Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: ase on March 20, 2009, 01:33:04 am
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This is probably a bad idea for a topic, but I'm gonna give it a shot.
Let's start a knowledge circlejerk. Post things that you learned today/recently. They don't have to be Wikipedia articles, but please link to at least once source so that we can all dig deeper and do our own internet research if we find another member's post interesting. Please post a short summary (a sentence or two is fine) along with the link(s). Let's learn from each other (g*y):
Toba catastrophe theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory)
Summary: About 75,000 years ago, a huge volcanic eruption on Sumatra may have killed off all but a few thousands humans. The evolutionary and genetic implications here are great: a dramatic decrease in a population (called a bottleneck) would have reduced genetic variation in the human population, possibly causing the extinction of humanoids and accelerating the evolution of Homo sapiens
Georg Philipp Telemann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemann)
Summary: Georg Telemann was an 18th century German composer who is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the most prolific composer of all time, as he wrote over 3,000 compositions during his lifetime. He also lived ridiculously long (86 years) for his time period. His harpischord/flute compositions are really cool imo.
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I can't find a source for this at the moment, but in Medicinal Chemistry class I learned about Heroin and the origin of the word Junkie. Apparently Heroin addicts used to support their addiction by collecting scrap metal and selling it, hence the term which is still commonly used now, "junkie".
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I learnt that over long distance DC transmission lines have lower losses than AC transmission lines. They take up less space but they have much more expensive transformers at either end.
I was also told the statistic that 5% of the sahara covered in photovoltaics would generate enough power for the world demand given that it could be distributed to it (It can't.)
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i learned that he had the cocaine in the trunks and was doing it in front of everyone because he's arrogant
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I learned about the developing embryo and fetus in biology.
I learned that 99.9% of kids in my school don't care about peace.
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I learned that the guy who originally invented LSD was a Swiss chemist who was trying to find a cure for migraines. Also he experienced the first acid trip ever in 1943 after intentionally ingesting his concoction.
"Upon arriving the attending doctor could find no abnormal physical symptoms other than extremely dilated pupils. After spending several hours terrified that his body had been possessed by a demon, that his next door neighbor was a witch, and that his furniture was threatening him, Dr. Hofmann feared he had become completely insane."
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http://dba-oracle.blogspot.com/2005/09/terminal-velocity-of-cats.html
I learned the terminal velocity of cats is reached at seven stories (terminal velocity is 60mph for a cat), after that no matter how high they fall it'll always be the same amount of damage.
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I learned that I got ZERO PERCENT in a recent mystery shopper customer survey, haha I think I must have ignored them or something.
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I was learning about the ill fated Siberian Expeditionary Force the Allied powers sent to Russia in 1918, specifically, the major of the 20th Machine Gun Company that was attached to the 16th Infantry Brigade (259th, 260th Battalions) for the Canadian force. Apparently before they departed his batman went AWOL and took the major's civillian clothes with him. :P
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that lyrics born and krs-one are both great. this is really the most important thing i learned all day
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but apparently LB really fell off after later that day :(
that sucks
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I learned that you made this topic.
Damn, I should really learn more...
EDIT: Actually, yesterday I learned that Alfred Nobel mixed nitro glycerin with sawdust so it wouldn't explode when dropped, and made what we know as dynamite. The money made off of this idea is given out each year in nobel prizes.
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I learned that King Nebuchadnezzar apparently foretold the rise and fall of about five different nations a hundred or so years after his death (i.e. Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, etc). Or at least, he had a dream which people interpreted to mean that.
EDIT: http://teachinghearts.org/dre17hdan02.html There's a link.
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never, ever, trust a romanian
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that there are still some 10 million unexploded landmines in cambodia from the days of the khmer rouge and that their labour camps were absolutely terrifying.
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I learned that 99.9% of kids in my school don't care about peace.
lol what the hell does "caring about peace" even mean?
:welp: "peace? sure, yeah, i care about that. peace is a good thing. i like good things."
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EDIT: Actually, yesterday I learned that Alfred Nobel mixed nitro glycerin with sawdust so it wouldn't explode when dropped, and made what we know as dynamite. The money made off of this idea is given out each year in nobel prizes.
you JUST learned this?
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scrumpy cider probably isn't named after scrumping. evidently small apples are called scrumps
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Yeah....sooo?
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you JUST learned this?
he's probably like a quarter your age and didn't know him personally
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idk i just remember doing a presentation project in the 5th grade on Nobel Prize winners and learned that shit when i was like 11
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Stuff about psychology..
I learned that Superiority complex is actually rooted to an inferiority complex..
and also CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, as the name suggessts..
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Toba catastrophe theory
Holy shit dude I JUST read that wiki page less than a week ago, how bizarre!
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Nothing yet today but I'll need to learn how to stay awake to finish the analysis of the first 6 minutes of Annie Hall after work.
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today at college i learnt how to solve equations like these ones:
sin^2(x) + sin(x) = 3
tan(x) * sin(x) = cos(x) + 2
Pretty simple really. It's just a mashup of two different things i learnt years ago.
