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The Revenge of Interesting Facts: STAY INSIDE ON WIKIPEDIA
Darth Waiter
Elrond HubbardMordor XenuRegistered User regular
Elrond HubbardMordor XenuRegistered User regular
Last February, in The Year of Our Lady 2015, The Thread About Interesting Facts For Interested Individuals lasted for nigh unto one calendar year minus a few days. I learned a lot of things from that thread:
- Shirkes, a.k.a. Butcherbirds are metal as hell and impale their prey on thorns to slowly age like fine wine
- Blue jays go catatonic when you roll them on their backs
- Crows can use tools and problem solving skills
- Seagulls live a really long time
- 50 Canadian geese can produce three and a half tons of demon-shit in a year
That's only bird facts and only from the first five pages. (Seriously, that is a lot of goose shit.)So, I went to Wikipedia and two cups of tea later, I have discovered these things:
*Today (May 10th) is the 75th anniversary of the decision of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess to parachute "into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom." Hess' plane actually ran out of fuel, that's why he had to parachute. He was promptly identified, debriefed and then shipped the fuck out proving that no one in Glasgow wanted to deal with his bullshit, presumably because he exhibited signs of "hypochondria" and "paranoia." Either that or someone was actually trying to kill him. I mean, who wouldn't, really? Seriously, the guy was an asshole.
*Following the link for exhumation within the previous article, I proceeded to Ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The earliest graves found are from pre-history ... which means they had no writing, not like ... dinosaurs and shit. The oldest graves discovered only contain a single pot.
Considering the early stage of agriculture, it seems fairly reasonable to guess that those early funerals didn't have a lot of food to spare for someone rotting in the ground. By the end of the Pre-Dynastyic period, the dead got more pots, more food, some odds and ends thrown in with them and eventually,
Because what is any lesson in history without yet another glaring example of patriarchy.
*From there I went to burial goods then to grave robbery and right on into The Black Market. There's a lot of obvious examples of current black market goods like arms, drugs, human organs, animals, animal products, counterfeit money, counterfeit processed goods, copyrighted entertainment (apparently mix-tapes are illegal) ... the list goes on and on. The big one here in the US was Prohibition which lasted from 1920 to 1933. A good deal of information is present within the article, I highly recommend reading it if you would like further proof that Americans are weirdly Puritanical in public but godless heathens in private. Oddly enough, Winston Churchill believed that Prohibition was "an affront to the whole history of mankind." After the ratification of the 21st Amendment, Prohibition had ended but many speakeasies had already accepted a mixed clientele of ladies and dudes for the intervening years. Public drinking for women was no longer the purview of an immoral feminine character because women had shitty jobs too, motherfucker, it's The Depression, deal with it.
Take that, patriarchy. @Usagi SMASH. Probably her grandmother, though unless Jess is actually a time-traveler. NANA SMASH.
*Industrialization was kind of a short article, but it led me to manufacturing which led me to 3D Printing ....
....
....
Seriously, this shit is so cool. Why are we not 3D printing everything?
Oh.
We are.
There's so much interesting stuff in the world we live in, so many things we've created, so many habits and routines we perform, so many of our mistakes that turn out to have surprising positive effects that I can't imagine ever possibly learning all about it, even though I want to. I rely upon all of you to pick up the mantle (as I lay down for the evening) and delve into Interesting Things so that you may spread the knowledge far and wide.
- Shirkes, a.k.a. Butcherbirds are metal as hell and impale their prey on thorns to slowly age like fine wine
- Blue jays go catatonic when you roll them on their backs
- Crows can use tools and problem solving skills
- Seagulls live a really long time
- 50 Canadian geese can produce three and a half tons of demon-shit in a year
That's only bird facts and only from the first five pages. (Seriously, that is a lot of goose shit.)So, I went to Wikipedia and two cups of tea later, I have discovered these things:
*Today (May 10th) is the 75th anniversary of the decision of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess to parachute "into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom." Hess' plane actually ran out of fuel, that's why he had to parachute. He was promptly identified, debriefed and then shipped the fuck out proving that no one in Glasgow wanted to deal with his bullshit, presumably because he exhibited signs of "hypochondria" and "paranoia." Either that or someone was actually trying to kill him. I mean, who wouldn't, really? Seriously, the guy was an asshole.
*Following the link for exhumation within the previous article, I proceeded to Ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The earliest graves found are from pre-history ... which means they had no writing, not like ... dinosaurs and shit. The oldest graves discovered only contain a single pot.
Without any written evidence, there is little to provide information about contemporary beliefs concerning the afterlife except for the regular inclusion of a single pot in the grave. In view of later customs, the pot was probably intended to hold food for the deceased.
Considering the early stage of agriculture, it seems fairly reasonable to guess that those early funerals didn't have a lot of food to spare for someone rotting in the ground. By the end of the Pre-Dynastyic period, the dead got more pots, more food, some odds and ends thrown in with them and eventually,
Gender differences in burial emerged with the inclusion of weapons in men's graves and cosmetics palettes in women's graves.
Because what is any lesson in history without yet another glaring example of patriarchy.
