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

ohnonotgmail

LostinBlanch wrote: »

You may not know that in the 16th century the English attempted to outlaw the typical Irish hairstyle.



It hasn’t gone away you know.

Link: http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/08/16th-century-irish-hipsters/

To be fair it is a terrible haircut and for once i'm on the side of the english

sbsquarepants

Chase Embarrassed Pod wrote: »

PrincePhilip remarked (in 1988): "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation". Charming.

He's hardly going to come back as the same thing as this time now is he:D

KevRossi

Planning your holidays? This map shows the hottest, coldest, wettest and driest months of the year worldwide.

cdeb

Grrr to maps with the seasons marked incorrectly!

Ireland is the only country in the world where we base seasons on the "grand stretch" - the equinox/solstice marks the middle of the seasons, not the change.

If you rank all the countries in the world by their highest recorded temperature, Ireland is second last, behind Iceland. (This assumes Scotland is in the UK, and Greenland/the Faroes are in Denmark)

Something I learned only recently was that mammals of the sea walked on the land and evolved into sea creatures of many many years.

Ineedaname

Deleted User wrote: »

Something I learned only recently was that mammals of the sea walked on the land and evolved into sea creatures of many many years.

It's true. The ancestors of cetaceans for instance were hoofed animals no bigger than a dog.

Mad to think they went from that to a blue whale in only a few million years.

Wibbs

In the space between the earth and the moon you could line up and fit all of the other planets of the solar system, with a few thousand kilometres to spare.

Originally, mistletoe was revered by the Druids for it's ability to flower in winter, and it was thought to ward off evil spirits so it was held over the heads of loved ones and of small children to quell the evil antics and not as a invitation for a snog.

Also nog - as in eggnog - came from a newspaper misprint or mispelling of the word 'grog', a word used to describe rum-based drinks. Not to be confused with grok, which describes how people optimistically perceive their cognitive abilities after enough grog.

mikhail

Candie wrote: »

Also nog - as in eggnog - came from a newspaper misprint or mispelling of the word 'grog', a word used to describe rum-based drinks. Not to be confused with grok, which describes how people optimistically perceive their cognitive abilities after enough grog.

What's your source on that one? https://www.etymonline.com/word/nog

Ipso

Sticking with alcohol, doesn’t the term Dutch courage come from the use of Dutch gin by soldiers before battle to calm them?

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/redirector/?redir=archive/show.php&id=3243 :eek:

LostinBlanch

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/redirector/?redir=archive/show.php&id=3243 :eek:

Jaysus :eek: :eek: :eek:

Father Hernandez

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/redirector/?redir=archive/show.php&id=3243 :eek:

Probably worth noting:

The nomination was withdrawn 1 February 1939 by nominator E.G.C. Brandt, an anti-fascist member of the Swedish parliament who never intended his submission to be taken seriously.

johndaman66

Still, it was a bit silly making the nomination in the first place.

LostinBlanch

The hypodermic syringe was developed in the 1840's by Dr Francis Rynd who worked in the Meath Hospital.

Rynd hoped that if he could inject a sedative into the bloodstream of the patient, their pain would be relieved much quicker than if they had taken drugs orally. He was ultimately unsuccessful in finding a cure. However his efforts were not in vain, or rather they were ‘in vein’, because along the way, he invented a hollow needle which he used to put the drugs into the patient’s bloodstreams. It was in 1844 that he first used a drip needle that could inject drugs directly into the vein.

A few years later a Scottish doctor, Alexander Wood was acclaimed for his own role in the development of the hypodermic syringe. Many people thought it was actually Wood’s invention.

Dr Rynd was the first to use the equipment. However, Dr Rynd’s legacy was secure thanks to historical documents including an article he wrote in the Dublin Medical Press. In it, he documented how he had injected fluids into a patient with a hypodermic syringe. It was published in 1845, 10 years before Wood’s article about his own use of hypodermic syringes was published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal

JupiterKid

Maastricht, the most southerly city in the Netherlands, is further south than Calais in France.

As the crow flies, Hamburg in Germany is closer to Milan, Italy than John O Groats in Scotland is to Plymouth in England.

Vienna in Austria is over 150km further east than Prague, Czechia.

castletownman

Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are OLDER than John Major, whose term as PM ended in 1997.

I find that ludicrous.

