I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

Cordell

Is that a thing? Up is down?

It is indeed, this is why most games allow you to have inverted controls.
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/feb/28/why-do-video-game-players-invert-the-controls

New Home

its_steve116 wrote: »

The Simpsons and Family Guy are animated in South Korea.

As revealed by Banksy.

Chancer3001

The outerbridge crossing connects staten island to new jersey.

You'd think its the most outermost bridge given its name but it's named after Eugenis Harvey Outerbridge.

KevRossi

Two countries on the planet have seats that are reserved for unelected religous leaders; Iran and ........

the UK (House of Lords)

Ipso

Horror actor Vincent Price had a cooking show, and released several books on the topic with his wife
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1610468/

And Christopher Lee released three metal albums between 2010 and 2014 - which included Christmas tunes such as 'Jingle Hell' - while in his 90's. His metal career was one of the last adventures of a man who's life reads like a work of fiction. He was related to Ian Fleming, who's literary superspy James Bond was rumoured to have been inspired by Lee's real-life badassery.

I don't think he had a cookery show though.

Adyx

Really good article on Ars Technica about the electro-mechanical computers used on US warships. They used gears, cams and rollers to do calculus in real-time and the digital computers introduced in the 80's aren't that much more accurate (but are far lighter and require less crew).

mikhail

Candie wrote: »

And Christopher Lee released three metal albums between 2010 and 2014 - which included Christmas tunes such as 'Jingle Hell' - while in his 90's. His metal career was one of the last adventures of a man who's life reads like a work of fiction. He was related to Ian Fleming, who's literary superspy James Bond was rumoured to have been inspired by Lee's real-life badassery.

I don't think he had a cookery show though.

There's a story that he pulled up another actor on the LotR set to tell him that that wasn't what a man dying from being knifed sounds like, something he knew from personal experience having served in WWII.

His service was varied and would make for a hell of a story by itself: he volunteered to help out in Finland, trained as a fighter pilot before an eye injury ended that, worked in RAF intelligence, fought in North Africa and Italy, and hunted war criminals (a job he was put to partly because he was fluent in French, German and Italian, among others). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee#Military_service_during_the_Second_World_War

scouttio

mikhail wrote: »

There's a story that he pulled up another actor on the LotR set to tell him that that wasn't what a man dying from being knifed sounds like, something he knew from personal experience having served in WWII.

His service was varied and would make for a hell of a story by itself: he volunteered to help out in Finland, trained as a fighter pilot before an eye injury ended that, worked in RAF intelligence, fought in North Africa and Italy, and hunted war criminals (a job he was put to partly because he was fluent in French, German and Italian, among others). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee#Military_service_during_the_Second_World_War

It was his own character getting stabbed. Director Peter Jackson told him to let out a yell. Lee told him thats not what happens when you get stabbed in the back, its more like you feel all the air go out of you

I was reminded by this by the connection between Christopher Lee and Ian Fleming, above.

In the 18th Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born to a white father and enslaved mother in Haiti. His dad wasn't a total bad guy as he eventually released the family from slavery and took Thomas to Paris, where despite his mixed-race heritage - or perhaps because of it - he became a well known figure in the lower echelons of the Parisian social scene. He liked to drink, and often found himself in dangerous confrontations with people offended at his confidence in resisting the discrimination people would attempt. In short, he refused to 'know his place'. He became a renowned dueller who once fought three duels in one day, a swashbuckler who never buckled where he could swash. He was also a legendary womanizer. which probably explains a few of the duels.

As the French revolution gathered swell, Dumas joined the Revolutionary Army to fight for equality and an end to slavery for all men, and was took two years to be promoted to Corporal. Within a further two years, he was a General fighting the revolutionary wars from the front, with and sometimes without, his army behind him. He singlehandedly held a strategically important bridge from the hands of the Austrians after his army chose to flee an apparently hopeless situation - until they eventually came back.. His exploits made the papers and music hall acts wrote songs about him.

At this point enter notorious racist Napoleon, who, jealous of the notoriety and popularity of Dumas saw his opportunity when Dumas was shipwrecked behind enemy lines and refused to send help to rescue him, or funds to buy his release when he was imprisoned in a dungeon. Napoleon also punished anyone who spoke of Dumas' achievements, and had the press silenced, and so his name sank into obscurity. He spent almost ten years imprisoned, and on his return to France became ill and died within a year.


His fictionalized exploits were published as The Count Of Monte Cristo, written by his son, Alexandre Dumas.

Michigan State University professor emeritus David Wartinger carried out an unusual study after several patients reported passing kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain in Walt Disney World. One even passed three different stones after riding a few times.

