Today I Learned

[fresh_42]

Yes, that's how prices are built. I know this. Does that mean I understand those who are willing to pay to see it? No. I, and that is only my opinion, find this stupid, and the price tag way too high. It's simply not fancy enough.

 

[BillTre]

Well, yeah. But there are all kinds of people, including those who you will not interact with much, due to socioeconomic reasons.
Otherwise, who can afford that much for a largely functionless thing.

 

[Borg]

Bouncing around on Snopes this morning when I ran across this true story:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kix-lone-ranger-atomic-bomb-ring/

In 1947, Kix cereal ran a promotion for an "Atomic Bomb Ring" that contained radioactive polonium-210, one of the deadliest radioactive substances known to man.

 

[pinball1970]

Bouncing around on Snopes this morning when I ran across this true story:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kix-lone-ranger-atomic-bomb-ring/

Polonium 210 always makes me think of this guy.

 

[Borg]

Polonium 210 always me think of this guy.

View attachment 363567

Which is why the story is so disturbing.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that there is an anime entitled That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

 

[fresh_42]

Which is why the story is so disturbing.

They used to sell radioactive compounds in drug stores in the early years:

or this one

 

[Borg]

Yeah, I used to have a glow in the dark watch when I was a kid. Probably radioactive.

 

[BillTre]

One time I was goofing around with a gieger counter measuring radioactivity around and about the lab. Ran into this professor who had a big watch with glowy numbers on it. We measured it and saw it was radioactive. The prof. said there's a lot of metal in the watch so his wrist should be protected from it. I flipped his arm over and measured the radioactivity going through the back of the watch and his arm. He stopped wearing the watch after that.

 

[fresh_42]

One time I was goofing around with a gieger counter ...

It's Geiger.

I also had such a watch, but I don't know whether it was radioactivity or simple fluorescence.

 

[BillTre]

It's Geiger.

If its not in my spell checker, it can always be questioned.

 

[pinball1970]

They used to sell radioactive compounds in drug stores in the early years:

View attachment 363573

or this one

Which reminds me of this guy.

 

[pinball1970]

@BillTre

@OmCheeto (for some context)

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

 

[sbrothy]

One time I was goofing around with a gieger counter measuring radioactivity around and about the lab. Ran into this professor who had a big watch with glowy numbers on it. We measured it and saw it was radioactive. The prof. said there's a lot of metal in the watch so his wrist should be protected from it. I flipped his arm over and measured the radioactivity going through the back of the watch and his arm. He stopped wearing the watch after that.

You don't mention what the professor's teaching subject was, but why would he think a relatively thin layer of metal would stop radiation. It cannot have been alpha-particles can it? Must have been something worse(!).

Reminds of a scandal somewhere where a watch factory was situated next to a dairy farm producing yogurt with predictable effects. I cannot find the particular one I was thinking about but Google Scholar has no shortage of similar results.

Recent Research Involving the Transfer of Radionuclides to Milk

(Maybe take "recent" with a grain of (iodized) salt.)

EDIT: Replaced "diary farm" with "dairy farm".

 

[BillTre]

You don't mention what the professor's teaching subject was

Neurobiology and behavior.

 

[sbrothy]

Neurobiology and behavior.

Well at least he took the watch off. So he can't have been completely incompetent.

 

[BillTre]

Well at least he took the watch off. So he can't have been completely incompetent.

Many biologists don't have a deep understanding of things outside their field, but some do understand basics.

 

[sbrothy]

I guess this goes for all fields but I found biology particularly complex. And that was on a pre-college level. Highest level. What's called A-level here in Denmark, but still. Give me chemistry any day.

This was of course in the AIDS era. T-cells everywhere!

 

[PeterDonis]

I define value by what it takes to achieve or produce something

So if I paint your house, the job is a lot more valuable if I use a toothbrush? It takes a lot more to achieve the result that way.

 

[sbrothy]

So if I paint your house, the job is a lot more valuable if I use a toothbrush? It takes a lot more to achieve the result that way.

There's a book called "Parkinton's Law" which takes a cynical view of administrative and bureaucratic work which states that employees will fill to accomplish the work no matter how much work there is. It's pretty funny.


Parkinsons Law: Or The Pursuit Of Progress

"A must read. Many of our everyday decisions are (or should have been) based upon Parkinson's insights.For example, he wrote "Work expands to fill the time allotted for it". If you schedule more time, you'll create more tasks to accomplish a particular goal.The many corollaries derived from this law are significant.“Junk expands to fill the space allotted for it”. Regardless of how much storage space we create, we’ll accumulate junk that will exceed the allotted space. The more highways we build the more traffic jams we create.He described how in many organizations people rise to the “level of their incompetence”.He noted the significance of an organization that has created excellent offices, beautiful grounds and buildings or excellent bureaucratic efficiency. Healthy growing organizations are always in chaos. The great Marble houses of banks and railroad terminals foretold the decline of those industries relative significance. When you’re busy growing and creating, you don’t have time or resources to devote to your own self admiration"

 

[PeterDonis]

It's pretty funny.

Yes, that book is indeed funny--but the underlying point it's making is that all the extra effort involved in the various bureaucratic processes it describes adds no actual value at all. At one point, Parkinson has an official, A, who is overworked and hires subordinates, and ends up heading an office of seven people--but when a document comes in that requires a response, even though all seven of them weigh in on it, the final response is the same as what A would have produced on his own if the other six officials had never been born.

 

[sbrothy]

Yes, that book is indeed funny--but the underlying point it's making is that all the extra effort involved in the various bureaucratic processes it describes adds no actual value at all. At one point, Parkinson has an official, A, who is overworked and hires subordinates, and ends up heading an office of seven people--but when a document comes in that requires a response, even though all seven of them weigh in on it, the final response is the same as what A would have produced on his own if the other six officials had never been born.

Yes. It's ironic, sarcastic even. Anyone who've visited the DMV probably recognizes a lot of it's tropes.

 

[PeterDonis]

Anyone who've visited the DMV probably recognizes a lot of it's tropes.

Or anyone who's worked in a large bureaucracy.

 

[TensorCalculus]

Today I learned about how the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is derived. I spent far too long trying to decode how it all worked and ended up having to write out every other step and spend like 5 minutes just staring at it thinking until the logic to get to that step clicked. Often the derivation would jump straight from one line to another and I would have to try and write out and figure out what the intermediate lines were. The pain was worth it though. Statistical mechanics (at least, the small glimpse that I got today) is pretty cool.

Thanks to @sbrothy, I also learned some new words: Portmanteau, cursorily and technically Anemic (I knew what Anemia was, but somehow I didn't know that an Anemic person has Anemia)

 

[fresh_42]

Today, I heard about what was probably the first stock company ever. A group of investors who elected a chairman once a year operated mills. Dividends were paid out in the form of cash, flour, or grain. The investors received 90%, the miller 10%. Sounds familiar.

France, 1372.

 

[Filip Larsen]

Today I learned not only that Quantum Inertial Navigation is actually a thing, but also that it is has been flight proven several times already and shows orders of magnitude improvement in inertial navigation accuracy:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...aunch-and-test-quantum-navigation-technology/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.04729
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.08167

 

[TensorCalculus]

Today I learnt about Green's theorem!

 

[Borg]

TIL about Historical Tech Tree - visualize the entire history of technologies, inventions, and (some) discoveries, from prehistory to today.
https://www.historicaltechtree.com/

 

[fresh_42]

TIL about Historical Tech Tree - visualize the entire history of technologies, inventions, and (some) discoveries, from prehistory to today.
https://www.historicaltechtree.com/

I guess it's time for my annual check of my list of interesting webpages.

 

[Klystron]

TIL what President Bill Clinton meant when he famously replied to an interview question about cannabis use while a scholar at Oxford UK, "but I didn't inhale".

James Ballard's 1973 novel "Crash" that I am reading in ebook contains detailed descriptions of London cannabis smokers preparing and consuming hashish cigarettes. Unlike typical North American joints rolled with marijuana, UK smokers crumbled hash in tobacco to roll a joint. Bill Clinton, being allergic to tobacco smoke, would pass the cigarettes along at a party but could not directly partake of the harsh smoke.

Ballard's main character, also named James Ballard as in his autobiographical novel "Empire of the Sun", likewise does not smoke with his friends but mentions being affected by hash fumes particularly indoors and in enclosed automobiles where much of the action occurs.