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

Realt Dearg Sec

retalivity wrote: »

El Paso, TX is 50 miles closer to Los Angeles, than it is to the most eastern settlement in Texas, Orange TX.
Bit mad for me as I always assume Texas to be the middle of the US

And Orange is also almost 100 miles closer to Jacksonville on the East coast than it is to El Paso. Lived in Texas, near Dallas, the last few years, it never ceased to amaze me how big the place is, and how empty when you travel west through it. It's big enough that it has multiple climatic regions, and everything from dense forest to arid desert.

KevRossi

The M25 is London's orbital route. It is 188.3 km long. 3.3 km of this is in Greater London, the rest is outside it.

The only village in London which is outside the M25 is North Ockendon which has a population of about 600. The rest of London's 9 million people and a couple of million other live inside the M25.

Allinall

KevRossi wrote: »

The M25 is London's orbital route. It is 188.3 km long. 3.3 km of this is in Greater London, the rest is outside it.

The only village in London which is outside the M25 is North Ockendon which has a population of about 600. The rest of London's 9 million people and a couple of million other live inside the M25.

Apart from the 17.4% who live on it.

ohnonotgmail

Beer was illegal in Iceland until 1989. Wine and spirits were allowed.

joujoujou

The people of famous Austrian village recently decided they do not want to be famous anymore.

The world will never be the same again!

//crying

http://url.ie/1r1gj

barrymanilow

The Norse Vikings that claimed Greenland were wiped out by warfare and competition for resources by an Inuit people who moved in and cleared them out.

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/reverse-colonialism-how-inuit-conquered-vikings

Capt'n Midnight

Mount Everest is officially 86cm higher.

But you knew that.



Khimlal Gautam lost a toe to bring you this information.

You may not have known that.

ohnonotgmail

is Everest not growing every year due to tectonic plates coming together?

Captain_Crash

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Mount Everest is officially 86cm higher.

When Everest was first discovered by westerners, it was believed to be the highest peak in the world but the expedition wasn’t allowed into Nepal or China to survey it, so studied it from the Nepal/India border.

They concluded its height to be exactly 29000ft, however knowing that such a round number would not be believed back in Great Britain, they added a couple of ft and came to 29002ft. Since then with more modern equipment we know it’s exact height, and again, after a shift in tectonic movement, it’s now even higher.

sbsquarepants

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Mount Everest is officially 86cm higher.
.

Higher than what?





In other Everest news (possible repeat) - Dinali (AKA Mount Mckinley in Alaska) is the worlds tallest as opposed to highest mountain @ almost 2km taller than Everest, it just has the misfortune to be standing at the bottom of a hole, whereas Everest starts on a high plateau.


In other words it cheats:D

lobbylad

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Higher than what?





In other Everest news (possible repeat) - Dinali (AKA Mount Mckinley in Alaska) is the worlds tallest as opposed to highest mountain @ almost 2km taller than Everest, it just has the misfortune to be standing at the bottom of a hole, whereas Everest starts on a high plateau.


In other words it cheats:D

Dinali is the tallest on land, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest when measured from the sea bed

cdeb

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Higher than what?

Higher than it was previously reported.

They measured it again and is has grown.

barrymanilow

Maybe you know this but it was news to me at the time ;

After Ireland gained independence , rather than rip out the Red royal Mail post boxes An Post just had them painted green. In some rural parts of the Ireland you can still see some of the Royal Mail crown and Symbols on the green painted Post Boxes.

Realt Dearg Sec

barrymanilow wrote: »

Maybe you know this but it was news to me at the time ;

After Ireland gained independence , rather than rip out the Red royal Mail post boxes An Post just had them painted green. In some rural parts of the Ireland you can still see some of the Royal Mail crown and Symbols on the green painted Post Boxes.

It was famously seen as symbolic of the failure of the new state. The implication being that nothing has fundamentally changed in people's lives, the state was the same as before but with a veneer of patriotic symbolism, like painting the post boxes green.

sbsquarepants

cdeb wrote: »

Higher than it was previously reported.

They measured it again and is has grown.

Are they 100% sure it didn't just snow, gets cold up there i believe:D

joujoujou

Well, it may actually shrink when frozen, I'd say.

Capt'n Midnight

lobbylad wrote: »

Dinali is the tallest on land, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest when measured from the sea bed

Pfff

Everyone knows Mount Chimborazo is the highest don't they ?

Capt'n Midnight

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

is Everest not growing every year due to tectonic plates coming together?

about 2cm on average, same sort of speed that the Atlantic widens at or the moon recedes.

joujoujou wrote: »

Well, it may actually shrink when frozen, I'd say.

