Today I Learned

[mfb]

Today I learned a bit about elliptic curves.

And I'll make a guess why: Andreas Enge found the smallest prime number with 50001 digits, which is the largest number confirmed to be prime using elliptic curves: 10^50,000 + 65,859.

 

[nsaspook]

TIL The origin of "gps told me to turn into a river".

 

[pinball1970]

TIL The origin of "gps told me to turn into a river".

Is that 'Tomorrow's world?'

 

[BillTre]

TIL (from a NY Times article) of an allergy to mammalian meat that can develop in people that get bit by the Lone Star Tick (identifiable by the white spot on its back). The tick is expanding its range due to climate change.

“The spatial distribution of the species has definitely increased by at least 30 to 50 percent in the last half a century,” said Ram Raghavan, an assistant professor in epidemiology and disease ecology at the University of Missouri, who has mapped the lone star tick’s spread. According to his research, the ticks are expected to continue to shift and expand their range; both to the north and west.

The allergy:

Alpha-gal syndrome is triggered by a complex sugar called galactose-alpha-1, 3-galactose, or alpha-gal, for short. The sugar is found in most mammals, but not in fish, reptiles, birds or humans. When the lone star tick feeds, alpha-gal is spread through its saliva, exposing the host’s immune system to the sugar. For some people, this triggers an overactive immune response the next time they encounter it.

 

[Ibix]

Today I learned that black herons do something called "canopy feeding" where they put their wings out in circles like umbrellas so that they don't look so bird-shaped to their prey looking up from the water.

Wikipedia has a pic.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL Some detail regarding the Titanic disaster enquiry via an interesting documentary, it is on youtube in its entirety.

I have seen a few of these but this focuses a little bit more on the combination of technical reasons that led to the disaster.

The ship design, materials, safety procedures, human errors etc

I checked to see if it was still the worst and it was not unfortunately. I have no recollection of the Dona Paz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...ss of the,the largest peacetime loss recorded.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Today I learned that black herons do something called "canopy feeding" where they put their wings out in circles like umbrellas so that they don't look so bird-shaped to their prey looking up from the water.

Wikipedia has a pic.

That presumably works partly by creating a shady spot which fish are likely to move into and partly by making it easier for the bird to see the fish by reducing reflections of the sky.

 

[DaveC426913]

...making it easier for the bird to see the fish by reducing reflections of the sky.

This seems the most plausible.

 

[fresh_42]

Today I learned that black herons do something called "canopy feeding" where they put their wings out in circles like umbrellas so that they don't look so bird-shaped to their prey looking up from the water.

Wikipedia has a pic.

This behavior defined its German name: "bell-heron".

 

[sbrothy]

Today I learned that turtles can breathe using their butt.

 

[strangerep]

Today I learned that turtles can breathe using their butt.

Their bad breath must be... indescribable. (And I thought my high school math teacher smelled bad...)

But this just keeps getting better and better...

(Other animals...)
[...] At night, many of these species emerge from the anus of the sea cucumber in search of food.

Afaik(?), writers of horror movies have never yet thought of that one...

 

[sbrothy]

Their bad breath must be... indescribable. (And I thought my high school math teacher smelled bad...)

But this just keeps getting better and better...

Afaik(?), writers of horror movies have never yet thought of that one...

Yeah, nature is downright horrific.

 

[MevsEinstein]

And I'll make a guess why: Andreas Enge found the smallest prime number with 50001 digits, which is the largest number confirmed to be prime using elliptic curves: 10^50,000 + 65,859.

no I just found out now

 

[BillTre]

TIL there is now a Journal of Beatles Studies (note the spelling is musical not biological)

Liverpool University Press is delighted to announce the launch of a brand new open access journal, The Journal of Beatles Studies. Co-edited by Holly Tessler (University of Liverpool) and Paul Long (Monash University) the journal will be published twice a year, with the inaugural issue being in September 2022. The journal is sponsored by the University of Liverpool library.

But don't forget the biological beetles, because as John B. S. Haldane said:

If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.

Now that I think about it, the Beatles were also stars!

 

[BillTre]

TIL:

A microchip implanted in German Aldana Zuniga's brain allowed the paraplegic man to drive a race car more than 9 years after he lost the use of his legs in an auto accident.

Video here.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL I learned about the new definition of the kilogram using Plank's constant.

 

[BillTre]

TIL that it is Sherlock Holmes Day, which is celebrated on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, May 22.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

 

[fresh_42]

Three days until Towel Day.

 

[diogenesNY]

TIL, that (a while back) the Dutch ate their Prime Minister.

https://dutchreview.com/culture/dutch-history-crowds-ate-prime-minister/

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

 

[DrGreg]

TIL that it is Sherlock Holmes Day, which is celebrated on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, May 22.

Logically it should be a half-day, the afternoon of 22 January...

 

[strangerep]

Three days until Towel Day.

And,... (TIL)... that Towel Day is in honour of Douglas Adams and (as a consequence) I also learned that Douglas Adams wrote/edited a number of Dr Who episodes.

 

[kyphysics]

. . . that even highly educated people make big money mistakes in crypto.

 

[fresh_42]

. . . that even highly educated people make big money mistakes in crypto.

I observed that greed is independent of the education level. Only the traits change.

 

[pinball1970]

I observed that greed is independent of the education level. Only the traits change.

That is a horrible story. He worked his life, paid his taxes and got bad advice. Or advice that seemed good at the time.
I want people like that to get a break, hard honest workers.
Probably get some decent financial advice first.
I hate those stories.

 

[Borg]

The online investing course that he got his advice from was probably created by the very same people who were selling the crypto.

 

[pinball1970]

The online investing course that he got his advice from was probably created by the very same people who were selling the crypto.

Possibly. A tough lesson though.
House, wife, kids. Then nothing, all equity gone and owing when he should have been thinking about his kids support at Uni.

 

[Borg]

I would be curious to know what he actually learned from his lesson though. I knew someone who got burned in the 2000 tech crash when his leveraged investments automatically sold one day because the price of one of his stocks spike dropped in the morning below the leverage threshold limit. That triggered a sale at the low price that only lasted a minute or so. And, since he was so heavily leveraged, it triggered the sale of other stocks in his portfolio as well. He ended up losing a good fraction of his money as a result.

I met him a year after it happened and he was blaming the brokerage for selling his stocks - thinking that they should have taken on all of his risks when the prices crashed. I tried to explain to him that even if they wanted to protect him that way, they wouldn't know if the price would recover and by the terms of the contract when he leveraged his money that way, it was a serious possibility that he should have considered. It was like talking to a brick wall.

 

[Tom.G]

It was like talking to a brick wall.

Yeah, some people are like that, even when they are buried under the bricks!

Seems to go with a feeling of 'entitlement.'

 

[kyphysics]

I observed that greed is independent of the education level. Only the traits change.

Maybe naivete too?

Plenty of get-rich-quick thinkers flock to crypto and meme stocks for sure. But, I suspect there is a big segment of just very naive (maybe combined with greed too) people too, who may not fully understand how the thing is valued the way it is and is just being told by people they "trust" that it will "go up" in value (a lot).

One takeaway is to never invest in something you don't understand. No matter how tempting it sounds and no matter the upside, don't do it (or, at the very, very least, only put a small % of your $ into it so as to not go broke...or even come close to going broke). I've had to learn to not be envious of people getting rich off crypto, because I have to realize so many also go broke. Lots of people watch Tik Tok or YouTube videos of some random person on the net saying how they made so much money in x/y/z financial instrument and think it's so easy that they can do it too.

Look CAREFULLY into something...and if you don't understand it, DON'T do it. And don't feel bad if you miss out. Feel good that you didn't do something potentially really dumb.

 

[Oldman too]

Hi @BillTre
But don't forget the biological beetles, because as John B. S. Haldane said:

If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.

I'm familiar with Haldane's quote from reading Stephen Gould's books, but the addition of "stars" was unfamiliar to me. Looking into it, I came across this article https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/23/beetles/#f+734+1+5 that seems to explain the inclusion of "stars" in the quote. An interesting combination of his famous quote and a statement from his book, "what is life". Definitely a TIL day.

 

[strangerep]

TIL... something quite surprising (at least for me).

Apparently Tasmania was once part of the Grand Canyon.

 

[pinball1970]

It was not quite today but TIL we have an extra holiday in the UK. Today. Queens Platinum Jubilee.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL that a double bass drum pedal is either right or left footed. The attachment for the second foot, in my case the right, only fits on the left.
You have to get left use one and they cost more apparently.
Louis Belson has a lot to answer for.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL You cannot quote someone if the thread is closed. Why should I want to quote if the thread is closed? If the thread is closed with a line that belongs in the 'Great one liners from pf members.'

Screen grab is a pain on my tablet.

 

[Rive]

I think you can do that by editing the BB code.
Let's see.

I looked for big guns and I found one.

 

[pinball1970]

I think you can do that by editing the BB code.
Let's see.

Where is that? Bear in mind I have a Hudl

 

[Rive]

Where is that? Bear in mind I have a Hudl

I don't know what Hudl is

You can toggle to BB code edit by those brackets. Then just fill up the details and edit the text. The post ID can be extracted from the 'Share this post' button:

 

[epenguin]

It was not quite today but TIL we have an extra holiday in the UK. Today. Queens Platinum Jubilee.

For every Brit she has been there since as long as we can remember, as long as we could be aware of any such thing.

