Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

I bet you didnt know that

1959698100101200

Comments

  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,309 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    In 1567 the burgomaster of Braunau, Hans Staininger, died after tripping and breaking his neck while trying to escape a fire. He tripped over his own beard, thought to be the longest in the world at that time at an impressive four and a half feet (1.4m).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    For the day that's in it, just a couple of posts about Hawking's work.

    Singularity theorems:
    These were the focus of his thesis and his early papers.

    Basically early on in the 1920s people had used Einstein's new theory of General Relativity to model the orbit of planets and stars. However Alexander Friedmann wondered what happened if you applied it to the universe. Now Einstein's equations essentially work as

    1. Insert description of matter
    2. Solve equations
    3. Get out a description of the shape of spacetime around the matter.

    Step 2 is incredibly difficult unless the matter is very simple (e.g. a perfect sphere not evolving in time). So applying them to the universe is even harder where even step 1 is hard (i.e. almost impossible to get an accurate description of the matter in the whole universe).

    Friedmann assumed the universe was, on the biggest scales, roughly like a smooth soup. When he inserted this into Einstein's equations, they produced the result that the universe was expanding and had expanded from a very small point deep in the past.

    By the 1950s, observations had begun to confirm this fact.

    However the problem with Friedmann's solutions is that if you went far back enough the equations described the universe as becoming infinitely small and dense, a singularity. This is a signal that the equations are breaking down and producing nonsense and indicate that General Relativity isn't the whole story*.

    However at the time, people thought that this was simply an artifact of the overly simplistic way Friedmann had described the universe, i.e. as an even soup. If a more realistic description was used it would not produce a singularity.

    Hawking proved that this is wrong. It doesn't matter how realistic you make the description, General Relativity is still going to develop a singularity in the deep past and hence General Relativity is not the ultimate account of the history of our universe.

    A similar issue had plagued the study of black holes. There General Relativity also develops a singularity at the center of the hole and again people thought this was due to treating the star that made the hole as a perfect sphere.

    Hawking proved this wrong as well, even a realistic description of the star will result in a singularity and hence something else besides General Relativity is going on in a black hole.

    *Note: Singularities are not "real" objects, they are just errors showing General Relativity is being applied where it isn't true.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    All Drum and Bass (and jungle) originated out of one song 'Amen Brother' by The Winstons . The sample is at 1:26. It's now called the Amen break.



    Спасибо Comrades

    Jungle and Drum and Bass had many splinter subgenre. Techstep is one. The first tune in this subgenre was DJ Trace's remix of T-Power's "Mutant Jazz" which appeared on S.O.U.R. Recordings in 1995. It featured stepping beats and much more a distorted bass. I still have the white label 12'.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,562 ✭✭✭✭dxhound2005


    Numbers Stations broadcast spy messages which anyone with a shortwave radio can listen to. Using a system called a One Time Pad the spy operating abroad can decode the messages, but the code is totally unbreakable without the pad. The usual format is groups of five numbers. Many countries are still using this system.

    The advantage is that it leaves no internet or telephone line trace, and possession of a radio does not attract suspicion.



    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Following on... (I make no promises this will make sense :D, also it is long)
    Fourier wrote: »
    For the day that's in it, just a couple of posts about Hawking's work.

    Singularity theorems:
    These were the focus of his thesis and his early papers.
    Black Hole Radiation:
    There has long been a conflict between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

    Quantum Mechanics describes matter has fundamentally random, jumping between properties and values with seemingly no causal link between the events.

    General Relativity assumes matter is as it was in older physics, deterministic with fixed properties, for shorthand "Classical". From that Classical description of matter, you get a description of the shape of spacetime as I mentioned above.

    Nobody knew how to make a theory were spacetime interacted with the random matter from Quantum Mechanics, so called Quantum Gravity.

    Hawking was the first to manage to get answers out of a halfway attempt.

    What he did was focus on the most extreme object predicted by General Relativity, a black hole. He assumed the black hole and the star that formed it were governed purely by Classical physics (a reasonable approximation for something as large as a star). However other matter near the black hole was treated with Quantum Mechanics.

    To prevent any interaction between spacetime and quantum matter, he did not allow this matter to cause gravity, although it could respond to it.

    This is what nobody had done before, picked the correct combination of approximations so that the equations became solvable and didn't need a full on new theory of physics, i.e. didn't need a full theory of Quantum Gravity.

    What he actually found is very bizarre and wildly misreported in popular books. It currently cannot be tested directly, but there are hopes it will be in the next thirty or so years. There has been some indirect confirmation.

    Essentially, the quantum matter, in response to the gravity of the black hole, begins to increase. More particles, of any type present near the hole, come into existence, moving in the direction away from the hole. This basically takes the form of a constant flow of these particles, radiation.

    Now is the part that will make your head hurt, it certainly is bizarre to me.