Oddly enough they measured it at 3am for the exact opposite reason

KevRossi

barrymanilow wrote: »

Maybe you know this but it was news to me at the time ;

After Ireland gained independence , rather than rip out the Red royal Mail post boxes An Post just had them painted green. In some rural parts of the Ireland you can still see some of the Royal Mail crown and Symbols on the green painted Post Boxes.

There's loads of them in Dublin and south Dublin. This one is Victorian (installed up to 1901). Others have ER (Edward VII installed 1901-1910) or GR (George V installed 1910-1922) on them.

There's an incomplete list here:

joujoujou

Stolen from YLYL thread:

Scotland have their gritters named. And the names are just, well, cool.



Online, live tracker is available here:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2de764a9303848ffb9a4cac0bd0b1aab

barrymanilow

The age of photography was taking off just as the men who would have been teenage soldiers during the battle of waterloo were growing into their elder years.

Each year on May 5, the anniversary of Napoléon's death, the veterans marched to Paris' Place Vendôme in full uniform to pay respects to their emperor. On one such occasion a photographer captured some Waterloo veterans in uniform.

https://mashable.com/2014/10/27/napoleonic-wars-veterans/?europe=true

Looking at these photographs you would wonder what kind of brutal scenes these men saw and were involved in when battles were fought at close quarters with sword and bayonet and on horseback with cannonballs zipping around.

Capt'n Midnight

Timeline of the Titanic sinking

barrymanilow

Athletes in the NFL and NBA are prohibited from dating their teams cheerleaders and similarly the Cheerleaders have a rule against fraternization with the players. Not sure why but Id say it has to do with love triangles and fall outs upsetting team dynamics and interfering with performance on the pitch.

New Home

Capt'n Midnight

2020 was a walk in the park compared to AD 536 which was the worst year

dasdog

If you've ever watched a Western movie and heard the ping sound after someone standing at the bar spat downwards it was a spittoon they we spitting in to. When it was realised they were a potential for spreading disease they were phased out after a tuberculosis epidemic.

silliussoddius

Drilling a 14 inch hole turned a 10foot deep freshwater lake into a 1,300 meter deep saltwater lake.
https://mysteriesrunsolved.com/2020/04/lake-peigneur-disaster.html

barrymanilow

KevRossi

I'd respectfully say it's nearer to 1000 days to do that. Their calculations give 37 km per day. No days off for rest, injury, weather, sightseeing etc.

I've done a couple of Caminos and long term 25-28 km a day is a good number with the odd day off. You could cycle it easily enough in 9 months taking your time.

mikhail

It's Kim Jong-un's birthday. It's not clear exactly how old he is. The official date is 1982, but it's thought that it was moved to a more prestigious year: a round 70 years after his grandfather's birth, and 40 after his father's. Various sources suggest it's 1983 or even 1984.

New Home

The same day as Elvis and Bowie.

ohnonotgmail

New Home wrote: »

The same day as Elvis and Bowie.

Kim kong un and Elvis have never been seen together. Just saying.

New Home

Neither has Elvis... and he was (is?!?) more rotund and with darker hair than Bowie... I wonder....

Realt Dearg Sec

mikhail wrote: »

It's Kim Jong-un's birthday. It's not clear exactly how old he is. The official date is 1982, but it's thought that it was moved to a more prestigious year: a round 70 years after his grandfather's birth, and 40 after his father's. Various sources suggest it's 1983 or even 1984.

1984 has a certain poetic charm to it for him.

retalivity

The presumed last remaining US civil war widow (1861-1865) died in December 2020.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/last-civil-war-widow-dies-helen-viola-jackson

New Home

Wow...

BonnieSituation

retalivity wrote: »

The presumed last remaining US civil war widow (1861-1865) died in December 2020.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/last-civil-war-widow-dies-helen-viola-jackson

That's fantastic.

It's up there with President Tyler still having grandkids alive as of December 2017:

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2017-02-20/president-john-tyler-born-in-1790-still-has-2-living-grandsons

mikhail

A very relevant wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_European_veterans_by_war

Wibbs

Though it seems so long ago it kinda isn't. Take the American Old West and all that stuff. John Wayne the biggest cowboy star of the silver screen as a young actor knew Wyatt Earp, he of the Gunfight of the OK corral, a seminal moment in western and cowboy lore. Earp was an advisor on Hollywood westerns and he heavily influenced Wayne's portrayal of the cowboy. I suppose one reason we feel such distance to those times was the speed of change technologically and socially and politically in the 20th century. That rapid change makes even the recent past seem so far away.

secondrowgal

The voice for the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny was Miriam Margolyes, except in Ireland, where it was Tara Flynn.

cdeb

I think I've posted this before here, but Miriam Margolyes - who, as you say, was the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny - was also the Spanish Infanta in the first Blackadder, and Lady Whiteadder in the second series.

Sleepy

Wibbs wrote: »

Though it seems so long ago it kinda isn't. Take the American Old West and all that stuff. John Wayne the biggest cowboy star of the silver screen as a young actor knew Wyatt Earp, he of the Gunfight of the OK corral, a seminal moment in western and cowboy lore. Earp was an advisor on Hollywood westerns and he heavily influenced Wayne's portrayal of the cowboy. I suppose one reason we feel such distance to those times was the speed of change technologically and socially and politically in the 20th century. That rapid change makes even the recent past seem so far away.

You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.

ohnonotgmail

Sleepy wrote: »

You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.

we have gone from Cray supercomputers in the 80s to desktop computers having the same processing power 20 years later. My phone has more processing power than a cray supercomputer.

mikhail

Sleepy wrote: »

You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.

My niece could hold a smartphone to watch a video before she could walk. I didn't own a mobile phone until I went to college. My dad remembers electricity arriving at his village. Life isn't static, and yet I can't really imagine how much more different it'll be in a century. Or rather, I can, but I'm probably wrong.

Wibbs

Sleepy wrote: »

You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.

Very much so S and compared to someone say born in 1900 growing up and having kids of their own and living until they were 80, the changes we have seen are absolutely tiny by comparison to what they saw.

When they were born cars were a primitive plaything of the very rich, powered flight hadn't happened yet, radio was in its infancy, the telephone was a very rare sight, electricity was limited to urban areas, the vast majority of music was live. The European empires were still in full flow, large chunks of the world were unmapped and mass media was the realm of the newspaper and big news could be weeks old.

If a person made it to 100 years of age imagine the massive shifts they witnessed. They would have seen biplanes leading to the jet, Concorde, space flight and package tours to Benidorm. They'd have seen radio, then TV, then the internet and films go from silent and black and white to the talkies and widescreen colour in dolby surroundsound. From pure analogue lives to personal computers and mobile phones. From gas and oil light to a bright bulb in every room. The rise of the welfare state, the push for gender and racial equality. The biggest shifts in art, music and literature and architecture in history. The fall of empires. The rise and fall of communism and fascism, two world wars, from mass death from gunpowder to atomic bombs, the model T through Beetles, Minis and Toyota Corrollas with airbags and ABS and aircon. Fuzzy photos of the moon to men walking on it. From Newtonian physics to general relativity. Mass vaccinations, antibiotics and massive leaps in disease prevention and treatments. Average life expectancy go up by twenty years and childhood mortality falling off a cliff. A huge rise in living standards. The list is endless.

A centenarian in the year 2000 living in the West would have seen fundamental changes never before seen in any period of human history.

I collected old watches for donkey's years and one reason was in one way because they echoed those huge changes of the 20th century in a very personal and human scale way. Hell the wristwatch for men was barely invented in 1900. It's almost entirely a 20th century thing. Take these two.

Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.

Sleepy

The acceleration of that change really took off in the 1900's though. Before 1900, most children would have had lives that weren't dramatically different from that of their parents - a miller's son might see a few enhancements in the powering of his mill versus that which his father worked with (water -> steam etc) but the essence of the job would have been the same, now we see more dramatic changes within our own working careers, never mind inter-generationally - can you imagine being told that "social media manager" or "diversity manager" were real job titles when you were getting career guidance in the 90's? I certainly can't.

New Home

Wibbs wrote: »

I collected old watches for donkey's years and one reason was in one way because they echoed those huge changes of the 20th century in a very personal and human scale way. Hell the wristwatch for men was barely invented in 1900. It's almost entirely a 20th century thing. Take these two.

Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.

And they both have bits that glow in the dark.

ancapailldorcha

Sleepy wrote: »

You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.

I don't think you even have to go that far. I just don't get Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Twitter, properly used can be handy enough but Ian Dunt on a podcast once said that he asked his nephew what he wanted to be when he grew up and the response was an influencer.

Sleepy

Wibbs wrote: »

Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.

And yet, for all the innovation in the modern watch, given the choice on which to wear, I'd take the older one every time...

That said, I haven't worn a wristwatch since 1999 when the "fake" Breitling Chronograph my mother picked up from a "street vendor" in New York was stolen from behind a bar I was working in. It was only when my cousin asked a friendly jeweller to change the bracelet on the one she bought for him to a strap that it transpired the watches had been genuine (if blatantly stolen) Breitling Chrono Sharks

Sleepy

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't think you even have to go that far. I just don't get Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Twitter, properly used can be handy enough but Ian Dunt on a podcast once said that he asked his nephew what he wanted to be when he grew up and the response was an influencer.

I've had both kids tell me they want to be streamers or Youtubers... :rolleyes: