I bet you didnt know that

New Home

Ah but of course! How silly of me. Do I feel like a fool, now!

EndaHonesty

Zadkiel wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with where the Kiwi's nostrils are.
Historically some measurements would be taken form the end of the beak to the nostrils and other times the measurement would be take from the end of the beak to the feathers of the face. This would provide a different measurement.

Do you have a source for to show that there are/were two definitions for a beak's length?

It's an apocryphal statement and continuing it's use is a disservice to this thread on facts...

Edit: that newworldencyclopedia link doesn't give a reference either, IMO it's simply using the apocryphal statement as fact without basis.

4068ac1elhodqr

The 2019 Guinness Book of World Records has some fairly unusual official entries, including this:
'Cat with most dice balanced on paw'

Bibi, below has some dice here in purrrfect balance.

Zadkiel

EndaHonesty wrote: »

Do you have a source for to show that there are/were two definitions for a beak's length?

It's an apocryphal statement and continuing it's use is a disservice to this thread on facts...

Edit: that newworldencyclopedia link doesn't give a reference either, IMO it's simply using the apocryphal statement as fact without basis.

Who mentioned definition, i said methods of measurement. My post was a comment on where the confusion could possibly have come from but anyway...

'Bill. Several types of bill measurements can be
found in the modern literature. The most
common and replicable is the bill length mea-
25


Several types of bill measurements can be
found in the modern literature. The most
common and replicable is the bill length mea-
sured from the anterior edge of the nostril to
the tip (Baldwin et al. 1931: 16). This measurement
is popular because in most taxa both
ends of the measurement are readily definable
points where calipers can be placed. Two
other methods, the lengths of total culmen
and exposed culmen, attempt to measure the
entire length of the bill. Total culmen measurements
extend to the bill tip from the
notch on the forehead where the base of the
culmen meets the skull (usually just inside the
feathers on the forehead; Baldwin et al. 1931:
11). Exposed culmen measurements extend
to the bill tip from the point where the tips of
the forehead feathers begin to hide the culmen
(Baldwin et al. 1931: 11). This is not an
easily defined point, and hence this is the
most variable of these bill measurements
(pers. observ.).'

ORNITOLOGIA NEOTROPICAL 9: 23–30, 1998
© The Neotropical Ornithological Society
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEASURING EXTERNAL CHARACTERS OF
BIRDS
Kevin Winker
University of Alaska Museum, 907 Yukon Drive, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775, U.S.A.

New Home

Ok, one more question (maybe we should have a sister thread to this one for asking questions, but until then...): what's the difference between beak and bill? I think I know that chickens have beaks and ducks have bills, but is it only a matter of shape? In which case, what does a pelican have?

Zadkiel

New Home wrote: »

Ok, one more question (maybe we should have a sister thread to this one for asking questions, but until then...): what's the difference between beak and bill? I think I know that chickens have beaks and ducks have bills, but is it only a matter of shape? In which case, what does a pelican have?

The terms are broadly interchangeable

Pelican...bucket?!

FishOnABike

New Home wrote: »

Ok, one more question (maybe we should have a sister thread to this one for asking questions, but until then...): what's the difference between beak and bill? I think I know that chickens have beaks and ducks have bills, but is it only a matter of shape? In which case, what does a pelican have?

The beak is the person sitting on the bench, the bill is the person who brings the defendant before the bench. ;-)

New Home

FishOnABike wrote: »

The beak is the person sitting on the bench, the bill is the person who brings the defendant before the bench. ;-)

And the Pelican is a Brief? :pac:

Cookie_Monster

New Home wrote: »

Ok, one more question (maybe we should have a sister thread to this one for asking questions, but until then...): what's the difference between beak and bill? I think I know that chickens have beaks and ducks have bills, but is it only a matter of shape? In which case, what does a pelican have?

Nothing, synonymous terms.

fergiesfolly

There isn't this much discussion on a birds measurements in the "Most beautiful women in the world" thread.

Water John

Thanks for that, Drunk Boy. Lots of visual references to her anorexia/bulimia. Really the first well known person to succumb to it. Sad loss. Maria Callas the opera singer, said she was the best singer, in terms of voice and breathing control, that she'd ever heard.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

On the topic of languages in South America, the only Spanish creole language is spoken in a town on the Colombian coast. It was created by escaped African slaves. It only has a few thousand speakers at best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palenquero

Also, there are some small English speaking islands that are part of Colombia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archipelago_of_San_Andr%C3%A9s,_Providencia_and_Santa_Catalina

New Home

Number of living languages: 6912

Number of those languages that are nearly extinct: 516

Language with the greatest number of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese [See Top 30 languages]

Language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers: English (250 million to 350 million non-native speakers)

Country with the most languages spoken: Papua New Guinea has 820 living languages. [See Top 20 countries]

How long have languages existed: Since about 100,000 BC

First language ever written: Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BC)

Oldest written language still in existence: Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BC)

Language with the most words: English, approx. 250,000 distinct words*

Language with the fewest words: Taki Taki (also called Sranan), 340 words. Taki Taki is an English-based Creole spoken by 120,000 in the South American country of Suriname.

Language with the largest alphabet: Khmer (74 letters). This Austro-Asiatic language is the official language of Cambodia, where approx.12 million people speak it. Minority speakers live in a handful of other countries.

Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters). Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.

The language with the fewest sounds (phonemes): Rotokas (11 phonemes)

The language with the most sounds (phonemes): !Xóõ (112 phonemes). Approx. 4200 speak !Xóõ, the vast majority of whom live in the African country of Botswana.

Language with the fewest consonant sounds: Rotokas (6 consonants)

Language with the most consonant sounds: Ubyx (81 consonants). This language of the North Causasian Language family, once spoken in the Haci Osman village near Istanbul, has been extinct since 1992. Among living languages, !Xóõ has the most consonants (77).

Language with the fewest vowel sounds: Ubyx (2 vowels). The related language Abkhaz also has 2 vowels in some dialects. There are approximately 106,000 Abkhaz speakers living primarily in Georgia.

Language with the most vowel sounds: !Xóõ (31 vowels)

The most widely published language: English

Language with the fewest irregular verbs: Esperanto (none)

Language which has won the most Oscars: Italian (12 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film)

The most translated document: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into 321 languages and dialects.

The most common consonant sounds in the world's languages: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/

Longest word in the English language: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

* See previous posts.

Source: http://www.vistawide.com/languages/language_statistics.htm

dball

New Home wrote: »

Longest word in the English language: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

Did you know the longest word in the english language that doesnt repeat any letters is
uncopyrightables??

New Home

I do now!

valoren

In April 2017, Oobah Butler, was a writer for Vice who had previously been bribed by restaurants to write good reviews i.e. they would pay him £10 to write a positive review despite never actually having a meal there. He decided to fake an entire restaurant to make the point that Trip Advisor was a false reality.

It was named "The Shed at Dulwich”

To get started, he needed to verify with Trip Advisor and used a cheap burner phone to do so. The restaurant now officially existed and was listed on the site. The location was given as 'The Shed' with the address listed as the road he lived on. It was also set up as 'an appointment-only restaurant'.

A domain was bought, registered and the site was built. Meal names were given hipster-friendly names such as 'Lust', 'Empathetic' or 'Comfort' with the accompanying pretenious blurb stating that '...instead of meals, our menu is comprised of moods'.

https://www.theshedatdulwich.com/

The mood meals themselves were photographed and looked delectable.







Trip Advisor confirmed and 'The Shed at Dulwich' was now officially the worst restaurant in London, ranked bottom, at #18,149

The restaurant needed reviews. So Butler got friends and colleagues to submit detailed glowing reviews and high marks. This was to circumvent the anti-scam technology and was thus from different computers to enable the hoax.

The Shed climbs the rankings.

Then Butler's burner phone starts ringing for reservations. His stock response to queries says that they are booked solid for 6 weeks. Suddenly, due to the interest generated, the ranking is now at #1,456. Clearly the mystique, the allure and the exclusivity of The Shed was driving it up the ranking system. Over the next few months the phone rang incessantly but nobody ate at 'The Shed'.

By August 2017, three months after setting up, The Shed is now ranked at #156.



Companies start sending free samples, people stop Butler on his street asking if he knows where 'The Shed' is, speculative requests are sent for jobs at 'The Shed', the attention, the requests become incessant. Still no one has eaten a morsel of food in the restaurant and by winter 2017 it is ranked #30 in London. People from abroad start requesting reservations and then suddenly Butler get's an email from Trip Advisor titled "Information Request"

Butler thinks he has been rumbled.

The restaurant has received 89,000 views in search results in the past day
Trip Advisor has been contacted by dozens of customers asking for information.

And the reason for the email? Well, on the 1st of November, 2017, six months after it's listing, The Shed at Dulwich is now officially the #1 ranked restaurant in London. :pac:



A restaurant that doesn't exist becomes the highest ranked in one of the world’s biggest cities, on one of the internet's most trusted review sites.

Butler, point made, contacts Trip Advisor to alert them of the prank to which the response is;

"As there is no incentive for anyone in the real world to create a fake restaurant it is not a problem we experience with our regular community – therefore this 'test' is not a real world example."

For starters


For Main


For Dessert


"The Shed at Dulwich"

Brilliant! ^

Ipso

The Dunwich horror, indeed.

Fourier

Ipso wrote: »

The Dunwich horror, indeed.

The secret even lies in a shed.

KevRossi

This is Celtic Park in Glsagow, capacity 60,400 and this version was built in 1998,

If you look closely, you will see that the main stand on the left has pillars supporting it, while the end has none, even though it is the same depth.



