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Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: GarandMarine on 21 Oct 2013, 20:12

Title: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 21 Oct 2013, 20:12
You should learn at least one new thing every day!

What did you guys learn today?

I learned that the Mason-Dixon (sometimes incorrectly called the Mason-Dixie) line is all the way up here in freaking DELAWARE.

That said, eat it yankees!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: cesium133 on 21 Oct 2013, 20:17
It's the line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The town I grew up in is only a couple miles from it. Though, to be fair, most of Maryland is just a couple miles from it.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 21 Oct 2013, 20:26
I learned how to pronounce the original German lyrics for "Es ist ein ros entsprungen" for our christmas concert today...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Akima on 22 Oct 2013, 14:35
I discovered a couple of days ago that the English word "loot" is from the Hindi (originally Sanskrit) word for "rob".
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Valdís on 22 Oct 2013, 14:47
I read stuff about some of the original Nordic figures Christians transposed old Mediterranean saints onto to co-opt those traditions.

I discovered a couple of days ago that the English word "loot" is from the Hindi (originally Sanskrit) word for "rob".

Speaking of which.. The Norse word for robbery "rán" - and rån/ran in modern Swedish and Danish respectively - is also the name of Rán (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A1n), Goddess of the Sea.

Gee, I wonder how they ended up making that association! :roll:
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LTK on 22 Oct 2013, 14:49
I had been wondering if zombies were an invention of modern culture, but it turns out they originate from African folklore, like voodoo. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie), people believed you could make someone a zombie by poisoning them with pufferfish toxin and delirium-inducing drugs. If they survived, the near-death experience and dissociated state of mind would cause them to believe they were resurrected from the dead, and act accordingly.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Masterpiece on 22 Oct 2013, 15:00
I learned something about Turkish Language today!

Apparently, the English (and German) word "Horde" has its origins in the Turkish "ordu" (which is old-Turkish for army). The same goes for the word caviar (from the Turkish havyar) and yoghurt (yoğurt)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Patrick on 22 Oct 2013, 15:19
I learned that the Mason-Dixon (sometimes incorrectly called the Mason-Dixie) line is all the way up here in freaking DELAWARE.

This is correct. It is, however, a popular matter of speculation that the name Dixie is indeed derived from Dixon's name. That's one of several possible origins, though.

Masterpiece, fun fact: Albanian is no longer directly related to any surviving European (or otherwise) language, but borrows heavily from Turkish!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Masterpiece on 22 Oct 2013, 15:47
The Turks were everywhere
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Kugai on 22 Oct 2013, 17:00
Probably due to the Ottomans
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: J on 22 Oct 2013, 17:08
today i learned a bunch of stuff about the history of malaysian comic books
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 22 Oct 2013, 18:37
Today I learned that you can be a famous writer after perpetrating a phrase like "His observation is not through the eyes but through the central physical vision".
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: mtmerrick on 22 Oct 2013, 18:48
learned how to calculate half-lives of radioactive elements today!

also, lots of generic D&D info.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 22 Oct 2013, 19:57
"Half a life, half a life, half a life downward!" 


Apologies to Lord Tennyson. 
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 23 Oct 2013, 09:45
Today I learned that small minded idiots can throw away tens of thousands of dollars of business over not wanting to fill out three lines and sign a forth on a form.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 23 Oct 2013, 09:53
That can be extended to a very large proportion of the population. I speak as one of them: I have spent two months failing to increase my savings account interest rate ten-fold because I can't be bothered to photocopy two documents, fill out a form and post it.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 23 Oct 2013, 16:52
Today I learned that almost any face-to-face interaction you have with a sales rep or vendor might be an ethics violation, but nobody realizes/thinks about it because we all accept that attending vendor lunches and events are just part of the job. (RPA professional ethics class today!)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 23 Oct 2013, 17:00
I wouldn't buy any of my trade accounts lunch, those fuckers can buy ME lunch after all the bullshit they put me through.

May, to give you more context, if your business getting stock on a product you'd done tens of thousands of pound in trade on depended on doing that, would you A. do it, or B. say close the account?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 23 Oct 2013, 19:16
GM, I imagine it's probably different in your industry. This class was for property managers so most of it is in the context of reps who are giving you bids for products/services. Much of the problem arises from the fact that the property manager is acting as an agent for the property owner, so it's not actually "your" money, and that property value is usually based on net income, so if costs increase more than necessary you are actually decreasing the value of the owner's asset (which is a violation of your fiduciary responsibility), and that the majority of costs are passed to the tenants in the form of rent, so when they increase without an actual increase in services, it makes the property a less attractive place to lease, which reduces income because you can't get/keep tenants, which again hurts the NOI and property value. SO if you are taking a higher bid price and receiving personal gain, everyone besides you is getting hurt.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 23 Oct 2013, 19:17
Aha! I see now. HEY LOOK! Learning just occurred in this very thread!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: mtmerrick on 23 Oct 2013, 20:05
A classmate educated me in the Ways Of Mormon today. That's what I get for asking what he was reading :P
That said, most level headed religious person I've ever met.

(and no, he did not convert me, nor do I expect he ever will. Still, educational to learn the way something ticks.)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: mtmerrick on 24 Oct 2013, 16:24
today learned that "Amtrak Police" are a thing.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Grognard on 24 Oct 2013, 17:24
yep.
I see them and DHS cops on my commuter train weekly.
but Amtrak cops?
their jurisdiction is 50' wide and 10k miles long.
heh :D
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: J on 24 Oct 2013, 17:59
attended a free lecture about the association between high cannabis use and schizophrenia
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 25 Oct 2013, 00:46
Sponsored by who?

And I play poker with a railroad officer.  Since the railroad purchased their right-of-ways (rights-of-way?) they have to provide their own security. 

A large part of his job was people who'd been killed on the tracks.  Some jumpers, too (from the train, not onto it).  Accidents at crossings are joint jurisdictions, but those are a lot less common than deaths out in the middle of nowhere. 

Remember, tunnels and bridges used by high-speed freight trains do not make good shortcuts for hikers! 
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 25 Oct 2013, 04:20
I wouldn't buy any of my trade accounts lunch, those fuckers can buy ME lunch after all the bullshit they put me through.

May, to give you more context, if your business getting stock on a product you'd done tens of thousands of pound in trade on depended on doing that, would you A. do it, or B. say close the account?

Oh, you absolutely should do it. I'm just saying that humans are irrational and we're always failing to do things that would take very little effort and get us lots of money!

Today I put into practice a communication model we were taught yesterday. It's called SBAR: Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation. I think it's used all over the place but obviously I was learning it in the context of midwifery practice, so mostly for handing over the care of labouring women or making phone calls. This morning I had to ring up my university to give the name and student number of the girl who will be collecting my uniform on my behalf to the woman who distributes the uniforms. Normally I'd be all flustered and anxious about it, but I just used the model and it worked perfectly! Perhaps my Professional and Ethical Practice module isn't entirely boring waffle.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 25 Oct 2013, 11:05
Today I learned that the little bumps on your tongue are not taste buds, they're fungiform papillae - which means "mushroom shaped nipples" in Latin.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: J on 25 Oct 2013, 11:45
Sponsored by who?

university psych dept. it was quite interesting
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LeeC on 25 Oct 2013, 13:05
at work I pre-fillout my portion of forms when new employees have to sign paperwork.  At the class the other day I decided to have my backup proctor the class so she could get some experience.  One of the new employees asked where my last name originates from (I have yet to meet anyone outside of family with my last name).  She told them and they said "the way he draws his "1s" look like he's from that part of the world.  Considering my family came to the US 141 years ago I just found out I apparently write like my literate ancestors
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Akima on 25 Oct 2013, 15:59
Normally I'd be all flustered and anxious about it, but I just used the model and it worked perfectly!
Pretty much any model that makes you prepare for a phone call, meeting etc. will make it go better. At a minimum, jot down the things you want to say before you pick up the phone. Best, of course, for any "business" matters is to maintain a log of all your communications, but that's a bit of a counsel of perfection.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 25 Oct 2013, 16:02
My mind wanders too far (and fast) for a log of a call to be effective.  Usually info comes and goes too fast to even take decent notes. 

And many of my "business" calls involve a fair amount of vitriol, which doesn't make notetaking any easier...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 27 Oct 2013, 07:41
Today I learned the North American Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) has a guidance and tracking system similar to what we use in guided missiles and that said foxes use them to hunt.


Something others may not have known. A female fox is a Vixen, and a male fox is a Dog.

You can make your own jokes there.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 02 Nov 2013, 02:30
Something others may not have known. A female fox is a Vixen, and a male fox is a Dog.
Female foxes being called vixens isn't common knowledge? Didn't know the name for male foxes, however.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 02 Nov 2013, 05:26
The word "vixen" is a common enough term for a certain kind of human woman now that I think many people learn it independent of it's fluffier origins.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 02 Nov 2013, 11:24
Today I learned that pig farmers use vaccinations to control the taste of the meat.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Pilchard123 on 02 Nov 2013, 11:34
Lovely.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 02 Nov 2013, 17:47
Today I learned about the squalid conditions Death Row inmates live in. Around the clock isolation, poorly ventilated cells, and the fact that they stay there for an average of 15 years before being executed.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 02 Nov 2013, 17:58
Today I learned I can just learn new things from here everyday.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 02 Nov 2013, 18:53
Today I learned about Mad Elf Ale, from Troeg's brewery. 

$54 a case. 

11% alcohol (yeah, that's about twice your average beer/ale). 

Brewed with honey and cherries. 

(http://www.omega-level.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Mad-Elf-Ale.JPG)


Happy holidays! 
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: TheEvilDog on 02 Nov 2013, 19:10
I learned two things today.
1) In Irish Celtic mythology, the Irish people were descended from the god Donn, which in turn allowed them to kick the asses of the race of gods living in Ireland, making it the only mythology where human defeated the gods.
2) I've started going grey less than a month before my 29th birthday...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 04 Nov 2013, 02:25
I'd rather be going gray at 29 than balding at 17. Ugh. Now I have a brushed back mohawk which shaves the thinning areas.

Today I learned a lot about implanting things. Bioproofing things is pretty hard to do at home. Bioproofing being coating things in something that is inert and implantable. Like coating magnets to prevent heavy metal poisoning and degradation. Been looking into implanting some magnets into myself if you didn't guess from that.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 04 Nov 2013, 02:57
There's quite a lot about implanting magnets in the old tattoo thread, starting here (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,7913.msg1000194.html#msg1000194) and spread over the next couple of pages.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Patrick on 04 Nov 2013, 04:16
I learned how to use the shift key to avoid falling to my death in Minecraft.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: UniqueNewYork on 04 Nov 2013, 14:15
Learnt that the white rhino is not so-called because it is white; rather, the "white" portion of the name is a corruption of the Dutch word for "wide", since its snout is wider than that of other rhinos
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 04 Nov 2013, 15:14
There's quite a lot about implanting magnets in the old tattoo thread, starting here (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,7913.msg1000194.html#msg1000194) and spread over the next couple of pages.

As cool as the concept sounds, I don't think I could deal with the pain.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 04 Nov 2013, 15:31
I'm pretty sure I could take it just fine. Not so sure if I could self perform it, though. I can go into a dissociative trance pretty easily where I don't really feel anything at all. It's a pretty handy ability. But doing it to myself... Probably would be good to be self aware. So I'll have to find someone to do it most likely. Or at least a spotter.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 04 Nov 2013, 18:13
Today, I learned that GameCube discs are smaller than a regular CD. I never had or really hung out with anyone who did, but my roommate has one (along with a Nintendo 64) and he left a game laying around in the common area. My mind was blown.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 04 Nov 2013, 20:12
That disc size is pretty standard. I remember my first experience with one of them was a couple years before the gamecube came out, I think. Got a computer game on that size disc from some fast food kid's meal when the first x men movie came out which would have made me about six. Now I see them from time to time as driver discs.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: UniqueNewYork on 04 Nov 2013, 20:14
Today, I learned that GameCube discs are smaller than a regular CD. I never had or really hung out with anyone who did, but my roommate has one (along with a Nintendo 64) and he left a game laying around in the common area. My mind was blown.

Burger King (I think) at one point or another gave CDROMs that size out as Happy Meal toys.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Tulpa on 04 Nov 2013, 20:55
I wanted to say burger king, so you're probably right on that. But I doubt it was a happy meal toy.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: indiespy on 04 Nov 2013, 21:06
Today I learned that my fiances family and my own have "known" each other for the last 500 years. We lived in the same areas in Europe, traveled to America at the same time on the same ship, served side by side in multiple wars and even died together. Yet we are the first in our family's long history to get married.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: J on 04 Nov 2013, 21:34
you can also get optical discs in different shapes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_Compact_Disc)

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Bootable_Business_Card.JPG/640px-Bootable_Business_Card.JPG)
(http://www.happydisc.com.cn/disc/shape%20cd%20replication1.JPG)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: UniqueNewYork on 04 Nov 2013, 21:36
And here I thought the GameCube manual's warning about non circular disks was just making sure they had their bases covered...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 05 Nov 2013, 04:36
That disc size is pretty standard. I remember my first experience with one of them was a couple years before the gamecube came out, I think. Got a computer game on that size disc from some fast food kid's meal when the first x men movie came out which would have made me about six. Now I see them from time to time as driver discs.

I remember that once I got a driver installation disk with a new set of speakers was that size. And then years ago I got a Treasure Planet game as a happy meal toy in that size.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: UniqueNewYork on 05 Nov 2013, 06:26
Today I learned that my fiances family and my own have "known" each other for the last 500 years. We lived in the same areas in Europe, traveled to America at the same time on the same ship, served side by side in multiple wars and even died together. Yet we are the first in our family's long history to get married.

This is beyond cool. How did you figure it out?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: indiespy on 05 Nov 2013, 10:46
Today I learned that my fiances family and my own have "known" each other for the last 500 years. We lived in the same areas in Europe, traveled to America at the same time on the same ship, served side by side in multiple wars and even died together. Yet we are the first in our family's long history to get married.

This is beyond cool. How did you figure it out?
I did research in genealogy for both sides. Then went through different resources for side info.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 05 Nov 2013, 11:56
I got a small CD from some clothing store or other, I was part of their girls' club or something. I can't actually remember except that the CD was really small.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: UniqueNewYork on 05 Nov 2013, 11:59
you can also get optical discs in different shapes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_Compact_Disc)

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Bootable_Business_Card.JPG/640px-Bootable_Business_Card.JPG)
(http://www.happydisc.com.cn/disc/shape%20cd%20replication1.JPG)
I can think of no possible reason for the one that reads "USB Stick" to do so. I mean, it's not like thumbdrives need drivers or anything, right? Isn't that the whole point of em?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 05 Nov 2013, 12:13
I can think of no possible reason for the one that reads "USB Stick" to do so. I mean, it's not like thumbdrives need drivers or anything, right? Isn't that the whole point of em?

Windows 98 had no built-in USB support, so until recently some USB sticks were still sold with a driver floppy or CD.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 05 Nov 2013, 18:24
you can also get optical discs in different shapes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_Compact_Disc)

Notice that they are (mostly) symmetric (the parthenon thingy is stretching it a bit) and the cutout parts are fairly large...

Penn State's mascot is the Nittany Lion, a breed of mountain lion native to the area (Mount Nitanny is visible from the stadium).  One of the logos they use is the lion's pawprint, which has 5 toes (the only remaining specimen, which died in 1903 and was stuffed had 6 toes on the front paws, not an unusual mutation in cats, leaving a 5-toed footprint)

(http://images.nittanyweb.com/scs/images/products/15/large/penn_state_paw_decal_3_5_inch_nittany_lions_psu_p4599.jpg)

Imagine if you will, back in the late 90's, when the admissions department put admissions info (a video tour, application forms, etc) on CD-ROMs and had them shaped like the lion's paw.  It was a good bit rounder than the above image, but the small notches cut out between the toes left it a bit asymmetric, and because they were small, the eddy currents cause it to howl like a siren when the disc spun up...

Our branch campus alone got 3000 of the discs.  System wide?  Probably 100,000 or more.  Every one of them completely useless, unless the users and their neighbors were all stone deaf. 

Learning had occurred! 

Of course, they could have just asked someone...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 27 Nov 2013, 11:13
The Origin of the Days of the Week:
 
Modern: - Comes From:
Monday - Manisdagr, Mani, the Norse Moon Goddess
 Tuesday - Tyrsdagr, Tyr, Norse war god, god of Justice
 Wendeday - Wodinsdagr - Odin All Father
 Thursday - Thorsdagr - Thor. You know who he is. At least the marvel variant.
 Friday - Freyasdagr or Friggsdagr - There is much debate over whether Friday is named Freyja or Frigg. Since this is Norse Heathens.... you can imagine that the debates are very... spirited.
Sunday - Sunnasdagr Sunna is the Norse sun goddess.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 27 Nov 2013, 14:40
The other day I learnt that if someone has a tooth knocked out you should put it in a glass of milk because the calcium helps keep it alive.

A friend had an incident with some stairs at a party and thanks to someone else's quick thinking the dentist was able to put his tooth back.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Patrick on 28 Nov 2013, 14:31
put it in a glass of coke and watch it dissolve over the course of a week!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Aimless on 28 Dec 2013, 21:37
The barrels in which wines are aged matter so much and in such concrete and sciency ways, I had no idea

Things like the pore-size of the oak

whoa
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 28 Dec 2013, 23:12
There are several competing explanations I hadn't known about for why there are more allergies and auto-immune diseases than there used to be. The one I had known about, the hygiene hypothesis, actually has some animal studies and potential mechanisms behind it.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 28 Dec 2013, 23:27
The barrels in which wines are aged matter so much and in such concrete and sciency ways, I had no idea

Things like the pore-size of the oak

whoa

Wine Chemist is an actual no shit career field.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: BeoPuppy on 29 Dec 2013, 08:59
put it in a glass of coke and watch it dissolve over the course of a week!
Myth.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 29 Dec 2013, 19:08
"Resile" is a real word.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Aimless on 30 Dec 2013, 07:45
Wine Chemist is an actual no shit career field.

If I hadn't gone into medicine some sort of food chemistry would probably have been near the top of the list of dream careers :)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Aimless on 05 Jan 2014, 23:48
So "phronesis", roughly translated, means "practical wisdom":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Grognard on 06 Jan 2014, 12:33
LEARNED:
Virginia is full of wuss-empowering morons.
Schools to be closed in NoVA due to the THREAT of extreme cold temps.

?REALLY?

*headdesk*
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 06 Jan 2014, 12:45
I don't know what the weather is like in Virginia but it's not wussy to decide not to force people to go out in life-threatening weather. Teachers often commute for an hour or more; in bad weather they have to set off even earlier. If the district waits until the weather is really bad, people will already have set out and will be in danger trying to get home again.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 06 Jan 2014, 18:06
I don't know what the weather is like in Virginia but it's not wussy to decide not to force people to go out in life-threatening weather. Teachers often commute for an hour or more; in bad weather they have to set off even earlier. If the district waits until the weather is really bad, people will already have set out and will be in danger trying to get home again.

Is it only the low temperatures or did the NoVa area get hit with rain or snow or icy conditions? Lowe temperatures alone shouldn't cancel school unless it's deadly lows like in the plains states...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 07 Jan 2014, 00:33
It's -7 F outside right now.  Roughly -22 C.  I'm an hour north of NoVA.  Our schools didn't close for tomorrow until earlier this evening! 


Unfortunately, my dogs still want to go outside for a walk.  While I'm tempting to tell them to just hold it, I don't think that'll work out too well. 
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 07 Jan 2014, 08:27
My car said it was 2 F when I left for work at 7am. Several counties in the area closed school, but where I live (Montgomery) did not. I do not envy the kids at the bus stop who I passed on my way. Now (11:30am) in NoVa it's a bit warmer, up to 11/feels like -6. At home it's 7/feels like -13.