    In popular accounts they say this is because the black hole swallows one of pair of particles that pop out of the vacuum and the other escapes. Others say it is the black hole's energy making the particles. It is actually neither of these.

    What Hawking found is that a black hole changes the definition of a particle. So:

    1. I can't go into the full details without the mathematics, but in essence a particle is a bundle of energy and momentum arranged in a certain way that makes your measuring equipment click. What that "arrangement" is depends on the shape of spacetime.

    2. In Quantum Mechanics "empty space" is simply when the probability of seeing a particle is zero.

    3. Near a black hole, spacetime is so distorted, the arrangement required for energy and momentum to manifest as a particle is very different from flat spacetime.

    4. Even though the space might have been empty originally, that just means 0% chance of seeing flat spacetime particles. That doesn't mean there 0% chance of seeing the new type of particles, the type defined near a black hole. Once the black hole grants access to these new types of particles, then viola, they begin to appear, even from space that was previously empty, because it has always had the probability to manifest them, they just weren't in the right arrangement to be detected. Now that they are, they begin to appear and affect you and your equipment.

    Short version: Black Hole permits "hidden" definitions of particles to interact with you.

    The indirect confirmation is that early in the universe, some of these hidden definitions would have manifested briefly and affected the smooth soup of matter present after the Big Bang and caused small regions to collapse.

    Modelling on supercomputers show these collapsed regions go on to become Galaxies, with the correct properties we see from Galaxies today. So this is possibly the origin of Galaxies.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,733 ✭✭✭StupidLikeAFox


    Sure everybody knows that


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,170 ✭✭✭wildlifeboy


    david75 wrote: »
    Something I’m noticing across loads of subsections and topics on Boards the last few weeks. Seemingly new accounts or older&never used but with really low post counts, coming in and just causing arguments for no reason at all about anything.
    Beginning to wonder are we being troll bombed. Not a reach to wonder is it from Russia either. It’s been established they have ‘troll farms’ disrupting discourse on all sorts of forums and social media globally.

    Watch out for it in your other subscribed topics.
    Tough ****sky, shut it!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,340 ✭✭✭jasonb


    Well, it's taken a few hours over the last few days, but I've finally read this whole thread! It's excellent, so informative, though I hate it when you read a great 'fact', and then find out a few posts or pages later that it's not true. Special mention goes to Fourier, Candie, Srameen and Wibbs for their excellent contributions.

    Here are two of my own favourite pieces of trivia:

    1. The theme song for the classic 70s sitcom "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em." (which started future Broadway and West End Star Michael Crawford doing a lot of his own stunts) is basically a musical version of morse code spelling out the title of the show, not including the apostrophes in the last two words. If you listen to it online you'll notice it immediately...



    2. In 1985 Feargal Sharkey, ex-singer of The Undertones, brought out his first solo album. The first single from it was his biggest hit, 'A Good Heart'. It was written by 19 year old Maria McKee (who had her own big hit with 'Show Me Heaven' in 1990) about her failed relationship with Benmont Tench, the keyboardist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

    The second single from Feargal's album was 'You Little Thief', which was written by Benmont Tench and is about the same failed relationship.

    Edit: Bugger, the second one might not be true. Apparently Benmont Tench has denied it on Twitter in 2014 (not writing the song, but it being about Maria McKee). I hold out hope that he was just being polite and covering that it was about her... :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,186 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Wibbs wrote: »
    On ancient clothing.. The purple pigment used by very rich romans to dye their clothes was worth its weight in gold. It took thousands of a particular shelled mollusc to extract the dye. The colour apparently became better with age and exposure to light and was extremely colour fast so could take years of wear and washing. It was one of the ultimate fashion and status statements. Only one problem... it stank to high heaven of fish.

    Following on from this.
    How many people know that the colourant used for red smarties is derived from crushed insects, or at least it was until recently.

    The bright red colourant is processed from scale insects, in particular the dried body of the female cochineal insect, collected in central America.
    The colorant is called cochineal, also known as carmine or E120.
    It is really from the carminic acid that the insects produce to deter predators.

    Also relating to food and beverages using weird animal stuff.
    Guinness amongst most other brewers use a product called isinglass to help in the clarification or fining of beers.
    It is a collagen that was originally sourced from the the dried swim bladders of sturgeons, especially beluga.
    In later years a cheaper alternative was derived from cod.

    So technically if you are a vegan you should not drink beer. ;)
    Candie wrote: »
    In the Massachusetts Shaker community of the early 1800's, a weaver called Miss Babbitt watched two men work a two-handed saw to cut wood and noted that the cutting action was limited to the forward motion and that the energy expended in pulling the saw back into position doubled the effort involved for half the output. Using her spinning wheel as inspiration, she developed an early prototype of the circular saw and it is that same basic design that is still used in lumber mills across the USA today. In the industrial North of England similar saws were being developed and have been patented, but in accordance with the teaching of the Shakers, Ms Babbitt never patented her invention. She's also credited with inventing a particular kind of timber nail and with improving the design of the spinning wheel, and possibly with an early version of a belt-driven washing machine.

    Ah so that was why they got into the furniture business. :D

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    Oh, Putin. What a tangled web you weave. :mad:

    It wouldn't surprise me, thank them for the popularity of Ancient Aliens.

    http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/russia-and-ancient-astronauts-a-history-of-a-propaganda-campaign


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,209 ✭✭✭scotchy


    jmayo wrote: »
    Following on from this.
    How many people know that the colourant used for red smarties is derived from crushed insects, or at least it was until recently.

    The bright red colourant is processed from scale insects, in particular the dried body of the female cochineal insect, collected in central America.
    The colorant is called cochineal, also known as carmine or E120.
    It is really from the carminic acid that the insects produce to deter predators.

    Also relating to food and beverages using weird animal stuff.
    Guinness amongst most other brewers use a product called isinglass to help in the clarification or fining of beers.
    It is a collagen that was originally sourced from the the dried swim bladders of sturgeons, especially beluga.
    In later years a cheaper alternative was derived from cod.

    So technically if you are a vegan you should not drink beer. ;)



    Ah so that was why they got into the furniture business. :D

    Guinness don't use isinglass any more,

    .

    💙 💛 💙 💛 💙 💛



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Gelatine is in lots of foodstuffs, including sweets and jelly, to stabilise and thicken and is made by boiling the skin, cartilage and bones from mainly pigs or cows and chickens too. Waste not want not.

    Agar is made from seaweed and Pectin is made from apples and citrus fruits, and they both do a similar job. Pectin is replacing gelatine as a listed ingredient in sweets, made so by market forces I suspect.

    As i didnt want to upset anyone, rather than putting a video here, there's a video in the below article link that shows the gelatine end product and then goes backwards to the start of the process.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/how-gummy-sweets-really-made-8758668


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,733 ✭✭✭StupidLikeAFox


    scotchy wrote: »
    Guinness don't use isinglass any more,

    .

    Could make a bad joke out of it though:


    Barman: What happened to my bottle of Guinness Pawel?

    Pawel: Isinglass


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,126 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Nitroglycerin can be used to treat angina.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    One of the ways the Beatles music struck a chord(no pun :D) and sounded so new, different and "special" is though their music sounded like pop songs they regularly used particular chord progressions that were rare if not absent in most pop/rock/blues of the time(and even now). One was the plagal cadence usually found in hymns and older church music and half cadence and deceptive cadence where they threw in a note that the listener wasn't expecting, usually by throwing in a minor note/chord when you'd expect a major. They did this from the early days of their screaming Beatlemania pop stuff all the way through their later experimental stuff. Interestingly all of them did this, even Ringo when he wrote the occasional song. A song like Lennon's Jealous Guy(originally written for the band) is written in the pentatonic scale. Essentially Eastern music, like say trad Indian music. Yet in his hands it doesn't sound "Eastern" at all. And even though Rhythm and Blues was their first love and cited as their major influence they only ever wrote, recorded and released one "proper" 12 bar Blues song(Yer Blues. It did what it said on the tin).

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 77,192 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Nitroglycerin can be used to treat angina.

    It helps the heart go "boom boom". :pac:


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Nitroglycerin can be used to treat angina.
    Nitroglycerin production threw up an interesting furniture innovation, namely the one legged stool. The worker tasked with keeping an eye on the chemical process involved in making the stuff sat on such a stool, designed so he wouldn't fall asleep.

    Another weird one was the early celluloid film stock for "moving pictures" and still. It was in essence a strip of nitroglycerin. If the temperatures rose above a certain point it would burn and keep burning until all the film was consumed. Many old films have been lost because of this. One reason why the projector in your modern cinema is behind a wall at the back peeking through an opening is because of this early danger of runaway conflagration. Interestingly acetate type film stock had been around almost as long, but the celluloid was more flexible and gave better tonality, at least in black and white films.

    Celluloid was used in other applications. Basically it was an early "plastic" so items made of that were often made of celluloid. And they regularly went up in smoke. One example was snooker balls. They were made from ivory and that was expensive so a couple of bods reckoned they could make them from celluloid. Great, only in some early examples a decent hit between two balls on the baize could result in a bit of a bang. Even playing cards coated in the stuff could go up.

