As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
100 things we didn't know last year (+50)
ALocksly
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I don't think this will cause much debate but there's plenty here for discourse and it's appropriate for the new year.
I came across this article entitled "100 things we didn't know last year" which includes links to the articles that origionally reported these sometimes odd facts.
Some of my favorites were:
7. The lion costume from the Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.
68. The egg came first.
88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
100. In the 1960s th CIA used to watch "Mission Impossible" to get ideas about spying
anything grab your attention?
edit: and in case you missed an_alts link further down, that worthy found another list with a slightly more scientific bent
I came across this article entitled "100 things we didn't know last year" which includes links to the articles that origionally reported these sometimes odd facts.
Some of my favorites were:
7. The lion costume from the Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.
68. The egg came first.
88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
100. In the 1960s th CIA used to watch "Mission Impossible" to get ideas about spying
anything grab your attention?
edit: and in case you missed an_alts link further down, that worthy found another list with a slightly more scientific bent
Yes,... yes, I agree. It's totally unfair that sober you gets into trouble for things that drunk you did.
ALocksly on
0
Posts
5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men. (link)
69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s. (link)
A lot of them are rather Britain-centric, like this one:
79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle. (link)
But I guess that's to be expected since it's a BBC article.
That's always been my position.
99. The term "misfeasence" means to carry out a legal act illegally.
particularly how it relates to an unarmed naked man apparently posing sufficient threat to the police as to require deadly force (or at least the attempt of such)
With apologies to Terry Pratchett
Thunder rolled.
He rolled an 8 and begrudgingly passed the dice to the last player.
The man shook the dice confidently in both hands before casting them onto what, for lack of a better word, chould be considered a table. The players drew a collected breath as they waited for the dice to stop rolling.
And he won.
"What can I say?" he laughed, "It seems like I'm favoring myself."
He always won.
None of the other players were surprised at all. The game was irrelevant, be it Ancient Civilizations, Conquerers of Catan, Floods and Droughts, or even something as simple as Who's the Heir, the outcome was decided as soon as soon as he began playing. You could try to watch for him cheating, but then your eyes left the board, and it wasn't until you tried to think about the game hours afterward that you came to the realization that he had dealt himself not even from the bottom of the deck, but from an entirely different set of cards entirely.
There are signs that he is unusual. He can do tricks that made sparks leap and dance from his fingertips and his voice echoes with harmonics that make your teeth ache and your eyes ring. These are the small things that set him apart from the other players, slight clues in their apperances that reveal their true natures, though in the case of Quel'Shaggoth the Tentacled Monstrosity, somewhat less than slight.
He is Predestination, Kismet... Fate, and while the other gods prefer games of dice and chance, he prefers to play with mortals on the board of the world. This is exactly why he smiled as two new players sat down across from him and spread the pieces for a new game out in front of him. The other players recognized it immediately and quickly gathered up what was left of their antes and made room for the other two.
"Destiny of an Empire, is it? Kings wild? One true heir? Fate of the dynasty?"
The lady's eyes sparkled and gleamed as she nodded to him. Fate and she were eternal rivals, lovers, enemies, and friends and she was one of the few who could best him. She gave him a knowing wink and if you looked closely enough into her eyes, you might catch a glimpse of a spinning coin falling into verdant infinity, or perhaps a clover in an endless field of green. She answered to no name, had no worshippers, and even in his darkest hour, no man would ever dare call on her. It is perhaps better that she remain nameless, but if her occupation could be described, it would be something like the waitress of the Last Chance Saloon.
"The Wang Empire. One thousand years of rule about to come to an end due to 970 years of inbreeding and squabbling. It is here that the three most noble families shall be in dispute as to the rightful successor. The Dongs, the Hungs, and the Johnsons."
"Johnssssonssss!?" hissed Quel'Shaggoth.
The third player nodded, "Long, powerful family, responsible for the deaths of thousands merely for their own pride."
The collective gods nodded. One thing they all understood was the value of life. The true writ of nobility is penned in blood and buttressed by a mountain of corpses for god and mortal alike.
This one may have been a blind woman holding scales, or possibly a regal king wielding a sword of flame. Unlike the lady, he was known by many names; Karma, Revenge, Justice, Righteousness, but most often answered simply to Law. He was used to supplicants calling on him, and the other gods were used to watching his hands at all times. Just when you thought they had his empire beat, they would all too often find out that he'd been palming a Rightful Heir with an Ancient Retribution kicker.
"Forget the dice, I don't trust either of you with them anyway. We shall play with our wits and win by tactics and cold steel alone."
The other two nodded and began to divide up the pieces while the board started to come into definition and become a landscape.
And on the landscape, there was a kingdom.
And in the kingdom, there was a castle.
And in the castle, there was a bed.
And in the bed, the last emperor of the Wang Dynasty died.
The pieces begin to move...
This is a forum game somewhat similar in nature to the XXXshires of ODaM and the Phallas of D&D. The goal of the game is to A.) Survive and B.) Eliminate the other two families with claims to the throne. This is a game of intrigue, deception, betrayal and mob mentality. PMs are allowed. Loosely formed shadowy cabals are encouraged. Betraying your 'allies' for the sake of your family is lauded. Roleplaying is not required, and unless you really want to be a Chinese Warlord, not recommended, but being a backstabbing, conniving bastard certainly is.
At the start of the game, players will be randomly and secretly assigned to the three families. Only their own identity will be known, and only to them. Each day, players will vote the Imperial Seal into the hands of a single player, who will then publicly decide on one player to put to death on the following day. In addition, each family will have one Executor of The Family Will who may assassinate one player of their choice during the night. If an Executor dies, the duties pass to a random member of their family the following day. When any person dies, their family will be revealed, but not any special roles they may have held. This will continue until only one family remains, who will be declared the winner.
In addition, each family will have a number of players with unique roles:
All the special role names and their exact mechanics will be posted before the game begins, though they will just be explicit specifications of the above with perhaps a tweak or two. There will be no hidden roles or abilities, and any questions anybody has about them will be publicly answered. Each family will have an identical distribution.
The game is open to between 36 and 48 players so long as the number is evenly divisible by three. If there's sufficient interest, I might open it up to a few more, but don't count on it. Participation is vital, and you will be allowed to miss one vote without excuse before being killed for non-participation. In addition, in the event that a random death is needed (an Executor doesn't send in a kill, or the elected official doesn't provide a name to kill), I'm going to 'randomly' choose from the people who have missed the most votes and/or have participated the least.
More specific information (results of tied votes, the possible weirdness of the endgame, etc) will be forthcoming when the game begins.
With any luck, THE FIRST DAY WILL START ON SUNDAY AT 10PM EST. All days will end at 10PM EST, at which point flavorful results of the nights activities will be posted and the Imperial Seal passed onto the new holder.
If you want to play, please post something along the lines of "I sign up" or "I'm in" or something along those lines.
The larger and more colorful you make it, the better. Otherwise, feel free to use this thread to pre-emptively posture in and whatnot. If you want to optimize your enjoyment, I highly suggest making some loose alliances before the game even begins. Information and teams are the only currencies you'll have and you stand a very poor chance of surviving until the end of the game if you insist on being on your own.
That's scary.
73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch.
What about all his humanitarian work? Oh...right...
76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.
Cool.
92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Polar Bears are fucking huge.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
In the Star Trek universe, Vulcans must have sex once every seven years or they go on an insane, violent rampage.
Haha. Noob. Every true Trekie knows about the Vulcan pon farr.
<.<
>.>
I'll be... you know... over there.
24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.
68. The egg came first. [wtf?]
96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.
A lot of those were known before. I mean, chicken and the egg? Its obvious the egg came first, I thought about this years ago. It was even the option of a slashdot poll as I recall. All you have to do is think about it for a few seconds and its pretty darn obvious.
Yeah, plus the question never made any sense. A chicken doesn't somehow come from an egg; it is the egg.
It was introduced by a girl so it's funnier than it would have been otherwise.
Try this link http://www.tbo.com/life/MGBUFCRF5WE.html I pulled off digg for a better one. Some are just annual changes, but others are actually fresh knowledge.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
That's a much more interesting list.
Kinda scary that H/A is a growing trend. Soon everybody will ask what to do about the three hot women who want them (and how much sex they're having with each.)
I'm curious if that's higher or lower than the adult population.
AARGHH!
mmm... I should tell my boss all about that.
You're not L33T enough for IDI/RN FTP!
Also, I should try that one on my wife. She sneezes all the time.
:winky:
Which brings me to a question:
How, exactly, do scientists go about discovering new elements? It seems like new elements are just discovered by folks shooting atoms of one metal at atoms of another metal. What about this, specifically, makes a new element? Is it the choice of metals used? Is it just a matter of how fast you're shooting the one with the other, meaning that the only reason we haven't discovered Element No. 237 the lack of a strong enough particle gun?
That made me laugh so hard.
My understanding is that these "new" elements are very, very unstable. Like tiny fraction of a second total existence. I think one of the largest issues is detecting/proving that you actually had some of it.
Tiny like "A half-life of 0.89 ms was observed" says the mighty wiki.
It's like if two buses get into a wreck and all the bodies get thrown out of the windows and are all heaped together.
Or something. :P
You're not L33T enough for IDI/RN FTP!
So a new element would be a previously undiscovered combination of these? Barring that we know it's not an isotope of an existing element?
Any chemists want to help out?
Protons are really what determines elementness. Differing isotopes are caused by variations within the number of neutrons in the nucleus.
Edit: Beat'd. Ow.
Yup.
I'd heard of resveratrol this year, but not the rest. It's amazing what one can miss even while trying to keep up with science news. Maybe I just pay attention to red wine news.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Perhaps more pertinently, if we wanted to find element 119, how, precisely, would we go about it?
I heard that if you shoot a lead BB at an aluminum sign it creates a new element known as you'll-shoot-your-eye-out 238. It's non-radioactive counterpart is you'll-shoot-your-eye-out 235, aka depleted you'll-shoot-your-eye-out.
edit: Happy New Years to D&D.
The wiki link above mentions that they didn't detect 118, they detected some of the products of it's decay.
Wiki has a rather extensive periodic table that even links to brief articles about how they've completely failed to find any of 119 and such. Link.
See, more interesting to me than the higher numbers are the not-quite-so-high-but-almost-stable isotopes that we've been getting of late.
Just posted to /. today - Isotope of Hassium (Element 108) lasts 30 seconds - which is obscenely long for atoms that high up.
Here's a graphical representation of that "Island of stability" that's described.
Nifty, nifty stuff.
Does this mean that the other ~85% are making MORE than the minimum, or just not paying at all?
Thats so fucking cool for so many different reasons.