Author Topic: what I have learned today. (Read 858486 times)

L CC · « **Reply #150 on:** 07 September, 2012, 03:47:10 pm »

What a drott is. "A fraggle rock bulldozer"

PaulF · « **Reply #151 on:** 07 September, 2012, 04:59:58 pm »

Some 'non-drowsy' Allergy relief pills aren't as non-drowsy as they could be.

Kim · « **Reply #152 on:** 07 September, 2012, 05:04:24 pm »

Quote from: PaulF on 07 September, 2012, 04:59:58 pm

Some 'non-drowsy' Allergy relief pills aren't as non-drowsy as they could be.

Were you riding a bike at the time?

Andrij · « **Reply #153 on:** 07 September, 2012, 05:17:08 pm »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 07 September, 2012, 05:15:23 pm

The term "Yellow Belly" is a local expression meaning someone form Lincolnshire.

It derives from the colour of the Lincolnshire regiment's uniform.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #154 on:** 10 September, 2012, 10:31:02 pm »

I've found out why none of the books in the Moomin series seems to be the first. It's not because the first one, The Moomins and the Great Flood, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, was only translated into English in 2005, but because the English translation is only available in, bizarrely, Finland.

David Martin · « **Reply #155 on:** 13 September, 2012, 01:26:23 pm »

The memory for the first usable programmable computer was sound waves travelling along a mercury column. They had calculated the speed of propagation and with a sender on one end linked to a receiver on the other they could store 1kb (1024 bits) at 1 MHz on a 5ft tube. I just have visions of the little pixies inside the computer [1] shouting "one", "zero" at each other very rapidly. Ingenious.

[1] The ones who stop the magic smoke from leaking out.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #156 on:** 30 October, 2012, 02:33:56 am »

Russians now use the word фейл. That's feil, ie "fail" with a Russian accent.

mr magnolia · « **Reply #157 on:** 30 October, 2012, 05:24:47 am »

Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2012, 10:31:02 pm

I've found out why none of the books in the Moomin series seems to be the first. It's not because the first one, The Moomins and the Great Flood, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, was only translated into English in 2005, but because the English translation is only available in, bizarrely, Finland.

Released in UK 01.11.12, according to Amazon.
We have a copy here, oddly. I wonder where it came from?

rogerzilla · « **Reply #158 on:** 30 October, 2012, 07:29:16 am »

I found out that Australia has an enormous population of feral camels, left over from the building of the telegraph. Sometimes Arab sheikhs come and grab a few because they are apparently more pure-bred than the Middle Eastern ones, having not mixed with any other camels in the last 150 years or so.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #159 on:** 30 October, 2012, 06:46:58 pm »

Mobile phones work with technology originally developed for the pianola. Sort of.

clarion · « **Reply #160 on:** 30 October, 2012, 08:35:43 pm »

I learned that Claudia Winkleman is the daughter of Eve Pollard. Obvious when you know, really.

Exit Stage Left · « **Reply #161 on:** 30 October, 2012, 08:37:49 pm »

Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2012, 06:46:58 pm

Mobile phones work with technology originally developed for the pianola. Sort of.

I thought it was down to Hedy Lammar.
http://www.hedylamarr.org/hedystory5.html

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #162 on:** 30 October, 2012, 10:27:11 pm »

Exactly. She got it from the pianola.

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #163 on:** 31 October, 2012, 12:48:37 pm »

It's hard to get dressed while dancing in a Frankenstein stylee to the Monster Mash.

Basil · « **Reply #164 on:** 26 November, 2012, 09:38:55 pm »

That the search on YACF is bleedin' useless, but typing YACF followed by a vague approximation of what you think the thread was called into Google works wonderfully.

Basil · « **Reply #165 on:** 01 December, 2012, 08:51:11 pm »

Son informed me today the the word "Football" does not refer to the part of the anatomy that is used to control the ball.
He says that it means "Game of ball -played on foot" - as opposed to on horseback.

Kim · « **Reply #166 on:** 01 December, 2012, 10:29:49 pm »

Quote from: Basil on 01 December, 2012, 08:51:11 pm

Son informed me today the the word "Football" does not refer to the part of the anatomy that is used to control the ball.
He says that it means "Game of ball -played on foot" - as opposed to on horseback.

Suddenly handball sounds like a much more entertaining game than I assumed...

Basil · « **Reply #167 on:** 01 December, 2012, 10:33:40 pm »

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #168 on:** 04 December, 2012, 09:39:00 am »

Sigurd, Viking King of Orkney, died in 892 while invading Scotland. He chopped off the Pictish king's head in battle and fastened it to the saddle of his horse - then cut his leg on its teeth, the wound turned septic and he died. Dead head bites king, that's better than Man bites dog!

RJ · « **Reply #169 on:** 06 December, 2012, 09:41:40 am »

Quote

the fine-scale structure of branching river networks is an organized signature of erosional mechanics, not a consequence of random topology.

Fractal-tastic! Read it here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7427/full/nature11672.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20121206

Andrij · « **Reply #170 on:** 17 December, 2012, 11:43:35 am »

Wow. The fuzz can make use of the buzz: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/power_grid_audio_forensics/

Basil · « **Reply #171 on:** 01 January, 2013, 07:30:38 pm »

Today, I learned that humans are the only animal on the planet that have a menopause.

Intrigued, I googled around to find that is not quite true. Blue and Pilot whales also share this.
Still, only three species.

More googling. It seems that the Grandmother is evolutionarily advantageous.

tiermat · « **Reply #172 on:** 01 January, 2013, 07:34:02 pm »

Today I discovered how cold flood water is.

How I did this is left to the imagination (but won't take much for those who have ever been on a ride with me!)

Bledlow · « **Reply #173 on:** 06 January, 2013, 08:30:54 pm »

Today I learned the following:

On 9th June 1947, it became legally impossible for Soviet labour camps to
1) access their bank accounts, or get money paid into them
2) get distributors of essential supplies to deliver to them.

This was because the secrecy rules changed. Their full addresses became secrets which they could not disclose.

Distributors of supplies already knew them, so could deliver goods that the labour camps ordered, but were no longer able to accept orders, because orders had to include the full address unless they were 'secret' orders, only military establishments could issue secret orders, & labour camps were not military establishments. The MVD had been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.

They could not access their bank accounts because they could not give Gosbank (the state bank) their full addresses. Gosbank already held the full address of every account holder, including labour camps. It was part of the identity of the account. Transactions could only be made if the correct identity was supplied. But because the address was now secret, neither the camps, nor entities seeking to transfer money to them, could supply it to Gosbank, even though Gosbank already knew it. It was therefore legally impossible for Gosbank to accept requests for payments into or from those accounts.

There was a way round the banking problem. Camps had an alternative identity. If Gosbank substituted this for the full address, all would be well. But it wasn't legally possible to give Gosbank the alternative identity in a form in which it could be matched to the information Gosbank already held.

For the next six years this caused immense problems, with illegal (& in theory punishable by severe penalties) unofficial arrangements having to be made simply to allow the GuLaG to work, & constant interruptions to supplies & payments as carefully & riskily negotiated arrangements broke down (I assume because one party retired, or died, or changed job, or got frightened) & had to be renegotiated.

All the transactions which were inhibited were official, authorised transactions between state agencies, which were necessary for them to make in order to fulfil their legal duty to abide by the plan.

Ashaman42 · « **Reply #174 on:** 06 January, 2013, 10:01:23 pm »

That is absolutely bonkers Bledlow, but entirely believable.