I bet you didnt know that

The term rain check is pretty widely used as a polite informal way to stay away from or cancel an engagement. I myself understood that its origins were directly weather related. As in, it was common to say something like "we'll check on the day, and if it is raining, we will cancel." This was only partially true.

Heard this morning that the true reason and origin of the phrase came from Baseball in the early 20th century. If a game was rained off or cancelled outright due to poor weather, fans were given a voucher to attend a future game. This voucher or rain check used the American spelling (check as opposed to cheque) and the term moved in to common usage. I think it is a good example of where something is misunderstood and yet the false understanding is as believable and accurate as the correct one.

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

There is a rare mental illness called the Cotard delusion (or informally as Walking Dead Syndrome) in which the sufferer thinks they are dead.
It can happen due to some sort of brain damage such as an accident or a stroke.
There are successful drug treatments now, but people in the past with the syndrome have died of starvation through thinking that they don't need to eat because they are dead...

Did they try haunting people or places?

b318isp wrote: »

You'd probably guess that volcanic lava is heated by pressure, but you may be surprised to know that it is substantially heated by two other major mechanisms:

1. Continuous cooling of the earth's core and mantle since the earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago
2. Radioactive decay from naturally occurring materials such as plutonium and uranium

I found it hard to think that there would be a substantial affect from billions of years of cooling, nor enough radioactive material to cause heating. However, the vast majority of the thermal energy within the earth is from these means, with a tiny amount from the sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/how-lava-formed

Think of it this way..cooling=contraction=pressure=heat.

There are probably other airports that have this or similar, but the set-down area for departing passengers in Gdansk airport in Poland is officially labelled as "Kiss And Fly"

blastman wrote: »

There are probably other airports that have this or similar, but the set-down area for departing passengers in Gdansk airport in Poland is officially labelled as "Kiss And Fly"

Same for french airports

Actually, it was the second
https://www.bible-history.com/archaeology/babylon/nebuchadnezzar-brick.html

It being the 80's when I was there, and people being a lot less aware of conservation, my parents may have nicked a brick.

Deebles McBeebles wrote:

In Britain in the last century, it was quite acceptable for a gentleman to lose his virginity to one of London's many whore dogs. Dickens and Prince Albert both boasted of their experience.

WTF,whore dogs that's a new one

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

The dog feels nothing. It's made of string.

The fox feels nothing

Conchir wrote: »

Many people feel Christmas is too commercial these days, what with all the ads and shops staying open all hours right up to the day. However, it's not exactly a new phenomenon, at least in the US. Macy's department store in New York stayed open until midnight on Christmas Eve in 1867.

Yeah but they weren't blasting out Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody on the 6th of November.

Park and Ride, is that where people go dogging?

The longest theoretical line of sight (furthest you can see standing on the ground) on the planet is not from Mt Everest, but from but from Dankova, Kyrgyzstan (5.971 m.) to Hindu Tagh, China (6.436 m.) a total distance of 538km (334 mi).




The longest confirmed line of sight photograph (ground to ground on earth) has distance of 443km. from Pic de Finestrelles (Pyrenees) to Pic Gaspard (Alps).

Here's the photo:




This is what it looks like on a map:



FWIW a 1.8m tall person can see about 5 Km on perfectly level ground, or standing beside the sea.

DJIMI TRARORE wrote: »

WTF,whore dogs that's a new one