Wartinger published a pilot study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, and expanded on this by loading up his backpack with 3d model of a hollow bladder containing four appropriately-sized fake kidney stones and taking to the rollercoaster for 20 rides. His findings supported the results of the pilot study. In the pilot study, there was a 64% pass rate when sitting in the last car of the ride. The front car had a less impressive 16% pass rate. The expanded study saw a 70% back-car-pass-rate, and both studies had a 100% pass rate when it involved upper kidney chamber stones.

Not all roller coasters are equally efficient, and other theme park rides didn't yield the same results. Prof Wartinger explains that the ideal coaster for passing kidney stones "is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements." So there you have it, certain rollercoasters can be an efficient way to expel kidney stones.

One can only imagine how efficient they are at curing constipation.

New Home

I can tell you this for nothing, though. If your problem is that you've a weak stomach, it's always best if you sit in the front car... good luck on the loop-the-loop, though.

GrumpyMe

New Home wrote: »

...it's always best if you sit in the front car....

Not for the other riders!;)

Carry

Candie wrote: »

Michigan State University professor emeritus David Wartinger carried out an unusual study after several patients reported passing kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain in Walt Disney World. One even passed three different stones after riding a few times.

Wartinger published a pilot study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, and expanded on this by loading up his backpack with 3d model of a hollow bladder containing four appropriately-sized fake kidney stones and taking to the rollercoaster for 20 rides. His findings supported the results of the pilot study. In the pilot study, there was a 64% pass rate when sitting in the last car of the ride. The front car had a less impressive 16% pass rate. The expanded study saw a 70% back-car-pass-rate, and both studies had a 100% pass rate when it involved upper kidney chamber stones.

Not all roller coasters are equally efficient, and other theme park rides didn't yield the same results. Prof Wartinger explains that the ideal coaster for passing kidney stones "is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements." So there you have it, certain rollercoasters can be an efficient way to expel kidney stones.

One can only imagine how efficient they are at curing constipation.

Though passing kidney stones in real life, not in a backpack, is no fun ride whatsoever, believe me...

New Home

GrumpyMe wrote: »

Not for the other riders!;)

That was my point. At least there you won't get anyone else's "stuff".

Sleepy

Imagine being given a prescription to go ride Big Thunder Mountain in Florida! Wonder would the medical card cover the flights and accommodation? If you could swing your partner as a carer for the trip, it might almost be worth having kidney stones (or bribing a dodgy doctor to say you have them) in the first place!

New Home

I've been picturing Dr Nick doing an "infomercial" on how to pass kidney stones the fun fun fun way! ^^^

cdeb

In Life, The Universe, and Everything - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book dealing with the Krikkit Wars - one of the bails the evil (or misunderstood) Krikkiters need forms part of a Rory Award for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay.

The American editors thought this was a little risqué for the US market, so they made Douglas Adams change that bit. He did - in the US edition, the award is for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay.

Proof that mindless American censorship for the perpetually offended didn't just take root in recent years.

mikhail

cdeb wrote: »

In Life, The Universe, and Everything - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book dealing with the Krikkit Wars - one of the bails the evil (or misunderstood) Krikkiters need forms part of a Rory Award for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay.

The American editors thought this was a little risqué for the US market, so they made Douglas Adams change that bit. He did - in the US edition, the award is for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay.

Proof that mindless American censorship for the perpetually offended didn't just take root in recent years.

One of the tv channels recently started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning. I remember the showrunner, Joss Whedon (probably more famous now for directing Avengers Assemble, but was a big contributor to the Toy Story script among other accomplishments), mentioning once that the characters in Buffy use the word bollocks quite a lot. It's not such a common swearword in America, and the censors didn't pay it any heed as they didn't know what it meant, but Whedon went to school in England.

Capt'n Midnight

mikhail wrote: »

One of the tv channels recently started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning.

E4 https://www.channel4.com/programmes/buffy-the-vampire-slayer

And BBC are showing What We Do In The Shadows.



Real life vampire bats cooperate. They'll give each other blood even ones they aren't related to.

Not really altruism because a small vampire bat will die if goes without food for about three days. Because offering one of your neighbours a free meal might mean they'll return the favour and save your life next week.

New Home

I've seen this on Reddit, so I don't know how trustworthy the source is. However...

"the first performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony on Japanese soil was done by German POWs on 1st June, 1918"

ohnonotgmail

New Home wrote: »

I've seen this on Reddit a minute ago, so I don't know how trustworthy the source is. However...