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I discovered that there was a BasketballProspectus.com (I read BaseballProspectus.com) and spent a few hours reading articles last night. I knew essentially nothing about college basketball beforehand beyond some pretty basic shit about my team, Wisconsin, and some of the more well-known players and teams.
I started here http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=580 and ended up following a lot of the blue links to other articles. I learned about Tempo-Free stats which adjust game stats to possessions rather than a team or players straight up stats. So putting up 23 pts in a game on 30 possessions isn't really as impressive as 15 pts on 7 possessions. It's pretty simple really and seems kind of like the more intuitive way of looking at basketball teams/players than the traditional raw totals when it comes down to it. But my understanding is that ESPN and other major sports media tend to favor good old points per game and other per game stats that aren't as telling as you think (think RBIs in baseball).
Also, comparing points per possession and opponents points per possession allowed gives you a good stat for looking at teams called efficiency margin and there's an article on that. And then you can look at how consistent a team is looking at standard deviation for certain stats.
So yea, now my bracket is statistically better than yours.
Edit: This one is even cooler, http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=543, comparing temp-free stats and other stats as predictors of tournament success.
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I learned today that google maps isn't updated very frequently and drove 20 minutes to a UPS that had been shut down months before.
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I just figured out straightXedge is the one everyone's calling atari. Just a few more and I'll be gw literate. I also tried to figure out the US school system, the different levels and types of schools there, but I'm still confused about universities, colleges and university colleges.
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The difference between a college and a university is that a college just offers a collection of degrees in one specific area, while a university is a collection of colleges. When you go to a university you are going to be graduating from one of their colleges, such as the business college. As to which is better, it depends on what you want. Single colleges tend to be smaller while universities are bigger, but universities are better known.
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this might be different in the uk which is where i think you're from.
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pr sure alec is from texas
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Texas, Northamptonshire
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Today I learned the difference between a university and a college in the US.
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this might be different in the uk which is where i think you're from.
college is the 2 years before university in england. how old are you when you get to uni in america?
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I learned that I have been wasting time on something that could have been easily been done by using 'Layer via cut' and 'layer via copy' in more creative ways (ie cutting/ copying the selected portion of a layer and pasting it in place in a new layer).
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college is the 2 years before university in england. how old are you when you get to uni in america?
17-18 years old. In America, the word college and the word university are interchangeable. See Dartmouth College (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_college) and Harvard University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_university). Both have many different schools, but have different names. Most colleges/universities are four year deals, except with special programs (i.e. my friend is in a six-year medical program straight out of high school). When you get out of high school, you can attend community college (two years for your associates' degree) or a four year college/university. Or you can not go to school, I guess.
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college is the 2 years before university in england.
Same thing over here in Quebec only it can also be 3 years for more specific programs that can gives you a full formation on something like computer science, accounting, etc, but just not as deep as a university program of course. A 2 years college is for more general program as natural science, human science or arts and letters that are basically preparations for university.
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17-18 years old. In America, the word college and the word university are interchangeable.
ah, so you go to university a year earlier than us then.
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i learnt that today ^
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the word college and the word university are interchangeable.
it's a little more complex than that. first off the term university is the most correct one if you attend an institution that gives out multiple degrees. the colleges within the university are where you get the degree from. CHASS at NCSU, for example; CHASS is the College of Humanities and Social Sciences where NCSU is NC State University, and CHASS is within that.
however this originates from the British tradition. in the US, the original institutions of higher learning were small and so called themselves colleges as it didn't feel right that such a small school could be a university. eventually they got bigger and became universities, but the original name of college stuck this side of the pond. this explains why Dartmouth retained "college"; everyone called it that since inception. so higher education is usually interchangeably referred to as college/university. however, all colleges are parts of universities, no universities are "parts" of a college.
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i learned so much about subversion yesterday (actually about branching and merging repositories). we are doing a new repository structure, and are going to start branching/merging like we're supposed to. i think it'll be fun and cool, although sort of a waste of time for the current state of our shop, but w/e. eventually it'll pay off, and i've not branched/merged much.
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Today I learned that (American) football used to be called "Elevens" because of the amount of players on field. Apparently, the"Twelves" were what the fans are called. This now makes the "Sixth Man" club in my high school much more sense, because they cheered for basketball and whatnot. Also, I learned a ton about animals, because I went to the Philadelphia Zoo with the band to play for its anniversary. Fun!
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Today I learned that the actors and directors of German passion plays in the high middle ages used 'räumliche entfernung' or 'spatial distancing/range' in a manner similar to what is used by their persian counterparts in shi'ah passion plays to set the scene in which the actors are to perform. for instance, in german passion plays, stage left will often be Hölle (hell) and stage right will be Himmel (heaven). there are many more divisions of the stage that can represent these changings of scene/location, but there was some crazy technical jargon that I couldnt even begin to understand in the article. from my knowledge of ta'ziyeh I know that similar divisions of the stage in persian passion plays are made, but because persian passion plays happen on a stage in the round, these divisions are usually based on the height of the platform upon which the performers happen to be acting. And then of course there are all the connections between Jesus and Husayn and the imagery therein but thats a topic for another day
oh the joys of technical musicological literature auf deutsch
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I learnt about this site and these awesome smilies. :fogetnaughty: :fogetlaugh: :fogetcry: :fogetmmh: :fogetnah:
I also learnt that i should have done my homework an hour ago and now I have to do it now.