    Poker player earlier. With the kind of explosive hand he wasn't expecting.
    zL6EAQs.jpg

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,309 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    The song "Jingle Bells" was originally penned as a Thanksgiving song called "One Horse Open Sleigh" in honour of sleigh races in Massachusetts. It was so well received they decided to alter the lyrics to the Christmas song we know today.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Nitroglycerin is the gift that keeps on giving now that I think about it. Alfred Nobel nabbed it as a constituent he reckoned he could work with for explosives, but after a load of early disasters which claimed many lives including members of his family he jumped upon mixing it with fullers earth(IIRC?) to make dynamite. Gelignite was another guys notion to do essentially the same thing, encapsulate the stuff that goes BANG! in an inert substance and render it much less deadly.

    Years later it was reported Nobel had died and obituaries in the media were quick to paint him as the man who caused the death of millions. Only he hadn't died and could read. This vexed him greatly and because he had no family of his own decided that his memory might be untarnished by this view if he put his legacy to good use. So upon his demise his will handed over a large chunk of his not inconsiderable fortune to a prize that would celebrate the best of humanity in many fields.

    And that's why the Nobel Prize is with us today and it sprang from things that go BOOM! and one legged chairs and dynamite and mayhem and death. And it worked. Now we think of him as a name assisted with the best of us. Fair play Al, fair play.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,309 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    Leo Fender, the man who founded the Fender guitar company and developed the first solid body electric guitar and electric bass guitar was not able play either instrument. He took some piano lessons in his youth and then switched to saxophone for a short while before giving it up so he could concentrate more on his love of radio and electronics. It was this that lead him down the path of developing the solid body electric. He tested out the prototypes by giving them to musicians who then reported back to him.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 969 ✭✭✭Greybottle


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Nitroglycerin production threw up an interesting furniture innovation, namely the one legged stool.

    Celluloid was used in other applications. Basically it was an early "plastic" so items made of that were often made of celluloid. And they regularly went up in smoke. One example was snooker balls. They were made from ivory and that was expensive so a couple of bods reckoned they could make them from celluloid. Great, only in some early examples a decent hit between two balls on the baize could result in a bit of a bang. Even playing cards coated in the stuff could go up.

    Poker player earlier. With the kind of explosive hand he wasn't expecting.
    zL6EAQs.jpg

    One of the flawed pieces of evidence that was used against the Birmingham Six was a Nitroglycerine test. They were all found with traces of it on their fingers, but this was because they were playing cards on the train on the way to the port where they were arrested.

    Card playing on a train would have been a very popular pastime back then: no personal stereos like a Walkman, no mobile devices. You could chat, read a book, look out the window, or play cards.

    Thing is, the police could have arrested thousands of people in pubs that night playing cards and most of them would have been arrested under the same test.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    mzungu wrote: »
    Leo Fender, the man who founded the Fender guitar company and developed the first solid body electric guitar and electric bass guitar was not able play either instrument. He took some piano lessons in his youth and then switched to saxophone for a short while before giving it up so he could concentrate more on his love of radio and electronics. It was this that lead him down the path of developing the solid body electric. He tested out the prototypes by giving them to musicians who then reported back to him.
    The Stratocaster an evolution of the Telecaster was like it's immediate ancestor made for the US country music guitarist. Many of whom sat down while playing and had complained about the shape of electric guitars cutting into their ribs. Hence the cutouts to help avoid that. The sound was more country twang and was good for slide playing when needed(high string to fretboard gap in the early ones). The most popular colour finish at the time was sunburst which showed off the grain of the ash wood in the body. Less perfect grained bodies were painted solid colours and because they were rare(and less popular at the time) they usually make far more money in the vintage market.
    They were also considered a "cheap" way of making a guitar with their bolt on neck, certainly easier and cheaper to make than the more traditional Gibson style guitars. This bolt together layout meant that if a neck bowed or was damaged, you could slap on another neck and away you go, or build one from parts. Eric Clapton's most used example was one such built from different parts example. Jimi Hendrix used to buy his Fender Strats in bulk from a place in New York called Mannie's Music(IIRC?). Like a half dozen at a time.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    We produce three different kinds of tears from the lacrimal glands at the edge of our eyes. The first and most important kind are the tears that keep our eyes moist and comfortable and stop our lids scraping across their surface, called basal tears. Some people don't produce enough of these tears and have to supplement with artificial tears in the form of ointment you place inside your lower lid, or liquid drops.

    We produce reflex tears in response to irritants, like getting some foreign body in the eye like a hair, or perhaps pollen. Those tears are produced in an effort to cleanse the eye of what's irritating it by flushing it out.

    Emotional tears also have a function. Their composition differs from the other kinds of tears - mainly water, salts, antibacterial agents and proteins. Emotional tears contain all these too but also include stress hormones and even some painkiller peptides, which probably explains why a good cry can help some people feel better when the going gets tough.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 77,192 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Candie wrote: »
    We produce three different kinds of tears from the lacrimal glands at the edge of our eyes. The first and most important kind are the tears that keep our eyes moist and comfortable and stop our lids scraping across their surface, called basal tears. Some people don't produce enough of these tears and have to supplement with artificial tears in the form of ointment you place inside your lower lid, or liquid drops.

