Today I Learned

[Bandersnatch]

Today I learned, from a crackpot no less, that Earth and Saturn are as many times farther from the Sun (average distance) than Mercury as they are larger. To a few percent accuracy. What a fun observation to be completely misinterpreted.

The above somehow means that the 2012/12/21 doomsday will happen on 2016/12/21. We're not in the clear yet!

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned, from a crackpot no less, that Earth and Saturn are as many times farther from the Sun (average distance) than Mercury as they are larger. To a few percent accuracy. What a fun observation to be completely misinterpreted.

The above somehow means that the 2012/12/21 doomsday will happen on 2016/12/21. We're not in the clear yet!

Eventually they'll be right. It's like the Mandan Rain Dance. It never failed, because once they started the dance, they would not stop until it rained.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

sharks are not smart at all and they don't get cancer which is still a myth to me

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned that Cracker Jacks are considered to be the world's first junk food.

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned that we have two kinds of "legs".

Human Leg (wiki-n-me)
{leg type A}: The human leg is the entire lower extremity or limb of the human body, including the foot, thigh and even the hip or gluteal region;
{leg type B}: however, the precise definition in human anatomy refers only to the section of the lower limb extending from the knee to the ankle... .

So we've got a colloquial leg, and an anatomical leg.
hmmm...

ps. I normally don't worry about legs, but we are discussing how high one can jump on Ceres, along with it's associate "Moon Jumping" thread. I have a deep suspicion that the calculations I did last night are completely wrong, hence, I needed some anatomical data.
But the data supplied at one web site, indicated that I didn't know what a leg was:

Body Segment Data

Percentages of Total Body Weight
Segment    Males   Females Average
Total Leg  16.68   18.43   17.555
Thigh      10.5    11.75   11.125
Leg         4.75    5.35    5.05
Foot        1.43    1.33    1.38
Leg & Foot  6.18    6.68    6.43

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Today I learned that Cracker Jacks are considered to be the world's first junk food.

I love Cracker Jacks.

 

[Borg]

TIL, that the Internet country code top-level domain (.co) assigned to Colombia has no restrictions such that anyone in the world can use a .co address. I found this out when I needed to send an email to someone in the US and their email address ended in .co. I was sure that it was a typo and should have been .com. It really was .co.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned the video feed from the moon to the Earth during the first moon landing was very high quality, but got considerably degraded by the very primitive way they relayed it around the world for TV viewing: to copy the signal they simply set up TV cameras facing the monitors.

High quality video tapes made directly from the moon signal were misplaced somewhere, and there is some indication they might have been taped over a few years later. Nasa. Hehehe.

 

[Borg]

TIL that Alex Trebek has a visual cue to let him know who had the last correct answer. I was thinking about what would happen if he forgot whose turn it was and thought that there should be a light to let him know. Sure enough, there is a little light on the bottom of the podium that I never noticed before.

 

[zoki85]

TIL about the phenomenon of galvanotaxis in the fish important in electrofishing: "..uncontrolled muscular convulsion that results in the fish swimming toward the anode".

 

[Meron]

Today learned that I didn't learn a single thing!

 

[lisab]

Today I learned that that one thing is getting better (I can't do anything until it's totally better), but that other thing is still bad (and I'm the only one who can fix it).

 

[Ibix]

Today I learned that you can convert from a number recording hours and minutes (e.g. 945, meaning quarter to ten) to minutes (585 minutes past midnight) using

mins=hhmm-40*int(hhmm/100)

and back again using

hhmm=mins+40*int(mins/60)

which is an awful lot neater than I expected when I realized I'd need the capability.

 

[jim hardy]

Yes !

Modulo is handy too.

This arduino code will print, for each of the 1440 minutes in a day, the 24 hour military time in Roman Numerals.
It's trivial to add seconds .

/*
* romanNumerals
*
* This is adapted from the Hello World! for Arduino.
* It shows how to send data to the computer
*/
String Units[10]={"" , "I" , "II" , "III" , "IV" , "V" , "VI", "VII", "VIII", "IX" };
String Tens[10]={"" , "X" , "XX" , "XXX" , "XL" , "L" , "LX", "LXX", "LXXX", "XC"};
String Hundreds[10]={"" , "C" , "CC" , "CCC" , "CD" , "D" , "DC", "DCC", "DCCC", "CM"};
String Thsns[3]={"" , "M" , "MM" } ;
String Hour ;
String Minute ;
String Second ;
String Time ;
int numbr = (1) , hr, minit ;
void setup() // run once, when the sketch starts
{
Serial.begin(9600); // set up Serial library at 9600 bps
}

void loop() // run over and over again
{

Serial.print (numbr ) ;
Serial.print (" ");

hr = numbr/60 ;
minit = numbr %60 ;
Serial.print ( hr ) ;
Serial.print (" : ") ;
Serial.print ( minit ) ;
Serial.print (" ") ;
Hour = Thsns[hr/10] + Hundreds[hr%10] ;
Minute = Tens[minit/10] + Units[minit%10] ;
Time = Hour + Minute ;
Serial.println (Time) ;
delay(1000);
numbr=numbr+1 ;
if (numbr>1440) numbr = 0 ;
}

Am still working to understand how Arduino allocates memory for strings, there's some potential 'gotcha' about strings messing up heap and stack... https://learn.adafruit.com/memories-of-an-arduino/optimizing-sram

And found out the displays i bought are bare VFD's so I'm learning about dot matrix drivers, and using paint to make printed circuit boards.

And learned about dilute HCl for board etch instead of Ferric Chloride.

 

[mfb]

mins=hhmm-40*int(hhmm/100)

mins=60*hh + mm = (100-40)*hh + mm = hhmm - 40*hh = hhmm - 40*int(hhmm/100) but the last steps seems to make it more complicated.Today I learned that copying the two lines in the report here are not sufficient for a bug report - you have to include the previous text "blocked access was logged from" otherwise the mail gets rejected automatically.

 

[Ibix]

mins=60*hh + mm = (100-40)*hh + mm = hhmm - 40*hh = hhmm - 40*int(hhmm/100) but the last steps seems to make it more complicated.

Well, I got to it by observing that

hh=int(hhmm/100)

and

mm=hhmm-100*hh

and

mins=60*hh+mm

Whoever developed the mess I got handed apparently followed this chain also, but never realized it could be simplified. So the spreadsheet "needed" three cells for every transformation, forwards and back.

I suspect if they'd just used an Excel time format to record the times in the first place life would be even easier.

 

[dlgoff]

... and using paint to make printed circuit boards.

You're a glutton for punishment.

 

[collinsmark]

Today I learned that you should not clean your mouse and keyboard when you happen to have an online form open on your browser.

"What the hell did I just submit? ?"

 

[Mhorton91]

Today I learned that the phrase

"You're lucky to have been hired, they usually don't hire college people because of their lack of mechanical inclination and common sense."

Is something that actually exists.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned that 700,000 bottles of Tabasco sauce are made every day.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Today I learned that my boyfriend really loves me.

 

[OmCheeto]

...Roman Numerals.
...

This reminds me of something I noticed the other day.
They switched from Arabic numerals to Roman numerals for dating the episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", either in 1956 or 1957.
So I googled; when did they start dating films with roman numerals
After an hour of googling, I couldn't find the answer to "when" it happened.
The answer as to why, is a bit speculative.
Most claim the studios wanted to mask how old their films were.

Another theory:

Air of dignity

Style expert Stephen Bayley says using Roman numerals, particularly when used in the Times Roman typeface, does tend to lend a certain dignity. And that includes Beckham.
"To use Roman numerals in clocks and watches does tend to say: 'I'm a bit cleverer than you are.'

Or, it may be as simple as; One guy did it, everyone else saw it, thought it was cool, and did the same.

 

[jim hardy]

Today a wasp got into the house. I squirted him with first thing i could find , which happened to be Windex. The knockdown was immediate.
No stinky insecticide smell . Good thing, for he was in the bedroom, where Fair Anne would have really objected...

Gonna try it in the yard...

 

[jim hardy]

"To use Roman numerals in clocks and watches does tend to say:...

For me it's a protest.
I resent the doggone computers taking over daily life, making hopelessly complex monuments to folly out of simple things like a toaster oven, dishwasher, alarm clock. I still figure my gas mileage with a slide rule.
This project will teach one computer some humility.

And it might give the grandkids a jump start on Roman Numerals .

And yeah, i am a Leo...

 

[OmCheeto]

Today a wasp got into the house. I squirted him with first thing i could find , which happened to be Windex. The knockdown was immediate.
No stinky insecticide smell . Good thing, for he was in the bedroom, where Fair Anne would have really objected...

Gonna try it in the yard...

Works just as well on ants in the kitchen.
And outside too.
Last week, I thought that perchance it had been a bit too long since I'd bathed, as there was a swarm of what appeared to be gnats on my front porch, and they really liked me.
Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be ant drones. (My best guess is Monomorium minimum)

I got out the Windex...

For me it's a protest.
I resent the doggone computers taking over daily life, making hopelessly complex monuments to folly out of simple things like a toaster oven, dishwasher, alarm clock. I still figure my gas mileage with a slide rule.
This project will teach one computer some humility.

And it might give the grandkids a jump start on Roman Numerals .

And yeah, i am a Leo...

I still have my microwave from 1976. I recall trying to use the microwave at work. My condolences.

I think a Roman Numeral clock would be very nice. I almost picked up an Arduino device at Radio Shack a few weeks ago, as I've seen people mentioning them, and they reminded me of the hackability of the PC I bought back in 1979. The mouse utilized variable resistors, and I was able to build a 4 channel ADC temperature interface.

ps. I'm a double Taurus

 

[WWGD]

Careful when you move in a small kitchen to avoid accidentally turning on knobs for the stove. Or at least pay attention to the lights on the stove, and to the level of heat to check whether I did turn the knobs on --phew!.

 

[lisab]

Today I learned that our own highly-esteemed BobG has been stalked by a can of garbanzo beans all his life.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...have-in-your-house.806405/page-2#post-5065793

 

[NascentOxygen]

This project will teach one computer some humility.

And it might give the grandkids a jump start on Roman Numerals .

My Aunt had a grandmother clock with Roman numerals. I loved its reassuring tick-tock and hourly chimes through the night, but I didn't like its clockface because one of the numbers seemed wrong: it was different from what we'd been learning at primary school.

I've just now tried to figure out what it could have been, and I'm a bit lost for ideas. But pondering what it could have been, maybe it was this: at school we learned that 6 would be VI but that clockface showed it as IΛ. I was uncomfortable with that difference.

If that's what it was, then other numbers would have looked awkward, too, but my memory is of only one number being "wrong".

Maybe it will come to me if I sleep on it ... EDIT: Okay, after a 5 minute sleep I tried a google search. I think I have my answer: http://mentalfloss.com/article/24578/why-do-some-clocks-use-roman-numeral-iiii

 

[collinsmark]

[...] but I didn't like its clockface because one of the numbers seemed wrong: it was different from what we'd been learning at primary school.

I've just now tried to figure out what it could have been, and I'm a bit lost for ideas. [...]

Some Roman numeral clockfaces use IIII instead of IV to represent 4. There's a tradition behind it, and several disparate, possible explanations, but as far as I can tell based on my scant research, the tradition's origin remains a mystery.

 

[epenguin]

The most common explanation is that it was at the behest of King Henri the somethingth who found the proper Roman numeral especially in that position hard to read.