I bet you didnt know that

begbysback

sbsquarepants wrote: »

The majority of people just don't have the memory or the mental arithmetic ability to properly count even a single deck. I read somewhere before that when the first books detailing how to count cards were published they actually made a fortune for the casinos via a sudden influx of get rich quick imbeciles blowing their pensions at the card tables!

Even with casinos using 5 decks, if the decks are manually shuffled then the majority of cards will actually stay in the same order - there's a blackjack guy on YouTube who's is barred from all casinos who proves this.

Also counting one deck of cards is pretty easy, has little to do with memory and more to do with arithmetic- search YouTube for mike sexton talking about stu ungar

secondrowgal

Linus Roache, in Homeland, is Ken Barlow's (William Roache's) son.

RiderOnTheStorm

Deck of cards info.

The 4 kings are based on real kings from history.
-King of Spades: King David of Israel
-King of Clubs: Alexander the Great
-King of Hearts: Charlemagne
-King of Diamonds: Caesar Augustus (or Julius Caesar, depending on sources)

And.....
To prove that tax & duty was paid on a deck of cards, the seal / crest could not be placed on the pack as it was often discarded. So they placed it on a card. The Ace of Spades. It was stylised & suit symbol made bigger (to incorporate the crest / seal).

Ipso

secondrowgal wrote: »

Linus Roache, in Homeland, is Ken Barlow's (William Roache's) son.

He also played Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins. Also the actor who played the corrupt judge in Batman Begins also played the pilot in the Father ted episode where all the priests were on the flight that was going to crash.
Also the singer form the band James had a small role in Batman begins, as Victor Zsasz who appears in the court room scene with Cillian Murphy.

igCorcaigh

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Deck of cards info.

The 4 kings are based on real kings from history.
-King of Spades: King David of Israel
-King of Clubs: Alexander the Great
-King of Hearts: Charlemagne
-King of Diamonds: Caesar Augustus (or Julius Caesar, depending on sources)

And.....
To prove that tax & duty was paid on a deck of cards, the seal / crest could not be placed on the pack as it was often discarded. So they placed it on a card. The Ace of Spades. It was stylised & suit symbol made bigger (to incorporate the crest / seal).

Interesting.

It's no wonder I have a terror of the bloody royals on cards.

Realt Dearg Sec

On the subject of playing cards, when I lived in Hungary my students introduced me to their cards, which are different to regular cards (which they call francia ka'rtya, French cards).

The Hungarian deck has 32 cards, in four suits, acorns, hearts, leaves, and bells. These are apparently derived from a German style deck of cards from the middle ages. They are numbered VII-X with under and upper knaves (incidentally my grandparents always called the Jack the knave in regular cards), Kings and aces. The pictures on the cards depict the story of William Tell.

They were invented in the 1830s, and the guy who made them used the William Tell story for the cards (odd to have a Swiss story in a fiercely patriotic country like Hungary) because it depicted a peasant revolt against a tyrannical monarchy in an era of huge social upheaval in Hungary against the Hapsburg regime.

Anyway I found that stuff by looking it up. What I remember with my students was that to get them to speak English I had them teach me how to play some of their card games, including a version of Last Card called Makao. And just like Last Card at home you have to say when you have your last card, or else you are forced to pick up two more. And, just like Last Card at home, people invent new rules for various cards all the time, often as a way to cheat. And that's how my students emptied my pockets as they taught me an unfamiliar game with a deck of cards I'd never seen before.

el_gaucho

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

There's a term for that: Redundant Acronym Syndrome. Or RAS Syndrome for short.

I learned this while studying at UCD Dublin.

That would also be an example of tautology - unnecessarily repeating information. For example:

6 am in the morning
Armed gunmen
Unsolved mystery
Free gift
Widow woman
Needless tautology

lmimmfn

Chancer3001 wrote: »

Aren't the dealers obliged to act in a certain way ?

I.e take a hit if under 16. Stop if over 16.