    We produce reflex tears in response to irritants, like getting some foreign body in the eye like a hair, or perhaps pollen. Those tears are produced in an effort to cleanse the eye of what's irritating it by flushing it out.

    Emotional tears also have a function. Their composition differs from the other kinds of tears - mainly water, salts, antibacterial agents and proteins. Emotional tears contain all these too but also include stress hormones and even some painkiller peptides, which probably explains why a good cry can help some people feel better when the going gets tough.

    I read something recently about it, they've also discovered that tears produced by different emotions have different compositions, i.e. the "ingredients" found in tears of sadness are different or in different percentages to those found in tears of happiness/anger/fear, etc. So maybe there's some truth is the expression "crying bitter tears", after all.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Another weird one was the early celluloid film stock for "moving pictures" and still. It was in essence a strip of nitroglycerin. If the temperatures rose above a certain point it would burn and keep burning until all the film was consumed. Many old films have been lost because of this.

    A few years back I donated a bit of very old film to the IFI. One of their concerns was just this before allowing me to post the film roll to them, and they raise it on their website:
    Another important reason to consider donating your film collection to the Irish Film Archive is the possibility that it might be nitrate stock. Cellulose nitrate film was used commercially until 1952. This film is highly flammable and has been known to spontaneously combust. It is essential that all such film is removed from the public domain. If you think you have a nitrate film please contact the Irish Film Archive immediately.

    http://ifi.ie/preserve/donating-material/


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,126 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    "All hail Argos, and it's laminated book of dreams - laminated so you can wash off the tears of joy.”
    - Bill Bailey


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭evolving_doors


    The infamous 'Tears of Infinite Sadness' when Cartman kills the kid's parents.... and gets Radiohead to hate him.

    tenor.gif


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,794 ✭✭✭Squall Leonhart


    Figs are pollinated by female wasps, who lose their wings in the process of pollination. The wasp has no way to get out of the fig and so they die inside, and then the fig's enzymes breakdown and dissolve the wasp.

    Mmmm wasp rolls!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,212 ✭✭✭✭B.A._Baracus


    After you read the following you'll second guess the use of the word 'has-been' in acting ;)

    But in Hollywood actors, like musicians, get royalties. But they are more commonly called 'Residuals' in tinsel town.
    In 2014 the main cast of the hit TV show Friends received $2 million dollars each a part of their residuals. Friends is a popular TV show still airing throughout the world of course.

    Some actors (usually bigger stars) can even get a share of dvd or back in the day vhs sales.

    So next time you hear someone say that an actor is a has been and hasn't done anything in 20 years? Look towards the actors collection of work. Even one hit movie or TV show can bring checks in for decades to come.

    Bob Gunton, the actor who played the warden in the amazing Shawshank Redemption, once said in 2004 that he was still receiving "steady income, close to six figures".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,941 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    After you read the following you'll second guess the use of the word 'has-been' in acting ;)

    But in Hollywood actors, like musicians, get royalties. But they are more commonly called 'Residuals' in tinsel town.
    In 2014 the main cast of the hit TV show Friends received $2 million dollars each a part of their residuals. Friends is a popular TV show still airing throughout the world of course.

    Some actors (usually bigger stars) can even get a share of dvd or back in the day vhs sales.

    So next time you hear someone say that an actor is a has been and hasn't done anything in 20 years? Look towards the actors collection of work. Even one hit movie or TV show can bring checks in for decades to come.

    Bob Gunton, the actor who played the warden in the amazing Shawshank Redemption, once said in 2004 that he was still receiving "steady income, close to six figures".
    Reminds me of Don McLean, when he was once asked what is real the meaning of American Pie. "It means I don't have to work another day in my life if I don't want to".


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    Everyone knows that 'ultimate' means final or last .
    I'd say most people know that 'penultimate' means second last.
    I wonder did you know that 'antepenultimate' means third last? What a great word. You don't hear it all that often.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,126 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Back in the days of written letters the PostScript was used to add notes.

    If I had any weakness in this direction, I would devise a mysterious literary embellishment to be known as the antescript.
    - Myles na gCopaleen


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,722 ✭✭✭air assault


    Mr T never said I pity the fool in the A Team.

    He said it in a scene from Rocky 3


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,212 ✭✭✭✭B.A._Baracus


    To continue on with the Mr T facts (and yeah, I know, my username :pac: )

    - He and George Peppard (Hannibal) did not get on.
    - In the 80's he also had a rap album, a cereal and a cartoon. This may explain why come the 90s he just fizzled out as he was putting himself out there a lot. But hey who knows, you got to capitalise on your success while it's going too.
    - He had cancer a few years ago but bounced back.
    - For all of you non-wrestling fans out there: He wrestled in the main event of the first WrestleMania tagging up with Hulk Hogan and going up against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndoff. According to Piper, he and Orndoff would be waiting in the New York cold trying to hail a taxi (after the show, trying to get back to their hotel) while Hogan and Mr T were whisked off to the WrestleMania after party.