She has known 12 Presidents of the US from Truman on, 4 Popes and countless heads of government, including 14 Prime Ministers of her own with whom she has almost weekly conversation, by no means trivial (though with no real powers over them).https://www.businessinsider.com/que...idge-visited-a-school-together-in-cornwall-21

 

[Oldman too]

TIL, this, Archaeological find highlights 1700 year old version of a social media post.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/new...de-graffiti-uncovered-northumberland-24079155

"Described as a 'fabulous' bit of social commentary, it is expected to amuse visitors for many years to come. According to the team at Vindolanda, carving such a message would have been one of the best ways to get a lot of people noticing a point of view, centuries before printed papers or social media existed."

Not only was there a drawing, but the 40 x 15cm stone is also engraved with SECVNDINVS CACOR, making the graffiti a very personal insult. Specialists in Roman epigraphy, Drs Alexander Meyer, Alex Mullen and Roger Tomlin, recognised it as a mangled version of 'Secundinus cactor' or in English, 'Secudinus, the sh**ter."

 

[sbrothy]

Today I didn't exactly learn a lesson as much a I got a prejudice confirmed, kind of. I meet a lot of people who talk to their dogs as they would to children. No harm in that, except they often claim that the dog understands them(?). Still, no big deal. More than a few times though I've met girls (for some reason it seems to be mostly girls) who claim that their dog "doesn't like men", or "doesn't like people of color"(?!).

This leaves me completely baffled! Is your dog a racist?! The explanation must be that the owner feels unsafe around men or people of color and the dog picks up on that. Trying to clear up these misunderstandings is like navigating a minefield though. I mean how do you politely explain to a girl that maybe she's the one with the issues, not her dog. Or worse: that maybe she's a closeted misandrist and/or racist?

People are weird.

 

[pinball1970]

Today I didn't exactly learn a lesson as much a I got a prejudice confirmed, kind of. I meet a lot of people who talk to their dogs as they would to children. No harm in that, except they often claim that the dog understands them(?). Still, no big deal. More than a few times though I've met girls (for some reason it seems to be mostly girls) who claim that their dog "doesn't like men", or "doesn't like people of color"(?!).

This leaves me completely baffled! Is your dog a racist?! The explanation must be that the owner feels unsafe around men or people of color and the dog picks up on that. Trying to clear up these misunderstandings is like navigating a minefield though. I mean how do you politely explain to a girl that maybe she's the one with the issues, not her dog. Or worse: that maybe she's a closeted misandrist and/or racist?

People are weird.

There is no polite way. Explain that the dog owner is an idiot to believe such nonsense.
Animals get spooked, full stop. Sometimes justified (an aggressive person) sometimes not (babies killed by dogs unprovoked)
You cannot predict when this may happen.
'My dog would never...'

No you don't. Unless you speak dog.

 

[sbrothy]

There is no polite way. Explain that the dog owner is an idiot to believe such nonsense.
Animals get spooked, full stop. Sometimes justified (an aggressive person) sometimes not (babies killed by dogs unprovoked)
You cannot predict when this may happen.
'My dog would never...'

No you don't. Unless you speak dog.

I think it might be more complicated. There could be a legitimate reason for a girl to be uneasy in the company of certain demographics. She could be a gang rape victim or something (not that i want to make excuses for racism). Far out but possible.

 

[Rive]

This leaves me completely baffled! Is your dog a racist?! The explanation must be that the owner feels unsafe around men or people of color and the dog picks up on that.

Some dogs are trained to make difference (well, some can pick up the expectations without much training, actually), and so they react differently even without the owner around.

Sad and complicated stuff.

 

[pinball1970]

I think it might be more complicated. There could be a legitimate reason for a girl to be uneasy in the company of certain demographics. She could be a gang rape victim or something (not that i want to make excuses for racism). Far out but possible.

Agree and read your post again.
Dogs have certain traits, we get them as a puppy we hone those possibilities.

 

[pinball1970]

Some dogs are trained to make difference (well, some can pick up the expectations without much training, actually), and so they react differently even without the owner around.

Sad and complicated stuff.

A close connection with 1000s of years unnatural selection.
Bottom line is my dog could attack a stranger and there is absolutely no way to find out why. We cannot ask the dog, movements? Size? Smell?

I do not have a dog for several reasons.

 

[Rive]

is my dog could attack a stranger and there is absolutely no way to find out why.

Once I've heard a case about a dog continuously harassing groups of guests (only groups!).
Needed an expert to clarify that it's not attacking. It's herding

 

[sbrothy]

Once I've heard a case about a dog continuously harassing groups of guests (only groups!).
Needed an expert to clarify that it's not attacking. It's herding

You mean it herded them agrssively like sheep? :)

 

[Rive]

Yes. It was in the breed. But it never ever seen a sheep, so ... found it's own way

 

[fresh_42]

You mean it herded them agrssively like sheep? :)

Smart dog. Groups of people are sheep!

 

[sbrothy]

Yes. It was in the breed. But it never ever seen a sheep, so ... found it's own way

Hahaa. "Line up people! Humor the dog please!" :)