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[Samoorai]

I had no idea what it was, just that it was rather wtf inducing.

[Cruxador]

Regarding the Minotaur, there seems to be some misconception. It was not the child of Poseidon in bull form, but rather, of a particularly magnificent bull that Poseidon had given to Minos, with the understanding that it would be sacrificed to Poseidon, thus making both of them look good.

[smjjames]

Regarding the Minotaur, there seems to be some misconception. It was not the child of Poseidon in bull form, but rather, of a particularly magnificent bull that Poseidon had given to Minos, with the understanding that it would be sacrificed to Poseidon, thus making both of them look good.

Except that Minos DIDN'T sacrifice it, leading to the punisment, I believe.

[Neruz]

Regarding the Minotaur, there seems to be some misconception. It was not the child of Poseidon in bull form, but rather, of a particularly magnificent bull that Poseidon had given to Minos, with the understanding that it would be sacrificed to Poseidon, thus making both of them look good.

Except that Minos DIDN'T sacrifice it, leading to the punisment, I believe.

Correct, Minos decided to keep it to show off to all his friends, thereby disobeying the direct order of a God like the pants-on-head retarded monkey that he clearly was.

[Jimmy]

I had no idea what it was, just that it was rather wtf inducing.

I personally like the legends that say it would play its testicles like a pair of bongo drums.

[Flaede]

I had no idea what it was, just that it was rather wtf inducing.

It's from a japanese ad. The ad has weirder portions than the tanuki balls: the big bewbs on everything else.

It ended up on the WTFJAPANSERIOUSLY blog. Later on in the archives there are some awesome old woodcuts of tanuki doing all sorts of things with them. Basically like our legends of dwarves and their beards.

To stay on topic, does anyone know whether children can use a different "caste" than adult versions? ferinstance: slow, grounded "grubs" growing into flying creatures when mature? (or amphibious to land-dwelling swimmers)

[Sean Mirrsen]

In response to "smallest UMPC capable of running DF": http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptops/review/2007/03/27/Sony-Micro-PC-Vaio-VGN-UX1XN/p1

Yes, you can buy about seven UMID M1's for its price. But it is smaller, while having the same specs.

Let's see, Sony Weird Thing's dimensions, 150x95x35 = 498,750 cubic millimeters

UMID mbook m1: 161x96.5x18.1 = 281,210.65 cubic millimeters

Thinness is worth something, the UMID is VERY slightly wider but only half as thick And way cuter.

Indeed, much cuter. I'd rather rather have a pink netbook that can fit in my back pocket than something that looks like a glorified smartphone.

Why would you carry a netbook in your back pocket?

And I got nothing against glorified smartphones, indeed my current "cellular brick" is only a little smaller than that Sony monster, and I carry it on my belt without problems. One has to wonder why DIDN'T Sony add smartphone functionality to a device so small... I've seen actual "smartphones" larger than that.

Anyway, yes, I agree that it's not "actually" smaller. But I don't think you can actually play DF on the go with the M1 mbook. Not even taking into account the lack of a numpad.

I do on a daily basis, today i was installing magma forges while waiting for good at Dwarf Fortress! Since it's a touchscreen, just having On-Screen Keyboard with it's big ol' numpad buttons totally covers.

What I meant was rather that you can't play when there's no place to put it down. With the clamshell screen, you have to devote one hand fully to just holding the thing, and playing DF with one hand is going to be rather awkward sometimes. The Sony thing is held like a gamepad, so your thumbs operate everything, and the numpad can be accessed easily by pressing the Function button (which is how I played DF on my laptop). I've held it in my hands for some time, and I can say it's rather comfortable. If it wasn't for the horrendous pricetag (it costs more now than my laptop did when I bought it, and now it's about twice as expensive), I'd buy it on the spot.

[AbacusWizard]

Hmmm i wonder if the descripton of the goddes from the devblog had changed uppon arival of that beast. So the poeple believe in the form of the monster while the old skeletal picture remained.

The way it works is as follows:
As long as the Megabeast shares spheres with the god in question, impersonation is possible. The people don't necessarily believe that the demon is the diety's true form, but rather, its earthly body. Just as Zeus' true form was never believed to be a bull, but he turned into one nonetheless to mate with mortals.

corrected

I was at first going to mention when he turned into a golden shower, but decided against it since that was an isolated incident.

As far as I know, he never mated with mortals while being a bull, but there could be some such story I don't know of.

One word.
Minotaur.