  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    To continue on with the Mr T facts (and yeah, I know, my username :pac: )

    - He and George Peppard (Hannibal) did not get on.
    - In the 80's he also had a rap album, a cereal and a cartoon. This may explain why come the 90s he just fizzled out as he was putting himself out there a lot. But hey who knows, you got to capitalise on your success while it's going too.
    - He had cancer a few years ago but bounced back.
    - For all of you non-wrestling fans out there: He wrestled in the main event of the first WrestleMania tagging up with Hulk Hogan and going up against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndoff. According to Piper, he and Orndoff would be waiting in the New York cold trying to hail a taxi (after the show, trying to get back to their hotel) while Hogan and Mr T were whisked off to the WrestleMania after party.

    Mr T was a very popular contestant on Dancing With The Stars a couple of years ago. He was the least coordinated dancer you've ever seen, hilariously bad but absolutely charming. He lasted long after he should have. An awfully nice chap altogether.

    I was in tears laughing at some of his dance performances, but he sure gave it his everything.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,309 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    According to Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the 2011 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the earth day by 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

    Blurb on it here:
    Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis


    The March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis. But don't worry—you won't notice the difference.

    Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake—the fifth largest since 1900—affected Earth's rotation. His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

    The calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude. Earth's figure axis should not be confused with its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet). This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth's axis in space—only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that.

    Both calculations will likely change as data on the quake are further refined.

    In comparison, following last year's magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile, Gross estimated the Chile quake should have shortened the length of day by about 1.26 microseconds and shifted Earth's figure axis by about 8 centimeters (3 inches). A similar calculation performed after the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake revealed it should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted Earth's figure axis by about 7 centimeters, or 2.76 inches. How an individual earthquake affects Earth's rotation depends on its size (magnitude), location and the details of how the fault slipped.

    Gross said that, in theory, anything that redistributes Earth's mass will change Earth's rotation.

    "Earth's rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents," he said. "Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake. The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about 1 meter (3.3 feet) over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake."

    Gross said that while we can measure the effects of the atmosphere and ocean on Earth's rotation, the effects of earthquakes, at least up until now, have been too small to measure. The computed change in the length of day caused by earthquakes is much smaller than the accuracy with which scientists can currently measure changes in the length of the day. However, since the position of the figure axis can be measured to an accuracy of about 5 centimeters (2 inches), the estimated 17-centimeter shift in the figure axis from the Japan quake may actually be large enough to observe if scientists can adequately remove the larger effects of the atmosphere and ocean from the Earth rotation measurements. He and other scientists will be investigating this as more data become available.

    Gross said the changes in Earth's rotation and figure axis caused by earthquakes should not have any impacts on our daily lives. "These changes in Earth's rotation are perfectly natural and happen all the time," he said. "People shouldn't worry about them."

    https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/japanquake/earth20110314.html


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,268 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    Very shortly after the Chernobyl explosion, it was discovered that magma was melting its way down through the unit's concrete superstructure - close to a room where water was pooled for cooling. If the magma leaked in, it would hit the water and this would trigger another huge explosion. A 3-man team volunteered to go down and drain the area, which they successfully did. It was generally believed all three died within months, but apparently two are still alive today.

    Anyways, it was then discovered that further beneath the cooling room was a natural tablebase. If the magma leaked into this, the resulting explosion would destroy Minsk, 200 miles away, and render Europe practically uninhabitable. So Russia's top miners were flown in from all over the country to dig a tunnel 500ft long under the reactor, with a room 100ft high at the end; the plan was to cool the magma with liquid nitrogen. Working on continuous 3-hour shifts, in 50 degree heat and with very little oxygen due to the cramped conditions, they dug the tunnel in 3 months, half the time they'd normally dig it in.

    None were told about the risk, and many died of radiation poisoning.

    All in vain, as the magma stopped of its own accord.

    The main city nearby, Pripyat, had its entire population of 50000 evacuated three days after the explosion. But they were actually lucky. The two gas plumes separated and largely drifted either side of the town. Otherwise all 50000 would have been dead by the time of evacuation.

    Reactor 4 is still smouldering today, at temperatures up to 150 degrees


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    cdeb wrote: »
    Anyways, it was then discovered that further beneath the cooling room was a natural tablebase. If the magma leaked into this, the resulting explosion would destroy Minsk, 200 miles away, and render Europe practically uninhabitable.
    Would you have a reference or a link for this cdeb? Fascinating if true, but I'm wondering at the physics of it. :)


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,268 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    Link is the tour I was on today. :)

    Or try the documentary "Battle for Chernobyl" on YouTube.