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I learned that wood carving is REALLY HARD. I wanted to try it so I got a block of what is supposed to be the softest and easiest wood for beginners and holy shit I could hardly carve any of it before my hands were aching and tired and I had to quit. I never knew it took so much physical strength to cut such soft wood.
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I learned that the Game Boy's processor must execute an instruction before it calls an interrupt or Tetris will overflow the stack and overwrite every single byte in the memory with junk.
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i learned how to play wonderwall on the guitar
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I learned that sight is our eyes (receptors within the eye) picking up light being reflected giving us the X, Y, and Z - axis co-ordinates of the objects reflecting the light, this stimulates a part of our brain which then makes an image out of the information (colour aswell). If you are encapable of determining locations of objects in this fashion you'll see things very differently like for instance seeing things farther away literally shrink or see thinks in a 2-D fashion instead of 3-D.
If you were blind from the beginning (your brain has matured) or gone a long period of time before the parts of your brain responsible for sight could develop (or they degenerated if over that period of time) in those areas then if you acquire sight then you'll:
A) be encapable of seeing still objects, but can still perceive moving objects clearly.
B) have to learn everything again because your hand-eye coordination, depth perception, ability to recognise and respond via sight is the equivalent of a baby's (if not worse). And again everything will be a 2-D plain and really really horrible vision (if it isn't moving it's extremely blurred).
C) encapable of recognising faces, expressions, or well anything involving visual cues.
and lastly D) cope with it i.e. shutting your eyes, or damaging your eyes to make yourself blind again (in other words going back to being blind), delve into a state of confusion and depression, and if not that then kill yourself.
Also that if you train yourself to determine everything with sound cues (location, height of object, distance, etc.) then you can literally see sound because the parts of the brain responsible for determining those things for sight is interconnected with sound and would thus after enough stimulation make a colourless picture (think sonar, atleast one person has managed to do it).
All in all, I learned that I should never tell a blind person to aquire sight if they've gone a long long time without it. Becuase they'd probably go into a depression, commit suicide, or just go back to being blind.
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were you using a wood carving knife?
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I learned a ridiculous amount of calculus today. *crosses fingers for midterm tomorrow*
Like... partial derivatives and vector functions.
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hey
this isn't a replacement for "what's on your mind."
Things like what Boulvae and Velfarre posted are cool, but this isn't an announcement topic for "woah it's time to do my homework"(calumks) or I LEARNED THAT I CAN LEARN SONGS ON GUITAR!! (dragonx)
not trying to be mean, but I'd like to keep this a topic where we can learn shit from each other.
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sorry ase i was just really proud of myself...
im not a musician so i was proud ok, kurwa
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I know that if you are capable of comprehending math and patterns then you can make music, Baethoven most likely did it this way. Both math and music go hand in hand and if you can comprehend one thing then you can do the other with some out of box thinking.
Think of music as this, do - re - mi - la - so, and put those into patterns that go in 4/4s or 5/8s of a second and bam you just made music. In fact theres people out there who can only perceive sounds as the old school do - re - mi - la - so way. If you can determine what each sound would be whether it's a do or me then you can write stuff on par with Baethoven and never hear what it actually sounds like. You just have to understand what the math behind each instrument is. But thats writing sheet music.
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today i found out that boulvae is learning brain and behaviour from a maxim journalist
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Too true (popular science btw). :sly:
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If you were blind from the beginning (your brain has matured) or gone a long period of time before the parts of your brain responsible for sight could develop (or they degenerated if over that period of time) in those areas then if you acquire sight then you'll:
A) be encapable of seeing still objects, but can still perceive moving objects clearly.
What a great excuse for a sneaking scene. But seriously, is there a common sense explanation for this, or does it go all neuro psychology? Now that I think of it, it actually sounds reasonable. If you're not used to recognizing shapes you can't determine what's the background and what's the object, or something like that? Like alright, there's a vertical line, but is it the edge of the sofa or a line in the wallpaper. Still sounds damn weird though. Sight related things can be pretty good brainfucks.
Aaaaaa, my lecture is starting and all I can think of is my vision.
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were you using a wood carving knife?
yes but i'm not a very strong person so that's probably part of the problem
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I know that if you are capable of comprehending math and patterns then you can make music, Baethoven most likely did it this way. Both math and music go hand in hand and if you can comprehend one thing then you can do the other with some out of box thinking.
Think of music as this, do - re - mi - la - so, and put those into patterns that go in 4/4s or 5/8s of a second and bam you just made music. In fact theres people out there who can only perceive sounds as the old school do - re - mi - la - so way. If you can determine what each sound would be whether it's a do or me then you can write stuff on par with Baethoven and never hear what it actually sounds like. You just have to understand what the math behind each instrument is. But thats writing sheet music.
this is very true, i myself am studying music and maths at the moment and hope to find a joint degree at university so i can write my thesis on the links between the two subjects.
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ffffffffffff there's not an a in Beethoven
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oh fine here's something for all of you to learn and then never live life normally again. look the right. don't move your head, just look to the right. okay now quickly look to the left. if you were really observant you will notice your vision blacked out. there now you know you spend like 40 seconds a day completely blind.
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oh fine here's something for all of you to learn and then never live life normally again. look the right. don't move your head, just look to the right. okay now quickly look to the left. if you were really observant you will notice your vision blacked out. there now you know you spend like 40 seconds a day completely blind.
looks more like one of those stupid anime blurs to me
also raccoon has a bone in its penis (actually is this true I might've heard it on a tv show or something)
also from this thread I learned the guy who invented LSD WASN'T the dad from Lassie
Edit: Oh yeah if you bring your fingers really together and look at them cross-eyed you can see a THIRD finger omg
Edit: There should be a list of like... knowledge that people feel special from knowing (like the third finger thing) but pretty much everybody on the face of the earth knows it
like third finger thing, little thing in the back of your throat is called a uvula, guy who invented dynamite invented LSD, stuff like that
most of this stuff is from NICKELODEON isn't it
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well i didn't go blind i done it quite a few times there and i definitely make out some of the more distinctive colours and lighting. it's a useless kind of vision but...i know what i saw. i know what i saw!
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also raccoon has a bone in its penis (actually is this true I might've heard it on a tv show or something)
most mammals have a baculum (penis bone). humans are the only primates without one, but lagomorphs (rabbits, hares etc.), equids (horses, rhinos, tapirs), hyenas and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) also don't have one.
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most mammals have a baculum (penis bone). humans are the only primates without one, but lagomorphs (rabbits, hares etc.), equids (horses, rhinos, tapirs), hyenas and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) also don't have one.
is this named after Scott Bakula
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no you go blind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccadic_masking
if you're seeng the blurred image ya eyes are fucking up.
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no you go blind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccadic_masking
if you're seeng the blurred image ya eyes are fucking up.
That's actually really damn interesting... You know, I always noticed I couldn't see my own eye movements in the mirror, but I never realised that I was temporarily blind at that moment. Also, thanks for making me test that. I now have a terrible headache >.<
The only thing I really learned today is how to name ligands D:
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GloFish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GloFish)
I have never heard of these little buggers, but they supposedly are/were a very popular pet. They are banned in the state of California because before the product was even introduced, California had a ban on all genetically engineered fish. Canada and the European Union both have bans on the sale or import of these harmless pets.
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'lighters' are called lighters because they were originally filled with hydrogen and would literally make your pocket lighter
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time flies when you're having fun: your watch will actually run faster while listening to live music because of resonance
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did you know that a full grown owl can hear the sound of a pin drop?
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Sharks can smell blood for up to a mile but so can they smell human urine AND SHARKS HATE THE SMELL OF URINE! Worried about sharks? Just take a pee!
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before pants, men and women alike all throughout the british isles wore skirts of a type, similar to kilts. when pants were introduced, they were so form fitting that they made women 'pant'
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[citation needed] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pants)
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I used to think that correlation meant causation, but i went to a statistics class and now i don't.
other person: so the class helped then?
me: well, maybe.
BOOM BOOM
edit: i learned i can steal jokes from xkcd
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and apparenly basil brush
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Sharks only attack when they're hungry, and most sharks go for weeks without needing to feed again after they're full.
Hydrogen Peroxide can clean blood, but it's also capable of causing your body to start hoarfing upon consumption and is used in the treatment of pets who consumed something harmful. Also causes they're mouths to froth and is a very messy process, especially with cats who try to lick the froam from their mouth while they puke. (Mom works at a vet, this is how I know this.)
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I learned that what in the US we call Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually not a Mario game at all. I knew that in Japan SMB2 was The Lost Levels, but I thought it was just us not getting that game and not wanting to mess with the numbering here. It turns out that SMB2 was some entirely different game that had an Arabian theme, and they just swapped out the characters for Mario ones. They thought Lost Levels was too hard and American audiences wouldn't like it. I always knew there was something REALLY off with SMB2 but I figured they just tried to take Mario in a new direction and it didn't go well. Instead, it was just a gut feeling of the game not being what it was intended.
I know quite a bit of video game trivia so I'm pretty surprised that I had never heard about this before today!
GloFish
I have never heard of these little buggers, but they supposedly are/were a very popular pet. They are banned in the state of California because before the product was even introduced, California had a ban on all genetically engineered fish. Canada and the European Union both have bans on the sale or import of these harmless pets.
I haven't read the wiki page so I don't know if this is done the same way, but a lot of fish are artificially colored in some pretty shitty ways (i.e. injecting dye into them) and are horribly unhealthy due to not only the stress of the injection and the material itself. However, since you say these are genetically engineered maybe these would actually LIVE WELL as well as looking different, and if so I guess that's better than what people HAVE been doing.
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I learned that what in the US we call Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually not a Mario game at all. I knew that in Japan SMB2 was The Lost Levels, but I thought it was just us not getting that game and not wanting to mess with the numbering here. It turns out that SMB2 was some entirely different game that had an Arabian theme, and they just swapped out the characters for Mario ones. They thought Lost Levels was too hard and American audiences wouldn't like it. I always knew there was something REALLY off with SMB2 but I figured they just tried to take Mario in a new direction and it didn't go well. Instead, it was just a gut feeling of the game not being what it was intended.