There's no "trying to beat" any player at all

Depends on house rules, I doubt they would stick on 16 if they thought the player with the most in the pot was on 18. I used to play in Stoclholm pubs, could easily and regularly be up 70-80 quid for the night, I wouldn't even bother trying in Vegas

cdeb

I thought the point was the croupier shouldn't have to play odds - they're told exactly what to do so the house knows their exact chances of success.

If you start allowing the croupier to make decisions, then the house becomes human and can start to lose.

Evade

lmimmfn wrote: »

Depends on house rules, I doubt they would stick on 16 if they thought the player with the most in the pot was on 18. I used to play in Stoclholm pubs, could easily and regularly be up 70-80 quid for the night, I wouldn't even bother trying in Vegas

Everyone should stick on 16. Only 20/52 cards in a deck will leave you at 21 or under if you hit.

Gwynplaine

Ipso wrote: »

He also played Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins. Also the actor who played the corrupt judge in Batman Begins also played the pilot in the Father ted episode where all the priests were on the flight that was going to crash.
Also the singer form the band James had a small role in Batman begins, as Victor Zsasz who appears in the court room scene with Cillian Murphy.

And Barry O Hanlon, Hughie, Robbie, and Charlie Kelly's son are in it. (Fair City)

Ipso

Gwynplaine wrote: »

And Barry O Hanlon, Hughie, Robbie, and Charlie Kelly's son are in it. (Fair City)

And who can forget Joffrey Barratheon!

Capt'n Midnight

The Sun is getting lighter as it burns hydrogen into helium and stuff and there's coronal mass ejections too.

So no surprise that we are drifting away from the Sun by 1.5cm a year.

This also means that the Earth's orbit gets longer by close to 10cm a year.

Chancer3001

that might help our global warming problem!!

Ipso

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The Sun is getting lighter as it burns hydrogen into helium and stuff and there's coronal mass ejections too.

So no surprise that we are drifting away from the Sun by 1.5cm a year.

This also means that the Earth's orbit gets longer by close to 10cm a year.

Does that mean that there will be a grander stretch in the evening?

Capt'n Midnight

Chancer3001 wrote: »

that might help our global warming problem!!

It won't because we'll be burning more carbon every year.


Because the years will be longer :pac:

pleas advice

Chancer3001 wrote: »

that might help our global warming problem!!

Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, Methane is lighter than air.
burps are mainly Carbon Dioxide, when you fart you release Methane...

so, when you burp, you become slightly lighter, and when you fart you become a bit heavier.
and either way you contribute a small bit to global warming

cdeb

Does the sun have weight?

Or is it more correct to say it's getting less massive?

Chancer3001

Sunmer will be longer too tho

Capt'n Midnight

cdeb wrote: »

Does the sun have weight?

Or is it more correct to say it's getting less massive?

1 Kg of mass on the Sun weighs 274 Kg

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Termites fart more than any other animal and are the second largest natural source of methane.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Only about half of people have the archaea (bacteria) in their bodies that are necessary to produce methane. The greatest component of human farts is Nitrogen.

Typical composition is

Nitrogen: 20-90%
Hydrogen: 0-50%
Carbon dioxide: 10-30%
Oxygen: 0-10%
Methane: 0-10%

Fourier

cdeb wrote: »

Does the sun have weight?

Or is it more correct to say it's getting less massive?

Both, the Sun has weight under its own gravity.

The Sun's gravity is great enough to warp time to the point that a clock in space and a clock on the surface of the Sun (imagine a tough clock!) will disagree by 66.4 seconds when a year has passed for the clock in space.

Pugzilla

After a postmortem all the sliced up organs including the brain are put in a plastic bag that is placed inside the chest.

pleas advice

giblets

Capt'n Midnight

ICI used to have a big vat that had methane eating bacteria. It could produce as much protein as an area the size of Wales of soyabeans.

Natural gas is expensive though, so they don't do it anymore.