I don't know how to function in this kind of weather, I can't even imagine -50 like I keep hearing about in the Midwest.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 07 Jan 2014, 09:16
Bain, all you have to do is stay inside and drink a few warm beverages.

This is some miserable bullshit though. Apparently every U.S. state but Hawai'i is experiencing sub-freezing temps. Even MEXICO is sub freezing. That shit's fucked up.


Dennis Quaid tried to tell us man!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 07 Jan 2014, 09:23
Gotta say though, I wish I could be all "sorry man, can't come to work tomorrow because of the Polar Vortex". It just sounds so cool. So much better than my lame "I might be late today because the trains are crap and I can't cycle because of the mud".
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 07 Jan 2014, 12:25
I'm selling beer to people who came out in single digit weather specifically to buy beer. 

I can just see it now - sitting at home, looking at the last few cans, looking at the weather, then deciding "Nope - not gonna be able to make 'em last!" 
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 07 Jan 2014, 13:21
Winds from the east, not so bad in the single digits.
Winds from the south? BLEEPING BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP!!!!! Coastal city + winds out of the south + 20 minute wait for bus = unhappy person. It's not the temperature that are bad, but this wind is a killer.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 07 Jan 2014, 21:05
Today I found out why, if you aim a non-contact thermometer at an incandescent light bulb, it reports the globe temperature and not the filament temperature.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 07 Jan 2014, 21:29
I don't know what the weather is like in Virginia but it's not wussy to decide not to force people to go out in life-threatening weather. Teachers often commute for an hour or more; in bad weather they have to set off even earlier. If the district waits until the weather is really bad, people will already have set out and will be in danger trying to get home again.

Is it only the low temperatures or did the NoVa area get hit with rain or snow or icy conditions? Lowe temperatures alone shouldn't cancel school unless it's deadly lows like in the plains states...

There were some deadly wind chills, not to mention school buses aren't exactly well-heated most of the time.

I don't know about NoVa, but the mountains of Virginia got slammed with snow as well.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 09 Jan 2014, 17:13
Yesterday I found out that garlic mouthwash is a thing and that there's a good reason for it.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 09 Jan 2014, 17:19
Yesterday I found out that garlic mouthwash is a thing and that there's a good reason for it.

To ward off vampires?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 10 Jan 2014, 03:05
It has antibiotic properties. 


Also repels fleas...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 10 Jan 2014, 10:02
Is it for humans or pets?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 10 Jan 2014, 10:10
I learned you can stump a phone pollster by being concerned about an issue that wasn't normally what people are concerned about and being inoffensive, polite, and thinking before giving answers- the guy had never encountered a person like that before  :-D
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: cesium133 on 10 Jan 2014, 10:23
I've only ever been called by a phone pollster once, and it was early on a Saturday morning. What I told the pollster may be a big reason for why I was never called again.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 10 Jan 2014, 14:49
For humans. It fights decay bacteria.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 10 Jan 2014, 15:39
For humans. It fights decay bacteria.

As long as it doesn't have the garlic smell, it's not so bad of an idea...but if it still has it then you need mouthwash to cover up the smell of the mouthwash  :-o
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Aimless on 12 Jan 2014, 09:35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_computer
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 12 Jan 2014, 14:58
The geographical center of North America is Rugby, North Dakota.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 12 Jan 2014, 18:39
Rugby seems a little far north for the dead center...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 12 Jan 2014, 18:54
Rugby seems a little far north for the dead center...

(http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/north-america/usa/alaska/map_of_alaska.jpg)

The geographic center of the Lower 48 is near Lebanon, Kansas.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 12 Jan 2014, 19:05
I have the oddest urge to go to Deadhorse, Alaska.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 12 Jan 2014, 19:06
I have the oddest urge to go to Deadhorse, Alaska.

Just don't beat anyone there.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Grognard on 12 Jan 2014, 19:55
one of tese years i'll take na allaskan vacation.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: GarandMarine on 12 Jan 2014, 20:14
I've been twice, it's lovely in the summer.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 12 Jan 2014, 21:00
Rugby seems a little far north for the dead center...

It's actually true (http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=11375)
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: jwhouk on 12 Jan 2014, 21:26
No it isn't. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby,_North_Dakota)
Quote
According to a listing by the U.S. Geological Survey (http://edc2.usgs.gov/pubslists/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.php#Distances), Rugby is actually approximately 15 miles (24 km) from the geographic center of North America (6 miles (9.7 km) west of Balta), and even this designation carries no official status.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Masterpiece on 13 Jan 2014, 02:32
I think Unalaska sounds more interesting
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 13 Jan 2014, 05:17
No it isn't. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby,_North_Dakota)
Quote
According to a listing by the U.S. Geological Survey (http://edc2.usgs.gov/pubslists/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.php#Distances), Rugby is actually approximately 15 miles (24 km) from the geographic center of North America (6 miles (9.7 km) west of Balta), and even this designation carries no official status.

"A random cornfield in the general area of Rugby, North Dakota" doesn't work as well as saying "Rugby, North Dakota."
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 13 Jan 2014, 05:28
Windows XP requires more storage than the human genome: http://www.tmsoft.com/article-genome.html (http://www.tmsoft.com/article-genome.html).

Actually, I don't know where that article got the 750MB for the human genome - I'm just working on pricing up a computer system based on a requirement of 250GB per genome (we're looking at 10,000 genomes, so 2.5 Exabytes).
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 13 Jan 2014, 05:35
I'm utterly at a loss to work out why you would need a computer system with storage based on the human genome, but that's almost certainly due to my near-complete ignorance of what you do and what is being done with DNA. Please elaborate if you can!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 13 Jan 2014, 05:45
Not storage based on the genome, but storage of the genomes.

We are working on the effects of drugs in the human body (cancer treatment, mainly, in my department).  When comparing the effects in different people, a comparison of their genomes may be one thing that leads to a better understanding of the mechanisms that the drug invokes.  Or maybe a feature of the genome can be identified that would enable prediction of the effectiveness of the drug in certain individuals (or even of their susceptibility to specific cancers).  I can't go much further, not actually being a bioscientist myself!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LTK on 13 Jan 2014, 05:51
Windows XP requires more storage than the human genome: http://www.tmsoft.com/article-genome.html (http://www.tmsoft.com/article-genome.html).

Actually, I don't know where that article got the 750MB for the human genome - I'm just working on pricing up a computer system based on a requirement of 250GB per genome (we're looking at 10,000 genomes, so 2.5 Exabytes).
I assume you're not writing the genetic code as a string of 1s and 0s directly onto a storage device, which is what the article is describing. Presumably that would require much less bits than storing it as an actual file that programs can read and write to. Even writing the genetic code as a string of ATCGs in a text document would require much more than 750MB.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 13 Jan 2014, 06:01
Paul, that does make more sense, but now I realise that I don't really understand what a genome is and how you can store one. Are you storing descriptions of them, as data on a computer? Presumably you're not somehow stuffing little tubs of DNA samples into a computer shell.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 13 Jan 2014, 06:05
@LTK:
Much computer storage is in binary, though, especially with huge datasets; if the code were stored in ASCII, then it would compress dramatically using common algorithms, but I know from an article on the subject I've just read that gzip compresses a conventionally stored genome by only about 35%.

@May:
The genome is the actual sequence of bases (A, T, C, G) in all the DNA of the individual; i.e. the definition of all the genes on all the chromosomes (I don't know if mitochondrial DNA is included).  Essentially it is the complete chemical formula of the whole lot.  The term "sequencing" DNA is used, because the process is determining that sequence.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LTK on 13 Jan 2014, 06:09
The article compares the genome to Windows XP when it is configured and installed, but a better comparison would be with the installation CD for Windows XP.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Barmymoo on 13 Jan 2014, 06:12
Right, I think I understand up to my capacity for understanding stuff like this! I struggle with molecular biology and really any form of science I can't see, because I don't have the tools for thinking about it. But we briefly covered DNA at university in a single one hour lecture, so I at least recognise the words...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Aimless on 13 Jan 2014, 06:21
Actually, I don't know where that article got the 750MB for the human genome - I'm just working on pricing up a computer system based on a requirement of 250GB per genome (we're looking at 10,000 genomes, so 2.5 Exabytes).

While the size of the average human genome may indeed in some way somewhere sometimes be ca. 750MB, the hardware will be used to handle extremely large datasets required for sequencing, analysing, aligning and backing up millions of overlapping snippets of DNA that, taken as a whole, account for many copies of several (in the case of pharmaceutival research, perhaps hundreds?) variants (rather than single straightforward genomes).

Hardware-gobblers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_sequencing#Coverage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_assembly

Data requirements:

http://www.avadis-ngs.com/support/ngs-data-storage-requirements

Overview of one method:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Sequencing_%28NGS%29/De_novo_assembly#Comparing_datasets

Horrible gargantuan files:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAMtools
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 13 Jan 2014, 06:36
The last computer system I installed for work on genomes has two 250TB storage arrays, and a processing cluster with 256 cores and 16GB of main memory available for each (i.e. 4TB of main memory).  When running flat out it draws 39A from the 240V mains; we had to have an extra air conditioning unit installed in the computer room before we could turn it on!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LTK on 13 Jan 2014, 07:45
The article compares the genome to Windows XP when it is configured and installed, but a better comparison would be with the installation CD for Windows XP.
To sate my own curiosity, I've discovered that an original Windows XP disk contains considerably less than 750MB; no more than 600, in fact. The comparison will fall down anyway, because if you follow that analogy then inserting the installation disk in the drive would prompt it to start replicating the entire system, disk included, and it would install a different set of programs on each individual system and network the whole bunch into a massive machine whose primary function is to produce half of an installation disk that is then combined with another half a disk of another network of systems.

If Windows XP did that, tech support would be a nightmare.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 13 Jan 2014, 09:43
No it isn't. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby,_North_Dakota)
Quote
According to a listing by the U.S. Geological Survey (http://edc2.usgs.gov/pubslists/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.php#Distances), Rugby is actually approximately 15 miles (24 km) from the geographic center of North America (6 miles (9.7 km) west of Balta), and even this designation carries no official status.

Most of the other sources I encountered said the same thing: Rugby is the center. Why? Batla is too small(56 or so residents) and being the county seat of the county both towns are in it gets the default title...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 13 Jan 2014, 09:46
The last computer system I installed for work on genomes has two 250TB storage arrays, and a processing cluster with 256 cores and 16GB of main memory available for each (i.e. 4TB of main memory).  When running flat out it draws 39A from the 240V mains; we had to have an extra air conditioning unit installed in the computer room before we could turn it on!

Liquid or gaseous cooling is out of the question with that hardware I take it...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 13 Jan 2014, 10:46
Three billion base pairs, each with four possible states (two bits). Before compression, six billion bits or 750MB. There are so many repeats that it should be highly compressible.

Today I heard a good example of talking down an upset person in a customer service situation, using a soothing tone of voice and empathizing with the other person's problems. Today I learned that sometimes the customer needs to talk down a weeping "customer service" employee.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: 94ssd on 16 Jan 2014, 12:10
There has actually been a Supreme Court case where the decision was based on the Third Amendment, although it didn't have anything to do with quartering soldiers. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the court ruled that the Third Amendment shows that it was the Framer's Intent for executive powers to be limited even during wartime. The Federal Government had seized steel plants to assist in the Korean War.

Engblom v. Carey, which was decided by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, is the biggest case that directly involve the Third Amendment. In that case, New York state prison guards went on strike and were evicted from their on-site housing. National Guardsmen were brought in to guard the prisons and lived in those homes.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 16 Jan 2014, 13:12
I learned that no matter how many times you try to tell someone an idiosyncrasy of something that only a local would know they just won't listen to it. They ask a question, the don't like the answer, the ignore the answer and ask the same question again at another time  :roll:
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: LookingIn on 16 Jan 2014, 13:22
There has actually been a Supreme Court case where the decision was based on the Third Amendment, although it didn't have anything to do with quartering soldiers. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the court ruled that the Third Amendment shows that it was the Framer's Intent for executive powers to be limited even during wartime. The Federal Government had seized steel plants to assist in the Korean War.

The wording of that ruling is more telling: not without congressional approval. It could be done, but requires help from Congress.

Quote
Engblom v. Carey, which was decided by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, is the biggest case that directly involve the Third Amendment. In that case, New York state prison guards went on strike and were evicted from their on-site housing. National Guardsmen were brought in to guard the prisons and lived in those homes.

Ruling was one way, but the outcome went another way...it still went against the guards at the lower levels after the ruling, reason being the state officials would not have been aware of the interpretation.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Method of Madness on 16 Jan 2014, 13:44
I'm just working on pricing up a computer system based on a requirement of 250GB per genome (we're looking at 10,000 genomes, so 2.5 Exabytes).
Wouldn't that be "only" 2.5 Petabytes?
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: pwhodges on 16 Jan 2014, 13:49
Oops!  Yes...
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 16 Jan 2014, 13:52
I don't have to trim my own ear hair!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: celticgeek on 16 Jan 2014, 14:23
Bill Cosby defines "old age" as "when hair stops growing out of your head, and starts growing out of your ears".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 16 Jan 2014, 14:35
Oops!  Yes...
That's ok, Paul! Learning has occurred!
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Carl-E on 18 Jan 2014, 16:58
I don't have to trim my own ear hair!

Not sure I want to know the answer to this, but...

who's doing it, then? 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 21 Jan 2014, 11:08
Babylonian medical texts are really cool. Today, while discussing epilepsy and its association with psychosis, we were reminded of this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18479392

Quote
The lines read in transcription:

ˇsumma am¯elu antaˇsubbˆub ¯ el ¯uri...q¯at etimmi q¯at m¯amˆıti... eli-ˇsu ibaˇ sˇsi alˆu lemnu ireddi-ˇ s´ u...

and may be literally translated:

“If a man has been suffering from antaˇsubbˆu, b¯ el ¯uri, q¯at etimmi or q¯at m¯amˆıti, and an al ˆ u lemnu then begins to in- flict him with ideas of persecution...”

Of the terms mentioned, the first antaˇsubbˆ u, is a Sume- rian loanword and has long been understood to mean “the falling disease,” that is, epilepsy characterized by major seizures. The term b¯ el ¯uri which follows means literally “the lord of the roof,” and was evidently the ancient term for an absence attack, the common rolling up of the eyes being caused, supposedly, by a demon lurking in such a position as the roof of a house. q¯at etimmi means “the hand (power or influence) of a ghost,” and although it may have had a wider significance, we have suggested (Kinnier Wilson & Reynolds, 1990) that it refers to nocturnal epilepsy. The word m¯amˆıti in q¯at m¯amˆıti literally means “oath,” but was used medically to denote conditions in- volving obsession or repeated action, as if the patient had sworn an oath to perform a certain action and could not be dissuaded from doing it. In the context of epilepsy, the term may readily be understood as referring to the au- tomatisms of epilepsy or postictal confusion. The words alˆu lemnu translate, nonspecifically, to “evil demon.”

I sometimes feel like we don't learn nearly enough Babylonian medicine :o
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 21 Jan 2014, 14:28
In addition to counterfeiting, the Secret Service also investigates identity theft. I learned this via a news story about the Target incident.

I have also just learned of the giant statue of George M. Cohan in New York City. I am a theatre major who has been to NYC three times. It is sad that I had to learn this via my musical theatre history class.

Although I also learned from the same class that Cohan was strongly anti-Union. In 1919, Cohan said that if Actor's Equity won the labor dispute they were in, he would quit show-business and run an elevator. A journalist retorted that to run an elevator Mr. Cohan would have to join a union.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LookingIn on 21 Jan 2014, 15:35
I have also just learned of the giant statue of George M. Cohan in New York City. I am a theatre major who has been to NYC three times. It is sad that I had to learn this via my musical theatre history class.

Although I also learned from the same class that Cohan was strongly anti-Union. In 1919, Cohan said that if Actor's Equity won the labor dispute they were in, he would quit show-business and run an elevator. A journalist retorted that to run an elevator Mr. Cohan would have to join a union.

Have you seen the Miller Building in Times Square and it's famous statues dedicated to the first ladies of theatre?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Carl-E on 22 Jan 2014, 10:12
I have also just learned of the giant statue of George M. Cohan in New York City.

Had my picture taken with it the only time I've been to a broadway show. 

There's a reason...

The Cohans (George, his parents and his sister) were residents of my great-grandmother's boarding house when they were performing in New York.  George got along famously with my grandmother, though she was about a decade younger.  Nevertheless, jokes were made of a "betrothal" (often in exchange for room and board when things were thin for the Cohans). 

George met Mary, so he never wrote a song called "Martha" (My grandmother's name), and my Gramma married a nice first generation German Engineer instead.  But had it gone a little differently...

Well, my last name would be Cohan.  Of course, it wouldn't be me, but... you get the idea. 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 22 Jan 2014, 13:42
I have also just learned of the giant statue of George M. Cohan in New York City.

Had my picture taken with it the only time I've been to a broadway show.

Our professor said when he got to New York to start his acting career, he got off the subway in Times Square, dropped his bags at the base of the statue, and said "I'm here, George!"

Quote
But had it gone a little differently...

Well, my last name would be Cohan.  Of course, it wouldn't be me, but... you get the idea.

Still, it's awesome that you have such a close connection to Broadway's first leading man.

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 23 Jan 2014, 14:18
More news learning - it is against the law to leave your vehicle running and unoccupied, punishable by a $50 fine. Although I have violated this a couple times, I definitely understand how it can be a safety concern as well as an environmental one.

This was mentioned because car thefts increase in the winter
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 23 Jan 2014, 16:18
Yeah, I never understand why people do that. You're basically asking for your car to be stolen.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 03 Feb 2014, 14:43
Today I learned that Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera are not the same person. They look very similar, though. :psyduck:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 03 Feb 2014, 14:53
Jesse Eisenberg is definitely the better actor.
Title: Re: Learning has occured
Post by: Patrick on 04 Feb 2014, 02:46
The barrels in which wines are aged matter so much and in such concrete and sciency ways, I had no idea

Things like the pore-size of the oak

whoa

Wine Chemist is an actual no shit career field.

Lemme tell you bout the shit I gotta convince rich white people about every day, dogg
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Carl-E on 04 Feb 2014, 11:40
So I was at a ukelele event (took my daughter, she learned in the hospital), and recognized a few people.  We were talking, and suddenly realized all three of us had part time jobs related to alcohol.  I sell beer, one of the others sells wines, and the third is a bartender. 


We all depend on alcoholics for our livelihood.  Because face it, the recreational drinkers just don't buy enough.  It's the daily customers that pay the bills...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 07 Feb 2014, 09:01
According to NPR, there are only three licensed midwives in the entire state of Maryland!

I found some more info - apparently Maryland doesn't allow CPMs to oversee home births, only midwives who are also certified nurses and work with an OB/GYN. Several groups are trying to get the more restrictive laws changed.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 07 Feb 2014, 09:06
one of my wife's friends is a CNM.
she's trying to get my wife to get trained.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Barmymoo on 07 Feb 2014, 10:19
The difficulty of practising as a midwife is one of the (admittedly numerous) reasons I won't be moving to the USA to live permanently. Are you looking into having a midwife? Can out-of-state midwives come in?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 07 Feb 2014, 10:22
I have no idea, it was just mentioned in the radio news this morning that somebody had brought up reforms in the state house, but apparently they tried it last year too and that one never made it out of council.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 19 Feb 2014, 09:26
The past few weeks have been chock full o' learnin' :o among other things, I've learned a new structured way to discuss functional seizures with patients, learned a few "new" tricks for dealing with tricky migraine in combination with other chronic headache, learned about some really cool changes to the field of parkinsons wrt disease course as well as a few mysterious phenomena r/t a specific treatment regime, learned that there are DBS-systems that can use feedback mechanisms in order to activate and modulate themselves based on activity rather than just being go go go all the time, learned about some cool research into neurological aspects of space-travel... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's been a cavalcade of interesting facts and observations.

The two highlights:

- apparently the annual number of people in northern Sweden who ask to undergo some sort of gender-/sex-change procedure has nearly doubled in the last few years.