I know quite a bit of video game trivia so I'm pretty surprised that I had never heard about this before today!
Wow, I am v. surprised you didn't know this one. This is pretty much UP THERE when it comes to vidyagayms trivia.
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I don't know man I mean I know some pretty out there shit but I guess I just somehow missed that.
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GloFish originally had GFP(Green Flourescent Protein) genes inserted, but then they added a few more genes and WOAH got lots of colors. I think that's still what they do. It was originally inserted into a fish embryo and I assume all the current GloFish are just massively produced by having them breed with each other so they're just BORN with the trait, but then again GFP is used everywhere in molecular biology and genetics experiments so 99% of the organisms genetically engineered with GFP aren't kept around for very long unlike these KEEP THESE IN YOUR AQUARIUM FOREVER pets.
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Actually according to your source the eggs are pressure treated to make them infertile, but some are fertile by pure luck.
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funfact: Learned how to use my cellphone MP3 player. B)
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I learned that what in the US we call Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually not a Mario game at all. I knew that in Japan SMB2 was The Lost Levels, but I thought it was just us not getting that game and not wanting to mess with the numbering here. It turns out that SMB2 was some entirely different game that had an Arabian theme, and they just swapped out the characters for Mario ones. They thought Lost Levels was too hard and American audiences wouldn't like it. I always knew there was something REALLY off with SMB2 but I figured they just tried to take Mario in a new direction and it didn't go well. Instead, it was just a gut feeling of the game not being what it was intended.
I know quite a bit of video game trivia so I'm pretty surprised that I had never heard about this before today!
yeah it's doki doki panic i'm pretty sure I honestly thought that was common knowledge :welp:
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yeah it's doki doki panic i'm pretty sure I honestly thought that was common knowledge :welp:
sorry i didn't go to GAMES CLASS
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Me neither but I've seen it said about a hundred times and I don't really hang out at a whole lot of games websites normally other than gw
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I learned about hashtables and binary search trees..... hoping to play around with em in Java later.
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Me neither but I've seen it said about a hundred times and I don't really hang out at a whole lot of games websites normally other than gw
well i've never seen it said before, this topic is what did you learn today not what does everyone else already know :fogetangry:
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gonna be honest and say thats an awesome cat and i wish i had it or any pet that was so weird but it's pretty fucked that the guy has shot 77 youtube videos of his cat, some of which do not even really have any focus besides HERES MY CAT SITTING DOWN. like he doesnt do oddball cat shit in all the videos! sometimes he just lies there for 45 seconds and you're just like why, tiny japanese man, why
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i wish i had a cat :(
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whoa how did that cat get through the door? cats use eyes and whiskers for direction, but the airflow is blocked off and it can't see so how did it make it through all those doors?
hmm it looks like there's a tiny little hole at the top of the bag it must be seeing through.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DrGP7J6YWo this vid is good for beginning only
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONJfp95yoE cat with theremin
I had a few other good ones including sb's cat but i've lost them.
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Yeah I watched few more of those vids and some of them are pretty unnecessary. The cat owns though look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfGOlEizUUs
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I love cat videos. Why do all the comments have to be I CAN HAZ BOX?!?
I would like to cuddle this kitty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAKroNeQhf0
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whoa how did that cat get through the door? cats use eyes and whiskers for direction, but the airflow is blocked off and it can't see so how did it make it through all those doors?
hmm it looks like there's a tiny little hole at the top of the bag it must be seeing through.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DrGP7J6YWo this vid is good for beginning only
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONJfp95yoE cat with theremin
I had a few other good ones including sb's cat but i've lost them.
:rolleyes: looks like someone's a cat expert now huh
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im all about cats.
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Meets and greets! Very nice topic!
Today I learned that Battletoads was originally going to be named Battlefrogs, then Battle Toad before the final name was decided. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battletoads)
- gamesmasterjasper
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cats going into boxes is really good. i wonder what evolutionary mechanism makes them do that.
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so i looked up this list of dog breeds on wikipedia and looked at a bunch of them but there were a million and i got bored in the b section. but i learned that there are 50 different names for basically the same dog.
also i had 2 cats and 2 dogs and the 1 dog was better than both cats.
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i had the juiciest motherfucking tomatoes today, lemme tell ya
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on democracy now Matt Taibbi gave a really informative interview on the whole AIG situation. It's pretty brief but was really good imo, considering how hard it can be to get a grasp of these things
to watch: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/25/aig_and_the_big_takeover_matt
give him a chance
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I can't help but ask why I derive fun from watching a cat walk around with a bag on its head.
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wow i just learned about the 'implicit' keyword in C#... nice...
this: http://elegantcode.com/2009/03/21/be-careful-with-the-var-keyword-and-expression-builders/ is really cool
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what is the difference between a ship and a boat?
a boat is a submarine or any seafaring vessel deployed from a ship (for instance historically a rowing boat, which is why the term is still used for non-deployed rowing boats). a ship is typically on the water. the difference has nothing to do with size as is commonly thought!
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a bioluminescent-bacteria powered lightbulb isn't the most attractive idea to investors LoL
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a boat is a submarine or any seafaring vessel deployed from a ship (for instance historically a rowing boat, which is why the term is still used for non-deployed rowing boats). a ship is typically on the water. the difference has nothing to do with size as is commonly thought!
not true. i'm sorry
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yeah dude there is a legal point at which a vessel is considered to be a ship, boat, or just "watercraft" I think its around 200ft but don't quote me on that one.
I think ships are around 200ft
Boats 150ft
and watercraft are anything less than 150ft
Edit: submarines aren't either ships or boats they're just submarines
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was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also). also submarine was shortened from submarine boat. note the U-boat, an abbreviation for the German unterseeboot.
my grandfather was in the Royal Navy, served on HMS Belfast, and he once chastised me for calling what was probably a cruiser a boat. now I understand why.
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Speaking of old grandfathers from the world wars bearing knowledge, I know how to make a bomb with household items! :fogetscience:
I'd tell you how, but then i'd risk having the pigs coming at my door. :fogetshifty:
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who doesn't
if i could get my hands on saltpeter without being ARRESTED FOR BEING A TERRORIST saltpeter has no logical use nowadays other than in explosives. god damn substitutes.
edit; no i don't need saltpeter, it'd just be a lot easier/ more explosive
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Read in the newspaper about a study showing that people decide a person's personality by their facial features, thing is though 90% of whatever it is the participants assumed was wrong. However what it taught me was that one thing was proven with correlation with personality is your jaw structure and chin, the double chinned straighter jaw lined people were more inclined to take bigger risks and were ussually more aggressive.
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However what it taught me was that one thing was proven with correlation with personality is your jaw structure and chin, the double chinned straighter jaw lined people were more inclined to take bigger risks and were ussually more aggressive.
hypothesised, not proven. correlation does not necessarily imply causation!
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my dick was all hard and i had her almost nekkid, then she let me in on the fact that her period started today
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i learned my girlfriend cheated on me
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my dick was all hard and i had her almost nekkid, then she let me in on the fact that her period started today
urgh this is the worst
why do they always wait to tell you
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my dick was all hard and i had her almost nekkid, then she let me in on the fact that her period started today
what
this makes the whole undressing charade useless what are you playing at woman
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my dick was all hard and i had her almost nekkid, then she let me in on the fact that her period started today
then ya got two choices: slide through the mud or slide through the blood :fogetlaugh:
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then ya got two choices: slide through the mud or slide through the blood :fogetlaugh:
I just settled for a bj :welp:
When life gives you lemons, you make that bitch suck your dick.
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I LEARNED THAT PHRase today ahhhh jesus christ.
also i learned what a stroke feels like.
its bad. the left side of my body went into seizures because of some buildup at surgrty spot. this is why i'm still typing bd; still seizing a bit. its annoying.
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for your cat-viewing pleasure:
This is a video of a Scottish Fold's kitten.
Her name is May.
She occupied my bed.
She springs toward my finger and my camera.
She runs, rolls, and is playing with absorbed interest.
She wears Elizabethan collar for treatment.
This collar is lighter, softer, and is more comfortable than corn.
Music : Cornelius Gurlitt "The Fair".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbPiXbqm98
As far as boats vs. ships, I was told that ships are ocean-fairing vessels, i.e. they can cross the Atlantic or Pacific unaided.
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I learned that if you spread your butt cheeks outward onto the toilet seat and shit then you don't have to wipe as much poop off.
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not really though because they've got inland ships all over the place that don't often leave inland waters. I'm talking nautically though and national/international laws can change but I think the consensus is on size, here I found this that sounds like something I've heard:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-ship-and-a-boat.htm
and yeah submarines are technically considered boats but they have a different set of rules and shit that they follow other than a fishing boat, tug boat, or sailing boat would. And if you were to see one at sea on watch, you'd have to report it as a sub not a boat.
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was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
was talking in naval terminology (particularly Royal Navy but iirc other continental navies also)
shaky consensus does not overrule technical accuracy
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i learned at this point i've lost all respect for shep fairey. how does he try to sue people for doing OBEY and HOPE? ignore the message and whether or not art can sample things directly, at this point he's kind of being a whiny douche.
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yeah dude, where the word came from cool.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying right now the terminology is very important and means something different then "rowboat". When you refer to a vessel of a certain size as a ship, boat, or whatever you've got to know what sized vessel with what characteristics fit that description or an officer will get pissed at you, thats navy too btw.
take this one from personal experience, its alot more complicated then just "where word came from" and "boats fit on ships". There is no fucking way you'd see a tugboat mounted on a fucking ship so I see that definition as pretty weak too.
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edit: fuck I read your post completely wrong.
I'm saying right now the terminology is very important and means something different then "rowboat".
yup this is where I'm coming from too.
When you refer to a vessel of a certain size as a ship, boat, or whatever you've got to know what sized vessel with what characteristics fit that description or an officer will get pissed at you, thats navy too btw.
this is apparently a US naval thing because the technical definition in the Royal Navy is as I described originally.