BTW
The worlds largest Ship is a natural gas processing plant

and those of you who watch QI will be familiar with the Ross Nobel quote :-

Stephen talks of a professor dipping a fresh rose in liquid nitrogen, and smashing it on the table, saying it was shockingly beautiful. Nobody else on the panel seems to share this sentiment.
Stephen: “I think you’re humoring me. I think you want me to go back to foreskins.”
Ross: “No, I think it’s a hilarious Valentine’s Day prank.”
Brian: “Imagine if they did that on Saturn’s moon titan, where the atmosphere is so cold-”
Ross, fetching his notebook: “Hold on, TITAN? THAT THE ONE WHERE THE EWOKS LIVE! HANG ON! Basically you’re saying that you can SHATTER an ewok!”
Brian: “YES!”
Brian: “It’s got layers of liquid methane, because it’s so cold. It has the consistency of water, so there’s methane rain, methane snow. There’s a lake of methane that’s the size of Lake Superior.”
Sue: “Methane, which is essentially a fart? Liquid fart? I don’t wanna go there! Strike it off!”
Ross: “If I could stand on a planet, and throw an ewok into a lake of farts, that would be-”
John: “Well, you couldn’t because it’d shatter…”
Ross: “……EVEN BETTER!”
Stephen: “It’s your heaven. Everyone has their own heaven, and that’s yours.”
Ross: “Hang on, when you say ‘tossing ewoks into a lake of farts’…
Stephen, seeing where he’s going: “STEADY…”
Ross, smiling: “That’s EXACTLY what I meant…”

mzungu

Nearly one-quarter of America's nuclear weapons can be found less than 30 miles from downtown Seattle at Bangor submarine base. This would make it either the biggest, or certainly one of the biggest stockpiles of nuclear weapons at a single location in the world. It is defended by dolphins specially trained by the US Navy. The dolphins have been there since 2010 (prior to this trained sea lions did the job too) and work at detecting swimmers/divers in the area. When a dolphin finds a swimmer/diver, they swim back to their trainers, who might give them a transponder to drop near the intruder. In some cases they are fitted with a bite plate that holds a shackle that the dolphins can use to disable an intruder. How this works is, the intruder is hit in the leg and the bite plate attaches around it and they cannot remove it until it sends a float up.

They come in handy for events too. for example, after the Atlanta Olympics bombing in 1996, dolphins were part of the security for the Republican National Convention (also in 1996), which took place at the waterside San Diego Convention Center.

Below is a pic of a Navy trained dolphin marking an underwater mine.

Capt'n Midnight

Tourists contribute 8% of global warming.

And tourists from richer countries contribute proportionately more.

Capt'n Midnight

mzungu wrote: »

Nearly one-quarter of America's nuclear weapons can be found less than 30 miles from downtown Seattle at Bangor submarine base.
...

It is defended by dolphins specially trained by the US Navy. The dolphins have been there since 2010 (prior to this trained sea lions did the job too) and work at detecting swimmers/divers in the area. When a dolphin finds a swimmer,

A - the submarines there can generate more electricity than the Irish National Grid

B - the swimmer neutralisation device is a small tank of compressed air that fits on the dolphins beak. Just like they ram into sharks they attack swimmers. The compressed air means that your innards are forced out of your mouth and anus. It's not a pleasant way to die.

VandC

Fourier wrote: »

cdeb wrote: »

Does the sun have weight?

Or is it more correct to say it's getting less massive?

Both, the Sun has weight under its own gravity.

The Sun's gravity is great enough to warp time to the point that a clock in space and a clock on the surface of the Sun (imagine a tough clock!) will disagree by 66.4 seconds when a year has passed for the clock in space.

I've never really understood this. How is time measured? I always thought it to be a "made up" concept, but with basis, i.e. 1 day is 1 rotation, but some one somewhere decided that a day would be broken down in to the hours and minutes that we know now. But there was nothing stopping them making it a 10 hour day with 100 minutes in each hour. Anyways, whatever way it came about, how is it that a second as we know it here is longer when gravity can warp it? How does gravity "stretch" my one second in to two? If I physically stood beside this gravity source would I age twice as quick? Could I go somewhere and never age? Or is a second always a second to me because that's how long I know it to be?

Probably not being very clear but my brain melts a little trying to think of this stuff sometimes.