The reason can be seen in the exterior photo here, the end stands are cantilivered, the main stand is not. Also note how the cantilivered structure protrudes over the outside of the stadium (part on the right), the one that is supported from within (on the left) does not.



The reason for this is obvious in this next picture; There is a graveyard right behind the main stand and they could not get permission to build a structure that overhangs it.



There's a better view of the whole thing here on Google Maps: https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Celtic+Park/@55.850012,-4.2011141,271a,35y,270h,39.42t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4888414f6436db0f:0xf1778c849701d24!8m2!3d55.849696!4d-4.2055427

New Home

Half inspired by/half stolen from another thread...

In the mid-1800s, paper was made using rags, mostly cotton and linen. However, soon the raw material began to become scarce, so a new source was found: Egyptian mummies (of which, apparently, there was an abundance- by 1856, the New York Tribune was able to report that about two and a quarter million pounds of rags had been imported from Egypt.)! Their bandages were unravelled, torn into tiny pieces and pulped, just like rags used to be. It was a very cheap raw material, and duty-free, too, so, since it wasn't compulsory to declare its provenance, often the cargos were just recorded as "rags".

Dard Hunter in his book Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, relates the experiments of I. Augustus Stanwood in both ground-wood paper and mummy paper. During the American Civil War, Stanwood was hard-pressed for materials for his Maine mill. As such, he imported mummies from Egypt, stripped the bodies of their wrappings and used this material for making a brown wrapping paper for grocers & butchers.

In 1881, the artist Laurence Alma Tadema famous for his romantic ancient Egyptian scenes saw his paint preparer grinding up a piece of a mummy. Realizing where “mummy brown” came from, he alerted his fellow painter, Edward Burne-Jones, together with some family members, the remorseful artists held an impromptu funeral burying a tube of mummy brown paint.

Source (one of them, at least).

IvyTheTerrific

Before the invention of synthetic urea, the only way to tan hides was to use urine. So urine was an important resource! In towns with a tanning industry, people would collect urine in large "piss pots" for the purpose.

IvyTheTerrific

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

Before the invention of synthetic urea, the only way to tan hides was to use urine. So urine was an important resource! In towns with a tanning industry, people would collect urine in large "piss pots" for the purpose.

I bought a bag in Egypt, liked the one on display at a market and got one off the stall wrapped in a clear plastic bag, took it home still wrapped and when I took it out it brought tears to my eyes in a couple of different ways...it absolutely stank. I chose to believe it was probably animal urine used to tan it, aired it out for weeks, tried to clean it out with saddle soap, even Febrezed the beejezus out of it as a last resort but three months later the smell had barely faded. Nearly cried when I put it in the recycling stand.

So, tanning via pee isn't a thing of the past just yet!

Wibbs

Ancient Rome at one time had a piss tax. They also placed large cauldrons on streets to collect the stuff. Wasn't just for tanning either. They used it to wash clothes(steep, then rinse with water of course) and even as a mouthwash. Yep. They thought piss would clean and whiten teeth. They also added ground up pumice to piss to make toothpaste. And they were somewhat right. The ammonia(IIRC) in piss will whiten and clean teeth and kill bacteria. One Roman dude in denouncing a fellow politician called him "piss face" because his teeth were so white. Urine was added to mouthwashes until the 1600s.

Diabetes was diagnosed by doctors who would taste piss. If it was sweet you had it.

I forgot about the clothes thing. Not quite as sweet smelling as Downey.

Also shudder at the word p*ss! Much worse words don't bother me but there's something about that one. Maybe I need hypnosis to get to the root of it. :P

New Home

IIRC, the ammonia in urine helped remove stains, including mould.

Capt'n Midnight

FishOnABike wrote: »

The beak is the person sitting on the bench, the bill is the person who brings the defendant before the bench. ;-)

"Doing bird 'cos of a canary. It ain't right gov."

dxhound2005

New Home wrote: »

IIRC, the ammonia in urine helped remove stains, including mould.

That mould will be one of the 5.1 million species of fungi. They are not plants, but a separate kingdom. Also in the living world only 4% of the mammals are wild animals. The rest are humans and their livestock. 70% of birds are domestic fowl. Only 1% of all life is found in the oceans.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

mzungu

The Tokyo Express was a container ship that is best known for being struck by a rogue wave on 13 February 1997. This caused her to lose cargo, including one container loaded with 4,800,000 pieces of Lego. Ever since, Lego pieces including octopuses, dragons, flippers and flowers have been washing up on Cornwall beaches and are commonly found after storms.

Among the pieces lost were 418,000 swimming flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, 26,600 life preservers, 13,000 spear guns, and 4,200 octopuses. Sea grass, cutlasses and dragons were also well-represented. Hence, this quirk of fate means that Cornwall residents often find nautical themed Lego pieces washing up on the beach. In another quirk of fate, none of the majority of non nautical themed Lego pieces that were lost have washed up on the beach.

dxhound2005

Among that detritus you can see some Sea Glass, which I wrote about on the thread a while back.