Realt Dearg Sec

castletownman wrote: »

Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are OLDER than John Major, whose term as PM ended in 1997.

I find that ludicrous.

That's mad. They're both older than George W Bush and Bill Clinton as well.

sunnysoutheast

Ipso wrote: »

Sticking with alcohol, doesn’t the term Dutch courage come from the use of Dutch gin by soldiers before battle to calm them?

I think many of the English phrases including "Dutch" stem from the rivalry between England and Holland over trading rights, empire building etc. way back when, e.g. "going Dutch", "Dutch auction", "Dutch oven" and so on?

cdeb

One phrase along those lines is the French Disease, a shorthand for syphilis, which the English named after the French because (a) they reckoned French sailors brought it to England and (b) they just didn't like the French.

So in return, the French nicknamed the disease mal des anglais, the English disease. A fine mediaeval example of "I know you are, but what am I?"

Gynoid

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/4/E715

Over the counter analgesics like Ibuprofen affect men's testicles and testosterone.

BaZmO*

LostinBlanch wrote: »

The hypodermic syringe was developed in the 1840's by Dr Francis Rynd who worked in the Meath Hospital.

....However his efforts were not in vain, or rather they were ‘in vein’......

Beautiful

joujoujou

Something Christmassy.

Despite some other claims it looks like electric Xmas tree lights were lit for the first time by Mr. Edward H. Johnson, President of the Edison Company for Electric Lighting, in 1882.

Source.

Shortly afterwards Edison decided to turn that idea into money. And, at the beginning, the whole thing wasn't cheap (approx 2 thousand dollars per set in today's money), so company also offered Xmas Tree lights for rent.

seagull

I was watching a program last night. Joseph Swan created small lightbulbs for a production of Iolanthe for the fairy costumes. Small lights became known as fairy lights, and that's why your Christmas tree lights are called fairy lights.

LostinBlanch

Seeing as we're on lights, how many of you know that the oldest burning lightbulb in history is 117 years old, and has it's own webcam.

Now compare and contrast with new smart bulbs, especially the reset function. :eek:

Sometimes too much technology is just too much.

Realt Dearg Sec

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Seeing as we're on lights, how many of you know that the oldest burning lightbulb in history is 117 years old, and has it's own webcam.

Now compare and contrast with new smart bulbs, especially the reset function. :eek:

Sometimes too much technology is just too much.

I watched that video and nearly lost my mind. Why on Earth do they make it that way? How is any of this more convenient than a light switch? How did they get to start referring to all of these internet of things contraptions as "smart"?

That put years on me.

LostinBlanch

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

I watched that video and nearly lost my mind.

That's because you were watching the video wrong. You have to watch it for 8 seconds, stop for 5 seconds, watch for 8 seconds, stop for 2 seconds, watch for 8 seconds, stop for 2 seconds. The final step is to watch until the end.

Then wonder what you're doing with your life.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Why on Earth do they make it that way? How is any of this more convenient than a light switch? How did they get to start referring to all of these internet of things contraptions as "smart"?

I agree, the more I see of these smart devices the less I want to see of them.

FishOnABike

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

I watched that video and nearly lost my mind. Why on Earth do they make it that way? How is any of this more convenient than a light switch? How did they get to start referring to all of these internet of things contraptions as "smart"?.

LostinBlanch wrote: »

I agree, the more I see of these smart devices the less I want to see of them.

Many of them seem to be expensive solutions looking for a problem.

mikhail

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

I watched that video and nearly lost my mind. Why on Earth do they make it that way? How is any of this more convenient than a light switch? How did they get to start referring to all of these internet of things contraptions as "smart"?

Electronics manufacturers saw the market for PCs saturate, but smartphones and laptops took up the slack. Now those markets are mature too, so the only way to grow is to find new products to put electronics in. Some of it may be useful, some of it may facilitate an Orwellian dystopia, but all of that is secondary to the revenue growth of Intel and co.

blastman

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

The last person to die of Smallpox was a 40yo British woman, Janet Parker, who contracted the disease while at work in a medical lab in Birmingham, England.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/11/the-last-victim-of-smallpox.html

The program to eradicate smallpox was so successful that only two examples of the virus exist today. Both are stored in laboratories, one in the U.S. (in the Centre For Disease Control in Atlanta, I think) and the other in Russia.