- S.A.D. follows V.D. :D
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 22 Feb 2014, 07:30
Grandi's series is fun!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 26 Feb 2014, 06:34
I leveled up my engineering skill a lot this week, with focus on the computer and electrical sub-skills. I've done wiring and stuff before but setting up this cable rig to do my own car audio is a first for me in my personal life, and also marks freedom from the tryanny of the high prices of the car audio install guys. I also diagnosed, and repaired my computer from a catastrophic failure in under 24 hours pausing only to sleep/wait for the shop to open and confirm my diagnosis with my old man, who's been coding since Jesus was private, and "writing code" meant getting out a hole puncher.

So GM leveled up!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 26 Feb 2014, 10:06
Update: Install complete, I didn't mess up the wiring harness, the sound quality is vastly improved over the OME radio. I think I will want to upgrade the speakers at some point to a barebones quality kit, but that's about it. Oh and I confirmed I need an new Audio Aux cable.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 06 Mar 2014, 04:09
We've started to take the kitchen apart and my heart has been filled with equal parts hatred and admiration for the carpenter who put it together 5-6 decades ago. Everything is in great shape and so ridiculously sturdy, with all cabinets fitted perfectly... and stuck fast to one another so tight it's like the entire kitchen is just one single many-doored multidimensional indestructible cabinet.

In taking it apart (aka wrecking it) I've learned a little about cabinet-making, but, more importantly, I've come to the realisation that the crowbar is one of my favourite tools. So simple and elegant, yet so versatile. Two lever classes, a makeshift chisel, a hammer, a nail-puller... it's just beautiful. I have also learned that they used to be called "iron crows".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 06 Mar 2014, 09:34
Is it bigger on the inside?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 07 Mar 2014, 12:47
It's just... heavy :x

Also, the plural of anecdote is data:

http://evidence-based-science.blogspot.se/2009/11/plural-of-anecdote-is-data.html

mind = blown
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 07 Mar 2014, 13:04

S1  =  1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 ...
1 - S1  =  1 - [1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 ...]  =  1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 ...  =  S1
1 - S1  = S1
S1  =  1/2



S2  =  1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 - 6 + 7 ...
2S2  =  1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 - 6 + 7 ... +
                  1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 - 6 + 7 ...
2S2  =  1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 ...
2S2  =  S1
S2  =  1/4



S3  =  1 + 2 + 3 +4 + 5 + 6 ...
S3 - S2  =  1 + 2 + 3 +4 + 5 + 6 ... -
                   1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 - 6
S3 - S2  =  0 + 4 + 0 + 8 + 0 + 12 ...  =  4 + 8 + 12 ...
S3 - S2  =  4 [1 + 2 + 3 ...]  =  4S3
S3 - S2  =  4S3
- S2  =  3S3
-1/4  =  3S3
-1/12  =  S3
-1/12  =  1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 ...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 07 Mar 2014, 13:06
stop that.

you're reinforcing my perception that I'm dumb as a box of rocks.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Barmymoo on 07 Mar 2014, 15:04
It's just... heavy :x

Also, the plural of anecdote is data:

http://evidence-based-science.blogspot.se/2009/11/plural-of-anecdote-is-data.html

mind = blown

It's a clever quote, because of course it's true - if enough people say that something has happened to them, then collectively their answers are labelled "research data" - but also it is not true - saying something multiple times doesn't increase its validity.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 07 Mar 2014, 15:27
Though not very good data. For starters, aggregating anecdotes is just going to lead to a massive confirmation bias. Think of what happens when you compare the number of anecdotes about Jews being greedy to the number of anecdotes about them not being greedy.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 07 Mar 2014, 19:33
Also keep in mind, that type of person will see a Jew and a non-Jew being greedy on separate occasions. His response to the non-Jew:  "what a greedy asshole!" His response to the Jew? "Jews are greedy assholes!"

Somewhat similar example here:

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/how_it_works.png)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Loki on 08 Mar 2014, 00:24
["Proof" that the sum of all positive integers is negative]

Pilchard, I assume that with your background, you know you are building a sum over (-1)^i*i, so basically an infinite series which is not absolutely convergent. I assume this is where the error comes from.

That said, well trolled *highfive*
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 08 Mar 2014, 00:35
stop that.

you're reinforcing my perception that I'm dumb as a box of rocks.

Infinite series problems require more than just intelligence.

Yesterday I learned that in a criminal case literally anything you say can be used against you. I was watching a DUI trial and one piece of evidence against the defendant was her answer when the cop asked her what time it was.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 15 Mar 2014, 18:44
Yesterday I learned that in a criminal case literally anything you say can be used against you. I was watching a DUI trial and one piece of evidence against the defendant was her answer when the cop asked her what time it was.

If a cop tried to test my sobriety by asking what the date was, I'd fail. I NEVER know that shit.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 17 Mar 2014, 09:42
Today  I learned, much to my surprise, that a Schlage and a Medeco lock can be keyed alike.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 24 Mar 2014, 15:50
People still actually own huge ranches with fancy names like "Pinnacle" and "Little Ponderosa." Learned this by driving down the Interstate in Texas.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 24 Mar 2014, 17:54
Today I learned that my garage door is so obsolete that I can't get parts for it, and that keeping spares is of limited value since a typical garage door mechanic won't work on something so far short of contemporary safety standards.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 24 Mar 2014, 17:57
What's so unsafe about it?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 24 Mar 2014, 18:00
Spring failures can be uncontained and there are moving parts capable of catching and detaching fingers.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Patrick on 28 Mar 2014, 14:04
Sounds like you're fucked and have to buy a new one :(
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Barmymoo on 08 Apr 2014, 07:27
A couple of times I have come across brief, unexplained references to hot and cold theory in relation to Chinese culture. I also came across the concept as a more wildly-held set of beliefs in other countries in the ?17th century. I've started looking into it a bit, but can anyone, such as Akima, expand on the concept? I'm reading this article (http://www.pacificcollege.edu/acupuncture-massage-news/articles/471-theory-and-practice-for-traditional-chinese-medicine.html) as a basic overview but wondered if there were regional variations and how much it's still believed or practised.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 08 Apr 2014, 20:07
I am not trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine), and having received a modern scientific education, I am skeptical about many aspects. However TCM is very widely accepted in China, throughout China's zone of cultural influence in East/South East Asia, and wherever there is any significant population of Chinese people. In Australia, practitioners must be registered under the national registration and accreditation scheme with the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia, and meet the Board's Registration Standards, in order to practise legally. Regardless of the actual efficacy of TCM, its cultural influence is immense. There is a widespread idea, for example, that drinking cold water is damaging to the stomach, which is tied to TCM ideas about heat and cold, though it might well have had a purely pragmatic basis when unboiled water was not safe to drink.

TCM is very old, long predating any scientific understanding of disease, and has many similarities with the ideas of the Ancient Greeks (which persisted in Europe until at least the 17th century), particularly the idea of bodily and emotional health being based on the "humours (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism)". TCM also is heavily influenced by Taoist ideas of balance between opposing forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine#Philosophical_background), among which are included heat and cold, two of the "Six Pernicious Influences." The basic idea is that certain foods, medicines, and activities promote heat or cold, and that if a patient's symptoms suggest that they are suffering from an excess of either, diet or herbs will be suggested to exert a countervailing influence.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Barmymoo on 09 Apr 2014, 01:51
Yes, it was the humours I was thinking of but couldn't remember the name of. Thank you, that's helpful. Like any other cultural practice I won't assume it applies to all Chinese families I meet, but it's definitely helpful to be aware of the possibility that a Chinese woman might prefer not to have ice in her water jug, for instance (fetching jugs of water is a good first year student task!).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 09 Apr 2014, 02:41
There is a widespread idea, for example, that drinking cold water is damaging to the stomach, which is tied to TCM ideas about heat and cold, though it might well have had a purely pragmatic basis when unboiled water was not safe to drink.

a Chinese woman might prefer not to have ice in her water jug, for instance

At the age of 13 I stayed in the South of France for a couple of months, in high summer.  After a while I came up in hives, to the extent that my hosts took me to their doctor.  He told me that the iced water I was drinking because of the heat was upsetting my liver; so I stopped, and the hives went.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: bainidhe_dub on 09 Apr 2014, 08:14
Yes, it was the humours I was thinking of but couldn't remember the name of. Thank you, that's helpful. Like any other cultural practice I won't assume it applies to all Chinese families I meet, but it's definitely helpful to be aware of the possibility that a Chinese woman might prefer not to have ice in her water jug, for instance (fetching jugs of water is a good first year student task!).

This is definitely something I've read about elsewhere - an article about cultural awareness vs stereotypes, I think. A study found that Chinese and South Asian women had higher rates of dehydration following delivery, and they eventually discovered that it was because the women were refusing the ice chips that the hospitals usually provided.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 09 Apr 2014, 16:09
Today I learned that "gung ho" is from Chinese and that I've been wrong about its meaning for decades.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 09 Apr 2014, 17:56
Today I learned that my garage door is so obsolete that I can't get parts for it, and that keeping spares is of limited value since a typical garage door mechanic won't work on something so far short of contemporary safety standards.

My aunt moved into a new sub-divison and within a few months almost everyone's garage doors had become crumpled. The developers fronted the replacements to avoid a class-action suit.

Here's your learning dose (http://www.becker-poliakoff.com/Files/1408_dehaan_litigation_062904.pdf) for why they were able to threaten a lawsuit, I looked it up because I wasn't 100% sure myself.

Quote
The second type of implied warranty is the warranty of good workmanlike construction. This warranty requires that a home or unit will be constructed in compliance with local or state building codes and with non-defective, high quality materials. Pursuant to the warranty of good workmanlike construction, the developer-builder warrants that the home or unit is free from latent defects of a substantial nature caused by a failure to construct the home in a skillful manner.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 09 Apr 2014, 18:02
Today I learned that "gung ho" is from Chinese and that I've been wrong about its meaning for decades.

What did you think it meant/where it came from?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Apr 2014, 18:32
I've always heard it as an adjective meaning enthusiastic about an upcoming endeavor. "Bob was gung ho about the project."
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 09 Apr 2014, 23:47
That's kinda like the modern Marine Corps usage, where it's used to describe an enthusiastic or motivated individual or unit in addition to it's traditional place in Marine Corps terminology as a battle or rallying cry. It can also be used with a slightly sarcastic bent to imply one is TOO motivated/enthusiastic.

As Akima said else where the translation works out, but is still probably terrible Chinese. From what I understand "Gōng hé" is a shortened version and slogan of the "gōngyè hézuòshè" (工業合作社) or Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, which was abbreviated as INDUSCO in English. It entered usage with the Marine Corps courtesy of Major Evans Carlson, famously of the 2nd Marine Raider battalion in WW2, sayeth the Major: "I was trying to build up the same sort of working spirit I had seen in China where all the soldiers dedicated themselves to one idea and worked together to put that idea over. I told the boys about it again and again. I told them of the motto of the Chinese Cooperatives, Gung Ho. It means Work Together-Work in Harmony...." from the 2nd Marine Raiders the term spread through Marine Corps culture and language, with the help of touchstone pieces like the movie "Gung Ho" about the 2nd Marine Raiders, and it's now a firmly entrenched part of Marine culture and vocabulary.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/gungho.html

This short paper however suggests that even what I learned is off, and that the Major was primarily inspired by the Chinese 8th Route Army, who themselves used to the term. *shrug* we were taught the above about Gung Ho in boot camp, even as we learned what it meant, I've never heard the bit about Carlson's time with the 8th Route Army before.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 10 Apr 2014, 02:53
As Akima said else where the translation works out, but is still probably terrible Chinese.
Yes, it is. "Work together" is just the meaning of the individual characters, it's not really proper Chinese at all. A more correct way to say "Let's work together!" would be 共同努力吧 (gòngtóngnǔlìba).
Quote
I've never heard the bit about Carlson's time with the 8th Route Army before.
Well... That is probably because 8th Route Army was communist, and after the way nobody wanted to talk about that in the USA.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 10 Apr 2014, 04:05
I'm thinking it's more a time/speed thing. The bit about the coops is true, and we're indoctrinating new Marines when we're teaching this stuff, so of the two units we're going to focus on the Marine Raiders.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 11 Apr 2014, 21:42
Today I learned that "gung ho" is from Chinese and that I've been wrong about its meaning for decades.

What did you think it meant/where it came from?

I had no idea where it came from and had believed it meant something more like "militaristic" or "trigger-happy".

Today I learned what strike anchors are and how to install them.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 12 Apr 2014, 06:42
Jingoistic is more what you're looking for there.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 13 Apr 2014, 22:20
Today I learned how to install a Bosch Evolution wiper blade on a VW Rabbit. It involves taking a part that is hinged to turn only one way and turning it the other way.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Loki on 14 Apr 2014, 00:10
Oh, yesterday I learned how to assemble a computer!
At least in theory. That is, from YouTube.
And more like "how you'd assemble a computer in 2008"  which included the guy repeatedly pointing out he was installing a network card and not a modem.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 21 Apr 2014, 12:30
Today I learned that in middle and early modern English, "yay" and "nay" were used to respond to a positively-framed question, while "yes" and "no" were used to respond to a negatively-framed question.

Example: "Is he coming?" "Nay, he is not." vs. "Is he not coming?" "No, he is not."
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 21 Apr 2014, 12:32
Interesting. Also weird, I thought it was "aye" and "nay". When did "aye" replace "yay"?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 21 Apr 2014, 12:46
Actually spelled "yea," oops. But I'm not sure.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 21 Apr 2014, 12:52
Yea and aye are different, though distantly from the same root.  Aye meaning "ever" and aye indicating assent ("the ayes have it") are from different sources, the second one probably from I (meaning "I" agree).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: ankhtahr on 21 Apr 2014, 12:55
Oh, yesterday I learned how to assemble a computer!
At least in theory. That is, from YouTube.
And more like "how you'd assemble a computer in 2008"  which included the guy repeatedly pointing out he was installing a network card and not a modem.
bwahaha
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: 94ssd on 21 Apr 2014, 15:18
Oh, yesterday I learned how to assemble a computer!
At least in theory. That is, from YouTube.
And more like "how you'd assemble a computer in 2008"  which included the guy repeatedly pointing out he was installing a network card and not a modem.
bwahaha

I had to take a stage management book. It was more like "how to Stage Manage in 2000." It only showed its age in the technology chapter, where the author declared the joys of "new" e-mail and instant messaging technologies as stage management tools, but suggested you keep a landline in the theatre for reliability.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 12 May 2014, 17:50
I learned a word today: patibulary.

It was not in either of the dictionaries in my Kindle, but further research reveals that it means:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 24 May 2014, 15:44
We went for a short walk during which my wife was puzzled by a strange scent which reminded her of walking around in a forest picking mushrooms. A little later, frickin' rainstorm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/storm-scents-smell-rain/

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3023/what-s-that-smell-right-before-it-rains-plus

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 24 May 2014, 15:58
Sounds...afwully...familiar... (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php?topic=28964.msg1185692#msg1185692)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 25 May 2014, 07:09
I didn't know there was a science thread! I'm gonna have to leave it open and catch up later.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 25 May 2014, 07:24
But this, however, I did not know:

Quote
A couple UK scientists, wondering how Bactrian camels in the Gobi desert were supposedly able to sniff out water from 50 miles away, proposed that the animals were actually smelling geosmin carried by the wind from oases.

A survival trait so obviously useful to camels would likewise be advantageous to us. Long ago we were mainly nomads wandering in arid regions. It’s easy to imagine a parched band trudging mapless in the desert looking for the next watering hole. Then the breeze picks up, and what do they detect? Had they lacked the appropriate olfactory adaptation, nothing, with possibly disastrous consequences. As it was, if they were fortunate, they might smell the faint odor of moist earth, and with it the promise that they'd live another day.

Some time ago I was wondering how desert animals are able to do that when there are no olfactory receptors for water. So learning has occurred once more!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 15 Jun 2014, 14:23

The thing about rolls of foil blew my frickin' mind
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 15 Jun 2014, 16:43
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aimless on 15 Jun 2014, 16:51
I have never peeled bananas any other way and I usually just overlap slices of meat rather than cutting them in half (rarely eat square bread anyway) but that foil roll thing I mean just whoa. I mean, we usually use a really neat hand-held dispenser thing the ginger brought home from Japan but now I almost wanna stop using it...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 28 Jun 2014, 21:35
Some learning for you today:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/1535750_307748792716550_4775180774558037662_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 29 Jun 2014, 03:31
I thought that was the safety spoon.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: jwhouk on 29 Jun 2014, 04:28
Some learning for you today:

Linked Image (https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/1535750_307748792716550_4775180774558037662_n.jpg)

It's also not a good idea to sneak up on a skunk, even if he's anthropomorphic. (http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1323.html)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 29 Jun 2014, 09:02
I thought that was the safety spoon.
The spoon is the bit falling off in the picture. For the spoon to fall away what you have to remove the clip, then the pin. Most grenades in movies do not have a clip because it's less dramatic then just pulling out the pin and throwing the grenade.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 29 Jun 2014, 09:11
I know how grenades work:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 05 Aug 2014, 03:26
Fact of the day: Spiders apparently have the same reaction to caffeine that humans do to alcohol.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Orkboy on 05 Aug 2014, 05:34
Today I learned that Batman is a Time Lord.

(The image resizes too small to read)
http://gaspull.geeksaresexytech.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/batman-time.jpg
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Detachable Felix on 05 Aug 2014, 05:37
YESSSSSSSSSSSS I ALWAYS KNEW THIS WAS A THING/
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 01 Sep 2014, 22:12
Today I learned that the US food stamps program was something that business had advocated as a pro-market initiative.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 02 Sep 2014, 05:19
Yup. The original idea was to stimulate demand for agricultural products.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 08 Sep 2014, 23:20
Today I learned that "putting out" has an entirely different meaning to civilians.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Loki on 09 Sep 2014, 03:31
Wait, what meaning does it have to you?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 09 Sep 2014, 05:22
3 meanings to this civvie.

put out: to turn off  (Put out that light!)

put out: provide sexual favor

put out: shows motivation and effort
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Carl-E on 09 Sep 2014, 12:34
The second two are more closely related than you'd probably like to think...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 09 Sep 2014, 13:01
3 meanings to this civvie.

put out: to turn off  (Put out that light!)

put out: provide sexual favor

put out: shows motivation and effort

Also as an adjective (phrase?): annoyed
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Loki on 09 Sep 2014, 15:04
Technically a participle.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 10 Sep 2014, 00:27
Or that.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 10 Oct 2014, 16:13
For so long I've wondered what makes soap operas look so distinctive on tv. And now I know:


While I'm at it, I'll look up why they are actually called soap operas, when they have seemingly nothing to do with either soap or operas.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: jwhouk on 10 Oct 2014, 18:05
Back in the 1930's, when they were radio serials, their main sponsors were laundry soap companies (like Procter & Gamble). They were called "operas" because of all the intrigue and intricate storylines - and to give them an air of "sophistication".

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 12 Oct 2014, 16:38
Today I learned the etymology of "hog fuel", an apparently nonsensical name for shredded bark and other wood scraps used for covering trails.

Lumber mills historically burned such things as waste materials, and the furnaces were called "hogs", perhaps because of their appetite. Thus the scraps became "hog fuel".

It's different from beauty bark in having a high amount of sawdust, handy for moisture control.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 12 Oct 2014, 22:43
Yep.  I've shoveled 'hog fuel' as a teenager.  Functional steam powered lumber mills are rare, but leave a smaller carbon footprint.

but then, I've also shoveled other hog related products...  :(
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 28 Oct 2014, 12:32
I learned that the Russian monarchy stopped calling themselves Tsar during the reign of Peter I and was changed to Emperor.  So any "Tsar" after his reign was actually not a Tsar but Emperor. Many Western European monarchs declined to recognize the switch in title. To them the word emperor connoted superiority over kings. Several rulers feared that Peter would claim authority over them, just as the Holy Roman Emperor had in the past.  This cultural biased may explain why many documentaries in English refer to the emperors after Peter I as Tsar.  Or lack of caring about the subject's own cultural perception.

So the last Russian Romanov monarch wasn't Tsar Nicholas II but Emperor Nicholas II.

...yeah its been a slow day at work and i can't watch Game Grumps anymore jic someone walks by and thinks I'm playing video games.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 31 Oct 2014, 18:40
I learned about Euclidean zoning (http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/euclidian-zoning.html).

The differences between European and American cities are becoming clearer and clearer.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 01 Nov 2014, 08:25
I may be just a teensy bit boring, but that blog is actually really interesting.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 01 Nov 2014, 10:12
I thought that was the opposite of boring.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 05 Nov 2014, 10:31
As somebody who spends half his life listening to music and the other half watching romcoms with his family, it strikes me that I hadn't noticed until today that the beat to Outkast's "Ms. Jackson" is a remix of the Bridal Chorus.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 10 Nov 2014, 18:00
I was originally going to toss this in gunsmithing, but it's kinda mindblowing from a mechanical perspective. So I'm putting it here.

(http://www.ltwerner.com/wwii/images/mauser-safety.gif)
This is the safety switch of a K98 Mauser, which we are about to discuss.
From left to right the positions are "Safety off" "Safety on, bolt unlocked" and "Safety on, bolt locked"

There are 22 mechanical steps in the act of turning off your K98 Mauser's safety. You just flip a switch, a single movement on your part, but here's what's happening mechanically.

K98 Mauser Cycle of Operations
Weapon Condition 3 (Empty chamber, ammunition in magazine)
Step 1: Safety Off
1. Safety switch moves CCW to "Off" position
2. Cocking piece moves rearward
3. Firing pin spring compresses
4. Firing pin move rearward
5. Cocking piece stops on safety switch
6. Firing pin spring stops on cocking piece
7. Firing pin stops on cocking piece
8. Cocking piece moves forward
9. Firing pin spring decompresses
10. Firing pin moves forward
11. Cocking piece stops on safety switch
12. Firing pin stops on cocking piece
13. Firing pin spring stops on cocking piece
14. Safety switch stops on  bolt sleeve
15. Cocking piece moves rearward
16. Cocking piece stops on safety switch
17. Cocking piece moves forward
18. Firing pin moves forward
19. Firing pin spring compresses
20. Cocking piece stops on sear
21. Firing pin stops on cocking piece
22. Firing pin spring stops on cocking piece

Safety is off.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 10 Nov 2014, 21:12
compared to setting the safety for a British STEN gun.

"take yer booger hook offn the bang switch!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 11 Nov 2014, 06:25
If I had one handy I could go through the mechanical steps for THAT simple action too.

Probably something along the lines of (assuming the individual was firing)
Trigger rotates CCW
Sear Rotates CCW
Sear spring decompresses
Bolt Carrier Assembly moves forward
Bolt Carrier Assembly stops on sear
Sear stops on receiver tube
Sear spring stops on sear
Trigger stops on sear

Then of course the mechanical actions in the human hand for the act of moving your finger...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 12 Nov 2014, 13:41
Have you ever wondered how computers truly handle decimals? If you have, you probably stumbled upon some info on floating point decimals and IEEE754, but I had to wrangle with it for some guys I TA. Turns out that floating point sum is a really slow and painful process, that can take up a massive amount of software cycles. That little task is something that makes me respect hardware engineers even more.

(click to show/hide)

On the actual process of the sum, there are 4 main steps:

Step 1: Equalizing orders of magnitude. The Float single precision format represents a number that's like (1.)<23 bit binary> * 2^<8 bit binary>-127. So the sum will always have the exponent part of the greater number. The fraction of the smaller number is then moved right n bits, where n is the difference between the greater and lesser exponents.
Note that if the difference between exponents is greater or equal to 24, then the value of the sum is defaulted to max(a, b).

Step 2: Sum the fractions. Keep in mind that if one of the values is negative, you need to sum the 2's complement of that fraction with the other one.

Step 3: Normalize the fraction. To do this, you sequentially move the fraction left or right until the 24th bit (or position 23) is the first 1 in the fraction, and for each bit moved right you add 1 to the exponent, and for each bit moved left you substract 1 from the exponent.

(click to show/hide)

Step 4: Put everything back together and check for inconsistencies. Keep in mind that, even if it hasn't been specified explicitly here, you should handled un-biased exponents. Exponent bias is inserted to keep exponents as positive and consistently increasing, so the exponent should be considered an unsigned byte and its real value is the one in the unsigned byte minus 127 (in the case of single precision)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 12 Nov 2014, 13:56
The reason numbers are represented in this form is because statistically, the most common operation performed on a number is a comparison with another.

So in a best case scenario one of the two numbers compared is negative, so the machine only has to check the first bit of the number. Next up are the exponents - if the bits do not match up, you know as soon as you hit the bit that is not equal to the bit on the other number. Best case scenario? You just had to check two more bits in both numbers. All without having to rearrange the floating point decimal to a real number.

I think floating point decimals are amazing.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 12 Nov 2014, 14:00
Indeed. And it's also great for RadixSort, specially if you use the "Most Significant Bit" variation of it - with the exponent at the beginning, most of the time you'll have almost all numbers sorted in no time.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Emperor Norton on 13 Nov 2014, 11:52
I learned that gruntled is totally a real word, and it meant exactly what I was using it to mean. I always had used it as a joke. It made me feel very gruntled.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 13 Nov 2014, 18:15
Shame that chalant isn't...OR IS IT?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 13 Nov 2014, 20:21
Today I learned the word "Fetial".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 13 Nov 2014, 23:27
Today I learned that I've been pronouncing the word "facade" wrong all this time and now I feel dumb. Today I learned that ignorance truly is bliss.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 14 Nov 2014, 04:33
Were you pronouncing it "fuck-aid"? :parrot:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 14 Nov 2014, 12:50
Were you pronouncing it "fuck-aid"? :parrot:

...maybe
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 14 Nov 2014, 14:18
Might have helped if you spelled it façade.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 14 Nov 2014, 15:27
Easier to type "ç" on some systems than others, and most (myself included) don't know the key commands for the ones they don't use regularly.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 14 Nov 2014, 17:29
Just like resume, I never bother using the correct accents, etc, so I guess it never occured to me
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 14 Nov 2014, 22:02
Accents are considerably easier on my phone than on a keyboard. So yeah, I rarely bother with the accents on resume (although I always forget whether it goes on the first e, the second e, or both...although I'm pretty sure I've seen all three examples).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 14 Nov 2014, 22:07
Probably depends on layout and OS.  It's simple enough on Mac or Linux to do them (option/compose keys plus modifiers).  I haven't used Windows enough recently to see if it's any easier than it was in the days of having to hold alt and type in an ASCII code.  Probably has, and I'd be happy to be corrected just in case I ever needed to know.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 15 Nov 2014, 02:27
Some programs allow CRTL-<mark>, <letter>, but not all.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 15 Nov 2014, 21:16
Today I learned if normal NSAIDs don't help your pain, higher dose ones probably won't do too much either.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: jwhouk on 16 Nov 2014, 05:45
Good to know.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 16 Nov 2014, 14:28
I learned that I only get the Asian glow when I drink straight hard liquor.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 16 Nov 2014, 15:05
One small glass of wine is about my non-flush limit, and sometimes not even that especially with Aussie red wines (often 14% alcohol :psyduck:), but I'm probably smaller. Of course I'm supposed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Precepts) to avoid all intoxicants, so I don't often drink alcohol, and any flushing is my own fault.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Nov 2014, 15:54
Buddhist or not, the *natural* consequences of drinking, such as hangovers, loss of coordination, and things like thinking that painting the walls lime green is a good idea are generally* the drinker's own fault.

* Assuming they chose to drink.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 16 Nov 2014, 15:58
Buddhist or not, the *natural* consequences of drinking, such as hangovers, staggering, and thinking that painting the walls lime green is a good idea are generally* the drinker's own fault.

* Assuming they chose to drink.

It's not me that's addicted to beer, it's the beer that's addicted to me.

My drunk decisions are never that consequential, it's always "ya one more beer isn't going to hurt" and that's when I notice the 20 beers on the ground.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Nov 2014, 16:42
Aye, I'm generally decent about it, myself.  My homing instinct tends to kick-in when I've had too many, and I've never had a hangover that couldn't be cured by greasy food || Clonazepam || more booze and a lot of water.  Then again, I also understand why some belief systems are against drinking, or at least, getting drunk.  I've had to pick up people from the floor of the women's toilets to get them into a taxi back to their home (I feel sorry for the boyfriends and flatmates who had to deal with any aftermath), and seen people make really questionable decisions. 

Made a few of my own, that helped fuel regret, and re-igniting a doomed relationship.  Lowered inhibitions may make a good social lubricant for the shy, but there are certainly times in life where they do not help.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 16 Nov 2014, 17:04
An ex threw up on me in bed. It wasn't very sexy, no.


How do you have easy hangovers? I get upset when people say that, mine are fucking horrible every single time. "Things I need to learn" how to stop hangovers when food and water just makes you feel sick.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Nov 2014, 17:17
Well, it's partially genetic, and I always match each drink with a glass of water to avoid them in the first place.  When that fails, I go for either a proper English or Irish breakfast, sedatives, or a hair of the dog that bit me.  It also helps the next day to force down a banana, and drink water with a little bit of salt to restore the electrolytes.  And that's irrespective of whether or not I've done any of the previous things.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 17 Nov 2014, 00:17
Hair of the dog? As in, have another drink? My body has an impulsive aversion to alcohol when hung over.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 17 Nov 2014, 00:51
Hair of the dog? As in, have another drink? My body has an impulsive aversion to alcohol when hung over.

Yeah, I can't do that shit either, but mostly because my hangovers are always the feel sick to my stomach kind. And I always just regularly feel sick in the morning. I think I may be pregnant.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 17 Nov 2014, 03:58
An ex threw up on me in bed. It wasn't very sexy, no.


How do you have easy hangovers? I get upset when people say that, mine are fucking horrible every single time. "Things I need to learn" how to stop hangovers when food and water just makes you feel sick.

Drink a lot of water before bed, and indeed, during the night out. I usually cannonball some water after every few drinks.

My hangovers are few and far between, and these days I often drink straight spirits.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 17 Nov 2014, 13:46
See, I get hammered all the time, so you think I'd have a system (I was at about 2 cases a week, I'm at about 1 now). But for some reason I always forget about water and food before bed, yet no matter how blackout drunk I get I always remember to take out my contacts...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Metope on 17 Nov 2014, 13:57
Ha I'm the same. No matter how drunk I am I will clean off my makeup and apply moisturiser, but I won't remember to eat. Thanks, brain.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Patrick on 09 Dec 2014, 16:59
Hey folks today I learned that it is actually better to hit my local hot dog eatery than coffee shop at noon. Who'd have thought? Plus the super rad girl I used to see there all the time was working today. Nice to see her, I kinda miss my weekly interactions with her from when I ran open mic at the aforementioned coffee place.

Anyway, this whole town apparently runs on caffeine.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Dec 2014, 17:01
The whole world runs on caffeine...except Mormons, I guess.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 09 Dec 2014, 17:38
I met a group from Brigham Young University at a conference I went to earlier this year, and they told me that, although coffee is forbidden, caffeinated soda is allowed. It turns out it's the temperature of the drink rather than the caffeine content that matters.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: GarandMarine on 09 Dec 2014, 17:42
...having some very good Mormon friends, I can report that is incorrect.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 09 Dec 2014, 17:47
This was a group of physicists, so I doubt they actually obey any of the rules...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Dec 2014, 17:56
So iced coffee is ok? And iced tea? That being said, I'm a bacon-loving Jew, so I wouldn't be surprised if some Mormons drank coffee all the time.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 09 Dec 2014, 17:58
I didn't think to ask them about iced coffee. But there seems to be a difference of opinion on soda at least between the physicists and GM's friends.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 09 Dec 2014, 18:05
I don't run on coffee.

(I crank myself up every morning, if you know what I mean)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 09 Dec 2014, 18:06
I thought that was more typically an activity for right before going to sleep at night...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: J on 09 Dec 2014, 18:19
to each their own, but the two options don't need to be mutually exclusive.


at least, not until you get older.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 09 Dec 2014, 18:40
The whole world runs on caffeine...except Mormons, I guess.
And those of us who are off of caffeine for medical reasons (all my anxiety disorders).  And it Fucking *sucks*  The withdrawal was bad enough, but drinking decaf is like drinking NA beer…  It looks the same, it smells the same, but it is at best, a placebo effect.  The taste *always* sucks, compared to the real thing.  I would maim someone for the ability to have a *real* coffee without freaking-out.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Dec 2014, 19:14
Am I the only person who can't really tell the difference between decaf and caffeinated coffee?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: J on 09 Dec 2014, 19:28
well, it has been noted that even the smell of coffee can produce a heightened alertness & wakefulness in habitual coffee drinkers. that is to say, that with a strong enough conditioned-response, the body can mimic the caffeine-high before caffeine has even entered the system.

it would be interesting to do a double-blind study on heavy coffee-drinkers as to whether they can distinguish the difference between decaff and regular coffee when not informed, or misinformed.

a similar study on wine aficionados has shown that cheap wine served from an expensive bottle will be perceived as being much higher quality than when it is from it's own bottle. said aficionados report enjoying said wine much more, and being unable to distinguish the incongruity when presented with a misleading label.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 09 Dec 2014, 19:30
Reminds me of when Penn & Teller served hose water out of fancy water bottles and people thought each one tasted different, despite coming from the same hose.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 10 Dec 2014, 00:20
Am I the only person who can't really tell the difference between decaf and caffeinated coffee?
No, you aren't.  But I've worked in enough coffee places to the point where I can taste the difference, as well, as the one between different roasts, and to some extent, origins.  It's a lot like tasting whisky, there are different types, places of origin, single-malt versus blended, and totally different tasting notes.  My biggest problem with decaf is that it's almost *always* over-done, in terms of roasting.  I'm not a big fan of dark roasts to begin with, I tend to prefer the light roasts or blended ones, but every decaf I've ever had, it was basically burnt.  I don't know whether or not it's *needed* to always roast decaf as dark, but it's *not* the same, even compared to other dark roasts.

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 10 Dec 2014, 00:57
Reminds me of when Penn & Teller served hose water out of fancy water bottles and people thought each one tasted different, despite coming from the same hose.
One of the best explanation of the placebo effect I've seen.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Metope on 10 Dec 2014, 02:55
I've never actually noticed getting more awake from coffee, the only effect I've noticed is when I drink way too much on an empty stomach and get really shaky and jittery, which is not cool. I just love coffee in the morning, it's more of a daily "start of the day" ritual than something I actually need to wake up. It's weird I'm not addicted to it considering how much I drink, I've taken several breaks with no problems.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 10 Dec 2014, 04:20
The ritual is an important part, it's especially so if one has OCD.  I've had to cut the caffeine out, but I still have to perform my morning ritual. 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 10 Dec 2014, 06:09
Caffeine is bags of fun. If I have too much caffeine in one day I start to get twitches and tics, which if they go too extreme can actually cause me harm, which is nice. I don't drink Red Bull any more.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 19 Dec 2014, 21:59
Today I learned that the origin of Toyota was a power loom company.

EDIT: today I learned what LCpeak means in a sound meter and when to use it and not use it.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: downtowneddie on 26 Feb 2015, 12:40
I think I've finally wrapped my head around the mechanics of the International Date Line.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 26 Feb 2015, 13:01
What about it puzzled you before?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 26 Feb 2015, 13:25
The fact that if you go west it always becomes earlier in the day, and if you go east it always becomes later in the day, until suddenly it's a different date? Because that sure puzzles me.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Neko_Ali on 26 Feb 2015, 13:40
Well, everyone knows that's how Superman turned back time. Duh.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 28 Feb 2015, 23:25
Today I learned the word "aporia".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 01 Mar 2015, 07:46
Quote from: Google
an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory.

As did I!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 04 Mar 2015, 16:35
I just found out one of my ancestors is the George Washington.  :psyduck:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aziraphale on 04 Mar 2015, 16:55
Am I the only person who can't really tell the difference between decaf and caffeinated coffee?
No, you aren't.  But I've worked in enough coffee places to the point where I can taste the difference, as well, as the one between different roasts, and to some extent, origins.  It's a lot like tasting whisky, there are different types, places of origin, single-malt versus blended, and totally different tasting notes.  My biggest problem with decaf is that it's almost *always* over-done, in terms of roasting.  I'm not a big fan of dark roasts to begin with, I tend to prefer the light roasts or blended ones, but every decaf I've ever had, it was basically burnt.  I don't know whether or not it's *needed* to always roast decaf as dark, but it's *not* the same, even compared to other dark roasts.

Bit late to the party here, but check out some of the so-called "third wave" roasters. I've had a couple of good decaf coffees (and I really do mean "good," not "coffee that barely managed not to suck"). I still prefer high-octane, but it's possible to get decaf that's not burnt swill.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 05 Mar 2015, 08:43
Today I learned that men should get vaccinated for HPV. I had thought only women needed it women, but according to this soreness in my arm I was wrong.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 17 Mar 2015, 17:57
To my utmost surprise, the complete phrase 'knowing is half the battle' is actually coined by GI Joe and not by a more, um, conventional source. At least, as far as I could find, the 'half the battle' part is derived from 'the first blow is half the battle' said by Oliver Goldsmith, and since then people have been using 'x is half the battle' for a lot of things, but 'knowing is half the battle' didn't consistently appear before this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pele5vptVgc).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 18 Mar 2015, 18:06
From what I understand, men are the ones transmitting the HPV virus, so I suppose we should get vaccinated. HPV doesn't only manifest itself in vaginal cancer, you know...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 19 Mar 2015, 01:58
Wait, what?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Masterpiece on 19 Mar 2015, 02:27
I may be completely wrong here but doesn't HPV also cause warts?

This message is coming from Tapatalk inside my phone!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 19 Mar 2015, 04:23
To my utmost surprise, the complete phrase 'knowing is half the battle' is actually coined by GI Joe and not by a more, um, conventional source. At least, as far as I could find, the 'half the battle' part is derived from 'the first blow is half the battle' said by Oliver Goldsmith, and since then people have been using 'x is half the battle' for a lot of things, but 'knowing is half the battle' didn't consistently appear before this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pele5vptVgc).

well, YEAH. those GI Joe PSAs were about the only 'educational' part of the show.

!! YOOO-JOOOOE!!!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 19 Mar 2015, 05:03
I may be completely wrong here but doesn't HPV also cause warts?


My doctor said that guys can get oral cancers (women too I'd assume, but seeing as I'm a guy she only told me what men could get). Didn't mention anything about warts.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 19 Mar 2015, 05:16
I may be completely wrong here but doesn't HPV also cause warts?

Quote from: Wikipedia
Warts are caused by a viral infection, specifically by one of the many types of human papillomavirus (HPV).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 19 Mar 2015, 06:50
So uh, should we not all be getting vaccinated right the fuck now?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 19 Mar 2015, 07:00
Depends on your risk level. Although a communicable disease, it's transmission is limited. As a monogamous person in a long-term relationship with no likelihood of exposure then there's no real value in getting a vaccination. However, if the relationship were to break down or we were to start engaging in riskier sexual behaviour then it might become worth it. Casual herd immunity isn't a factor here. The trick really is to be frank and honest about your current or imminent risk level. It's something the humans are typically quite poor at.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 19 Mar 2015, 07:20
As a survivor of the clap and NSU and
(click to show/hide)
I have been safe and honest about such things ever since, and given that I've been with the same wonderful woman for 13 months I think I'm good.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Loki on 19 Mar 2015, 07:42
TMI regarding warts and sex:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Aziraphale on 19 Mar 2015, 15:27
I may be completely wrong here but doesn't HPV also cause warts?

This message is coming from Tapatalk inside my phone!