*From there I went to burial goods then to grave robbery and right on into The Black Market. There's a lot of obvious examples of current black market goods like arms, drugs, human organs, animals, animal products, counterfeit money, counterfeit processed goods, copyrighted entertainment (apparently mix-tapes are illegal) ... the list goes on and on. The big one here in the US was Prohibition which lasted from 1920 to 1933. A good deal of information is present within the article, I highly recommend reading it if you would like further proof that Americans are weirdly Puritanical in public but godless heathens in private. Oddly enough, Winston Churchill believed that Prohibition was "an affront to the whole history of mankind." After the ratification of the 21st Amendment, Prohibition had ended but many speakeasies had already accepted a mixed clientele of ladies and dudes for the intervening years. Public drinking for women was no longer the purview of an immoral feminine character because women had shitty jobs too, motherfucker, it's The Depression, deal with it.
Take that, patriarchy. @Usagi SMASH. Probably her grandmother, though unless Jess is actually a time-traveler. NANA SMASH.
*Industrialization was kind of a short article, but it led me to manufacturing which led me to 3D Printing ....
....
....
Seriously, this shit is so cool. Why are we not 3D printing everything?
As of 2012, 3D bio-printing technology has been studied by biotechnology firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications in which organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. In this process, layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium or sugar matrix and slowly built up to form three-dimensional structures including vascular systems.[158] The first production system for 3D tissue printing was delivered in 2009, based on NovoGen bioprinting technology.[159] Several terms have been used to refer to this field of research: organ printing, bio-printing, body part printing,[160] and computer-aided tissue engineering, among others.[161] The possibility of using 3D tissue printing to create soft tissue architectures for reconstructive surgery is also being explored.[162]
In 2013, Chinese scientists began printing ears, livers and kidneys, with living tissue. Researchers in China have been able to successfully print human organs using specialized 3D bio printers that use living cells instead of plastic[citation needed]. Researchers at Hangzhou Dianzi University designed the "3D bio printer" dubbed the "Regenovo". Xu Mingen, Regenovo's developer, said that it takes the printer under an hour to produce either a mini liver sample or a four to five inch ear cartilage sample. Xu also predicted that fully functional printed organs may be possible within the next ten to twenty years.[163][164] In the same year, researchers at the University of Hasselt, in Belgium had successfully printed a new jawbone for an 83-year-old Belgian woman.[165]
Oh.
We are.
There's so much interesting stuff in the world we live in, so many things we've created, so many habits and routines we perform, so many of our mistakes that turn out to have surprising positive effects that I can't imagine ever possibly learning all about it, even though I want to. I rely upon all of you to pick up the mantle (as I lay down for the evening) and delve into Interesting Things so that you may spread the knowledge far and wide.
Darth Waiter on
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Who is, indeed, a fine woman and an upstanding example for a strong, intelligent, modern woman. A great role model for any young girl. And I'll accept that assumption as it's not too far off and Mrs. Roosevelt was also a factor in the naming of my daughter.
However, Eleanor was actually named after an older, and yet still bad-ass, woman in History, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
During her long life she was the Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen of France, and Queen of England. She joined one of her sons in rebellion against her husband, the King of England, was imprisoned, and wasn't released until her husband died and her son Richard took the throne. She then ruled over England while King Richard went on the crusade, since her other son John was still too young to be King, and also King Richard wasn't dead.
Sound slightly familiar?
Yes. Eleanor was the mother to Richard the Lionheart and the cowardly Prince John. Which of course makes me want to sing all the songs from Disney's Robin Hood.
But yes, go, read and learn about Eleanor of Aquitaine and realize that women have always been bad-ass. It's just the men in their lives have usually ignored them. And history forgot them.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Still, there's a few interesting tidbits, like, the Kaiser banned the production of sausages. Because those great big Zeppelins, you know the ones, they were made of cow intestine (gross). It took more than 250,000 cow intestines to make one Zeppelin. Germany had 115 Zeppelins, which were nearly untouchable in their early days because they could fly so high and were impervious to bullets. It didn't matter if you poked a hole in one, it'd take a long time for the gas to escape. And incendiary bullets did no good either because there was not enough oxygen in the bags of gas. the solution was to fire alternating exploding and incendiary bullets. The exploding bullets would rip bigger holes and mix the oxygen and gas, and then the incendiary bullet would ignite the air/hydrogen mixture, exploding the Zeppelin. Once the Allies had figured it out the Zeppelin attacks quickly stopped.
fake edit- I thought I had a book on WW1 legends and myths lined up to read next but I guess I don't? Weird. I'll fix that soon.
It's a shame that like, all of her sons turned out to be pieces of shit
I guess Geoffrey might have been alright, but he was never king
The part of all that which is squidgy for me is
Like, maybe examine the ruins to see if there's any indication of the city's name before naming it, or go to contemporary Mayans for the name?
I mean, I call things names all the time, that's not what they're actually called though
Check your white man's privilege, kid
Far from perfect, but at least he wasn't pushing for "Williamtown"
I might, but that's just me.
