Today I Learned

[Silicon Waffle]

today I learned that the boss wasn't going to let me have Monday and Tuesday off next week
when pretty much everyone else in the company is

He seems to be under the misguided impression that I can get lots of work done without technical and logistics( stock to repair things) backup :(

That is unfair! :(

 

[edward]

Today I learned that a single really old foil wrapped condom will jam a paper shredder big time.

 

[RonL]

Today I learned that a single really old foil wrapped condom will jam a paper shredder big time.

Sure hope you informed your spouse about when and how you disposed of the condom

 

[edward]

Sure hope you informed your spouse about when and how you disposed of the condom

I should post the answer to that in the First World Problems thread.

 

[OmCheeto]

Today, I learned that Opossums have 13 mammary glands.
I learned this, because I saw a video, of what I initially thought was some Sarah Mclaughlinesque mangy mutt rescue video. But it turned out,



that it was just a very healthy looking Opossum, with, IMHO, way too many babies.

Not having been aware of odd numbers of mammary glands, I was unable to picture where the 13th should be. I of course, googled that.

12 are in a circle, and the 13th, is in the middle.

 

[edward]

Today, I learned that Opossums have 13 mammary glands.
I learned this, because I saw a video, of what I initially thought was some Sarah Mclaughlinesque mangy mutt rescue video. But it turned out,



that it was just a very healthy looking Opossum, with, IMHO, way too many babies.

Not having been aware of odd numbers of mammary glands, I was unable to picture where the 13th should be. I of course, googled that.

12 are in a circle, and the 13th, is in the middle.

That is interesting and just think, the babies can find all 13 without any instructions. :D

 

[RonL]

Today, I learned that Opossums have 13 mammary glands.
I learned this, because I saw a video, of what I initially thought was some Sarah Mclaughlinesque mangy mutt rescue video. But it turned out,



that it was just a very healthy looking Opossum, with, IMHO, way too many babies.

Not having been aware of odd numbers of mammary glands, I was unable to picture where the 13th should be. I of course, googled that.

12 are in a circle, and the 13th, is in the middle.

Without goggling I have no idea what all that meant so now I have some study ahead and I'm not sure why I would want to know, other than Om said it, What's wrong with my life at this stage ??:D

 

[edward]

Today I learned that when my computer screen all of a sudden looks like I have been bumped off line, all I have to do is put the cursor on the internet explorer logo and click. All of a sudden it is all back and I haven't even lost what I was typing. OK so what are the keys I am inadvertently dragging my numb fingers over. I learned today that the space bar is one of them.

Is it the punishment that I deserve for using internet explorer?

 

[Danger]

The appearance of Bandersnatch here prompted me to finally look up the term. I have never read any Lewis Carroll stuff. So today I learned that, all linguistic cues to the contrary, a "bandersnatch" is not in fact a chastity belt. I now take my leave.

 

[DrGreg]

Today I learned that when my computer screen all of a sudden looks like I have been bumped off line, all I have to do is put the cursor on the internet explorer logo and click. All of a sudden it is all back and I haven't even lost what I was typing. OK so what are the keys I am inadvertently dragging my numb fingers over. I learned today that the space bar is one of them.

If you're using Windows 8 it can happen if you move your cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen.

 

[Borek]

Today I learned that

\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}

doesn't work in Polish. Despite already having

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{polski}
\usepackage[polish]{babel}

chapter title links don't support all Polish national characters, only some of them. To get them displayed correctly you need

\usepackage[hidelinks,unicode=true]{hyperref}

Awkward if you ask me.

 

[Medicol]

I learned that people whose last names end with either xxx-vych or xxx-vich are from Ukraine.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Today I learned that the Cleartune app on my Samsung Galaxy SIII mini phone is accurate enough (over most of the range, anyway) for me to tune the three piano strings for the same note separately so that they don't have an audible beat when played together. I'm surprised it's able to give results that accurate.

Tuning my piano is not easy even for the experts. I'm on my third piano tuner, as the others found it too frustrating. It's a Young Chang G-157; sounds good but somehow eats its way through the steel strings in the second-from-highest octave; they get a notch where they run under a bar, which gets caught during tuning, causing it to tend to lock into a specific pitch even if it isn't quite right, then eventually breaks there.

 

[dlgoff]

Today I learned that the Cleartune app on my Samsung Galaxy SIII mini phone is accurate enough (over most of the range, anyway) for me to tune the three piano strings for the same note separately so that they don't have an audible beat when played together.

That's amazing. But knowing you, your ear is better.

 

[DivergentSpectrum]

i looked up what the ok sign means on my avatar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-ok
apparently, in the buddhist context it is the transmission of buddhist teaching,
while in the christian context it is seen as 666, the number of the beast.
arabs consider it a threatening "youll see"
and in spanish countries, it means anus or homosexual
learn something new every day lol
personally i tried finding a lotus position first, but couldn't find a good one.

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned, that math still works.
My newly found cousin seems to believe that on January 5th, a planetary alignment might make her kind of weightless. She's not really sure.
It kind of reminded me of the "The Earth floats in space because it's filled with helium" theory.
Anyways, I did some recreational mathematics to see what kind of alignments would result in weightlessness, and the consequences.

