the film The Sheik.)

https://thefashionandstyleofthetwenties.weebly.com/flappers-and-sheiks.html

Sheiks were the fashionable young men. They wore suits, fedoras, and large raccoon coats. Their hair was slicked back and their ties were fun and trendy. At first though that wasn't quite true. In the early twenties, suits became more fitted, especially around the waist and many men wore knickers. Knickers were short pants that were gathered at the knee. As time passed however, suits eventually became sleeker and more fashionable into what is seen in the picture to the left. Now they were ready to go dancing with a few flappers.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/08/13/uss-abraham-lincoln-deaths-brawl/

According to U.S. Central Command, however, "These reports are false."

"As we have continuously seen, Iran continues to spread lies and false information," Emma Thompson, Central Command spokesperson, said in an email to Snopes.

We have not rated this claim because we don't have additional details about this rumor. Iranian media included very little concrete information, including the date of the alleged incident, making it more difficult to independently disprove the claim.

Still, there's no evidence that Central Command's statement is incorrect. Given reported communication between those aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and their families — and heightened media scrutiny — it seems unlikely that the military could hide the deaths of seven service members due to a knife brawl.

I wasn't expecting much from SNW final season, but this episode just does some stuff that seemed very uncharacteristic for Star Trek in my recollection (I've not watch TOS, so maybe there's something similar in there). Anyone else seen it and had weird vibes about it?

Trying to avoid spoilers, but will probably get into spoilers in the comments if anyone else has seen it too. About to restart/watch DS9 with my partner (trying to get them into it), so I might not reply for a bit).

sometimes the world of sports and world events just align in such a way that's almost surreal

So there's been some talk about China's massive decrease in oil imports starting in March. There was no official explanation offered by them, but estimates have been made that China has strategic reserves that could last at least 1 year, more than all other strategic reserves combined. Various theories have been floated about why they decided to do this. The most plausible one being that global economic disruption is not in their interests currently due to how much their economy is interconnected with global consumption of their goods.

There's some other implications from this move, but I think one that hasn't been discussed in any of the analysis I've seen is that China is strategically walking the capitalist world up to a oil energy cliff. By making this move without any fanfare, it has allowed capitalist markets to remain irrational and willingly oblivious to the approaching depletion of oil reserves. This baiting of capital markets is an interesting concept to consider. China remains the steady hand of the global markets over time while steepening the shock curve for their only "viable" economic rivals.

This is a pragmatic short-term play with an eventual snapback that accelerates their indispensable qualities across many sectors. If the US calmly walks off the cliff (as seems to be exceedingly likely by each day that passes), this can neutralize not only their economic power but also their military ability to function.

There's a lot of different angles that can be considered beyond this one, but I thought this was an interesting perspective to consider. What do my fellow hexbears think?

Solarky SunV car has a retractable solar panel that can charge it up. It's not much more than just an adequate city car, but it could be an effective solution for many people across the world. It weighs only ~600 kg and has a ~10KwH battery pack with a max speed ~80 kph.

I'd really like to see something like this scaled down even a bit further into the spectrum between a small city car and a open-air cargo trike with the solar charging capabilities.

August 6, 1961 - First image, color images and movie of Earth from space taken by a person, by cosmonaut Gherman Titov – the first photographer from space.

Short video about Gherman and Vostok 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqweoLwP6w

Less than four months after Yuri Gagarin's pioneering one-orbit flight, USSR stunned the world with yet another space first on August 6, 1961. This time, Yuri's backup, Gherman Titov, spent a day in space aboard the Vostok-2 spacecraft. The record-breaking mission looked even more startling at the time when NASA planned a 24-hour flight as the ultimate goal of its Mercury project, to be achieved in the sixth piloted launch.

At the time, medical specialists and other experts insisted on the mission limited to three orbits. Their main argument was that the first three orbits were overflying southern Russia, with the landing site drifting westward with each subsequent orbit. Between the 8th and 13th orbit, the landing would fall into the ocean. After the 13th orbit, the landing would be again possible in the USSR, however only in inhospitable and remote regions of the Soviet Far East covered with taiga, rocks and tundra.

Only after the planet would make a full turn below the spacecraft in 24 hours after launch, would the landing opportunity shift back to the European part of Russia. However the commitment to a day-long mission presented serious medical concerns.

Titov also had a professional Soviet-built Konvas movie camera aboard, which was modified for space flight and could record on black and white and color film. The cosmonaut also received a small optical telescope with magnification from three to five times.

https://www.russianspaceweb.com/vostok2.html

Titov’s life was steeped in a profound love of literature, and his words have a power that other spacefarers have rarely matched, before or since. His recollections are both poetic and succinct. “I had the feeling that our Earth is a sand particle in the universe,” he wrote , “comparable to a particle of sand on the shore of the ocean. It was strange to have a black dome above me and our earthly blue sky below. The Earth flashed as a multi-faceted gem, an extraordinary array of vivid hues that were strangely gentle in their play across the receding surface of the world…framed in a brilliant, radiant border. The colors were extraordinary—vivid, yet tender—and the light streaming through the cabin carried a strange shade as if it were filtered through stained glass.”

• from 2007 book "Into That Silent Sea"

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/the-first-photographer-in-space-44654847/

a rom-com of sorts that's actually pretty good

also fair warning it's pretty dark in some parts but quite wholesome overall

Hope those queer people (drones?) find cool terrorists to blow to hell. Blahaj becoming hexbear2…

Guessing this is related to the initial federation days, but any clarification or lore is appreciated.