    It didn't go into specifics, but I imagine an issue has to have been the other three operating reactors at close proximity to number 4. So the magma/water reaction would create intense steam, and upwards pressure on the lead/sand dumped into the reactor to try seal it. But the pressure has to go somewhere, and reactor 3 is right beside 4. I can see that not ending well at all


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Very interesting.

    See here anybody else:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5GTvaW34O0

    Go to 33:55

    Thanks for the info cdeb.

    A five megaton explosion conventionally could not raise a city as far away as Minsk and irradiate Europe, but this guy is a physicist who worked at Chernobyl, so obviously I am missing something. I'll check back in after I read the original papers.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,268 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    It could be wrong of course! Interested to know if you find out more.

    Also, a tablebase is a chess term to describe the solutions to all possible positions with 7 or fewer pieces left on the board.

    I meant "water table" in my original post!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Okay this turned out to be fascinating.

    What confused me was:
    (a) How could a fission plant yield a megaton level explosion. That range is conventionally associated with nuclear fusion.
    (b) 5 megatons is not enough to destroy or raise (translation used in documentary), which I took to mean "level", a city that far away.
    (c) How could something of only 5 megatons affect Europe.

    First about point (b), this is a quote from Vassili Nesterenko, a Belarusian physicist who worked on the disaster. It's just a translation issue from Belarussian to English. He just means "mess up", "ruin", "make useless", "leave uninhabitable". Of course being uninhabitable "destroys" a city, so this is just my confusion over subtitles.

    More interestingly (a) and (c). So basically after the meltdown, a slowly descending ball of molten electric cables, concrete, graphite and uranium from the reactor core, etc descended into the ground. This was basically the melting remains of the reactor and all its equipment, melting walls and gathering them into itself as it descended.

    Emergency workers tried to put it out, by spraying it with thousands of kilograms of water.

    However underneath the entire reactor complex lay tons of uranium waste. It was found that if the molten ball, the water from the emergency services and the uranium waste came into contact it would result in a nuclear fusion explosion. Here's how:

    Basically the heat of the molten ball was enough to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in the water. If the molten ball then hit the uranium waste, it would provide enough heat and additional uranium to cause a nuclear fission explosion. The fission explosion would then provide enough heat to allow the hydrogen from the water to undergo nuclear fusion like in the core of the sun. To the tune of 5 megatons, hence point (a).

    The explosion would kick hundreds of tons of irradiated concrete and cabling and plastic high enough into the air to cause incredibly toxic nuclear fallout all over Europe for years. The radioactive plastic would in particular be highly mutative to organic life. Hence (c).

    Apparently French scientists doubted this conclusion, but it was reconfirmed in simulations by Grigori Medvedev, chief engineer at the plant. It has since been reconfirmed in other simulations and is quantum mechanically valid.

    So holy **** :eek:! Close call!

    Thanks for this cdeb, I would have naively thought the same as the French teams. Can't beat Soviet nuclear know how! :)


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,309 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    The Killers' song "Mr Brightside" has spent 200 weeks in the UK chart - 14 years after being released. It peaked at number 10 back in 2004 but ever since streaming data was introduced to the UK charts in 2014 it has experienced something of a renaissance. According to the Official Charts Company, "Mr Brightside" has been streamed 45 million times in the last year alone and has averaged 878,000 plays and 696 downloads per week in 2018 so far.

    According to the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), it’s also the most-streamed song of any track released before 2010.


    100 in the charts this week: Link


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,268 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    Fourier wrote: »
    Okay this turned out to be fascinating.

    What confused me was:
    (a) How could a fission plant yield a megaton level explosion. That range is conventionally associated with nuclear fusion.
    (b) 5 megatons is not enough to destroy or raise (translation used in documentary), which I took to mean "level", a city that far away.
    (c) How could something of only 5 megatons affect Europe.

    First about point (b), this is a quote from Vassili Nesterenko, a Belarusian physicist who worked on the disaster. It's just a translation issue from Belarussian to English. He just means "mess up", "ruin", "make useless", "leave uninhabitable". Of course being uninhabitable "destroys" a city, so this is just my confusion over subtitles.

    More interestingly (a) and (c). So basically after the meltdown, a slowly descending ball of molten electric cables, concrete, graphite and uranium from the reactor core, etc descended into the ground. This was basically the melting remains of the reactor and all its equipment, melting walls and gathering them into itself as it descended.

    Emergency workers tried to put it out, by spraying it with thousands of kilograms of water.

    However underneath the entire reactor complex lay tons of uranium waste. It was found that if the molten ball, the water from the emergency services and the uranium waste came into contact it would result in a nuclear fusion explosion. Here's how:

    Basically the heat of the molten ball was enough to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in the water. If the molten ball then hit the uranium waste, it would provide enough heat and additional uranium to cause a nuclear fission explosion. The fission explosion would then provide enough heat to allow the hydrogen from the water to undergo nuclear fusion like in the core of the sun. To the tune of 5 megatons, hence point (a).