Several different strains. Some cause warts, some cause cancer. YMMV.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 20 Mar 2015, 08:40
I'm caught out without my password database, but I learned that Google Chrome can show your saved passwords if you enter your user account password, which is nice for those programs outside the browser that require passwords, but does make me concerned. Chrome basically has the keys to my entire online existence and the only security is my Windows password. This seems like it calls for some extra security, like e-mail notifications whenever a password is requested from browser storage.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 20 Mar 2015, 11:53
I just found out one of my ancestors is the George Washington.  :psyduck:

For serious, dude? That's awesome! I'm descended from Joseph Hewes* on my grandmothers' side, so our ancestors knew each other!

*One of the signers of the declaration of independence
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 20 Mar 2015, 11:54
According to my dad, I'm related to the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. I don't really believe that, though...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 20 Mar 2015, 12:17
According to my dad, I'm related to the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. I don't really believe that, though...

Family history is fun, because if you reach far enough back, you can find SOMEONE who did awesome stuff. Like, my mom's dad's family came to Canada because some guy was kicked out of France, supposedly for being a pirate, though that detail isn't 100% verified. On her mom's side, I'm connected to the Beaton's, the Scottish clan MacBeth, who aren't ACTUALLY connected to the mad king, but I like to believe they are, for the same reason I like to think I'm descended from a pirate
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 20 Mar 2015, 12:32
Speaking of Mad Kings, I'm descended (male line all the way to my grandfather) from the Dr Willis who "treated" King George III, famously, but probably completely inappropriately.  I have an original copy of an engraved portrait of him made to the order of King George's wife; it looks like this (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw70281/Francis-Willis?LinkID=mp04858&role=sit&rNo=2).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Grognard on 20 Mar 2015, 20:12
hmmm....

I see the resemblance.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 15 Apr 2015, 00:16
Today I learned that if a car is following yours with ill intent you can stop it with pepper spray.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Carl-E on 15 Apr 2015, 16:39
How on earth do you stop a car with pepper spray?   Spray it directly into the air intake?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 15 Apr 2015, 16:59
How on earth do you stop a car with pepper spray?   Spray it directly into the air intake?
Nope: air filters.
And 90% of cars have filters in the A/C system, so spraying it into that intake to disable the driver won't work either.

Today I learned that if a car is following yours with ill intent you can stop it with pepper spray.

HOW? You've got my curiosity piqued now.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 16 Apr 2015, 20:34
The pepper spray instructor aimed it out his car window and fired backward. Enough got into the following car's air intake that the bad guys elected to pull over.

There seem to be serious limits to what cabin air filters can do, judging from what happens when I get stuck behind a diesel.

Today I learned the word "irrefrenable" and then was saddened to learn that it's obsolete.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 16 Apr 2015, 21:14
I feel an experiment coming on.....

Do you know what was the year, make, and model of the following car? (So I can get the right type of filter from work)

Also, what kind of pepper spray did the instructor use?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 17 Apr 2015, 04:26
You don't need to do the experiment, it's already been done.

Studies were carried out into the amount of pollution ingested by cyclists and pedestrians in comparison to drivers. The study had initially expected to show that pedestrians and cyclists were being unduly affected by air pollution caused by road traffic. What the studies did show that pedestrians and cyclists did ingest more large particulate pollution, occupants of motor vehicles were shown to ingest larger volumes of the small particulate pollution. The smaller particulate pollution is the more harmful and more likely to cause cardiac and respiratory disorders. Tests were conducted on modern vehicles with closed windows so the majority of the pollution was coming through the air filter.

If enough of the particulate matter in pepper spray is small enough, it's going to pass through an air filter. Same as when you can tell someone has run over a skunk from several miles downwind while driving along a highway.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 17 Apr 2015, 13:09
I feel an experiment coming on.....

Do you know what was the year, make, and model of the following car? (So I can get the right type of filter from work)

Also, what kind of pepper spray did the instructor use?

I don't know, but what he teaches is to select OC unblended with CN or CS, in an alcohol carrier. No idea whatever about the car. Uhh, how could you do that experiment safely? Closed course? Driver in PPE and passenger serving as canary while operating a driving simulator?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 17 Apr 2015, 16:04
Uhh, how could you do that experiment safely?

Safe?...leey?? What's that mean?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 21 Apr 2015, 07:41
I should really pay attention. I totally missed this incident back in 2011.  :psyduck:
UC Davis (http://imgur.com/gallery/79Tc3)

All I remember seeing at the time was people showing the cops to be just assholes, they did their duty IMHO.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 21 Apr 2015, 15:49
All I remember seeing at the time was people showing the cops to be just assholes, they did their duty IMHO.
You say that as if they could not do both at the same time. The narrative with which the page you linked is running seems to be that as long as you warn people ahead of time that you are going to employ violence against them, or spray them with a not-intentionally-lethal (http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-18/news/mn-14572_1_pepper-spray-manufacturer) chemical weapon, that makes it OK.

As for the "the protesters were told they were breaking the law" line, I'd have to say "Duh! Of course they were; isn't that the whole point?!" The laws were made and enforced by the power-structures against which the protesters were protesting! From at least the days of the Riot Act of 1714 it has been routine to criminalise protest, so drawing attention to the illegality of the UC Davis protest is rather like saying that the sea is wet and salty.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 Apr 2015, 16:38
Today I learned that even a clever cat can miss the implications of a feather being on a string.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 22 Apr 2015, 00:03
I should really pay attention. I totally missed this incident back in 2011.  :psyduck:
UC Davis (http://imgur.com/gallery/79Tc3)

All I remember seeing at the time was people showing the cops to be just assholes, they did their duty IMHO.

Nothing big happened. Some kid got pepper-sprayed, but that's not really a problem. It's a food product, essentially.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 22 Apr 2015, 03:06
So are peanuts, but they can still kill people. Pepper spray has been implicated in several deaths, as I pointed out in the link included in my posting above.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: looktall on 22 Apr 2015, 03:59


It's a food product, essentially.
Why don't you try ingesting some and report back your findings.

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 22 Apr 2015, 05:39
It's kind of subtle, but I'm pretty sure Pilchard123 is mocking what a Fox News reporter said from when that happened, not actually being serious.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: looktall on 22 Apr 2015, 07:03
All the same, I think he should ingest some pepper spray and report back... For science.
:)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 22 Apr 2015, 09:59
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrx6DDgTH_w
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 22 Apr 2015, 10:29
All the same, I think he should ingest some pepper spray and report back... For science.
:)

... For sinus.

Because your sinuses will definitely be cleared. 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 22 Apr 2015, 11:47
All the same, I think he should ingest some pepper spray and report back... For science.
:)

... For sinus.

Because your sinuses will definitely be cleared.

Pretty sure this would be a less permanent, way less extreme version of amputating a leg to cure an ingrown toenail.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 22 Apr 2015, 18:25
Actually just the opposite. Mucus production ramps up to spectacular levels as the body tries everything it can to eject the pepper spray.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 22 Apr 2015, 18:47
So it would be like chopping your ARM off to deal with an ingrown toenail
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: looktall on 22 Apr 2015, 20:25
you've really got a thing for ingrown toenails.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 22 Apr 2015, 20:46
Call me Big Toe, I'm affected by ingrown toenails more often than others*

*this is untrue about me, but true of big toes compared to other toes
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 22 Apr 2015, 20:49
Joke made, I chose ingrown toenails at random, then transferred the original metaphor.

It works equally well to suggest that a person is in need of a new liver, so they had a dude rip out their kidney with a rusty spork. The metaphor holds. I think. Basically.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 23 Apr 2015, 16:31
So today, I bought Skyrim for PC, and learned things have changed since the good old Roller Coaster Tycoon days. Have to make a Steam account, straight up download the game. I bought the discs because my internet is too shit to deal with in the first place. Harrumph. Ten plus hours left of download...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 23 Apr 2015, 16:57
Oh, just wait till you start adding mods...

http://kotaku.com/5961994/what-skyrim-looks-like-when-youre-running-100-mods-at-once
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 23 Apr 2015, 17:21
Can't I turn dragons into Randy Savage? I have the Dragonborn expansion, so if I could do that, then couldn't I ride Macho Man Randy Savage as my noble steed?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 23 Apr 2015, 18:38
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 23 Apr 2015, 19:02

This is what I saw. It does not answer my question, satisfy my need to dominate Macho Man Randy Savage
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 12 May 2015, 22:53
Today I learned the word "nidus".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 13 May 2015, 15:56
Quote from: Google's definition of "nidus"
a place in which something is formed or deposited; a site of origin/a place in which bacteria have multiplied or may multiply; a focus of infection.
And now we all have!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Neko_Ali on 13 May 2015, 17:11
And now the Nidus Worm from starcraft makes sense...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 15 May 2015, 16:47
I learned thay a gelding is a castrated horse, not those little guys from The Dark Crystal
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 15 May 2015, 17:38
Dark Crystal has gelflings, which are entirely different.  And only girls have wings.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 15 May 2015, 20:27
Dark Crystal has gelflings, which are entirely different.  And only girls have wings.

I knew that. I was rewatching the first six episodes of Chuck, and a character makes that mistake. I always knew that in the movie they're 'Gelflings,' but that characters' defining character (to this point) is that he's a bit of an immature idiot. I didn't realize until today that a 'gelding' is an actual thing.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 15 May 2015, 20:28
In other news, y'all had best watch Chuck because amazing.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 16 May 2015, 04:36
I haven't watched it since it ended. Well, except for this scene:

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 16 May 2015, 11:32
My mom was watching, and I felt compelled to join her
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 16 May 2015, 14:41
Oh, don't take that as a criticism, I plan on rewatching it at some point.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 16 May 2015, 15:02
It holds up, for the most part. A few weird tech references, but nothing major
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 May 2015, 22:53
Today I learned that Hannelore's hyper-violent imaginings are a known thing in people with OCD.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 11 Jul 2015, 07:51
I learned about the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics (http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/): how interacting with a problem will make you seem complicit in it. I never really thought about this before, but that does seem pretty irrational.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 11 Jul 2015, 08:15
So today, I bought Skyrim for PC, and learned things have changed since the good old Roller Coaster Tycoon days. Have to make a Steam account, straight up download the game. I bought the discs because my internet is too shit to deal with in the first place. Harrumph. Ten plus hours left of download...
Then what's the point of them selling the discs at all?  :psyduck:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 11 Jul 2015, 19:22
So today, I bought Skyrim for PC, and learned things have changed since the good old Roller Coaster Tycoon days. Have to make a Steam account, straight up download the game. I bought the discs because my internet is too shit to deal with in the first place. Harrumph. Ten plus hours left of download...
Than what's the point of them selling the discs at all?  :psyduck:

I wish I knew
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 11 Jul 2015, 20:53
Some people (like me) prefer to have a hard copy on hand.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 11 Jul 2015, 21:16
Some people (like me) prefer to have a hard copy on hand.

Thing is though, it wasn't even that, it was just like, 'proof of purchase' type shit; I still had to download it all online!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 12 Jul 2015, 06:21
Wait, really? That's...completely stupid.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 12 Jul 2015, 07:51
Wait, really? That's...completely stupid.

Tell me about it. I don't know if I was doing it wrong or what, but as far as I could tell, that's what it was.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 12 Jul 2015, 08:15
Yes, it does prompt you to download the game when you activate the game's key but if you run setup from the disc after activation it installs the whole game from the disc and only has to download patches. Great that we can keep talking about this three months later.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: chaospersonified on 12 Jul 2015, 08:46
Yes, it does prompt you to download the game when you activate the game's key but if you run setup from the disc after activation it installs the whole game from the disc and only has to download patches. Great that we can keep talking about this three months later.

So helpful, right?

At least now, when Fallout 4 comes out, I'll know how to install from disc
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 12 Jul 2015, 09:20
Lol oooooooooooops.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 13 Jul 2015, 20:04
Today I learned that hospitals can easily reach Amtrak-like levels of disorganization.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Welu on 16 Jul 2015, 12:40
Today I learned that you are not supposed to walk in front of Muslim people while they are praying. If they have an object, like a bag, in front of them, you can walk in front of that but not between the object and the person. Still seems more polite to walk behind them if possible.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 08 Aug 2015, 12:31
I learned that in 1518 there was a plague of dancing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518) where people died from dancing...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 17 Sep 2015, 18:15
If you ever played Sonic The Hedgehog (the original, not the 2006 disastrous reboot) you might have got to the Labyrinth Zone boss.

Is 2015 too late to learn that you don't really have to kill him?

Because I just did and I'm salty as hell. I lost 12 lives to him on a playthrough 15 years ago, and stopped playing the original Sonic altogether.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 17 Sep 2015, 18:32
Hahahahaha, I have literally *never* got past that level, and that was over twenty years ago on my Genesis.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 17 Sep 2015, 19:23
Labyrinth Boss strat: Just fucking go upwards.

Really.

With good movement you can do it in 45 seconds.

I'm so pissed right now it's not even funny. I was 6 when I got mad at it ffs.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 17 Sep 2015, 19:34
Yeah, so was I. I think I learned that via Youtube, but fairly recently.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 17 Sep 2015, 19:35
I was watching a Mario All-Stars speedrun on Twitch and someone said it on chat. I was so mad I had to look on youtube, and then I almost proceeded to break my cart in half.

Then I remembered it was my sis', so I didn't.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 17 Sep 2015, 19:52
It's some serious bullshit.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 17 Sep 2015, 20:01
Today and yesterday I got a better understanding of arc suppression coils in AC power distribution.

EDIT: Today I learned the word "vagarious", from an ESL speaker.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Carl-E on 20 Nov 2015, 19:07
Today I learned that hospitals can easily reach Amtrak-like levels of disorganization.

I have seen hospitals reach depths of disorganization well beyond Amtrak.  The larger the hospital system, the worse it gets.  Our regional hospital's recently been bought by UPMC, the largest hospital system in Pittsburgh (two hours away), and you can hear the suck for miles around. 

Got a call saying my daughter was going to be released yesterday at 1:30. 

We got home at 7:30.  I was three hours late to work...   :-P
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 22 Nov 2015, 21:34
Today I learned the word "ovine". It's the word like "canine" or "porcine" that applies to sheep.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 23 Nov 2015, 16:06
Or like bovine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmGCqL0-wwE)!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: doombilly on 10 Dec 2015, 15:28
Learned our "support team" in Cincinatti is neither. So many manually coded pages. Also our CMS is none of the things those letters stand for.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 14 Dec 2015, 01:00
I learned a new word the other day: adscititious (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/adscititious).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: explicit on 17 Dec 2015, 14:22
I learned that Salvation Army volunteers are not allowed to tough the money at all. I had my hands full taking my bags out of the grocery store, but I knew he was out there so I put a dollar on my hat before leaving and asked if he could grab it for me (seeing as, again, my hands were full). He said he wasn't allowed. I understand the rule, but it still seemed strange.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: SubaruStephen on 19 Dec 2015, 04:21
Last week I learned that over tightening a oil pressure sensor on a Honda CR-V will crack the engine block because of a design flaw in the b20 series engine.

 :oops:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 02 Jan 2016, 16:36
I do hope Honda paid for that.

Today I learned what "commanded equivalency ratio" means. It's the ratio of the actual fuel-air mixture the engine controller wants to a stoichiometric ratio. Also learned that my dad's car runs the injector rails at over 2000 psi.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: mustang6172 on 02 Jan 2016, 18:55
I do hope Honda paid for that.

Today I learned what "commanded equivalency ratio" means. It's the ratio of the actual fuel-air mixture the engine controller wants to a stoichiometric ratio. Also learned that my dad's car runs the injector rails at over 2000 psi.

Diesel or GDI?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 03 Jan 2016, 10:32
Gasoline.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Kugai on 03 Jan 2016, 13:20
MATCHES!!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Sorflakne on 03 Jan 2016, 13:36
If you ever played Sonic The Hedgehog (the original, not the 2006 disastrous reboot) you might have got to the Labyrinth Zone boss.

Is 2015 too late to learn that you don't really have to kill him?

Because I just did and I'm salty as hell. I lost 12 lives to him on a playthrough 15 years ago, and stopped playing the original Sonic altogether.
The barrel boss in level 3 of Carnival Zone in Sonic 3 was worse, because you pretty much had to find a guide to figure out how to get past it (time pressing up and down as it moved up and down).

That whole level was a charliefoxtrot, honestly.  Massive for one, the aforementioned barrel boss, and a zone boss that required certain items to appear before you could hit him, meaning that there was practically no time to go exploring or get lost.  I almost never reached the boss with over a minute remaining, and never managed a no-deaths clear.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 03 Jan 2016, 17:08
They fucked up on the barrel to be fair. The thing is a meme today. Even the official Sonic twitter account doesn't want anything to do with it.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 11 Jan 2016, 19:23
Today I learned that I've been using the word "acronym" incorrectly. Not only that, it was an ESL speaker who told me about it.

Turns out that in strict usage any abbreviation for which you spell out the individual letters, for example IBM, is properly called an "initialism" with the word "acronym" reserved for things that are pronounced as a word, e.g. NATO.

SAP, then, is an initialism when used by people who work there and an acronym among their customers.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 26 Apr 2016, 10:04
Well, I learned about the Gombe Chimpanzee War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War) today.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 26 Apr 2016, 10:10
I've heard of that, but didn't know anything about it.  It is rather interesting, and sad that we as a species tend to act more like pan troglodytes than pan paniscus.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: mustang6172 on 28 Apr 2016, 18:48
Today I learned it's called George Mason University not James Mason University. The world just got a little less whimsical for me.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 03 Aug 2016, 00:40
It turns out that even after commissioning the second pilot episode Desilu's board of directors voted not to produce Star Trek.

The series only happened because the chairman of the board overruled them.

We have Star Trek today because of Lucille Ball.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: BenRG on 03 Aug 2016, 01:20
The world does not understand just what a significant and influential couple Lucy and Desi were.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 03 Aug 2016, 16:23
Another reason that we all love Lucy.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 17 Jan 2017, 22:51
Word of the day.

Procrustean /prō-krusˈti-ən/    adjective
Taking violent measures to ensure conformity to a standard
 
ORIGIN: From Procrustes, a legendary Greek robber, who stretched or cut his captives' legs to make them fit a bed
[Chambers Dictionary (iOS) © Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.]
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 17 Jan 2017, 22:57
I'll be amused and impressed if someone guesses what I'm reading from the definitions appearing here. I'm not yet far in.

 pleonasm /plēˈə-nazm/    noun
Redundancy, esp of words
A redundant expression
 
ORIGIN: Gr pleonasmos, from pleōn more
plēˈonast  noun
Someone who is given to pleonasm

 pleˈonaste  noun
(Fr pléonaste) a dark green to black magnesia-iron spinel (from its multitude of faces)

pleonasˈtic or pleonasˈtical  adjective
pleonasˈtically  adverb
[Chambers Dictionary (iOS) © Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.]
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 31 Mar 2017, 20:22
I learned that Spain has a Constitutional Monarchy (like the UK) of the Bourbon dynasty (established after the Spanish War of Succession in 1714). I always thought they were a democratic republic of sorts.  I also learned that the French Bourbon dynasty still exists (always thought they died out).  The current pretender to the throne is Louis XX and he's 28.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: jwhouk on 01 Apr 2017, 05:54
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is hurt that you forgot about him.

If, of course, he wasn't valiant in his efforts to remain dead, that is.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 01 Apr 2017, 22:25
I learned that Spain has a Constitutional Monarchy (like the UK) of the Bourbon dynasty (established after the Spanish War of Succession in 1714). I always thought they were a democratic republic of sorts.  I also learned that the French Bourbon dynasty still exists (always thought they died out).  The current pretender to the throne is Louis XX and he's 28.
He's been pretending to be king for 28 years, he's 42.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: osaka on 02 Apr 2017, 06:14
I learned that Spain has a Constitutional Monarchy (like the UK) of the Bourbon dynasty (established after the Spanish War of Succession in 1714). I always thought they were a democratic republic of sorts.  I also learned that the French Bourbon dynasty still exists (always thought they died out).  The current pretender to the throne is Louis XX and he's 28.

