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[Jopax]

Something occurred to me while taking a walk the other day. Around these parts we have this way of notifying the general public about a death via obituaries, more specifically, aside from having a section for them in the newspaper, the physical things are plastered in certain locations.
Graveyards obviously have a small board of sorts for them, but then there's panels like these at certain spots around the city, big intersections and the like. Furthermore, even if they're not specifically made with the function in mind, most bus stops are made with big plexiglass panels that are perfect for sticking stuff to, and since they see heavy people traffic they also get plastered with obituaries. Then of course you have them stuck to the doors of the grieving families and if they're living in a big building, they're usually found on the building entry doors or the buildings notices board.

Now the question I had was, is this something common to the rest of the world or is it a balkans approach to things. If not, how do you folks go about letting the world at large know that a certain person has died?

[Ulfarr]

We usualy just post them on the street lights. I know that newspapers used to have a relative section though I'm not sure if it's still the case. I don't think I've ever seen an obituary on a building's entrance.

Greece is technically part of the balkans, so I'm not sure if it counts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Eschar]

In the US, I've only ever heard of newspaper obituaries, but countries are big and I have little experience.

[Bumber]

Graveyards obviously have a small board of sorts for them

My brain suddenly decided to imagine a graveyard board game. Like Monopoly, except the properties are dead people.

[Rolan7]

So it's been 48 hours and my rib still hurts a lot whenever I move.  I got a lovely complication of shoulder cramping from trying trying to hold positions, and I only slept a couple of hours last night.  On the plus side, drinking a very moderate amount of alcohol dampened it to a surprisingly bearable level, so I should be good tonight.  Maybe it's even getting better?  But no, the pain reduction was pretty sudden.

I'm still curious whether it's a bruise or, somehow, an actual bone injury.  Pretty sure it's a bruise - except there's no swelling and no discoloration, and I've never broken or cracked a bone (to my knowledge) so I don't have a reference for the pain.
(Well except for my toe, probably, but I managed to keep limping on it and never had it xrayed)

Not that it matters, from what I can tell - in both cases you just try to avoid stressing the area for 2-8 weeks while managing the pain.  Woooo.  The one Christmas where I already have a valid excuse, and I get another.
Edit:  It doesn't hurt often while walking, it's mostly a problem sitting down or standing up.  So I was able to go do things, but trying to relax keeps causing pangs as I readjust.  Frustrating.

[scriver]

Here in Sweden we do newspaper obituaries still. I wonder how we will deal with that when newspapers go away.

@Rolan -- 42 hours and still in pain sounds a bit worrying, but I am not a medical professional nor do I have any experience with cracked or broken bones either. Try not to drink too much, pain is a devious excuse

[feelotraveller]

I'm not a medical practioner either.  But if Rolan had outright broken their ribs they would know about it, trust me.  In all likelihood it is a case of a strained intercostal muscle or similar - bruised ribs - although a minor crack can't be ruled out.  Regardless treatment is the same: time.  Manage the pain and continue on as normally as possible, although smoking is counter-indicated.  (And 4-6 weeks is typical.)

[Kagus]

I'm not a medical practioner either.  But if Rolan had outright broken their ribs they would know about it, trust me.

I've got a friend who booked a doctor's appointment because she just could not seem to get comfortable and fall asleep at night. After a quick examination, it was revealed that she had in fact broken her elbow.

But then again, she's very much an edge case... In a number of areas

[feelotraveller]

Hate to break it to you but elbows are not ribs.

I've broken lots of bones and broken ribs are in another category of pain.  The only thing that has come close has been broken foot bones and needing to keep walking multiple kilometres a day on it, and even then it was only coming close. 

[Kagus]

Hate to break it to you but elbows are not ribs.

My whole life is a lie.

[Great Order]

I feel like this might be a bit of a big one, rather than a small random question.

Why did antiquity contain so many large, contiguous empires? The ones that come to mind are the Romans, Persians, Macedonian (And subsequent states), Maurya...

Obviously to an extent it's because it was a long time period so there was plenty of time, but I can't recall many empires of that size existing after that until Europe went all "Invade the world" and they weren't all that contiguous, and those empires tended to be more restricted to the Middle East (And China, but they've been doing this for millenia).

[wierd]

Combination of "Strong man" culture (Both greek and roman was like this, big time), coupled with higher nutritional yield food staple availability vs that of their neighbors, resulted in a technology boom, and subsequent military boom.

However, the economics of continual expansion did not work, and it caused internal collapse in the empire.

Knowledge was lost in the collapse, and subsistence agriculture does not promote the development of large empires.  It would not be until far later, when agricultural improvements, like the plow, enabled those higher-density foodstuffs to be grown in more locales, that a resurgence of empire building would occur, and when that happened, the nascent power imbalance was not there anymore.  It wasn't a struggle against the persians for dominance, it was a struggle against all the many fiefdoms that had grown stronger.  This led to many centuries of petty warfare on a slow simmer.

Or at least, that's my understanding of it.

[TD1]

Steel yerself fer germs

[USEC_OFFICER]

-snip-

I'm not sure why you're discounting the Middle East, since the majority of your examples were centered around it. The Persian empires were based in the Middle East, Alexander only gained an empire by conquering the Middle East, and the Diadochi were either based in the Middle East or trying to expand into it. Post-antiquity the region still hosted plenty of empires, such as the Seljuks, Timurids, Ghaznavids and various Caliphates. The early Caliphates were some of the largest empires in history too, though they obviously did not last for very long. Given that Rome and Maurya were the first empires in the Mediterranean and India they are probably exceptional in some way, though Maurya would eventually get a post-antiquity analogue in the Delhi Sultanate.

Basically the Middle East was home to plenty of empires during and after antiquity, while the Mediterranean only had one during antiquity and India had one during and another one after antiquity. Thus antiquity does not seem to be particularly special when it comes to creating empires.

[TamerVirus]

What about the Mongols and their largest contiguous empire ever?