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the difference has nothing to do with size as is commonly thought!
this is misleading though. I don't think anyone could really know at which point the word was changed to just being used to describe a "smaller vessel" and saying now that size doesn't matter isn't accurate at all because it is.....very important, now. And has been for a very long time.
yeah royal navy is probably different and I wouldn't be surprised if they had a different word for a smaller sized vessel but they should still know though because international seafaring law is pretty important, but very confusing sometimes.
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I don't think anyone could really know at which point the word was changed to just being used to describe a "smaller vessel" and saying now that size doesn't matter isn't accurate at all because it is.....very important, now.
case of common usage vs. technical definition here.
fuck if we care about international seafaring law we are the nation of gunboat (ship) diplomacy
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I mean yeah, but why do you think that a captain would get pissed off if you called his ship a boat?
It could be because you're unwittingly insulting his ship. - likely I guess if you're working with a fucking asshole but not very probable
Or because you don't know your seamanship - very probable and if its that important then I think it would be technical usage and what you're referring to is traditional usage
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again I have to reiterate that it may well be traditional usage in your neck of the woods but hell if we are not old fashioned fuckers!
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Its not the size of the vessel...
Its the motion of the ocean
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hypothesised, not proven. correlation does not necessarily imply causation!
Boulvae is 12 and i think what he meant was people pick those with bigger jaws as more inclined to take bigger risks and as more aggressive
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_field)
You need 16 teslas to levitate a frog. Just so you know.
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"You need 16 teslas to levitate a frog" is just physics-funny, but wiki claims that 16T is "strength used to levitate a frog". That makes it sound like somebody's constantly levitating frogs, and the thought makes me feel very uncomfortable.
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who doesn't want to see a frog levitating with its little weird legs all scrambling around trying to find the ground again
i want to see that
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One frog is just wonders of modern science, but imagine a secret underground lab with dozens of serious looking guys in white coats taking the readings and pushing buttons and there's a massive magnet in the centre levitating 200 frogs. It's all silent except for the humming of the magnet's coils, because the test chamber has been soundproofed.
What kind of a world are we living in?!
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i learned at this point i've lost all respect for shep fairey. how does he try to sue people for doing OBEY and HOPE? ignore the message and whether or not art can sample things directly, at this point he's kind of being a whiny douche.
He's an idiot. He had the phenomenal luck of having his design turn into a cultural icon. That alone will give him infinite work from cool clients that'll let him do as he pleases for vast sums of money. He REALLY does not need to start suing people for this unsightly reason unless he has some kind of gambling debt that rivals the bailout.
He should be more like Experimental Jetset who have a page on their site about spinoffs of their (famous?) Beatles design. http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/archive/t-shirtism.html
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it's reall yhorrible because i will admit my knowledge of him pre-obama was limited to when he was just taking off with obey and it really seemed like that while STENCILS ROLLEYES it was a legitimization of graffiti.
and now we have banksy.
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All that obey shit is fuckin suburban. I like real grafitti
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it's reall yhorrible because i will admit my knowledge of him pre-obama was limited to when he was just taking off with obey and it really seemed like that while STENCILS ROLLEYES it was a legitimization of graffiti.
and now we have banksy.
I have virtually zero knowledge of graffiti/street artists because most of the time I think they're idiots who have just one particular thing or style going for them and they never innovate. Banksy made some cool stuff but it's still not the same as good graphic design. Besides, what is it about him that I'm supposed to hate again?
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I learned that you can teach Hitmonlee dragon rage.
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I learned that you can teach Hitmonlee dragon rage.
you must lead an awfully interesting life.
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I have virtually zero knowledge of graffiti/street artists because most of the time I think they're idiots who have just one particular thing or style going for them and they never innovate. Banksy made some cool stuff but it's still not the same as good graphic design. Besides, what is it about him that I'm supposed to hate again?
everything you just said. he made some cool images but with the political sensibility of a 15 year old, and no one who cares about graffiti cares about him. it's like championing ayn rand to a lit fan.
look! its mcdonalds but they're posing with a kid on fire! corporations are bad.
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The Internet is actually a physical system that is heald together by a some 250 cables a mile deep on the ocean floor connecting all the continents and is very vulnerable. So vulnerable infact they're constantly cut up and damaged from fishermen, anchors, fish, and natural hazards. If one were to systemically cut certain cables you'd cause great devestation to any country hooked up to this system (hooks up to every continent) which would take anywhere from a day to months to repair the wires since it has to be found (this takes days or even weeks of guessing) before it can be repaired.
Likewise the "checkpoints", the backbone of the web, is a big centre of computers that is hooked up to these cables and relays everything. These centres are so valuable that they're built to stand up to any natural hazard you can think of in the region it's located and security is as tight or probably even tighter then at an airport. They get 100's of cyber attacks a day and greatly exceeds over 2000 attacks a week. Everyone who works there works round the clock without a break.
Satellites only carry less then 10% of the internet on their shoulders.
This is news to me since I thought they stopped relying so heavily on cables but apparently this isn't the case.
So, I learned that you can physically attack the Internet.
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So, I learned that you can physically attack the Internet.
...w...where did you think the internet was?
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...w...where did you think the internet was?
Ever see Reboot?
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he apparently thought that the internet was OTA like radio?
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I knew cables were involved, I just didn't think it was cables that interconnected between continents in the ocean as the actual back bone of the internet anymore (you know cellphones, wireless stuff and everything).