Scenario 1: Another Earth perched on her head.
Acceleration of the two Earths towards each other: 2.45 m/s²
Result: flat cousin in less than 2 seconds

Scenario 2: Earth moved closer to sun.
Distance from surface of sun: 3,000,000 km (as a comparison, Mercury is 70,000,000 km from the sun)
Solar insolation at that distance: 2,300,000 watts/m² (we receive about 1000 watts/m² here on Earth)
Result: severely sunburned cousin (This is just a guess, based on the fact that Mercury has a maximum surface temperature of 800°F, and lead melts at 620°F)

I also offered a "definition" inspired option:
Scenario 3: Jump! (Which is actually what the article said she had to do on that day, so I mentioned that it was half right.)
Result: momentary weightlessness, without all the nastiness. :)

Moore told scientists that they could experience the phenomenon by jumping in the air at the precise moment the alignment occurred. If they do so, he promised, they would experience a strange floating sensation.

:D

 

[HomogenousCow]

Today I learned not to practice my tennis swing indoors.

 

[Medicol]

Today I learned not to practice my tennis swing indoors.

Did you break anything ?

 

[nitsuj]

Jeepers Creepers - written for a movie in 1938, performed by Louis Armstrong who in the movie was a horse trainer and sang the song to a horse...named jeepers creepers. Also in the movie...Ronald Regan.

"The phrase "jeepers creepers", a slang expression and minced oath euphemism for Jesus Christ, predates both the song and film." Wiki

 

[Fefe Santa]

I learned today that Dell also produce software for sales not only computers and their parts
http://software.dell.com/

 

[edward]

Today I learned that wrinkled clothes are a first world problem. (see first world problems thread)

 

[HomogenousCow]

Today I learned that you can't just flush any liquid down the drain.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned there exist cars that use 'positive' as the ground.

 

[DarthMatter]

Today I learned that some people make up unprovable equations to troll. Mathetrollicans so to say.

 

[Lisa!]

Today I learned about the life of Will Durant!

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned that I should have been included in the study:



I decided this, as in the last 24 hours, I discovered why my microwave fuses kept blowing.
I, sometime in the past, saw that the original fuse was rated at 1.5 amps.
I replaced it, over subsequent years, stupidly, with fuses of higher and higher amperage ratings. I used to be an electrical safety inspector, in the USN, so I should have known better.
Anyways, the original fuse was not rated at 1.5 amps, but 15 amps. I got out a magnifying glass, and read the schematic.

In conclusion: Men, at least the Ohmic types, are idiots.

 

[DarthMatter]

Today I learned that I should have been included in the study:



I decided this, as in the last 24 hours, I discovered why my microwave fuses kept blowing.
I, sometime in the past, saw that the original fuse was rated at 1.5 amps.
I replaced it, over subsequent years, stupidly, with fuses of higher and higher amperage ratings. I used to be an electrical safety inspector, in the USN, so I should have known better.
Anyways, the original fuse was not rated at 1.5 amps, but 15 amps. I got out a magnifying glass, and read the schematic.

In conclusion: Men, at least the Ohmic types, are idiots.

Well, you could also have died of starvation.

 

[RonL]

Today I learned that I should have been included in the study:



I decided this, as in the last 24 hours, I discovered why my microwave fuses kept blowing.
I, sometime in the past, saw that the original fuse was rated at 1.5 amps.
I replaced it, over subsequent years, stupidly, with fuses of higher and higher amperage ratings. I used to be an electrical safety inspector, in the USN, so I should have known better.
Anyways, the original fuse was not rated at 1.5 amps, but 15 amps. I got out a magnifying glass, and read the schematic.

In conclusion: Men, at least the Ohmic types, are idiots.

Welcome to the old age, weak eyed, dudes club:D

 

[OmCheeto]

Well, you could also have died of starvation.

No. I discovered the other day, that I still knew how to work the stovetop burners. And hence, had slow, refried, life nourishing, coffee.

And I also know where worms live, so starvation is the least of my foreseeable problems.

 

[PeroK]

I learned that people whose last names end with either xxx-vych or xxx-vich are from Ukraine.

People whose names end in -vich, like mine, tend to be from the former Yugoslavia. The final h being an anglicisation. Novak Djokovic for example.

Ukrainian names tend to end in -chenko, -chuk or -ov.

 

[DiracPool]

Today I learned that light actually does travel really fast. There's a high cloud cover over my house tonight in Tacoma, and somewhere in the county they are shining spot lights in the sky. Four of them, rotating around in a circle. One of those where they fan out and come back into a center point, and then out again, etc. When they fan out you can see them whip across the sky, covering maybe 40 or 50 miles in a fraction of a second, really cool. I live by McChord air force base and they have fighter jets flying over occasionally. So mentally I'm comparing those speeds and thinking, those fighter jets are damn slow. Special relativity is cool! :D

 

[Silicon Waffle]

I learned that PFers who work underneath are all smart and potentially (as I don't know for sure) the richest in the world .

 

[jtbell]

Today I learned that in Australia, a "removalist" is someone who hauls your household belongings from one place to another when you relocate your residence, i.e. what I (in the US) would call a "moving company" or simply a "mover".

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Today I learned that in Australia, a "removalist" is someone who hauls your household belongings from one place to another when you relocate your residence, i.e. what I (in the US) would call a "moving company" or simply a "mover".

Agreed! That's odd hah, they may have called it "remover", or too mover.

 

[DiracPool]

Today I learned that in Australia, a "removalist" is someone who hauls your household belongings from one place to another when you relocate your residence, i.e. what I (in the US) would call a "moving company" or simply a "mover".

That's funny, because I was watching a show today on an Irish news channel where there was a movement in the parliament to stop discriminating against "travellers." I was thinking, jeez, if I went on vacation in Ireland I was going to have to worry about this? Turns out there's a domestic classification of indigenous peoples they call travellers. Lol. I guess you learn something new every day...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers