Today I Learned

[DaveC426913]

I wonder if a similar can be said about Germany. Raccoons have been counted as domestic animals for about a century here, and there are cities with considerable populations.

I wondered about this. What do you mean by domestic?

Donning my Googles, I see that the EU has legally classified raccoons as an "invasive alien species". There are legal restrictions on keeping them, even if found in an urban area.

I suppose, informally, they might be tolerated and accepted, like we accept squirrels?

 

[fresh_42]

Beware, many raccoons in the US have rabies.

It's a good thing that rabies has been virtually eradicated in Germany thanks to large-scale vaccination campaigns.

 

[symbolipoint]

I wonder if a similar can be said about Germany. Raccoons have been counted as domestic animals for about a century here, and there are cities with considerable populations. On the other hand, there is still a chance that foxes will win the race on self-domestication. I mean, what worked for cats ...

The response makes me wonder about possible vocabulary definitions differences between English and German. Like some words do not always translate exactly the way someone thinks it does; or the way "domestic" is used could be a regulational way of using the word.

 

[fresh_42]

I wondered about this. What do you mean by domestic?

In Germany, the spread of the raccoon began in 1934 with the release of four animals at Lake Edersee in Hesse. Further releases occurred after a bomb hit a fur farm in Wolfshagen (Märkisch-Oderland district). A negative impact of this invasive species on native species in Europe cannot be ruled out.

According to the Kassel Regional Council, nearly 28,000 raccoons were killed in Hesse during the 2015/2016 season, more than half of them in the Kassel administrative district. More than 18,000 were killed by hunting with firearms, and another 7,800 by trapping. Approximately 1,800 died due to traffic or disease.

Donning my Googles, I see that the EU has legally classified raccoons as an "invasive alien species". There are legal restrictions on keeping them, even if found in an urban area.

I suppose, informally, they might be tolerated and accepted, like we accept squirrels?

This is domestic, and raccoons are no longer a neobiota. We also have greater rheas living in the wild, and we have wallabies and rose-ringed parakeets, too. The kangaroos survived several winters, which is the criterion to count as a domestic species, but I don't know whether they made it until now.

Personally, I hope for some Keas to escape ...

 

[fresh_42]

The response makes me wonder about possible vocabulary definitions differences between English and German. Like some words do not always translate exactly the way someone thinks it does; or the way "domestic" is used could be a regulational way of using the word.

I used it to mean "inland" in contrast to foreign.

 

[pinball1970]

T.I.L

RIP Jimmy Cliff 1944-2025

 

[DaveC426913]

In Germany, the spread of the raccoon began in 1934 with the release of four animals at Lake Edersee in Hesse. Further releases occurred after a bomb hit a fur farm in Wolfshagen (Märkisch-Oderland district). A negative impact of this invasive species on native species in Europe cannot be ruled out.

According to the Kassel Regional Council, nearly 28,000 raccoons were killed in Hesse during the 2015/2016 season, more than half of them in the Kassel administrative district. More than 18,000 were killed by hunting with firearms, and another 7,800 by trapping. Approximately 1,800 died due to traffic or disease.




This is domestic, and raccoons are no longer a neobiota. We also have greater rheas living in the wild, and we have wallabies and rose-ringed parakeets, too. The kangaroos survived several winters, which is the criterion to count as a domestic species, but I don't know whether they made it until now.

Personally, I hope for some Keas to escape ...

Yes, I read all those facts.

Perhaps domestication means something different there than here.

I mean, while coons may be ubiquitous, they seem to be no more domesticated than, say, city rats.

 

[fresh_42]

Yes, I read all those facts.

Perhaps domestication means something different there than here.

I mean, while coons may be ubiquitous, they seem to be no more domesticated than, say, city rats.

I haven't checked, but I said domestic as in domestic politics, not domesticated as for goats.

Raccoons are a domestic species in Germany, not a domesticated species. Cats are an example of a worldwide self-domesticated species. The news about raccoons in North America was that they are possibly on a similar way, and I added foxes, which - in Europe - also transmit to an urban species.

 

[symbolipoint]

The word is now making more sense.
Domestic - what is found living in a place
Domesticated - selective breeding selectively bred to develop a specie in a form that serves our purposes.

 

[DaveC426913]

Domestic as an antonym of imported, not as in an antonym of wild.
Got it!

 

[Hornbein]

Today I realized that fahrenheit taken literally is the abstract noun "the activity of driving."

 

[Borg]

TIL about the Luhn algorithm and how it is used in determining credit card numbers in order to catch common typos.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...m-the-math-behind-secure-credit-card-numbers/

The first digit is the major industry identifier. Visa cards always begin with a 4, and Discover cards always start with a 6. The next five to seven digits pinpoint the bank or institution that issued the card. What remains (sans the final digit) is your specific account number at that bank. The final digit, sometimes called the check digit, has nothing to do with financial institutions. Issuers tack it on so the entire card number will pass a specific mathematical test—the Luhn algorithm.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL about the Luhn algorithm and how it is used in determining credit card numbers in order to catch common typos.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...m-the-math-behind-secure-credit-card-numbers/
View attachment 367740

About twenty-five years ago some guy figured out how to generate credit card numbers. He had a merchant account, which was all you needed to charge to any number. I know this because at the time I also had a merchant account and was impressed by the complete lack of protection from such practices. He had a porn site and was charging $30 a month to many people including me. As usual the banks and card companies wouldn't block the charges. As I recall I had to cancel that card. Years later in Scientific American I read that this gentleman had been arrested, charged with fraud, and imprisoned. I did not hear that anyone got their money back.

Back then one had to have a PIN to charge to a bank card. Later this impediment to theft was quietly removed.

 

[Borg]

I did wonder how many scammers know that they just need to correctly set the last digit of a credit card number in order to pass the first phase of validation.

 

[DaveC426913]

This is tinged with nostalgia for me. I used to be a software dev at a place that made ATM software.
I remember the rules and conditions of credit card numbers and even bits of the algorithm.

It's like (first digit) plus (twice second digit, mod 10) plus (third digit), etc. then take the (last digit of the total, mod 10). It's not perfect but it greatly lessens the chance of accidental mistyping of CC numbers.

 

[collinsmark]

TIL about the Luhn algorithm and how it is used in determining credit card numbers in order to catch common typos.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...m-the-math-behind-secure-credit-card-numbers/
View attachment 367740

Yep. ISBN (numbers) for books have a similar thing going on with the check digit. (ISBNs are book identifiers. They're useful for bookstores, book sellers, book readers, libraries, etc, to help avoid errors finding and ordering a specific book.) The check digit is the same idea as with the credit card number: to avoid simple errors. Pick up any book you own and look around the cover and you should find an ISBN somewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN

 

[fresh_42]

TIL that the highest peak of the Earth is not Mount Everest, but instead the Chimborazo in Ecuador. Explanation: Earth is not a sphere.

 

[sbrothy]

Today I realized that fahrenheit taken literally is the abstract noun "the activity of driving."

As an en passant, there's also the lesser known and/or used Rankine, Rømer and Réaumur scales.

EDIT: Possibly others I don't know.

 

[gmax137]

Today I realized that fahrenheit taken literally is the abstract noun "the activity of driving."

 

[sbrothy]

Such a treasure of variation this one.

 

[Hornbein]

taxi drivers — who frequently exercise the hippocampal regions of their brains for spatial navigation — were less likely to die of Alzheimer’s disease than people in any other profession.

 

[pinball1970]

it needs that percussion part at the end-that is cool. from about 3.20

The could have pinched the rhythm from Mandrake root by Deep Purple, seems too similar

The first bass not is just out by a semi quaver! Have a listen, next set is spot on

https://www.bing.com/videos/rivervi...A3A1FF291439EDB80258A3A1FF291439E&FORM=VAMGZC

 

[Janus]

TIL that there are things even in your own "backyard" that you can be unaware of. For example, the local Portland International Airport has "support llamas" for stressed travelers during the Holiday season.

 

[Borg]

TIL that there's a crypto mine in Texas that uses 700 megawatts of electricity.
https://www.space.com/space-explora...-from-largest-us-cryptocurrency-mining-center

One of the world's largest Bitcoin mining facilities is seen leaking heat into the environment in a new image captured from orbit by a heat-seeking satellite that was recently released by the U.K.-based company SatVu.

The image reveals the thermal footprint of a major Bitcoin-mining data center in Rockdale, Texas, which has been widely criticized for its electricity consumption and carbon footprint.

SatVu didn't disclose which specific facility is in the image, but Rockdale is home to the Riot Platforms Bitcoin mine. The facility, considered the largest in the U.S., has an energy consumption of 700 megawatts, requiring about as much electricity as 300,000 homes.

 

[jack action]

TIL that Wi-Fi was created with math tools designed to look for black holes:

​

The black hole connection: seeds of a myth​

So where does the black hole story come in? It traces back to fundamental research in radio astronomy, not to Wi-Fi itself. In 1974, British physicist Stephen Hawking theorized that tiny “mini” black holes (much smaller than stars) could evaporate and emit brief radio pulses. This sparked curiosity: could anyone detect those cosmic radio blips? An Australian physicist-engineer, John O’Sullivan (then at the University of Sydney), worked on building a radio telescope to hunt for these faint black-hole signals. The problem was immense: any signal would be microscopic by the time it arrived on Earth and buried in cosmic noise, so it would appear “smeared” and weak. O’Sullivan and his team developed a powerful mathematical tool – based on a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm – to sift tiny, smeared signals from background static.(In fact, CSIRO explains this work as “trying to piece together waves from black holes,” which led them to invent a custom FFT integrated circuit.)


However, despite their efforts, the team never detected the black-hole signals they sought. But importantly, that radio astronomy work was not yet Wi-Fi; it was pure science to test Hawking’s theory. The critical turn came in the early 1990s when O’Sullivan joined CSIRO’s radiophysics lab. By 1992 he was explicitly trying to solve wireless networking problems. He remembered the FFT-based technique from the black-hole search and realized it could help wireless signals. In other words, he intentionally applied the same math to tame indoor echoes and noise for a WLAN. As Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki (ABC Science) explains, “by a wonderful coincidence, [O’Sullivan’s] black hole mathematics turned out to be the key to WiFi,” but it wasn’t luck – he was repurposing a known tool. To summarize the real link: the technique originally developed for astronomy (FFT signal processing) became part of CSIRO’s Wi-Fi patent. It was planned engineering, not a blind accident. CSIRO patented this Wi-Fi technology in Australia in 1992 and in the US in 1996. They built working chips by 2000, and the resulting WLAN went on the market by the late 1990s.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL rats were taught to play Doom II.



They aren't that good at it though.

 

[DaveC426913]

TIL that there's a crypto mine in Texas that uses 700 megawatts of electricity.

Here:

30.5645, -97.0695
https://maps.app.goo.gl/LvLKMuMcYdUyoY176

Looks like Bitdeer Technologies Group in Alcoa.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that the capital of New Zealand was moved from northern Aukland to central Wellington because back in the 1850s representatives from southern New Zealand to travel the thousand miles to the northern capital required up to two months.

 

[Hornbein]

Today I was listening to Gene Autry's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and noticed that Donner was mispronounced. It's the German word for Thunder -- Blitzen is Lightning -- and has a long O. Then I thought, that too was the name of the Donner party of cannibalism infamy.

 

[gmax137]

If you want to get into a twist over pronunciation, try Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen."

Danke schoen, darling, danke schoen
Thank you for all the joy and pain