Almost everyone I know thinks it's all satellites and shit.
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so i guess we're coming out in favor of che guevara stencils now.
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ps every single graffiti artist ever including the most toy motherfucker sneaks into places. banksy just has a crew to make sure they take photos of it.
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The cables they use are fiber optic ones right? Anyone knows the bandwidth of these off the top of their heads? Hmm... google to the rescue maybe.
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Today I learned that although I already knew The Lawnmower Man (the movie) was based on a Stephen King short story, the story itself had zero things to do with the film. They pretty much just used the title. I had never looked into the original story until now, and it turns out the original has something to do with a magical self-working lawnmower and a satyr that follows it around to eat the grass (idk if this was a spoiler or not so better safe than sorry) and absolutely nothing to do with virtual reality technology. Apparently Stephen King wanted them to rename it but I guess it's too late now.
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Today I learned:
*A tombstone for my dog is going to run me about $100.
*One of my favorite books from when I was much younger "Where the Wild Things Are" is being made into a live action movie. I'll probably end up taking my nephews to see it when it comes out.
*Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14 and crayfish have 200. Other fun science facts (http://www.redorbit.com/science/facts_figures/science_facts/)
*The most venomous snake in the world is the Hydrophis Belcheri.
*The most venomous spider is the Brazilian wandering spider.
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today i learned that adult circumcision is a real pain and no amount of painkillers will disguise it
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thank you for that wonderful bit of personal info
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np
*jazz hands*
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why'd you decide to get circumcised?
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today i learned that the kinetic energy of a particle's orbit with a central potential is equal to half the potential energy. i also learned what happens if satellites shoot their rockets radially
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I suppose I'm late on the upkeep but learned (the other day actually, not necessarily "today") that because males don't usually don't "obtain" their member until quite some time into the pregnancy a fetus is technically classified as being female until that point. Not sure if that's just a simple way of explaining something that is actually more in depth than that though since it was one of those going off point discussions my professor does every now and again. I thought it was interesting anyway.
That and DuaneAndBrandO are awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUEO9Mfmn4M&fmt=18
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Last night I learned my new favorite piece of movie trivia:
The scene in which Tippi Hedren is attacked in the attic took a whole week to shoot. Real birds were tied to the actress and hurled at her. One bird actually cut her face just under her eye. The scene was so stressful for the actress that she had a breakdown. She has been quoted as saying that it was "the worst week of her life."
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I suppose I'm late on the upkeep but learned (the other day actually, not necessarily "today") that because males don't usually don't "obtain" their member until quite some time into the pregnancy a fetus is technically classified as being female until that point. Not sure if that's just a simple way of explaining something that is actually more in depth than that though since it was one of those going off point discussions my professor does every now and again. I thought it was interesting anyway.
Actually, the fetus is neither classified as male nor female until that point. The gonads are unspecified until the point where they receive information to either become testes or ovaries.
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Actually, the fetus is neither classified as male nor female until that point. The gonads are unspecified until the point where they receive information to either become testes or ovaries.
Well to the professor's credit I suppose he was just making an off comment as to "well, it has no penis yet, so it must be female", otherwise... Well, I can definitely say I learned something today.
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why'd you decide to get circumcised?
comfort reasons. pretty lol considering how uncomfortable itll be for like a week or two
i like how much your sig goes with this question, tho
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I'm pretty good at claw machines, and as long as the settings aren't set to some ridiculous ripoff setting then I have no problem winning whatever I want in a few tries (yesterday for example I won three stuffed animals all on my second try). I know a little bit about the settings on claw machines, how they detect wins and will alter the grip of the claw in order to keep people from winning too much, but I had no idea until now that this was one of the other things modern claw machines can do:
* "Fail limit": If the machine dispenses too many prizes in a given time period, it stops accepting coins and is "out of order"
That is really, really weird. Maybe that's why the big UFO catcher at the place I was at had one side shut off and not the other, I'd say that people were winning too much (because you can usually just FLIP the stuffed animals into the hole without ever actually picking it up). That's really shitty, considering most people tend to lose claw machines anyway.
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i actually already learned this a few days ago but... apparently my university is planning some learning environment in second life.
i dont know more and i dont want to
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Actually, the fetus is neither classified as male nor female until that point. The gonads are unspecified until the point where they receive information to either become testes or ovaries.
Don't take my word for it, but
Considering you will inherit either an X or a Y chromosome from your dad at fertilization, I'm pretty sure you are genetically (not physically) male or female at the very beginning of embryonic development.
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So I suppose that means that scientifically you are classified as either one, but the doctor giving you an ultrasound will probably consider it unspecified. I guess it depends on whose point of view you're looking from.
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Well yeah. This is why we can make test tube babies that have a specific sex. It's just that no sane doctor is going to just stick a needle into a developing fetus and draw out some cells so he can tell the mom ITS A BOY before it even has sex organs.
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I wonder how many crazy parents there are that try to insist on it...I guarantee there have to be some.
I DON'T CARE I JUST GOTTA KNOW......IS IT A BOY......OR A GIRL??????
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If it's a girl abort it -- the chinese