    The explosion would kick hundreds of tons of irradiated concrete and cabling and plastic high enough into the air to cause incredibly toxic nuclear fallout all over Europe for years. The radioactive plastic would in particular be highly mutative to organic life. Hence (c).

    Apparently French scientists doubted this conclusion, but it was reconfirmed in simulations by Grigori Medvedev, chief engineer at the plant. It has since been reconfirmed in other simulations and is quantum mechanically valid.

    So holy **** :eek:! Close call!

    Thanks for this cdeb, I would have naively thought the same as the French teams. Can't beat Soviet nuclear know how! :)
    I think I should point out that since my last post, I've walked home from the pub. In the same time, you've worked all that out. That's bloody efficient!


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Fourier wrote: »
    Okay this turned out to be fascinating.

    What confused me was:
    (a) How could a fission plant yield a megaton level explosion. That range is conventionally associated with nuclear fusion.
    (b) 5 megatons is not enough to destroy or raise (translation used in documentary), which I took to mean "level", a city that far away.
    (c) How could something of only 5 megatons affect Europe.

    First about point (b), this is a quote from Vassili Nesterenko, a Belarusian physicist who worked on the disaster. It's just a translation issue from Belarussian to English. He just means "mess up", "ruin", "make useless", "leave uninhabitable". Of course being uninhabitable "destroys" a city, so this is just my confusion over subtitles.

    More interestingly (a) and (c). So basically after the meltdown, a slowly descending ball of molten electric cables, concrete, graphite and uranium from the reactor core, etc descended into the ground. This was basically the melting remains of the reactor and all its equipment, melting walls and gathering them into itself as it descended.

    Emergency workers tried to put it out, by spraying it with thousands of kilograms of water.

    However underneath the entire reactor complex lay tons of uranium waste. It was found that if the molten ball, the water from the emergency services and the uranium waste came into contact it would result in a nuclear fusion explosion. Here's how:

    Basically the heat of the molten ball was enough to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in the water. If the molten ball then hit the uranium waste, it would provide enough heat and additional uranium to cause a nuclear fission explosion. The fission explosion would then provide enough heat to allow the hydrogen from the water to undergo nuclear fusion like in the core of the sun. To the tune of 5 megatons, hence point (a).

    The explosion would kick hundreds of tons of irradiated concrete and cabling and plastic high enough into the air to cause incredibly toxic nuclear fallout all over Europe for years. The radioactive plastic would in particular be highly mutative to organic life. Hence (c).

    Apparently French scientists doubted this conclusion, but it was reconfirmed in simulations by Grigori Medvedev, chief engineer at the plant. It has since been reconfirmed in other simulations and is quantum mechanically valid.

    So holy **** :eek:! Close call!

    Thanks for this cdeb, I would have naively thought the same as the French teams. Can't beat Soviet nuclear know how! :)


    Just a pity about their Mr Burns level of health and safety.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,126 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Fourier wrote: »
    Okay this turned out to be fascinating.

    What confused me was:
    (a) How could a fission plant yield a megaton level explosion. That range is conventionally associated with nuclear fusion.
    (b) 5 megatons is not enough to destroy or raise (translation used in documentary), which I took to mean "level", a city that far away.
    (c) How could something of only 5 megatons affect Europe.
    Most of the energy from a H-Bomb is typically provided by Depleted Uranium. But yeah it's the excess neutrons from the fusion that drives it.

    One of the uses for neutron bombs was for anti-ballistic missiles, the stream of neutrons was supposed to cause some fission in incoming ICBM's , hopefully enough to cause a fizzle.


    If you could remove all the control rods at once bad things happen. In the most extreme case there was the SL-1 reactor which went prompt critical too fast for negative feedback caused by boiling coolant to keep up. For a short time it was pumping out 6,000 times it's design power.


    Fallout from a dirty bomb could spread fallout over a larger area.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,558 ✭✭✭✭Fourier


    Most of the energy from a H-Bomb is typically provided by Depleted Uranium. But yeah it's the excess neutrons from the fusion that drives it.
    When you say "most of the energy" do you mean "most of the energy to initiate it"? Most of the total energy comes from the fusing of light nuclei.

    EDIT: What's surprising about the Chernobyl case and what I was missing is that the light nuclei is provided by the water. I never would have thought "free floating water" delivered in an uncontrolled manner could provide fuel to a fusion reaction.


  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I want to pick a husband from this thread, it's full of so many interesting people. I'd never get bored.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 77,192 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    I bet you didn't know your significant other wouldn't be too happy to read that, Candie. :D


  • Advertisement
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement