Today I Learned

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
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Today I learned that cleaning a white hat can be done with bleach cleaner, but it’s important to rinse it before wearing it again. I also discovered that "oyster veneering," a woodworking technique from the late 1600s, is experiencing a minor revival despite its labor-intensive nature. Additionally, I learned that the factorial of 23 (23!) equals 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000, which interestingly has 23 digits, a unique coincidence among factorials. I found out that medical specialists often spend less than 10 minutes with patients, and that watching TV can contribute to weight gain. Other insights included the fact that a kiss can transfer around 80 million microbes, and that bureaucracy can sometimes hinder employment opportunities. The discussion also touched on various trivia, such as the emotional sensitivity of barn owls and the complexities of gravitational lensing around black holes.
  • #2,951
BillTre said:
TIL there are bridges in India made of living tree roots:

Very cool. I want one.
... on the other hand: hemp could work :cool:
However, depending on location this could lead to a completely different kind of problems.
 
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  • #2,952
I live in Oregon. The Bill name came from some UK area.
I could imagine doing this in Hawaii or possibly in the Olympic peninsula (its a temperate rain froest there).
Since I'm in the US and have visited Hawaii a few times, I claim that as reasonably possible.
Hawaii has the right kind of vegetation. Not so sure about The Olympic Peninsula.
 
  • #2,953
I don't think hemp would have the longevity to get it done right.
Nor have I seen hemp stems (or roots) fusing together like they do in these bridges.
 
  • #2,954
BillTre said:
I live in Oregon. The Bill name came from some UK area.
I could imagine doing this in Hawaii or possibly in the Olympic peninsula (its a temperate rain froest there).
Since I'm in the US and have visited Hawaii a few times, I claim that as reasonably possible.
Hawaii has the right kind of vegetation. Not so sure about The Olympic Peninsula.
Haven't thought of Hawaii. But as I thought a bit, I know roots which would definitely work!
Blackberries!
 
  • #2,955
BillTre said:
I don't think hemp would have the longevity to get it done right.
Nor have I seen hemp stems (or roots) fusing together like they do in these bridges.
Not roots, but the fibers are strong and one can make cloths of it. And it grows like crazy.
 
  • #2,956
Reminds me of a National Geographic I got as a kid.
The cover had a guy with a mule in front of a bunch of pot (hemp) plants that were 30-40 foot tall.
 
  • #2,959
That's what the CNN article I read said.
However, I see no reason to feel limited on this.
 
  • #2,960
BillTre said:
That's what the CNN article I read said.
However, I see no reason to feel limited on this.
Try blackberries. I remember once I wanted to remove a bush with a friend somewhere, and as it came to its roots, we ended up 50 m further downhill! That thing seemed to stop nowhere.
 
  • #2,961
I have a few wisteria plants (which I have grown from seed).

Screen Shot 2019-11-20 at 6.42.35 PM.png

The veins grow really well once established, can get quite thick and strong, and can fuse together.
A couple years ago I wanted to make them grow into a canopy over the backyard. Sadly the wife was against this. Establishing an initial support for it would have to have been worked out.

There are also some kind of oak trees around here which are very flexible and can easily be bent into a variety of shapes.

Blackberries grow great, but I don't think they fuse together (making them stronger). Plus, they have lots of spines. Can't use barefoot.
The favored way to remove blackberries around here is to stake out goats in the middle of a blackberry patch. Come back in a week or two.
 
  • #2,962
Today I learned that, for depression, Trazedone may reduce apnea events, while Venlafaxine may increase them.
 
  • #2,963
I bet those bridges had some schedule overruns!
 
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  • #2,964
TIL there's a vagina museum in London.

Screen Shot 2019-11-21 at 9.53.41 AM.png


NY Times story here.
The article makes note of a Phallological Museum in Iceland.
 
  • #2,965
god damn it..I was just having a snack :s
 
  • #2,966
BillTre said:
TIL there's a vagina museum in London.

View attachment 253158

NY Times story here.
The article makes note of a Phallological Museum in Iceland.
Oh... My... Bog. I glanced at the article in this morning's NYT but seeing the photo here I realize the center sculpture depicts a giant used tampon. One hesitates to imagine the phallic museum equivalent. :cool:
 
  • #2,967
BillTre said:
TIL there's a vagina museum in London.
I never thought I'd say this, given my tendency toward off-colour jokes,... but,...

Congratulations. You've exposed the exact location of my vomit threshold. :oldruck:
 
  • #2,968
strangerep said:
I never thought I'd say this, given my tendency toward off-colour jokes,... but,...

Congratulations. You've exposed the exact location of my vomit threshold. :oldruck:

Try the National Museum of Health and Medicine, in Silver Spring, MD.
 
  • #2,969
BillTre said:
TIL there's a vagina museum in London.

View attachment 253158

NY Times story here.
The article makes note of a Phallological Museum in Iceland.
Sometimes you can know too much!
 
  • #2,970
chemisttree said:
Sometimes you can know too much!
Yes. We need a complimentary thread: "Today I wished I could forget..."
 
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  • #2,971
fresh_42 said:
Not roots, but the fibers are strong and one can make cloths of it. And it grows like crazy
weeds.
Fixed that for ya. . . .🚭. 😏

.
 
  • #2,972
Lol. . . Gene Watson released this song in 1975, and for 44 years now, I've been

wondering exactly what. . ."the street vendor cries"But, now I know. . . . 😌
.
 
  • #2,973
Today I learned more than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored
 
  • #2,974
Only for loose definitions of "unmapped" and "unobserved".
 
  • #2,976
phinds said:
d the traffic circle and other traffic safety things, all by one man.

"Traffic circle" and "safety"? Oxymoron.
 
  • #2,977
Bystander said:
"Traffic circle" and "safety"? Oxymoron.
Not when you aren't used to them. Scared the hell out of me when they suddenly appeared many years ago on a route I took frequently in NJ. Didn't seem safe 'til I got used to them.
 
  • #2,978
... and they are far better than traffic lights. Only problem, if they are big, then you have to watch one side while heading to the other and there is always someone who sleeps in pole position. The smaller ones are easier. I even overtook someone once in a one lane circle of about 30 m in diameter.
 
  • #2,979
I grew up just outside of Washington DC, where there are a lot of traffic circles. They use them there where many roads come together in a single intersection. Too complex for just lights or signs. I found these to be easy to deal with and useful.

Out here in Eugene/Springfield, Oregon, they put little ones in places where 4 roads come together and I don't find them more useful than a normal intersection, mostly because I am worried about other people not navigating them correctly and causing problems. I think they maybe using them as traffic slowing obstacles.
Generally, I don't like these smaller ones, as they make navigating the intersection more difficult for some people and that is contrary to what should be the prime directive of intersection design.
 
  • #2,980
BillTre said:
Out here in Eugene/Springfield, Oregon, they put little ones in places where 4 roads come together and I don't find them more useful than a normal intersection, mostly because I am worried about other people not navigating them correctly and causing problems.
Exactly. That's why I found the ones in NJ a bit scary until I got used to them and even then I never liked them.
 
  • #2,981
At an intersection or traffic light one has to stop. Not so at roundabouts. I like them.
 
  • #2,982
fresh_42 said:
At an intersection or traffic light one has to stop.
Exactly; no one is going to come at you from the side without stopping.
 
  • #2,983
TIL that Deep Brain Stimulation (used to reduce symptoms in Parkinson's patients) in some cases can block their ability to swim. This seems to occur in a small percentage of cases.
In some cases, this is immediately reversible by turning the simulator off.
It has possibly been responsible for a some drownings.
 
  • #2,984
BillTre said:
In some cases, this is immediately reversible by turning the simulator off.
It has possibly been responsible for a some drownings.
Simulated drowning?
 
  • #2,985
That should be stimulator!
I may have been improperly spell checked. Its trying to do it again.
 
  • #2,986
TIL that the most likely astronomic event (Jupiter - Saturn conjunction) which led to the star of Bethlehem took place on Dec. 4th 7 BC. I assume Gregorian not Julian calendar. Close.
 
  • #2,987
They can't have been very wise if they followed two planets and then decided "we are here" in a random place.

A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction seems unlikely, even if the story is not pure fiction.
 
  • #2,988
mfb said:
They can't have been very wise if they followed two planets and then decided "we are here" in a random place.

A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction seems unlikely, even if the story is not pure fiction.

Nah, it wasn't a planetary conjunction or star, but the same brightly-lit flying saucer that appeared to the shepherds as the "glory of the lord" and in various other places, linking the Old Testament and the New Testament, as Ezekiel's "glory of the lord", a pillar of fire, chariot of fire and various other manifestations involving light and cloud. Merry Christmas!
 
  • #2,989
mfb said:
They can't have been very wise if they followed two planets and then decided "we are here" in a random place.

A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction seems unlikely, even if the story is not pure fiction.
Lesch explained it in all detail, including all conjunctions this year, the position in the sky, the duration of a journey from Babylon to Bethlehem per camel (Oct. 3rd - conjunction seen in Babylon, end of Nov. in Palestine), the N-S direction Jerusalem-Bethlehem of the planets' position on Dec. 4th, plus the ancient astrological meaning of both planets and the star sign where it appeared in.

Plus the fact, that this dates back to a calculation from Kepler 1603, later supported by a finding of a cuneiform by Schnabel.

All in all, far more convincing than anything else I've seen so far.

P.S.: You sound like all the other scientists who vilified Kepler's finding in the 18th and 19th century as rogue statement by a charlatan (Lesch's comment). Not that they ever checked the calculations.
 
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  • #2,990
fresh_42 said:
Plus the fact, that this dates back to a calculation from Kepler 1603, later supported by a finding of a cuneiform by Schnabel.
Did you check the reference 8 on the Wikipedia page? According to it Kepler expected a nova to appear whenever such a conjunction happens and Mars is nearby - a claim that is just silly from a modern perspective.

There was a supernova in 4 BC recorded by other sources.

Anyway: "Matthew made it up" sounds far more plausible to me than some rich guys stopping at a barn being convinced that whatever they follow ends exactly at this barn.
 
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  • #2,991
mfb said:
According to it Kepler expected a nova to appear whenever such a conjunction happens and Mars is nearby - a claim that is just silly from a modern perspective.
That doesn't make Kepler's calculations wrong. And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.

Nobody ever said that the rich guys actually made this journey, only that celestial facts fit.
 
  • #2,992
fresh_42 said:
That doesn't make Kepler's calculations wrong. And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.
Best reading someone like Bart D Ehrman on this, he is NT scholar. Matthew and Luke wanted to place Jesus in Bethlehem for the Davidic connection and the prophecy in the OT. Those accounts contradict each other and there is no historical records of a empire wide census.
 
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  • #2,993
fresh_42 said:
And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.
Reference 8 is from another astrophysicist or something like that. The Wikipedia article just makes a one-sentence summary of the longer explanation.

No one doubts that the conjunction happened, but that was not a surprising event even 2000 years ago. Someone trying to follow that to a specific point was at best foolish. Kepler's suggestion that people followed a nova created by the planets is just nonsense as we know today.
 
  • #2,994
mfb said:
Someone trying to follow that to a specific point was at best foolish.
Any such claim is of course speculation. But the explanations Lesch offered to explain direction, time, and duration made sense. Novae can be ruled out. But Pisces, Jupiter, Saturn, and West had an astrological meaning in those days, so it is at least thinkable. I only said that the celestial data fit and that Kepler had calculated it in 1603. There was no need to emphasize equipped with modern knowledge, that Kepler's hypothesis about novae was wrong. So what? His orbit calculations were not, and that was all I claimed.

You (pl.) bring in novae, the bible and other stuff. Nothing which I even mentioned. There was a conjunction several times this year, and it pointed in north south direction on Dec. 4th in Palestine. The conjunction before was on Nov. 3rd. These are facts (if Lesch wasn't lying), and together with the symbolism they make the journey plausible. Nobody said it was a proof, only that the puzzle fits.
 
  • #2,995
mfb said:
Reference 8 is from another astrophysicist or something like that. The Wikipedia article just makes a one-sentence summary of the longer explanation.

No one doubts that the conjunction happened, but that was not a surprising event even 2000 years ago. Someone trying to follow that to a specific point was at best foolish. Kepler's suggestion that people followed a nova created by the planets is just nonsense as we know today.
Also @fresh_42 From 33.30-46.50 Is a comparison of the details by Ehrman
 
  • #2,996
TIL the "Matthew Effect" the erroneous attribution of some well known saying or work to more well known or famous persons rather than the true originator. Coined by Robert Merton a sociologist of science researcher after the Apostle Matthew's gospel.

"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
— Matthew 25:29, RSV.

And how did I stumble on this tidbit. On perusing the internet on "why is physics so difficult" finding an article on the most difficult concept in physics (btw was classical mechanics of rotational motion of a rigid body) a reference was made to a saying attributed to R Feynman about interpretation of QM " Shut up an calculate" and the reference to a search for its true origin (M. David Mermin, Cornell )
 
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  • #2,997
On December 29, 1959, American physicist Richard Feynman gave a visionary lecture on the importance of technologies on very small scales. That was 60 years ago, and is considered by many as birthday of nanotechnology.

"Plenty of room at the bottom"

Wiki article

Video of Feynman's lecture on same matters, but 25 years latter
 
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  • #2,998
gleem said:
TIL the "Matthew Effect" the erroneous attribution of some well known saying or work to more well known or famous persons rather than the true originator. Coined by Robert Merton a sociologist of science researcher after the Apostle Matthew's gospel.

"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
— Matthew 25:29, RSV.

And how did I stumble on this tidbit. On perusing the internet on "why is physics so difficult" finding an article on the most difficult concept in physics (btw was classical mechanics of rotational motion of a rigid body) a reference was made to a saying attributed to R Feynman about interpretation of QM " Shut up an calculate" and the reference to a search for its true origin (M. David Mermin, Cornell )
Religious debate is not allowed on physics forums for good reason.
However the actual techniques employed to the manuscripts are methodical and quite scientific (besides carbon dating)
As per your mail, finding out who did or did not author certain texts is extremely interesting from a historical point of view.
 
  • #2,999
TIL that you can go to The National Academies Press and get copies of book they have produced.
You can buy the books or e-books for $50 to <$100, but you can download pdf's for free.
They seem to be the publishing outlet for The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and produce a lot of books. Since the Academies are supposed to provide scientific advice to the government, some of their subjects are pretty interesting, like climate issues and space/origin of life issues.
It can be difficult to find specific things on the site.
Here is a link to Search for Life in the Universe and there are lots of links to other spacey books.
 
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  • #3,000
TIL that there is a phenomenon known as the "Cheerios Effect"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerios_effect

I suppose there is a Rice Krispies Effect too. In Australia, the same breakfast cereal is known as Rice Bubbles.
 

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