Spain has been a republic twice for a combined 6 years but it never went what you'd say "well". The first republic had a new head of state every two weeks for several reasons (assassination, resignation, putting a scapegoat...) which eventually made the citizens decide that constitutional monarchy would've been a better idea and the second one devolved into a civil war and dictatorship after 5 years because that Franco dude staged a coup and shit.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 23 May 2017, 04:45
It seems so obvious now but I just never knew. The division symbol  is just a blank fraction. You replace the dots with numbers.
(http://www.charbase.com/images/glyph/247)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Welu on 23 May 2017, 06:03
Never noticed that!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: TheEvilDog on 23 May 2017, 08:31
It seems so obvious now but I just never knew. The division symbol  is just a blank fraction. You replace the dots with numbers.
(http://www.charbase.com/images/glyph/247)
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/mad.gif)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Method of Madness on 24 May 2017, 21:58
WHAT
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 25 May 2017, 00:23
See, I write fractions with a diagonal line - 1/3 for example, so this just never occurred to me. My mind was fucking blown by it. One of my lovers is a maths teacher so I sent to them and they were unsurprised...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Welu on 31 May 2017, 17:59
When I divide I tend to use the bottom left format so I don't even see the other ways too often.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aWO7RV9uDbE/UJ7cZgvpWpI/AAAAAAAAAwI/GCvAuv5ZL_8/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-11-10+at+5.59.20+PM.png)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 31 May 2017, 20:15
When I divide I tend to use the bottom left format so I don't even see the other ways too often.

Huh - didn't even know that one existed ... looks a bit like 3*Sqrt[42] ...

I use the upper left notation for long division (omitting the "-" though, like 42:3=14) - i.e. never - and the bottom right one as default. Mostly because it's easy to visualize manipulating fractions, like:

a/b = c/d => a/c/d = b => a*d/c =b

where I'd imagine the c/d "flipping over" in the last step.

Aaaaaaand I just learned that one actually has a name, and it's called "cross-multiplication" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-multiplication). Huh ...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: TheEvilDog on 31 May 2017, 20:37
When I divide I tend to use the bottom left format so I don't even see the other ways too often.

Huh - didn't even know that one existed ... looks a bit like 3*Sqrt[42] ...

I know for the most part that's the method they use to teach long division in Primary School here.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 31 May 2017, 21:41
When I divide I tend to use the bottom left format so I don't even see the other ways too often.

Huh - didn't even know that one existed ... looks a bit like 3*Sqrt[42] ...

I know for the most part that's the method they use to teach long division in Primary School here.
(click to show/hide)

That's weird - I mean, the graphic format is similar to the conventional notation for long division, but the notation goes against the common reading direction, and it doesn't conform to the equation format  :? Feels wrong somehow.

Do kids learn better that way?

(And I never understood the need for mnemonics - it's just math, it is its own language, much like music. Why mix it with weird mnemonics about smelly dead animals? Gives all kinds of distracting associations)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 01 Jun 2017, 00:28
The graphic is not displaying equivalent notations; there is a clear difference between writing a division relationship in text or a formula (which may be one or two dimensional), and a layout convention for conveniently performing a tedious calculation.  Bottom left is the second of those, and the others are the first.  I can't imagine that anyone has ever suggested bottom left to be used like the others.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 04 Jun 2017, 21:21
Today I learned that "Cathar" and "cathartic" have the same Greek root.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrudd on 07 Jun 2017, 04:06
Today (wee hours of the morning) I  learned to not waste time and effort to get equipment to pass when your standard is effed up and off by your acceptance limits.

Don't trust and always verify.

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 04 Dec 2017, 18:31
I was just wondering how pineapples reproduce, because they don't have seeds, and I'm pretty sure they haven't been cultivated to grow a seedless variety like bananas and grapes. Apparently, unpollinated pineapple plants still grow fruits, and the pineapples we eat are all unpollinated. Pollinated plants will grow seedy pineapples (https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-23c9ed60a87b9083cfc273a7579d10a6-c?convert_to_webp=true), which are less desirable for obvious reasons. Hummingbirds are prohibited in Hawaii as they would ruin the pineapple harvest by pollinating all the plants.

I'm not sure why a pineapple plant would spend all that energy on producing a fruit that has no seeds and cannot reproduce. Or can it...? The other thing I learned is that pineapple plants are really easy to grow yourself (http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-pineapples.html)! All you need to do is cut off the crown and stick it in a pot. Needs very little water and a little plant food. It'll grow easily, even in non-tropical climates, and then you can look forward to harvesting your very own pineapple... in about two years. Okay, it's not quick, but it seems like a fun thing to try out. It can hardly be more disappointing than the time I grew an avocado plant...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 16 Oct 2018, 11:20
I just learned that the movie Final Destination is based off a scraped X-Files episode. It kind of has the same vibe looking back on it. Would have loved to see Scully and Mulder do an investigation.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 02 Nov 2018, 18:49
If you ask google how to cook bacon in the oven, you will find a plethora of articles advising you to set your oven to 400F (200C). One even talks lovingly about the benefits of cooking bacon slowly ("Starting with a cold oven ensures that the bacon will cook slowly like it needs to.") But it still suggests setting the temperature to 400F.

Even starting from a cold oven, you will probably end up with a smoke-filled kitchen.

We've got a copy of the excellent book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat." The author points out that animal fats begin to burn at 176C (about 350F). Just below that, fat will render and the bacon will brown as this happens.

If you've never done this, I can highly recommend it. Lay your bacon in a single layer on a lined tray (I put one layer of alfoil and top that with baking paper). Put in cold oven. Set oven to 175C (adjust for your oven). Give it a turn after 10 minutes or so. Pull it out when it's done to your liking.

No smoke. Crispy bacon. And a lot of fat is rendered off (which you should, of course, keep for some other happy purpose).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 10 Jan 2019, 12:15
wow, I finally understand the song "we didnt start the fire" by Billy Joel. I always thought it was about some deep meaning commentary on the human experience. Turns out its just a list of events from 1949 - 1964.
 :venonat:

To be fair to my younger self some of the lyrics are movies or songs released in those years that reference history before the era.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: JoeCovenant on 11 Jan 2019, 07:07
wow, I finally understand the song "we didnt start the fire" by Billy Joel. I always thought it was about some deep meaning commentary on the human experience. Turns out its just a list of events from 1949 - 1964.
 :venonat:

To be fair to my younger self some of the lyrics are movies or songs released in those years that reference history before the era.
People and events... but it goes WAY past 1964...
Punk Rock is mentioned (late 70s) and the 'cola wars' (mid 80s).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 11 Jan 2019, 07:12
wow, I finally understand the song "we didnt start the fire" by Billy Joel. I always thought it was about some deep meaning commentary on the human experience. Turns out its just a list of events from 1949 - 1964.
 :venonat:

To be fair to my younger self some of the lyrics are movies or songs released in those years that reference history before the era.
People and events... but it goes WAY past 1964...
Punk Rock is mentioned (late 70s) and the 'cola wars' (mid 80s).

Kids these days ...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 11 Jan 2019, 08:07
wow, it just hit me that the song came out 30 years ago. I was 3 at the time.  :psyduck:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 11 Jan 2019, 16:22
la la lalalalaaaaaaa
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 28 Feb 2019, 14:44
Today I learned what a rent party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_party) was.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cybersmurf on 04 Mar 2019, 15:18
The other day I learned there's something called "Luftverbrauchssteuer", literally "air use tax".
If you add something to a building exceeding a certain height beyond your roof, you have to pay a tax, as you occupy a certain amount of air. And there's a tax on that.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 14 Mar 2019, 08:06
Not sure where to post this, so I stuck it here:

How to do Research

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 11 Jun 2019, 12:00
The Australian Museum has an animal factsheet on Thylarctos plummetus (https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/) ...

:psyduck:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: JoeCovenant on 12 Jun 2019, 06:07
The Australian Museum has an animal factsheet on Thylarctos plummetus (https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/) ...

:psyduck:

Saw the name, and immediately thought of Monty Python's "Flying Sheep" :)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 10 Jul 2019, 08:37
Thanks to this video by John Green I learned a new and possibly better way to tie my shoe instead of using double knots!

Life Hacks My Wife Taught Me
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 10 Jul 2019, 09:26
Thanks to this video by John Green I learned a new and possibly better way to tie my shoe instead of using double knots!

Four decades of my life wasted ... :facepalm:

Quote
"What happened was that I brought a couple beers down to the beach but forgot a bottle-opener, so Sarah proceeded to use her two day-old wedding ring to open the bottles"

Hmmmmh - I possess my peoples' innate aptitude for opening beer-bottles with practically anything lying around (http://berlinerisch.com/blog/2018/05/04/dave-chapelle-in-berlin/) (actually, it's just visualizing the forces & a firm grip), but I've never heard of this one.

This is unacceptable - I shall not rest until I have mastered the wedding ring, for the glory and honour of the Fatherland!

(https://i1.wp.com/berlinerisch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/dave-chapelle-in-Berlin_sm.gif?resize=216%2C336)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 Jul 2019, 22:37
I had not known until a lecture yesterday at a 50th anniversary event just how little popular support the Apollo program had. 26% in 1964, and still only in the 30s by Apollo 8.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 25 Jul 2019, 01:47
Today I learned that French composer Hector Berlioz, composer of much religious music, given a religious upbringing but became an avowed agnostic, remarked that Catholicism was "charming now that it no longer burns people."

If only he knew what was still coming. (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/13/spotlight-reporters-uncovered-catholic-child-abuse-boston-globe)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 25 Jul 2019, 16:38
This is unacceptable - I shall not rest until I have mastered the wedding ring, for the glory and honour of the Fatherland!
Imaginary pickelhaube intensifies!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 02 Aug 2019, 04:20
This is unacceptable - I shall not rest until I have mastered the wedding ring, for the glory and honour of the Fatherland!
Imaginary pickelhaube intensifies!

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 03 Aug 2019, 00:10
Thanks to the German (probably Prussian ;)) officers who trained the Chinese National Army during the 1920s and 30s (https://www.historynet.com/bring-in-the-germans.htm), you might say that it parrots that marching style:


Hmmmmh - I possess my peoples' innate aptitude for opening beer-bottles with practically anything lying around (http://berlinerisch.com/blog/2018/05/04/dave-chapelle-in-berlin/) (actually, it's just visualizing the forces & a firm grip), but I've never heard of this one.
There's a link on that page to "German maths witchcraft (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mev-q0xIOUo)", which is just the same as Chinese and Australian maths as far as I can tell (that is certainly how I was taught to do subtraction in junior school), with the exception of the thousands-separator and decimal point conventions. So not so much German magic of Nibilungs, as just ordinary outside the USA?

And LOL! I noticed this question, while googling for a link about German training of the Chinese army: "Why did China join World War II? (https://www.quora.com/Why-did-China-join-World-War-II)" I would reply "We didn't! WW2 joined us!"
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 05 Aug 2019, 22:06
It might be that everyone else already knew this, but I only just learned that if you move your mouse-cursor over the IPA pronunciation guides on Wikipedia pages, a tip pops up prompting you with the pronunciation of each letter.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 05 Aug 2019, 22:43
Handy!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 09 Aug 2019, 16:41
I just found out that Australia exports camels to Saudi Arabia.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 10 Aug 2019, 02:58
You think that's strange? Australia also exports sand to Saudi Arabia. (https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aussies-sell-sand-to-saudis/news-story/a20367e0e8c08d6f425ebf7f32c0d8d8)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 10 Aug 2019, 04:46
Um. Okay. I admit that I did not know about the sand.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 11 Aug 2019, 21:06
I just found out that Australia exports camels to Saudi Arabia.
Yes, we do, from our large population of feral camels (descendants of riding and pack animals employed in the bush in the 19th century, and turned loose when no longer required). Mainly they are just another part of our thriving live meat export trade to the Middle East.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 11 Aug 2019, 21:08
You think that's strange? Australia also exports sand to Saudi Arabia. (https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aussies-sell-sand-to-saudis/news-story/a20367e0e8c08d6f425ebf7f32c0d8d8)
https://satwcomic.com/great-deal
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 12 Aug 2019, 07:29
You think that's strange? Australia also exports sand to Saudi Arabia. (https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aussies-sell-sand-to-saudis/news-story/a20367e0e8c08d6f425ebf7f32c0d8d8)
https://satwcomic.com/great-deal

Did satw's England always look like Jacob Rees-Mogg?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: TheEvilDog on 12 Aug 2019, 14:44
......You know what, I think he has...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 22 Oct 2019, 07:20
I was making tea today and found a teabag that contained marshmallow root. I thought "What the hell is that, some kind of artificial sweetener?"

It was not. The marshmallow plant is real, and its root was used by the ancient Egyptians to create marshmallows. This candy is over five thousand years old.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 22 Oct 2019, 08:08
I learned that there is still a "Prince Napoleon" and he's my age. Jean-Christophe Louis Ferdinand Albéric Napoléon is Head of the Imperial House of France and has the title "His Imperial and Royal Highness Jean-Christophe, Prince Impérial (Prince Napoléon), Prince of Montfort, of Lucca and Piombino, and of Canino and Musignano, titular Prince of Elba, titular Prince Royal of Holland and of Westphalia, titular Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves, titular Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Duke of Reichstadt" and the Napoleon is his great-great-great-grand uncle.

I'd love to see a boxing match or chess match between him and the current pretender of the French Bourbon throne Prince Louis Alphonse of Bourbon, Duke of Anjou
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 22 Oct 2019, 10:49
I learned that there is still a "Prince Napoleon" and he's my age. Jean-Christophe Louis Ferdinand Albéric Napoléon is Head of the Imperial House of France and has the title "His Imperial and Royal Highness Jean-Christophe, Prince Impérial (Prince Napoléon), Prince of Montfort, of Lucca and Piombino, and of Canino and Musignano, titular Prince of Elba, titular Prince Royal of Holland and of Westphalia, titular Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves, titular Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Duke of Reichstadt" and the Napoleon is his great-great-great-grand uncle.

Great, another twat claiming I'm his subject ...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Cornelius on 23 Oct 2019, 02:06
Meh, it's only titular. Just look at the titles the king of Spain carries. I believe at some point, we had three separate people carrying the title of duke of Brabant.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 23 Oct 2019, 14:15
Rats show empathy:

http://news.uchicago.edu/story/helping-your-fellow-rat-rodents-show-empathy-driven-behavior (http://news.uchicago.edu/story/helping-your-fellow-rat-rodents-show-empathy-driven-behavior)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Blue Kitty on 24 Oct 2019, 07:05
(https://scontent.fdtw1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/75072688_10215593902501642_2224671245465550848_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_oc=AQnPIwjzfB9fZXtOECk8vAtApZvgm8tqjxu-odum89cMzOP9R164eT8ddkqMOtPgLOs&_nc_ht=scontent.fdtw1-1.fna&oh=9010f1468fa7711a4e0c16855fba2d06&oe=5E2327A1)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 10 Nov 2019, 01:57
I see only broken link icon.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 22 Jan 2020, 09:38
Sometimes Reddit will send me random suggestions based off my searches/subscriptions. Well one of which is "Today I Learned" and the subject was rather interesting:

"In 1714, a Norwegian captain (Peter Tordenskjold) and an English captain had a 14-hour long ship fight. Afterwards, both ships were badly damaged and the Norwegian captain was running out of ammo. He sent an envoy to the English ship, asking if he could borrow some of their ammo. His request was denied, and the captains drank to each other's health, before the ships dispersed"

Well, I just learned about that today.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: JoeCovenant on 22 Jan 2020, 09:40
Sometimes Reddit will send me random suggestions based off my searches/subscriptions. Well one of which is "Today I Learned" and the subject was rather interesting:

"In 1714, a Norwegian captain (Peter Tordenskjold) and an English captain had a 14-hour long ship fight. Afterwards, both ships were badly damaged and the Norwegian captain was running out of ammo. He sent an envoy to the English ship, asking if he could borrow some of their ammo. His request was denied, and the captains drank to each other's health, before the ships dispersed"

Well, I just learned about that today.

"Can I borrow some cannon balls? I promise I'll give them RIGHT back!"

:)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Dngrsone on 22 Jan 2020, 10:08
Now I want to watch Grosse Point Blank
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 22 Jan 2020, 10:47
I think the next paragraph is better still:

Quote
When he heard about the incident, king Frederick IV of Denmark asked for the admiralty to court-martial Wessel. He stood trial in November 1714, accused of disclosing vital military information about his lack of ammunition to the enemy, as well as endangering the ship of king Frederick IV by fighting a superior enemy force. The spirit with which he defended himself and the contempt he poured on his less courageous comrades took the fancy of Frederick IV. He successfully argued a section of the Danish naval code which mandated attacking fleeing enemy ships no matter the size, and was acquitted on 15 December 1714. He then went to the king asking for a promotion, and was raised to the rank of Captain on 28 December 1714.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 08 Feb 2020, 20:43
Today I learned that the dimples on people's lower back are called "Dimples of Venus"
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 19 Feb 2020, 03:59
Meet the unknown female mathematician whose calculations helped discover Pluto (https://www.space.com/human-computer-elizabeth-williams-pluto-discovery.html)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 27 May 2020, 07:38
TIL that if a Pelican overheats it can pull its spine through its mouth to cool down.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 02 Jul 2020, 04:15
So I remembered somewhat randomly today that at school, there was a yearly event where you could wear whatever you wanted instead of the uniform. And I always wondered why the heck it was called mufti day (https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/special-shows/the-mystery-hour/culture/what-is-mufti-in-a-mufti-day-13416/).

And thanks to the Intertubes, now I know.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 09 Jul 2020, 18:38
Ah... Thanks. I knew what "mufti" meant (Australia was part of the Empah, after all), but not the origin of the term.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 10 Jul 2020, 04:43
So I remembered somewhat randomly today that at school, there was a yearly event where you could wear whatever you wanted instead of the uniform. And I always wondered why the heck it was called mufti day (https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/special-shows/the-mystery-hour/culture/what-is-mufti-in-a-mufti-day-13416/).

And thanks to the Intertubes, now I know.

Huh?

An identical term in colloquial German is sometimes used to express discontent towards a person viewed as claiming authority or status beyond their actual real-life importance - essentially assigning a 'fantasy' official title to a pompous twat in order to encourage them to be less of a pompous twat ('fantasy' bcs the office of mufti doesn't exist in German culture).

Afaics, it's derived from the actual historic office of mufti in Islamic Law rather than any references to school-uniforms (Germany doesn't have those anyhow, but has had a close relationship with Turkey for a long time).

Usage is always sarcastic - sometimes enhanced by adding modifiers like e.g. 'Gross-Mufti von Klein-Kleckersdorf' (roughly "Grandmufti of Bumfuck, AZ") - and usually ethnicity-agnostic (i.e. most people mocked as 'Mufti of whatever' are lily-white indigenes).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 07 Aug 2020, 19:53
Today I learned that LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" has the same beats per minute as Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl."

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 24 Sep 2020, 21:02
Today I learned that my phone has augmented reality capability. I participated in an academic study and it prompted me to aim the camera at a table or floor, and a toy VW bus appeared on the floor that I could walk around and view from all angles. Somehow I had not known about that.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: N.N. Marf on 25 Sep 2020, 05:27
that LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" has the same beats per minute as Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl."
I thought their ratio were 2:1
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 21 Nov 2020, 19:18
Well I learned something today.
(https://i.redd.it/dfz5gxqw6d061.png)

The name may be misleading, as the "ninja" in question were seen as witches and it was a literal witch hunt. Anywhere between 150-300 people were killed. Big oof. :(

From Wikiapedia:
Quote
The 1998 East Java ninja scare was an outbreak of mass hysteria in East Java, Indonesia, in which the local population believed they were being targeted by sorcerers known as ninja, who were blamed for mysterious killings of religious leaders by assassins dressed in black. As many as 150-300 “sorcerers” were killed between February and October, with the most deaths occurring between August and September.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Case on 31 Dec 2020, 11:21
I've learned today that there's 7.8 billion humans on this planet.

DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE OTHER HOBBIES?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 31 Dec 2020, 12:21
DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE OTHER HOBBIES?

My parents lived out in the middle of nowhere, and had no internet or even TV. I asked my parents what they did when they were bored, and they didn't know. My 26 brothers and sisters didn't know either.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 31 Dec 2020, 14:21
I paint miniatures, play video games, read, and write.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 31 Dec 2020, 15:20

And LOL! I noticed this question, while googling for a link about German training of the Chinese army: "Why did China join World War II? (https://www.quora.com/Why-did-China-join-World-War-II)" I would reply "We didn't! WW2 joined us!"

Mostly about Japan using the war as an opportunity to make territorial claims (and commit some atrocities) in China, right?  On the theory that everybody else was too busy with the Germans/Austrians/Italians/&co in Europe to bother with trying to stop them?  China could have fought on its own or as part of an alliance. Aaaand, that looks like a pretty clear choice to me.  So no, I don't wonder why China got into WWII.

Australia's motives are the ones that seem a bit less clear; Japan wasn't significantly encroaching on them or at least not that I know of, and while there were cultural ties to allied Europe, there was also festering resentment.  I wouldn't have guessed the diplomatic relationships would really be as solid as "going to war for the benefit of others." 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 02 Jan 2021, 06:39
This is unacceptable - I shall not rest until I have mastered the wedding ring, for the glory and honour of the Fatherland!
Imaginary pickelhaube intensifies!


Fun fact: most birds are constantly in a squatting position due to the nearly permanent placement of their thighs, and they walk or hop by moving their knees and ankles instead of their hips.

So yes, penguins do have knees. Avian dinosaurs are just weird.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 08 Jan 2021, 16:02
I've learned today that there's 7.8 billion humans on this planet.

DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE OTHER HOBBIES?

Some of us just know how to practice that one hobby correctly
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 16 Jan 2021, 17:01
A crunching sound from cartilage is called "crepitus" and it's the same root as in "decrepit".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 16 Jan 2021, 17:46
Most of the time in the US, modifications to a car are legal, subject to a DMV safety inspection.  In California (and now a bunch of other places) modifications to the engine or exhaust system are not: they will cause your car to fail its 'smog test' even if they reduce smog.  You're not allowed to change that thing that was approved by some committee with something that wasn't. For a while, this meant that converting cars to electric drive, eliminating all possibility of burning fuel and producing exhaust, would cause them to fail their smog inspections.  But that's gotten better; now there's just a form that someone can fill out.

Wanna know what they still get tetchy about? 

If you have to change anything about the way the seat belt or the seat itself is attached, your registration ceases to exist.  People buy aftermarket bucket seats all the time but they don't change the seat mounting.  People buy and install five-point harnesses occasionally, but when they do they don't remove the stock seat belt.  When you cross that line, that car is no longer legally a product of the company that made it.  Your Ford Fiesta isn't a Ford Fiesta any more. You have to get new registration, new plates, fill out a custom-car-builder's form, name the new make-and-model, get a builder's VIN issued by the state, etc etc etc....  and since there's no baseline data for your newly-built vehicle, you get future smog inspections under a special 'unknown' category that about two-thirds of production cars actually fail.  When your insurance company wants to know what kind of car you have, you are not allowed to call it a Ford Fiesta.  Insurance may be hard to find, and possibly even expensive.

All of which means, yes, that kind of modification is *technically* legal, but the car company, otherwise under strict liability for accidents and incidents, wants nothing more to do with it because if you designed and built your own attachments for the seat belt, or changed the linkage between the seat and the frame, then your safety is no longer subject to the protections they were expected to provide. 

I've done this three times now.  :-/
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 17 Jan 2021, 08:24
A crunching sound from cartilage is called "crepitus" and it's the same root as in "decrepit".

That means I heard 'crepitus' when I got the top of my ear pierced I guess.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Blue Kitty on 17 Jan 2021, 18:17
I learned that gorillas only have one blood type, while horses have over 400,000
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Cornelius on 18 Jan 2021, 00:50
Most of the time in the US, modifications to a car are legal, subject to a DMV safety inspection.  In California (and now a bunch of other places) modifications to the engine or exhaust system are not: they will cause your car to fail its 'smog test' even if they reduce smog.  You're not allowed to change that thing that was approved by some committee with something that wasn't. For a while, this meant that converting cars to electric drive, eliminating all possibility of burning fuel and producing exhaust, would cause them to fail their smog inspections.  But that's gotten better; now there's just a form that someone can fill out.

Wanna know what they still get tetchy about? 

If you have to change anything about the way the seat belt or the seat itself is attached, your registration ceases to exist.  People buy aftermarket bucket seats all the time but they don't change the seat mounting.  People buy and install five-point harnesses occasionally, but when they do they don't remove the stock seat belt.  When you cross that line, that car is no longer legally a product of the company that made it.  Your Ford Fiesta isn't a Ford Fiesta any more. You have to get new registration, new plates, fill out a custom-car-builder's form, name the new make-and-model, get a builder's VIN issued by the state, etc etc etc....  and since there's no baseline data for your newly-built vehicle, you get future smog inspections under a special 'unknown' category that about two-thirds of production cars actually fail.  When your insurance company wants to know what kind of car you have, you are not allowed to call it a Ford Fiesta.  Insurance may be hard to find, and possibly even expensive.

All of which means, yes, that kind of modification is *technically* legal, but the car company, otherwise under strict liability for accidents and incidents, wants nothing more to do with it because if you designed and built your own attachments for the seat belt, or changed the linkage between the seat and the frame, then your safety is no longer subject to the protections they were expected to provide. 

I've done this three times now.  :-/

My father converted a couple of vans to motor homes, and that's something you can't touch here, either - or, even, if the car is old enough, install them, in the first place. The procedure here, is that you can do it, but you need a licence as a car builder, and you need to have it shipped back to the manufacturer to have it checked, and marked compliant to safety standards.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 18 Jan 2021, 07:08
I learned that gorillas only have one blood type, while horses have over 400,000

So can horses get blood transfusions?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 18 Jan 2021, 07:15
Considering that they’re usually considered more valuable than humans, I’d presume so.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Cornelius on 18 Jan 2021, 07:23
Apparently, despite the huge number of blood types, yes, they can. There's no antibodies originally present against other blood types, so any horse can give another horse their first transfusion. A second one can be trickier, as then, there are. Or so a veterinary knowledge base tells me.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 18 Jan 2021, 07:49
I have a friend who has AA degree in equine studies, I will have to ask them about this later.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 18 Jan 2021, 23:33
Considering that they’re usually considered more valuable than humans, I’d presume so.

Interesting. By whom!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 19 Jan 2021, 04:31
Capitalist society.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 19 Jan 2021, 07:12
To be fair, a hamburger is considered more valuable than a human in a capitalist society.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 19 Jan 2021, 10:14
ha ha  :roll:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Jan 2021, 00:51
Considering that they’re usually considered more valuable than humans, I’d presume so.

Interesting. By whom!
Wealthy douche nozzles.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Jan 2021, 00:53
There's a TNG manga.

(https://64.media.tumblr.com/81a81e1ba94547cd45542cb5e923cfe2/ea158dcf49100b65-ce/s1280x1920/49431ac6686bf67a4500471ae612f8175f79ff1a.png)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Dock Braun on 25 Jan 2021, 08:52
To be fair, a hamburger is considered more valuable than a human in a capitalist society.
To say that it's more valuable, lacks necessary nuance. The hamburger, to the consumer, has a more direct value, than the stranger bringing it to the consumer. Strangers, though, often have a greater value to the consumer, than any one hamburger, less directly. The stranger's presence aids the bringing of the hamburger, and more---of whatever other service---to the consumer. One stranger likely contributes more than one hamburgers' worth.
And then, of course, to whom? To one consumer, perhaps, some stranger is lower valued than a hamburger. To another, maybe too. Maybe to each consumer. To all consumers? A hamburger is valuable to one consumer. The value of the stranger, is to many. In sum, the stranger may be worth more.
Upon a closer inspection of the hamburger, one may find many strangers participating in the added value. In sum, to the consumer, those strangers' value is exactly the value of the burger. Those strangers, though, bring more benefit, to the consumer, than by that one burger. They bring another burger, to another consumer, who thereby better brings value to other consumers, etc.
Perhaps it is a bit shallow, to consider the value of a person, to another, in terms of how much they contribute to the bringing of hamburgers, or whatever other service; nonetheless, to any consumer, that is where the ultimate value is. Rather, the value is exclusively in the consumer; others may only bring the hamburger so far, before it's more efficient for the consumer to complete their own value, ingesting, enjoying.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Wombat on 25 Jan 2021, 18:11
There's a TNG manga.
My brain converted the acronym correctly, but also assumed it referred to Degrassi: The Next Generation, and now I want that manga.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 16 Mar 2021, 10:16
Sometime in the 19th century, pneumatic tubes were constructed under Manhattan for the delivery of mail.  They were sealed tubes that were installed mostly through existing underground infrastructure such as sewers and steam tunnels.  Letters and small packages, pushed along by forced air moving at 35 mph, ran to and from post offices and, where traffic (and expensive fees) justified it, to offices in high-rise buildings in the financial district.  These were used up until 1935, after which a couple of post offices moved, and a couple of new ones had been constructed, and it just wasn't worth anybody's time and money to extend the system.  Mail is now distributed via more conventional methods.

The Urban Legend:
These tubes still exist underground, and various shifts and ruptures have opened connections to them from the sewers, steam tunnels, etc. in which they were originally built. In the course of remodeling, several unscrupulous architects have taken advantage of these abandoned tubes as drains through which rain can be diverted into the infrastructure below where it will be "somebody else's problem" and the upper ends now open in gutters and on slopes many stories high in the buildings that were once served with pneumatic mail.  But, because the buildings are heated, these long stretches of the tube that run up through the building are held at temperatures much warmer than the outside air resulting, on cold winter days, in a powerful draft from those places deep in the earth that comes whistling out of these tubes at high speed.  And every so often, a hapless cat, hunting rats deep in the underground, wanders too close to one of the air intakes and gets sucked up, through a twisting, turning, terrifying maze of tubing that batters the poor beast until finally it is launched, terrified, yowling, and often injured, out into the void thirty stories above ground.  In certain offices these creatures are occasionally heard as they are launched nearby; in certain apartments which happen to be situated downrange, a cat, sometimes badly injured, occasionally lands on the balcony and, as soon as it recovers its consciousness and/or composure, demands to be let in.  In other places cats are not so lucky and there is nowhere to land....

The Truth:
The guy who built this system back in eighteen-seventy-whatever, for reasons unknown, chose to test its suitability for 'fragile' packages by sending a cat, in a box, between stations to see whether it arrived at the destination with injuries.  Why he chose this bizarre method of testing, as opposed to getting a bunch of tableware - plates, cups, glasses, etc - from a thrift store is unknown, and has led to some speculation about whether he just personally hated that particular cat.  But ever since then people have been talking about cats getting into the tubes and 'accidentally' delivered to one of the destination stations. "High rise" buildings, in the context of eighteen-seventy-whatever, were no more than seven stories tall, and anyway the pneumatic delivery systems were all situated on the ground floor.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Mar 2021, 10:25
A cat in a box can actually be in one of three determinate states: alive, dead, and bloody furious. 
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 16 Mar 2021, 10:27
A cat in a box can actually be in one of three determinate states: alive, dead, and bloody furious.
That’s not an orthonormal basis set. The cat can be both alive and bloody furious. Given it’s a cat, it is probably capable of being both dead and bloody furious, too.

Edit— I suppose it could be a valid basis if the cat is capable of being dead and bloody furious. Also, if the cat is not normalized, in which case making the cat more furious causes it to become less alive.

I haven’t been sleeping well this week, so I’m sure none of this makes any sense at all.

Edit 2– I may be thinking of this wrong. I’m picturing it as a three dimensional system— aliveness, deadness, and furiousness. But aliveness and deadness are linked— unless we allow the cat to be neither alive nor dead. In which case it’s actually only a two dimensional system, an alive-dead axis and a furiousness axis. I have no idea where I’m going with this.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 16 Mar 2021, 10:46
Now I have to wonder if Heisenberg had this incident in mind when he constructed his famous thought experiment.

Edit:  Of course I should have typed Schroedinger.  Thanks Hedgie, for the correction.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 16 Mar 2021, 10:50
And anyway, if it worked as the urban legend claims, it would be a rat launcher far more often than a cat launcher anyway.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Mar 2021, 11:13
Now I have to wonder if Heisenberg had this incident in mind when he constructed his famous thought experiment.

Schrödinger, please.  I was also stealing from Pratchett here.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Pilchard123 on 16 Mar 2021, 11:45
A box with a cat in the "bloody furious" state needs a label saying "this side towards enemy" on the lid.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 16 Mar 2021, 11:52
Especially when that cat is Greebo.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 16 Mar 2021, 12:02
Bloody furious is the ground state for some cats. We call them "up" cats.
For others, the ground state is asleep.  We call them "down" cats.
Some never enter the injured state; they are known as "charmed" cats.
And more than a few simply vanish the first time some experimentor does something they don't like.  They are called "strange" cats, and exhibit a property known as "feline tunnelling"  whereby they may appear in an adjacent space, seemingly at random.....
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: N.N. Marf on 17 Mar 2021, 04:48
When Erwin Schrödinger tubed his cat home after that infamous experiment, it stayed both dead and alive---superpositional resiliency being a markèd quality of boxed cats. He was damned sure it'd be bloody furious on the other end---even after collapsing it's superposition, irregarding whence---result: negative; leading to the development of the bottom or top cat distinction.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 03 May 2021, 20:16
I recently learned that the Toucan bird has clear skin and you can see through it if you brush the feathers out of the way.

Here are some pictures.
https://imgur.com/gallery/9oqKDJj (https://imgur.com/gallery/9oqKDJj)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Veritable_Variable on 04 May 2021, 13:05
When Erwin Schrödinger tubed his cat home after that infamous experiment, it stayed both dead and alive---superpositional resiliency being a markèd quality of boxed cats. He was damned sure it'd be bloody furious on the other end---even after collapsing it's superposition, irregarding whence---result: negative; leading to the development of the bottom or top cat distinction.

He would either get a ferocious live cat or a vengeful ghost cat upon opening the box.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 15 May 2021, 11:08
I halfway knew this already but it was fascinating to learn the rest.

All I have to do is pop the hood on my Prius to see that three-phase AC can be synthesized with power transistors. That's starting from DC, but today I learned that it's A Thing for industrial motors to get plugged into single-phase circuits and use analogous circuity to generate three phases from it and run the motor from that.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 24 May 2021, 08:45
I'm making a new coat for next winter -  I do go a few places where it's actually cold.

I avoided a mistake I made once, a few years ago, and started by visiting a coin laundry (in American, the word is "Laundromat" - but I don't know if that's widely used) with a washer that takes large loads.  Learning, as the thread title puts it, has occurred. 

Because I know now that the first time you wash ten yards of 60-inch wide 24-ounce cotton fabric in hot water, you get nine yards of 52-inch wide 30-ounce fabric.  It's best to do that before you cut your pattern pieces, or you'll be making clothes for someone smaller than yourself.

Yes, I'm using #4 canvas for the shell fabric of a  greatcoat.  Yes, I'm making a slightly-modified copy of an actual regency-era greatcoat, with the capes and everything.  Because when you make your own clothes, you get to make whatever clothes you want.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrudd on 27 May 2021, 22:16
A box with a cat in the "bloody furious" state needs a label saying "this side towards enemy" on the lid.

Maxim 62. Anything labelled "This side towards enemy" is dangerous at both sides
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gnabberwocky on 16 Jun 2021, 21:28
Learned from a conversation with a friend today that bats are important pollinators of certain tropical and desert plants.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 21 Jun 2021, 12:19
Learned from a conversation with a friend today that bats are important
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 05 Aug 2021, 21:51
TIL

(http://www.wordinfo.info/words/images/panegyric-1.jpg)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 07 Aug 2021, 19:11
TIL that Jackie Chan did the Chinese Mandarin dub of Beast for Beauty and the Beast.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 10 Nov 2021, 15:56
I learnt today that the Arabic form of my first name also means urine or piss.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 05 Dec 2021, 11:51
It was obvious in hindsight, but I learned the etymology of "religion".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 07 Dec 2021, 22:28
Today I confused two French words.  "Embaiser" means to kiss, and "Baiser" means to ... I'm going to say lovemaking but it's the crude word for it.

I had intended to use the first word, and accidentally found the second kicking around my head, and said something considerably more forceful than I intended to say.  I had intended something like "people who want to kiss, but don't because they fear the disapproval of others, are depriving themselves of happiness."  I messed it up because it was too complicated for my horribly rusty half-forgotten French.

When I learned what I had actually said and why people were giving me their best shocked-and-almost-offended looks,  I apologized, saying I had made a mistake, and that smoothed feathers over.  And then someone asked a question which I thoughtlessly answered.  "Oui, je pense que c'est aussi vrai."  or yes I do in fact think the thing I didn't mean to say is also true.  And everybody went back to that shocked-and-almost-offended look again.

I can blame the first one on not speaking French for years and dipping my toes into that conversation anyway against my better judgment. The second, however, is a thing I am all too familiar with because I do it in English as well.  Ask me a straightforward question and my mouth will open with the truth as best I know it whether or not it happens to be a polite thing to say.  I can't seem to come up with anything else once the question is hanging there in the air.  It's a bit of a personality flaw.

I will continue to forget French vocabulary for a long time, but I will never forget, or confuse, those two words again.

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 08 Dec 2021, 08:18
You can still use "un baiser" as a noun for kiss, but using it as a verb is a bit vulgar. Either that or all the children songs I learned means something very different now.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 08 Dec 2021, 09:14
It was in fact a poem that I learned while a student of French that kicked around in the back of my head and gave me that word at that moment. I knew the line, I knew the translation was about stolen kisses, deduced the wrong word and, well, the rest is "a learning experience." 

It's a bit of a slippery spot, probably an easy mistake to make.  I can't say much because mostly I speak English, which has so many such slippery spots that it doesn't bear examination in comparison to anything. 

I
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 08 Dec 2021, 10:13
I tried to learn French using Rosetta Stone once. All I learned from it is that the correct pronunciation of ‘voiture’ is ‘Fuck you.’
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 10 Dec 2021, 00:46
I have a personal belief that if you never make a humiliating mistake in a language you are studying then you are not trying hard enough. That idea does smell like a rationalization.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 10 Dec 2021, 06:37
It wasn't until I moved to Massachusetts did I learn that turkeys have chest beards. Theres a flock of a dozen turkeys in my neighbor hood and it was kind of a shock to discover this.

(https://i.imgur.com/PJOFKyE.jpg)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 10 Dec 2021, 11:47
I have learnt that it's much better to open port 22 on the firewall *before* heading out and trying to remotely access the server.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 13 Dec 2021, 22:50
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 14 Dec 2021, 09:47
Bob Dole has recently passed away. I was a resident of Kansas while he was serving as a senator (and Senate Majority Leader, and chair of more important congressional committees than I can count) for that state.

People who didn't like his politics all thought he was a crook, but also knew that he was a very effective crook who did a lot for the interests of his constituents.  People who liked his politics also knew him as a very effective senator, and generally looked into things and decided that once you got past the hyperbole he had done a lot of tricky deals but wasn't an actual crook.  Veterans, whether they liked or didn't like his politics, respected the hell out of his military service record and the circumstances under which he got his Purple Heart.  Everybody knew that he was smarter than a bathtub full of professors.  The sheer raw intellect of the man was astonishing. But not very many people liked him personally.  There was just something offputting about him.

A thing I didn't learn until his ill-fated run for the Presidency, however, was that "Dole", if you spell it in the Arabic alphabet, and in such a way that people would pronounce it correctly, is inescapably the  Arabic word for "Penis."  How to spell his name for purposes of news headlines apparently became something of a controversy in the Middle East.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 19 Dec 2021, 12:20
The Crocodile is more closely related to birds than anything else which is not actually a bird.  (Common ancestor lived 240 mya).

The Coelecanth is more closely related to cats than it is to other fish.

Hyenas are more closely related to elephants, cats, and golden moles than they are to dogs.

Sea squirts (you know, the ones that are famous for finding a nice spot to spend the rest of their lives, digging into it and then devouring their own brains because they're not needed any more after that?) are more closely related to vertebrates than they are related to any other invertebrate.



Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 19 Dec 2021, 12:43
So maybe cœlecanths should be renamed "catfish".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 19 Dec 2021, 13:51
The Coelecanth is more closely related to cats than it is to other fish.

I take it that this means that the Coelacanth and the cat have a more recent common ancestor than the Coelacanth and other species of fish.

I've come across this kind of factoid quite a few times, and to be honest, I mentally lump it with other TBU* knowledge, like "tomatoes are a fruit" and "I am 37% Scottish." Most people don't put tomatoes into fruit salad. A precise percentage of heritage doesn't translate into just how "Scottish" you look, act, or sound. Coelacanth probably don't purr to self-heal.

* true but useless
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 19 Dec 2021, 13:57
At least the tomato thing helps with explaining D&D stats.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 19 Dec 2021, 15:35
Along that theme:

A chimpanzee isn't a monkey (https://youtu.be/aTKdYIs_7gQ?t=76)

Quote
David: Even though a chimp is totally in every meaningful way, obviously it's a monkey, it's not a monkey. You know, it's a special place that's been made by biologists for pedants to reside so that any time someone refers to a chimpanzee as a monkey, like you did then, a pedant like me says, "Oh no, a chimpanzee isn't a monkey"; and I've started to hate myself for that.
Lee: Nice of you to join the rest of us.

Also in that category, while I'm on the topic, "blank isn't a colour."
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 19 Dec 2021, 16:54
The common ancestor of the Coelecanth and cats diverged from "fish" more recently than the common ancestor of Coelecanth and other fish. 

This fascinates me because humans' most recent common ancestor with cats, and in fact, the earliest common ancestor of all mammals, and before that the earliest common ancestor of all reptiles, all came after that.  I don't know why they picked "cats" to communicate this story, but it can't be true without including all mammals, and that can't be true without including all the reptiles, and that can't be true without including all the dinosaurs including birds. 

Meaning that the Coelecanth is an offshoot of the lineage that gave rise to all land animals, and that lineage has given rise to no other surviving species of fish.   And that seems unique enough to be worth studying and trying to understand.  What was so special about it?  What cocktail of evolutionary pressures caused the following sequence of events?

Likewise with sea squirts.  It's the closest relative to a vertebrate that isn't actually a vertebrate.  So "useless but true" for most of us, but if you happen to have an interest in how vertebrates came about, then understanding the sea squirt is likely to be important.

Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Runkel on 20 Dec 2021, 15:52
Also in that category, while I'm on the topic, "blank isn't a colour."
Yet Zero is a number.  Isn't it?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 20 Dec 2021, 15:58
While it is true that "blank" is not a colour, I had intended to say "black," of course.  :roll:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 20 Dec 2021, 17:00
potatoes are also not colors.

But people seldom seem compelled to wonder whether they are or aren't, nor to express opinions about their non-numeric status.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 20 Dec 2021, 19:52
Sorry, you lost me there.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 20 Dec 2021, 21:12
I was being very slightly oblique, I guess.  But, pointing out that 'black' is understood to be in the general category of colors, and 'zero' in the general category of numbers, by practically everyone whether or not they accept the premise that they actually are members of those categories. 

The counterexample, 'potato', is something that is clearly not a color (nor a number) in that it would not even be a sensible answer to a question about color or quantity.

The whole point of this is that, when we feel a need to actually *say* that black is not a color, we are saying that, whatever we think it is, it's pretty close to the idea of a color.  It's something that would be a sensible answer if we ask what color some object is.  The only sense in which it's not a color is that it's not the color of any wavelength of light.

For much of human history (up to some time in the middle ages, in Europe) people felt the same way about 'zero' being a number.  If someone asked how many of something there were, 'none' was a non-numeric out-of-band response, indicating that the question was in error.  But at some point the Arabic numerals were adopted, and 'zero' became a way to say 'none' that was numeric, in-band, and didn't require anyone to reformulate a question or deal with an error.  And then we had the same fight about negative numbers, and then about imaginary and complex numbers, etc. 

So...  It's up to everybody whether to accept the idea that 'black' is a color or not.  I'm happy to go around thinking that it is.  For the same reason that most people think that having an opinion about whether it is or not even makes sense.  It's just the 'zero' of the color spectrum.



Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 20 Dec 2021, 21:17
It's also a matter how one defines terms. Whether or not black is a colour entirely depends on what one means when they say "colour".
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 20 Dec 2021, 21:24
Exactly.  And I'm happy to mean by 'color' something that includes 'black' (and even 'clear') as possible values.  Others can choose to mean by 'color' some smaller category;  we may need to clarify a few edge cases if we're discussing it, but I'm not going to argue over which of us owns the word.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Morituri on 06 Jan 2022, 16:39
Today I learned that freezer door gaskets, if they get too cold, actually freeze.  That would seem to be a design flaw, wouldn't it?  I mean, thinking about it.... 

Anyway, the appropriate thing to do, if your door is closing but your gasket won't conform all the way around, (symptoms are frost or ice building up from condensation inside, leaked water, or occasional failures to maintain freezing temperature) is to get out a hair  dryer and warm up the gasket until it becomes flexible once again.  Don't overdo it; too much heat will cause your gasket to burn (if rubber) or melt (if plastic).

But anyway, once you thaw the darn thing out, it can flex and conform itself to seal.  And if it freezes in THAT configuration that's okay.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 07 Jan 2022, 12:12
Today is the day I learned that Damascus steel was nanotech.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Perfectly Reasonable on 08 Jan 2022, 10:48
Electronic parts often have colored bands or dots to show their values. In that code, black is zero.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 08 Jan 2022, 11:59
Today is the day I learned that Damascus steel was nanotech.

W00tz!  that is useful knowledge.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 19 Jun 2022, 09:36
Yesterday I learned what magnetars can do.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/behold-the-magnetar-natures-ultimate-superweapon/
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Jun 2022, 15:02
Three things from this month since I sometimes forget about this forum.

1) The Ryker Maneuver was a fotm of disability accommodation for Jonathan Frakes as he had severely injured his back while moving furniture when he was younger. That metjod of takrn a sit was ultimately easier for him. Frakes also did the Ryker lean to accommodate his chronic pain.

2) (https://64.media.tumblr.com/81a9f6b86ea84a74029dd548c8e8d23d/f42c8cc2d1358d10-79/s500x750/557d6edc10723c1993c10948064846def9e25f8d.jpg)
Lt. Col. Charles “Bazooka Charlie” Carpenter (August 29, 1912 – March 22, 1966) was a United States Army officer and army observation pilot who served in World War II.  He is best remembered for destroying several enemy armored vehicles in his bazooka-equipped L-4 Grasshopper light observation aircraft.

3) Speaking of WWII, Hitler wasn't just figuratively a sh!teating Nazi. Thanks to his favorite quack, Adolf Hitler was also a literal sh!t eating Nazi. Apparently AH thought he farted too much and got nervous farts as well, and he dpent A LOT of money on quack cures. And it wasn'tnuntil he met his favorite quack that he got any results. The pills contained bacteria cultured "from a Bulgarian peasant's feces". And, thanks to 'curing' his excessive flatulence AH let this quack prescribe him tons of other nonsense as well (methamphetamine, arsenic tablets, etc).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: zmeiat_joro on 10 Aug 2022, 02:12
I was watching the Daily Show, and when Trevor Noah said that the Spanish government decreed that air conditioning should not be set lower than 27 C in government buildings, I thought "what, they were setting it lower than 27 C before? Why?"

And the reaction of the audience when he converted that to 80.6 F was weird. I almost never set my air conditioning lower that 27 C anyway. Apparently USAians and Spaniards like their rooms really cold compared to the outside.

EDIT: There's this old adage that the temperature differential b/w outside and inside should not be more than 10 degrees centigrade (that's 18 F).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 10 Aug 2022, 06:10
Fuck that noise. It's been over 38° every day for weeks, there's no way I am keeping it at 28° in my apartment. I typically keep it between 18 and 20 all year. This is my home, this is where I go to be safe and comfortable.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LTK on 10 Aug 2022, 06:26
I have no AC and it's been between 26 and 30 degrees inside all week. Usually I'm most comfortable at 21 degrees, but I noticed I've acclimatized quite quickly to these temperatures, so it only really bothers me when it's 28 and up. A government mandate for no AC under 27 degrees doesn't sound unreasonable at all for me, at least in Spain, where I presume they're also acclimatized to higher temperatures. (You don't live in Spain, do you sitnsnpin?) I think it makes sense given the energy and climate crisis, which is only exacerbated by widespread use of AC.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 10 Aug 2022, 07:14
It depends.  When I lived in SF, it was typically quite cool.  Except for a couple of weeks in late September, when 27-28˚C was extremely painful, since we were on the ocean, it was quite humid, and on days like that, there’s none of the normal breeze or wind.  Edit:  If I *did* have an AC, I’d probably run it intermittantly just to dry the air out.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 10 Aug 2022, 12:02
I like everything cold, outside and inside. Anything over 21 and I start to get uncomfortable. Over 24 and I kinda want to die.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Thrillho on 10 Aug 2022, 12:47
I feel that
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: zmeiat_joro on 10 Aug 2022, 13:32
Fuck that noise. It's been over 38° every day for weeks, there's no way I am keeping it at 28° in my apartment. I typically keep it between 18 and 20 all year. This is my home, this is where I go to be safe and comfortable.

The thing is 18-20 inside is not comfortable to me when it's ~40 outside and I have to go in and out. The most I can tolerate is 24, barely. I feel like I'm freezing when I go inside. EDIT: It's currently just past midnight here; 28 C, ~68% humidity.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 10 Aug 2022, 20:50
We all have our own preference. For me, 28° is unbearable, especially inside. But you do you.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 11 Aug 2022, 02:21
I'm not sure if I am just weird reading all these preferred temperatures, or if I'm miss handling the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion.

I generally keep the indoors at 70° F or 21° C in the summer time and bringing it to 72°F or 22° C in the winter. Before my wife and I moved in together, I generally kept it at 68°F (20° C). My in-laws when they would visit and especially when they moved in with us would complain that its so cold in our place.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: zmeiat_joro on 11 Aug 2022, 06:05
So you keep (mostly) the same temperature year round inside? That strikes me as strange, at least in places like here where there's a lot of variation between months, outside. In winter I don't put it _over_ 24° C. Usually 20-21° C. (and don't use the AC at all in spring and fall, mostly.)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 11 Aug 2022, 09:31
I generally don't use temp control at all during the winter, I almost never need to. Insulation typically does enough.

During spring and fall in doesn't generally kick on, either. Good insulation does a lot of the work.

My comfort level doesn't change throughout the year.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 14 Aug 2022, 16:32
To me, anything under 20C seems chilly, and anything under 10C is really cold. On the other hand, it has to be over 40C before I think it is hot. In eastern Sydney (ie near the coast), the coldest I remember was 4C and the hottest 44C. I have reverse cycle a/c as the only form of heating/cooling in the house. I don't use it during the spring and autumn, and rarely in summer, but in winter I confess that I set it between 20-22C. My winter electricity bill is always a bit ouchy. I've been tracking my electricity consumption in a spreadsheet ever since I moved in and I'm pleased to say that my four-quarter rolling average has come down steadily as I replaced the old lights, installed insulation in the roof, replaced the old a/c with newer units etc. but...  :-\
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: pwhodges on 17 Aug 2022, 03:14
When I replaced all the lights in our house with LEDs in a single hit, our electricity company wanted extra verification of our next meter reading because of how our consumption had fallen!
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: LeeC on 13 Sep 2022, 07:31
While on youtube today I came across a channel called Miniminuteman where they dispel historical conspiracies. The video I watched was about the Baghdad Battery (which should be properly known as the "Parthian Jars") and it was great. Interestingly enough there was a recommended response video by Artifactually Speaking where an archaeologist in that specific field of study watched the Miniminuteman video and brings in his expertise to provide more information about the topic and also help dispel the conspiracy. He even corrects the Miniminuteman several times and provides additional context to the whole subject. Really worth a watch! Especially Artifactually Speaking's video which provided a lot of the context that Minimuntemen couldn't find but was searching for.

Miniminuteman video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRZR_TeVi5Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRZR_TeVi5Y)

Artifactually Speaking's reaction video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBsNGPVK2s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBsNGPVK2s)


The TL;DR:
They were most likely magic jars with spells and incantations in them. More than likely to keep away evil spirits from the home or for good luck.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 16 Sep 2022, 08:35
Well, here's one hell of a piece of trivia if it's true.

(https://64.media.tumblr.com/76614c37042ab3974280dfc4b9c0509f/990889cd0520ed61-26/s1280x1920/2135434c9ad6df3a8950d66aa1334f6bd24b1f86.pnj)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Jimor on 17 Sep 2022, 04:24
I'm not sure if it was this one, but I definitely had at least one "record" cut from the back of a cereal box when I was a kid. It was the cardboard backing with graphics with a clear coating of vinyl over it that had the record grooves stamped onto it.

Also some books had records in them as a flexible sheet of vinyl inserted as the last page that you could cut out. The one I particularly remember for this was the Sesame Street book of "There's a Monster at the End of This Book" featuring Grover.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 02 Oct 2022, 14:46
I'm finding out what modern C++ is capable of and just how much you can accomplish in a single line.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 02 Oct 2022, 15:57
I haven't touched C++ in a few years now and I wonder if I would even recognise it.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Farideh on 02 Oct 2022, 16:02
C++ is hard to forget.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 03 Oct 2022, 23:42
I haven't touched C++ in a few years now and I wonder if I would even recognise it.

Since senior year of high school here (2004).
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 04 Oct 2022, 01:01
This reads in as many floating point numbers as there are in the input, allocates space for them and stores them. It's the equivalent of an old school sscanf loop:
std::vector<double> foo((std::istream_iterator<double>(iss)), std::istream_iterator<double>());
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Akima on 26 Oct 2022, 17:16
I'm finding out what modern C++ is capable of and just how much you can accomplish in a single line.
Wait 'til you discover grep...
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: hedgie on 26 Oct 2022, 18:24
Or awk.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 26 Oct 2022, 20:10
I'm finding out what modern C++ is capable of and just how much you can accomplish in a single line.

I like to go for the opposite of conciseness: https://github.com/db314159/Spl/blob/master/examples/rydberg.spl
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 27 Oct 2022, 23:29
I'm finding out what modern C++ is capable of and just how much you can accomplish in a single line.
Wait 'til you discover grep...

I knew grep in the early 80s. Guess what C++ added recently? Built-in regex support.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Farideh on 28 Oct 2022, 12:56
Obligatory XKCD.


(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/perl_problems_2x.png)
Code: [Select]
[quote]
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 30 Oct 2022, 20:34
I think I've got my head around move semantics. The problem is that everything is misleading. std::move() doesn't move anything, std::forward() doesn't forward anything, and rvalue references are not the nonsensical oxymoron the name implies.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 26 Nov 2022, 01:49
I knew that western Kansas had sandy topsoil[1], but this week I learned there are straight up dunes. Syracuse, KS is surrounded by sand hills, and within that topography is the Syracuse Sand Dune Park (https://syracusesanddunespark.com/). Dune buggies and the like are encouraged.

[1]Never pull off onto an unpaved shoulder out that way unless you have a 2x4 for traction in your vehicle.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 26 Nov 2022, 06:55
Kansas is surprisingly diverse in it's topography
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: cesium133 on 26 Nov 2022, 09:43
The plains states are far less flat than people expect. Oklahoma has some really beautiful mountains in its southeast and northwestern parts. The states a bit further east (particularly Illinois) are much flatter, but even Illinois has some hills. If you ever get the chance, check out Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 26 Nov 2022, 10:23
There is a YouTube video which explains the version control system git with Tinker Toys.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 26 Nov 2022, 21:12
I was today years old when I learned Pence's first name is Michael. Not sure how I avoided knowing that until now.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 26 Nov 2022, 23:35
The plains states are far less flat than people expect. Oklahoma has some really beautiful mountains in its southeast and northwestern parts. The states a bit further east (particularly Illinois) are much flatter, but even Illinois has some hills. If you ever get the chance, check out Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest.

Garden of the Gods is on my bucket list of places to visit and photograph.

Florida is topographically the flattest state. Kansas is #7 in flatness after Delaware. The top 5 flattest are Florida, Illinois, North Dakota, Louisiana, and Minnesota.

Having lived in Kansas most of my life, I already knew it wasn't flat since my dad's folks lived in a small town in the Flint Hills. And, I've now lived in eastern Kansas for the better part of 2 decades. I also got to drive all around Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and New Mexico for 3 years doing crew transport for the railroad. Sadly, not much time for tourist site seeing though.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 27 Nov 2022, 00:03
I was today years old when I learned Pence's first name is Michael. Not sure how I avoided knowing that until now.

I am genuinely intrigued. Do they always simply refer to him as Pence in US media?
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Wombat on 27 Nov 2022, 13:11
I was today years old when I learned Pence's first name is Michael. Not sure how I avoided knowing that until now.

I am genuinely intrigued. Do they always simply refer to him as Pence in US media?
In general, male politicians here are often referred to by last name alone. With Pence specifically, "Mike Pence" does seem to be used sometimes, but he is often just referred to as "Pence."
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 27 Nov 2022, 13:43
I genuinely thought all media would have used the name "Mike Pence" on the first mention. Simply "Pence" or "Mr. Pence" thereafter, sure.

Australian example

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-16/what-we-know-about-mike-pence-on-january-6/101159262

But also:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2022/11/14/mike-pence-tells-abcs-david-muir-the-presidents-words-were-reckless-on-january-6/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/14/mike-pence-memoir-so-help-me-god/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/22/mike-pence-2024-staff-00070579
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/11/24/maggie-haberman-pence-trump-doj-testimony-january-6-cnntm-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pence-heading-back-new-hampshire-trump-hold-first-2024-rally-december

Struggling to find a counter-example.

But I totally understand that you wouldn't exactly devour news articles about Mike Pence.  :lol:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 27 Nov 2022, 18:58
Just learned about the names of the meus.

(https://64.media.tumblr.com/e449163a452cdcae5ab4ab30a0d8b589/8b1a2c8b3dedbd57-66/s540x810/8e4b8a7833755cc527fa0cc8aad01e64f12eb9fd.pnj)
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: sitnspin on 27 Nov 2022, 21:27
I was today years old when I learned Pence's first name is Michael. Not sure how I avoided knowing that until now.

I am genuinely intrigued. Do they always simply refer to him as Pence in US media?
Tbf, I didn't pay that close of attention to him.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Tova on 28 Nov 2022, 00:17
I should have figured that immediately , honestly!  My bad. :roll:
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Wombat on 28 Nov 2022, 18:59
I genuinely thought all media would have used the name "Mike Pence" on the first mention. Simply "Pence" or "Mr. Pence" thereafter, sure.
Honestly, I was thinking more in conversation/social media and sometimes TV news/radio-- those last two with the possibility that if you're not tuned in at the beginning, you don't get it later on. The gender/name thing does come into play, I think, but yeah, if you were just/primarily seeking out articles on public figures, you'd probably come away knowing the first and last name, maybe throw in an initial.
Title: Re: Learning has occurred
Post by: Gyrre on 07 Dec 2022, 04:59
Just found out The Godfather's theme is an older song (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Theme_from_The_Godfather) and has lyrics to boot.

Here's Jonathan Antoine singing 'Parla Piu Piano'.