Stuff you didn't know and probably don't care about

[lxskllr]

The U.S. National Tick Collection is a thing.

Shit. I just pulled one off my ear. If I knew someone wanted it, I'd have sent it out.

 

[highland145]

Shit. I just pulled one off my ear. If I knew someone wanted it, I'd have sent it out.

That and dingleberries...no one wants.

Maybe IW but he's a rock head anyway.

 

[KMFJD]

 

[IronWing]

The "spark" given off by breaking or chewing wintergreen lifesavers is present when all lifesavers are broken or chewed. Breaking sugar crystals emits light, primarily in the UV spectrum. Oil of wintergreen is fluorescent and therefore absorbs the UV light given off by the breaking sugar bonds and re-emits the light in the visible spectrum making the visible light much brighter than seen with other flavors.

 

[Charmonium]

Why you can't smell yourself - http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/05/cant-people-smell/

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Another fun fact I ran across while researching something else: In 1991 Redd Foxx had a heart attack while on the set rehearing a scene for what was supposed to be his comeback sitcom "The Royal Family". Initially his co-workers laughed rather than going to his aid because they thought he was doing his famous fake heart attack "I'm coming Elizabeth!!" bit.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Everyone is familiar with the 1990 movie Goodfellas. What everyone is not familiar with is that Goodfellas wasn't the only 1990 movie based on the life of gangster Henry Hill. The Steve Martin movie "My Blue Heaver" was also about Henry Hill.

It worked like this: Writer Nicholas Pileggi interviewed Hill to gather material for his book "Wiseguy". Pileggi then adapted the book into the screenplay for "Goodfellas". Nicholas was married to screenwriter Nora Ephron of "Sleepless in Seattle" and "When Harry Met Sally Fame". She helped him do the research and wrote the script for "My Blue Heaven" from the same interviews with Hill. They just named the main character Vince Antonelli, so most people don't know it's the Henry Hill story.

 

[KMFJD]

Up until 2016 it was illegal to own/grow more than 50kg of potatoes in Western Australia

 

[GagHalfrunt]

The shortest war ever fought lasted 40 minutes. The UK went to war with Zanzibar in 1896 over who would be the new Sultan. The entire war was fought between a few British ships and some artillery guns in Zanzibar harbor. The defenses guns were quickly disabled and the Zanzibar Royal Yacht was sunk and that was pretty much it. While the Zanzibar side took 500 casualties in the bombardment the British had one man wounded and none killed.

 

[Charmonium]

On April 30th of this year, Germany produced 85% of its electricity from renewable sources.

http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-apple-iphone-8-rumors-2017-5

Many countries talk about leaving fossil fuels behind and transitioning towards more sustainable forms of energy. But Germany is actually doing something about it. Germany has invested heavily in renewable sources of energy as part of the Energiewende initiative, designed to replace fossil fuels and nuclear power with low-carbon, environmentally-friendly alternatives by 2050. In fact, on 30 April 2017, Germany’s coal-fired plants weren’t even operating, and electricity prices fell into the negative range -- all thanks to sustainable energy from wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric power sources, which provided a record 85 percent of the country’s total power needs on that windy and sunny day.

A shift towards sustainability:

• Germany announced in May 2011 that it would shutter all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, in addition to nearly eliminating fossil fuel power.
  
• The country's ambitious energy transition aims for at least 80 percent of all power to come from renewable sources by 2050.
  
• The United Kingdom set a clean energy record in 2016 when it went coal-free for a continuous 24-hour period for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

 

[KMFJD]

Physics Fun

 

[Red Squirrel]

Woah. That's pretty dope.

 

[KMFJD]

Flat worm swimming

 

[KMFJD]

Quantum Levitation

 

[KMFJD]

The Dzhanibekov Effect

 

[KMFJD]

 

[Charmonium]

The latest high-end smart phones are faster than any supercomputer built before 1998. So basically smart phones are 20 years behind the curve.

http://www.theclever.com/15-huge-supercomputers-that-were-less-powerful-than-your-smartphone/

 

[Charmonium]

It's ALIVE!!!!

(somebody had to say it)

 

[Darwin333]

Robots sorting system

They figured out all of that but couldn't crack the "how to replace the human putting box on robots head" part???

 

[IronWing]

The latest high-end smart phones are faster than any supercomputer built before 1998. So basically smart phones are 20 years behind the curve.

http://www.theclever.com/15-huge-supercomputers-that-were-less-powerful-than-your-smartphone/

Good thing all my cats are old because that article made me want punch kittens. The Galaxy S5 maxes at ~8.7 Gflops for the SGEMM benchmark not 142 as stated in the article. I got a bit triggered by, "By comparison, the iPhone 5S, now almost a junker of a smartphone, can handle 76.8 gigaflops (that’s 768 trillion flops)."

 

[Darwin333]

The shortest war ever fought lasted 40 minutes. The UK went to war with Zanzibar in 1896 over who would be the new Sultan. The entire war was fought between a few British ships and some artillery guns in Zanzibar harbor. The defenses guns were quickly disabled and the Zanzibar Royal Yacht was sunk and that was pretty much it. While the Zanzibar side took 500 casualties in the bombardment the British had one man wounded and none killed.

Wow, I can officially say that I have had intercourse that lasted longer than an actual war.

 

[Charmonium]

Good thing all my cats are old because that article made me want punch kittens. The Galaxy S5 maxes at ~8.7 Gflops for the SGEMM benchmark not 142 as stated in the article. I got a bit triggered by, "By comparison, the iPhone 5S, now almost a junker of a smartphone, can handle 76.8 gigaflops (that’s 768 trillion flops)."

Yeah, some of those numbers looked bogus to me too. I run rigs on BOINC for World Community Grid and my old 8 thread desktops only do about 3-4 billion flops. And phones just recently started using 8 thread chips.

 

[SillyOReilly]

Wow, I can officially say that I have had intercourse that lasted longer than an actual war.

You must have been butthurt about that

 

[Charmonium]

The Queen of England is not, contrary to popular belief, just a figurehead. Her powers are quite extensive and include absolute command of both the military and the Anglican Church. The article gives a more complete listing and some are surprising. Of course the only reason she still has these powers is probably because she rarely if ever exercises them.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/05/powers-queen-england-actually/

 

[KMFJD]