The Minotaur was indeed the offspring of Queen Pasiphaë after she mated with a white bull--not a god in animal form, but an animal sent by Poseidon to be a sacrifice. The queen's lust for the bull and the monster she later gave birth to were the punishment for not sacrificing the bull to Poseidon as they were supposed to. (However, if I remember correctly Poseidon was sometimes depicted as a bull, so this may descend from an earlier myth in which the bull WAS Poseidon.)

Zeus, on the other hand, DID take the form of a bull (and a seagoing bull at that) to carry off and seduce and/or rape Europa, whom I think was an ancestress of Minos. The whole damn family's all tied up in bull.

Zeus has also taken forms such as human, eagle, cuckoo, swan, cloud, and shower of gold (which may be a euphemism for bribery) to seduce pretty mortal boys and girls. Well, actually the cuckoo was to seduce Hera, a goddess that caught hold of him and wouldn't let go without a promise of marriage.

or even gods(true or false) that mate with mortals, fathering potential semi-divine heroes

I first read that as "semi-divine herpes" which I suppose makes sense too. 

Hey, I like the idea of demons mating with hummens to make, I dunno, tieflings or something.

Sure, if by "tieflings" you mean "powerful sorcerers like Merlin." Guess where he came from.

I had no idea what it was, just that it was rather wtf inducing.

I personally like the legends that say it would play its testicles like a pair of bongo drums.

Or better yet, use them as a club.

[Michael]

Zeus' shtick of seducing women in an animal guise is well known.  While he did not perpetrate the Minotaur, he did abduct another woman, Europa, as a bull.  Also well known is his seduction of Leda as a swan.

Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe had a sidebar remarking on this recurrent theme in the mythology, and offered three speculations as to why.  I can remember two of them. 

The first was "perhaps this reflected the ways of Greek women?", accompanied by a cartoon of two women looking onward, one saying "There goes Penelope, looking for Zeus among the pigs again...".

The second was "perhaps it resolved certain 'inexplicable' pregnancies", accompanied by a cartoon of a woman talking to her husband, her eyes looking to the side (suggesting deceit), saying "So I was walking through the field, and along comes this gorgeous duck!".  The husband just thinks "Zeus!".  That one made me ROFL.

I forget what the third one was, and I have long lost the book.


Also, I can offer a fourth.  If you were an entity with superuser privileges to the Matrix, and wanted to have an date with a mortal she'll never forget, a cool idea would be to shapeshift both you and her into some reasonably cool animal and then test drive the bodies together.  It would be like Disney's Sword in the Stone, only with sex....

[Acanthus117]

Merlin's the son of an Incubus or something, amirite?

[Doomshifter]

I'm picturing a seven legged spider with a human face mark back away from it's head.

I see what you did there.

[Mel_Vixen]

Well we dont just have the Greek gods. The Northern gods are naughty too. From Loki who turned into a mare and fathered/Mothered sleipnir over Loki mating with Giants (to father fenrir and Jörmungandr) to Odin who disguised himself to mate with humans. 

Also Zeus had Leda as Swan. He also seduced Europa as bull.

Anyway my originall question was regarding the phrase:

"(S)he often depicted as .... " on the personalty screen of the gods.

Hey, I like the idea of demons mating with hummens to make, I dunno, tieflings or something.

Sure, if by "tieflings" you mean "powerful sorcerers like Merlin." Guess where he came from.

"Tiefling" translates roughtly to "deep-one" which could be seen as "dwarfs" which share theyr ancestry with the elves (in northern mythology) so Merlin was some kind of Elf/dwarf?

[Jimmy]

One gets the feeling that these tales of gods transforming themselves into animals came about because of some very lonely ancient farmers.

[G-Flex]

"Tiefling" translates roughtly to "deep-one" which could be seen as "dwarfs" which share theyr ancestry with the elves (in northern mythology) so Merlin was some kind of Elf/dwarf?

Translates? I can't find any source for what a "tiefling" is aside from Dungeons & Dragons.

[Kilo24]

"Tiefling" translates roughtly to "deep-one" which could be seen as "dwarfs" which share theyr ancestry with the elves (in northern mythology) so Merlin was some kind of Elf/dwarf?

Translates? I can't find any source for what a "tiefling" is aside from Dungeons & Dragons.

A quick Wikipedia check:
"The name "Tiefling" was coined by Wolfgang Baur, when original Planescape designer David "Zeb" Cook asked for a Germanic-sounding word for humans with fiendish blood.[citation needed] Baur derived the name from Teufel, or "Devil" in German.[citation needed] The direct translation of Tiefling, however, would be "deepling," since tief means "deep." A closer derivation from Teufel would be teufling."