One of my favourite (Australian) science writers likes to predict that before too long, 3D printers will, instead of having 1 or 2 feeds of material, will have one for every element on the table, and will be able to print anything made of any material.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
I can only imagine what copyright and patent laws will look like fifty years from now.
A book I read on this subject six or seven years back was talking about true nano assembler devices, but supposed that you'd in essence buy a license to print an object from a marketplace. I suspect that the Steam of 3d printers will at some future point exist, and whenever you break a glass you just pay your $1.25 and print out a new one.
So to answer your question, copyright and patent laws will be complex and zealously enforced fifty years from now.
But let me print out some nice uranium paper weights and we're good to go.
As a chemist, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, but as a lay person yeah dream big.
And this is coming from someone who is going to have his wedding band 3D printed through sacrificial casting.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
Well, the big thing is that is a stupid way to use 3D printing. Instead, you'll see them used to make time-intense steps in existing techniques faster, like with sacrificial casting (which, unsurprisingly, 3D printing has made huge inroads in!)
I think the future for 3D printing lies in one of two options:
For example, a specific type of screw or bolt. Or custom car parts. Prosthetic. You name it. 3D printers give consumers greater power to find rarer materials and give producers more options for fabrication of new products (at least on the small scale) with greater flexibility and less cost. Got a specific new device you patented but need to get a prototype to market? 3D printers probably will make it for much less than conventional manufacturing in 10 years time.
Sure, for manufacturing 10,000 things, a 3D printer is a really shitty way to do it
but if I go onto amazon and click "buy" on a pair of shoes, then in the shipping options I select "Print at home" and my home 3D printer fires up and in a few hours my shoes are done
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
This would assume you have the materials on hand to use, at which point why would you order from Amazon in the first place? They aren't replicators from Star Trek, you have to have the stuff and the skill to use them. Generally they produce parts rather than wholecloth items that you then assemble.
that's...
I mean that's my point
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
Which is why a lot of the 3D printing evangelism annoys me to no end. Right now, they're good for:
* Prototyping,
* Making custom one off pieces,
* Making masters for creating molds to be used in cheaper manufacturing methods,
* Making sacrificial models for casting when other processes are too time or labor intensive.
And if you look, they are heavily used in those fields!
My point is the cost of materials and assembly at home with an expensive 3d printer in no way makes it better or cheaper than just ordering a pair of shoes from a manufacturer. The shoes you "make at home" aren't going to be as good of quality unless you already have the cloth, rubber, and leather available and know how to use your 3d printer to cut or produce the parts to a shoe (at which point a sewing machine is probably more useful and effective). Add in experience factor... if you haven't made a shoe before you probably aren't going to make as good of ones as a professional shoemaker. Then, materials: To order the quantity of materials you would need, even if you had a wholesale licence with distributors, that small of a cut for your shoes would either be impossible to order or cost you a fortune given the overhead costs of shipping versus the need to sell in bulk from the materials provider. Not counting whatever your investment cost is with the 3d printer, you are probably looking at a 150+ investment for a pair of 20 dollar shoes. If you buy more material and make more shoes, it makes a bit more sense... but why would you?
Household 3d printing isn't really practical and it probably won't ever be because of the materials cost. Even if we get 3d printers to be as cheap as household appliances (lets say as optimistic as ~$50 bucks), the cost to produce items locally will still make the economics not work. You would have to have on demand shipping completely collapse before that would be even plausible, and then there wouldn't be call for more than one or two locations per town to offer the service.
capitalism
In its current form, I 100% agree
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
His point is going to be true barring 3D printing technology becoming replicators, or the international trade network collapsing completely. Neither of which I see happening in the near future.
And hell - look at videos of makers like Ben Heckendorn or Jimmy DiResta - yes, they use 3D printing, when it makes sense. But they're also happy to use other manufacturing techniques as the need demonstrates.
3D printing is a tool, and a powerful one at that - I wouldn't have considered a custom wedding band if I hadn't found a local jeweler who uses it to make custom pieces. But it is a tool with limits, and we shouldn't be portraying it as some magic technology that will change the world.
Fun Fact: the chemists who did the early experiments with Fluorine were referred to as suicide chemists
I'm sure you can guess why
One widespread and well-documented behavior of corvids (seen in crows, ravens, and magpies) is tail-pulling. There's an animal, and it has a tail sticking out, so the corvid sneaks up behind and yanks on it.
Why? Well, sometimes they do it to get food. Big eagle has a fish, so the crow pulls on its tail to distract it, and while it's turning around the crow (or another if working cooperatively) can snatch it and fly off. But not always. In fact, oftentimes it appears they're really just doing it for shits and giggles.
Look at that crow being sneaky. "Oh no, I'm not pulling your tail. I'm just picking at the ground and whistling non-suspiciously."
http://woodgears.ca/combolock/
I wish I had some sort of workshop so that I could make one of these
I love locks so much
This game is absolutely incredible
It takes random locations from Google Maps and pops you into streetview
You can explore, you can zoom in and out, you know, anything you could normally do within streetview
And you have to try to figure out where you are
You get points based on accuracy
It is insane