"the first performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony on Japanese soil was done by German POWs on 1st June, 1918"

apparently it is true. i cant figure out how german POWs ended up in Japan though. there were some korean (or maybe it was mongolian?) troops captured fighting for the germans in Normandy in WW2. they had fought against the russians and been captured. while fighting for the russians they were captured by the germans and ended up defending the beaches of normandy.

https://www.city.naruto.tokushima.jp/contents/daiku/english/treasure.html#:~:text=In%20commemoration%20of%20the%20first,Hall%20in%201982%20during%20which

Evade

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

apparently it is true. i cant figure out how german POWs ended up in Japan though

Germany had colonies in the Pacific and Japan took the opportunity while Germany were preoccupied in Europe to take them.

Chancer3001

Saw this today and it surprised me

Rosa parks was alive to witness hurricane Katrina.

Seems like she was from a much more bygone era

mikhail

Evade wrote: »

Germany had colonies in the Pacific and Japan took the opportunity while Germany were preoccupied in Europe to take them.

That's correct. Qingdao, for example, is a coastal city in China. It's famous for its brewery, which makes Tsingtao beer. It was set up by the Germans. Very popular with expats over there.

Tsingtao is to Qingdao as Peking is to Beijing or Canton is to Guangdong - it's the old phonetic spelling from before they invented modern pinyin.

BonnieSituation

Evade wrote: »

Germany had colonies in the Pacific and Japan took the opportunity while Germany were preoccupied in Europe to take them.

"Western" Samoa, northern Papua New Guinea among them.

The Bismarck Archipelago to the NE of PNG contains a New Ireland and a New Britain as it happens.

retalivity

Rewatched the LOTR trilogy the last day, and looked up some of the cast. The fellowship all got tattoos of '9' to commemorate their time on the films. The actors were also a lot older than i had thought... Aragorn is now 61. Pippin is nearly 52!

ohnonotgmail

Evade wrote: »

Germany had colonies in the Pacific and Japan took the opportunity while Germany were preoccupied in Europe to take them.

japan and germany were allies. why would they hold german troops as POWs?

Ineedaname

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

japan and germany were allies. why would they hold german troops as POWs?

That was in World War 2. In World War 1 Japan fought against the Germans.

ohnonotgmail

Ineedaname wrote: »

That was in World War 2. In World War 1 Japan fought against the Germans.

i never copped the date. i'm an idiot.

Mollyb60

The Graves Registration Service (US) in WW1 were responsible for cataloging and keeping track of every single soldier buried during the war. There are extensive records of every soldier, which includes their unit, cause of death, location of grave, emergency contacts, etc.

Soldiers were often originally buried in temporary graves (sometimes at a roadside or near the front line where they fell), then, after the war, the soldiers were either re-interred in larger consolidated graveyards donated by the French/Belgian and British governments or were repatriated to the US. Maps of the temporary graves could look like this:

https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2018/11/06/newly-digitized-series-initial-burial-plats-for-world-war-i-american-soldiers/

Zooniverse currently has a project to transcribe the cards which I'm finding incredibly interesting/sad.

its_steve116

Glendale, CA is the largest city in the US without a directly-elected mayor.

Liverpool is the largest city in the UK with a directly-elected mayor, excluding metropolitan mayors such as that of London.

retalivity

Today is Oiche Fheile Eoin, was always a big part of the summer when I was growing up, and there still should be plenty of bonfires lit out west this evening.
It has its roots in pagan rituals, to celebrate midsummer and the turning of the days to get shorter from here on in. There were a number of rituals done for good luck for the rest of the year, such as jumping across the fire 3 times for good luck
In later years it was a good excuse to burn any rubbish or anything that needed rid off - tyres and mattresses mostly!

Buford T. Justice XIX

On the 28th of June, 1920, a small company of mostly Irish soldiers in the Connaught Rangers, part of the British army holding India at the time, refused to take orders in support of the Irish struggle for independence at the time.

Mostly natives of Ireland, some British born soldiers also joined the mutiny in protest at the British treatment of small nations which many viewed as at odds with their joining the army to prevent Germany from mistreating other small nations.

https://twitter.com/131Weeks/status/1277164275346345985?s=19

https://independentleft.ie/connaught-rangers-mutiny-1920/

It's a pity that so little is known about this incident in Ireland and so little has been done to remember it and the many men involved in it.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs

Yup, "Mumia" was long in use as a medicine made up of various waxes and bitumens and very often the ground up corpses of mummified humans, usually Egyptian. They were sometimes used whole or in part in fires too. Thrown on and burnt up as the bitumen in their preparation burned like a charm. There are even tales of them being thrown into the boilers of steam trains.

Ryath

They were also used to make paint! Mummy Brown also called Egyptian brown and caput mortum ("dead man's head")

GrumpyMe

Buford T. Justice XIX wrote: »

On the 28th of June, 1920, a small company of mostly Irish soldiers in the Connaught Rangers, part of the British army holding India at the time, refused to take orders in support of the Irish struggle for independence at the time.

It's a pity that so little is known about this incident in Ireland and so little has been done to remember it and the many men involved in it.

RTE's take on it.
https://www.rte.ie/archives/2020/0623/1149159-connaught-rangers-mutiny/

mzungu

In 2012, Russian scientists were able to regenerate a Silene stenophylla plant from a seed found in Siberian permafrost that was more than 30,000 years old.

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight

WMO's committee of experts on weather and climate extremes also reported a new world record for the duration of a lightning flash, with a single flash that developed continuously over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019 lasting for a full 16.73 seconds.

KevRossi

Le Mans 24 Hour race cars are almost all right hand drive, or the driver sits in the centre. There are almost no left hand drive ones.

Reason: Le Mans is a clockwise circuit, so cars mostly go around right hand bends, thus helping the balance of the car if the driver is on the 'corner' side of the car more often. As they turn into the corner, g-forces push the drivers weight towards the middle of the car, not the outside as would be the case with a LHD.

But: As most of the drivers are used to driving LHD, the gearsticks were on the right as well, i.e. between the driver and the door. Made getting in and out every 2 hours a bit awkward, but it's better for driving. Many of them now have paddle shifters, so it's not such and issue, but they still sit on the right.

Here's an example:

LostinBlanch

When Victor Hugo died all the brothels in Paris closed so the workers could pay their respects.
There's loads more in that article.

The first place airplanes were used in warfare,was west waterford during the war of independance

cdeb

Wasn't that after World War I, where planes were used?

ohnonotgmail

Deleted User wrote: »

The first place airplanes were used in warfare,was west waterford during the war of independance

Huh? the war of independence took place from 1919-21. planes were used in warfare long before that.

Capt'n Midnight

Libya 1911 wasn't it ?

Wibbs

KevRossi wrote: »

Le Mans 24 Hour race cars are almost all right hand drive, or the driver sits in the centre. There are almost no left hand drive ones.

Reason: Le Mans is a clockwise circuit, so cars mostly go around right hand bends, thus helping the balance of the car if the driver is on the 'corner' side of the car more often. As they turn into the corner, g-forces push the drivers weight towards the middle of the car, not the outside as would be the case with a LHD.

You can see this RHD thing in sports/race cars well into the 1950's even in LHD countries. If you look at Bugatti and Alfa Romeo race cars of the 20's and 30's they're RHD. Ferrari another later example in the 50's. Their "Corsa"(track/race) cars were RHD their "Strada"(street) were LHD. Ferrari's first car to wear his badge.



Again because of European tracks tending towards more Right hand bends. Though by the 60's even their LeMans cars were LHD.

Another type of car in the early days you see as mostly RHD in LHD countries were limousines. The idea being that the chauffeur was closest to the path and didn't have to walk around the car to open the door for his passengers.

LostinBlanch

Wibbs wrote: »

You can see this RHD thing in sports/race cars well into the 1950's even in LHD countries. If you look at Bugatti and Alfa Romeo race cars of the 20's and 30's they're RHD. Ferrari another later example in the 50's. Their "Corsa"(track/race) cars were RHD their "Strada"(street) were LHD. Ferrari's first car to wear his badge.



Again because of European tracks tending towards more Right hand bends. Though by the 60's even their LeMans cars were LHD.

Another type of car in the early days you see as mostly RHD in LHD countries were limousines. The idea being that the chauffeur was closest to the path and didn't have to walk around the car to open the door for his passengers.

Jaysus Wibbs, you wouldn't want to have a crash in that thing. Thin tyres, no seatbelts or any kind of bars if you had a roll. It reminds me of Michael Schumacher after he had a spin in a vintage F1 car and he was asked what he thought of it. "Scary" was his reply.

Wibbs

Well in the pre war days of motor racing with Nouvalari and the like they considered seatbelts to be a danger and preferred to be thrown clear of the car in the event of an oopsie. Which considering the cars were usually as lightweight as possible(except for Bentleys*) and were basically tinfoil and piping and would crumple like such and burst into flames probably not the worst option of the two.




*Bugatti once said Mr Bentley makes the fastest trucks in the world