Today I Learned

[BillTre]

He's still going to lose against the Lions on Saturday.

Time will tell. The Lions have their weaknesses.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL not to do this

I am going to have fun with the ladies at work on Monday. Hey, can I just show you this?

 

[pinball1970]

My uncle played semi professional football in the 1950s-70s. I know he played for Hyde United and was a Manchester "boys" player as a kid. I am researching his other clubs, he died 2017. His hero Denis Law died yesterday, the last of the famous United Trinity. Worth a mention at least RIP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Trinity

 

[jack action]

TIL there is an error forever embedded in the speed of light definition:

​

 

[Ivan Seeking]

TIL bearcats smell like buttered popcorn,

https://today.duke.edu/2016/04/popcornscentedbinturong

 

[Hornbein]

TIL bearcats smell like buttered popcorn,

View attachment 356061
https://today.duke.edu/2016/04/popcornscentedbinturong

I used to smell like that.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I used to smell like that.

And now, fettuccini alfredo?

 

[BillTre]

He's still going to lose against the Lions on Saturday.

Ha!

 

[Borg]

Ha!

Yes, Washington was the better team last night. Way too many turnovers and no defense.

 

[BillTre]

Yes, Washington was the better team last night. Way too many turnovers and no defense.

True. But fun game.

Clearly Detroit was impacted by all their injuries.
Detroit should have kept going to Gibbs. That guy is awesome!

 

[Borg]

TIL that the Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan has the following entrance restrictions:

The following people cannot use this service:

• Organized crime
• Those who are completely drunk

 

[Janus]

True. But fun game.

Clearly Detroit was impacted by all their injuries.
Detroit should have kept going to Gibbs. That guy is awesome!

Sad. As I have nobody else to root for, I was hoping for a Bills-Lions Superbowl. 2 teams that have never won one.

 

[gleem]

TIL the meaning of "parachute science"

Colonial science, also known as parachute or parasitic science, is an extractive practice whereby researchers—typically from highly resourced countries—do research and extract data and samples from non-native regions or populations, typically low resource settings or countries, [1] without appropriately acknowledging the importance of the local infrastructure and expertise. In so doing, foreign researchers fail to establish long term, equitable collaborations with local partners [2].

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articl... as,, [1] without appropriately acknowledging

 

[Astronuc]

TIL entertainer Josephine Baker was a spy who worked with French intelligence and underground during WWII. What an amazing story.

https://www.trulyadventure.us/josephine-baker

 

[jtbell]

TIL that cattle gallstones are worth more than twice their weight in gold.

https://www.beefcentral.com/news/ca...oars-to-stratospheric-levels-whats-behind-it/

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that cattle gallstones are worth more than twice their weight in gold.

https://www.beefcentral.com/news/ca...oars-to-stratospheric-levels-whats-behind-it/

They say Chinese people are using cattle gallstones to evade restrictions on international transfers of currency.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL I learned of skater Elena Radionova.

 

[jack action]

TIL that English football was affected by another bad used of statistics:

​

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that the radius of a water molecule is 2.8 times that of an oxygen atom. With hydrogen atoms small I had thought it would be less.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that English football was affected by another bad used of statistics:

​

I see

s9e.github.io sent an invalid response.

 

[fresh_42]

TIL that this was the first logo in history:

Dürer's signature, 1498.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that this was the first logo in history:

View attachment 356691

Dürer's signature, 1498.

How about Sumer in 3000 BC.

 

[sbrothy]

...that some people have coffee down to a science:

An Electrochemical Descriptor for Coffee Quality


"Despite coffee's popularity, there are no quantitative methods to measure a chemical property of coffee and relate it to a gustatory experience. Borrowing an electrochemical technique often used to assess the oxidative and reductive features of molecules, we demonstrate that cyclic voltammetry can be used to directly measure the ensemble strength of a coffee beverage and, separately, how dark the coffee has been roasted. We show that the current passed for the protonic features that precede hydrogen evolution are linearly related to beverage strength. The same features are suppressed with subsequent cycling, and we show that the suppression is directly related to composition, which depends on roast. Together, our voltammetric method decouples beverage strength from roast color; the latter is the primary factor determining flavor profiles of coffee extracts."

I initially suspected this was an April's fool joke, but I'm not that much out of synch, am I?

 

[DaveC426913]

One thing leading to another … TIL many spiders do not use muscles to extend their legs. They use hydraulics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnid_locomotion

Indeed. This is why, if you damage a spider's exoskeleton, (say, by vigorously shaking it in a jar), it contracts its legs and folds into a ball as if dead. It has lost its hydraulic pressure and is unable to move.

 

[Orodruin]

Indeed. This is why, if you damage a spider's exoskeleton, (say, by vigorously shaking it in a jar), it contracts its legs and folds into a ball as if dead. It has lost its hydraulic pressure and is unable to move.

This thread just keeps on giving! Poor spider!

 

[DaveC426913]

This thread just keeps on giving! Poor spider!

(It wasn't malicious; just stupid. I was trying to shake it out of the web it had built in the jar. And it was already bloated with the juices of the other spiders I'd trapped in the same jar.)

 

[symbolipoint]

TIL (actually it was Yesterday)
The actress , Ann Todd, who was one of the daughters in the movie "Three Daring Daughters", later became a librarian and worked for many years at U.C. Berkeley.

 

[jtbell]

TIL (actually yesterday) that Massachusetts towns have "shellfish constables" who issue permits and enforce regulations for harvesting clams, lobsters, scallops, etc.

https://www.edgartown-ma.us/departments/shellfish

 

[jack action]

TIL (actually yesterday) that Massachusetts towns have "shellfish constables" who issue permits and enforce regulations for harvesting clams, lobsters, scallops, etc.

https://www.edgartown-ma.us/departments/shellfish

If you watched Seinfeld, you would have known that (at least in the Hamptons in NY):

​

 

[jtbell]

I didn't watch Seinfeld regularly, so I missed that one.

I would have thought a shellfish constable was one of Spongebob Squarepants' pals. Or maybe nemesis.

 

[jack action]

TIL that $1089$ is a number that is very practical in magic.

For example, take any 3-digit number in descending order and subtract its "reverse" number. Ex.: $632-236=396$. Then add the "reverse" number of this answer and you will always get $1089 (= 396+693)$.

 

[Swamp Thing]

I could get behind a cool flag like that.

 

[Hornbein]

One could say that tribal totems are logos. Maybe they are requiring them to contain letters.

 

[fresh_42]

One could say that tribal totems are logos. Maybe they are requiring them to contain letters.

I consider them in the realm of flags and coats of arms. They aren't a brand like a logo.

 

[DaveC426913]

I consider them in the realm of flags and coats of arms. They aren't a brand like a logo.

Like this?

 

[fresh_42]

Like this?
View attachment 356810

The new US flag?

 

[fresh_42]

Like this?
View attachment 356810

You can print a logo on whatever you want, but that doesn't make it a national emblem. A national emblem, on the other hand, is no brand in a commercial sense. Whether it is one in the figurative sense is a philosophical issue and debatable. I don't think that national emblems are commonly regarded as logos.

 

[jack action]

TIL about the Oxford Electric Bell that has been ringing every half second since 1840. Nobody knows for sure the composition of the dry piles for the setup.

 

[fresh_42]

TIL about the Oxford Electric Bell that has been ringing every half second since 1840. Nobody knows for sure the composition of the dry piles for the setup.

View attachment 356879​

This somehow reminds me of the pitch drop experiment:

This experiment is recorded in Guinness World Records as the "world's longest continuously running laboratory experiment", and it is expected there is enough pitch in the funnel to allow it to continue for at least another hundred years. This experiment is predated by two other (still-active) scientific devices, the Oxford Electric Bell (1840) and the Beverly Clock (1864), but each of these has experienced brief interruptions since 1937.

 

[jack action]

This somehow reminds me of the pitch drop experiment:

The seventh drop fell at approximately 4:45 p.m. on 3 July 1988, while the experiment was on display at Brisbane's World Expo 88. However, apparently no one witnessed the drop fall itself; Professor Mainstone had stepped out to get a drink at the moment it occurred.

Draaaaaat!

 

[DaveC426913]

Draaaaaat!

Talk about a watched kettle never boils...

They watched it for ten years!

 

[fresh_42]

Draaaaaat!

A phenomenon well known from MicroSoft updates and installations. The moment you leave the room it will stop the process and ask you silly questions.

 

[DaveC426913]

A phenomenon well known from MicroSoft updates and installations. The moment you leave the room it will stop the process and ask you silly questions.

Unlike Netflix, which asks you if you're still watching - while you're still watching.

 

[DaveE]

TIL about the Oxford Electric Bell that has been ringing every half second since 1840. Nobody knows for sure the composition of the dry piles for the setup.

View attachment 356879​

Excellent! Thanks, this is new to me and now I want to make one.*

Why 1/2 second period? Is it dominated by the RC time constant of charging the bells? The period of the pendulum?

The dry cells, probably Ag, Zn, and paper must have an electrolyte, right? What is the electrolyte and why are they called "dry"?

* Yea, nope, don't bet on that. I'm pretty lazy these days plus I'm in the middle of remodeling the only real bathroom in our tiny house. But I can still dream, can't I?

 

[Swamp Thing]

The longest continuous vocal note is 2 min 1.07 sec, and was achieved by Richard Fink IV (USA) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on 17 November 2019.

(scroll down a bit for a video --- towards the very end, it begins to feel like it could end up being Richard's swan song).

 

[Hornbein]

How about the Livermore Light Bulb? 123 years so far.

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

 

[jack action]

TIL

In 1995, NASA scientists published a study in which marijuana, benzedrine, caffeine or chloral hydrate (a sedative and hypnotic drug) were given to spiders, and the effects on their webs observed. [...] However, unlike previous studies, NASA was able to apply modern computing and statistical methods. They digitised the web structures, and found that the structure of the web correlated with the toxicity of the substance being tested. Specifically, the more toxic the substance, the fewer sides of each web ‘cell’ the spiders completed.

[...]

However, the spiders don’t lie – caffeine is at the very least quite a bit more toxic than marijuana

 

[DaveE]

TIL

View attachment 356931​

Pointless without a discussion of the dosage. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water, after all. Plus web construction by spiders is a strange metric, why should we care? I don't know what all of this means.

 

[DrGreg]

Pointless without a discussion of the dosage. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water, after all. Plus web construction by spiders is a strange metric, why should we care? I don't know what all of this means.

Indeed.

We know that chocolate is harmful to dogs, but that doesn't prove it's harmful to humans.

 

[Hornbein]

The Oklahoma City Zoo once killed an elephant by injecting it with 297 milligrams of LSD.