I bet you didnt know that

Lon.C wrote: »

A lot of Asian people think that westerners eat sandwiches all the time.
They also think we smell of milk as they are mostly lactose intolerant as adults
and find it funny that we drink milk as it's only for babies in Asia.

LOL, did you find those in Viz!? Entirely untrue!

Ten of Swords wrote: »

One of the lesser known operations of World War 2 was Operation Countenance, a joint Soviet-British invasion of Iran in 1941.

The British accused Iran of being sympathetic to the Nazi's (although Iran had declared neutrality) and occupied the southwest of the country, where most of the oilfields are. The Soviets occupied the north of the country, including the capital Tehran, as they wanted to create a strip of land called the Persian Corridor which joined the Soviet territories of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. This became a vital supply line for the remainder of the war.

The invasion was a surprise attack with no declaration of war being made. Iranian defenses were completely overwhelmed in 4 days and the allies took extremely light casualties (less than 100 dead), the Iranian army suffered much higher losses. The British and Soviets withdrew from the captured territories in 1946

Britain also invaded neutral Iceland in 1940.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

He just seems sad by normal standards. In Hungarian terms he's the proverbial pig in sh1t.

They have a saying in Hungary, "a pessimist is just a realistic optimist". If ever a national temperament was summed up in a sentence...

I've only ever personally known 2 Hungarians, both were very nice pleasant people.....but I never heard either of them laugh, even when drunk. Actually I don't think I ever even seen them smile!

Lon.C wrote: »

A lot of Asian people think that westerners eat sandwiches all the time.
They also think we smell of milk as they are mostly lactose intolerant as adults
and find it funny that we drink milk as it's only for babies in Asia.

I've never heard the sandwich thing before, but my mates brother in law is Chinese and he insists that all Irish people smell of milk!

The ability to tolerate milk in adulthood is actually a genetic mutation (lactase persistence), most adult mammals don't drink milk as they loose the ability to digest it while still young. The mutation is far more prevalent in Caucasians than it is in other races.

I'm currently reading a book about the Rape of Nanking (warning, even for a wikipedia page, that's not for the faint hearted). It was horrific. japanese troops killed hundreds of thousands in a 6-8 week period. They tortured, maimed, mutilated and raped the population of a city.

There were a small group of foreigners present. They cordoned off an area of two square miles of the city and called it an international safe zone. About 250,000 - 300,000 chinese people took refuge there and most survived. Most of the 300k people outside the safe zone died.
the japanese perpetrated horrific crimes. and even made games out of it like how fast could they kill 100 people by decapitation and using people for bayonet practice for newer troops.

Of the group of foreigners present there was one guy who really sticks out. He's one of the primary organisers of the international zone and is responsible for saving the the lives of thousands of chinese people. His name was John Rabe. His house is preserved in Nanking and he's viewed as a hero for all the work he did to save people. He was also a high ranking Nazi....
He'd walk around the city saving people and when the Japanese would try to stop him, he's point at his swastika armband.

Here's a couple of articles about him.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nazi-who-became-the-angel-of-nanjing-1.1032981
Here's an excerpt from the book I'm reading that specifically mentions him
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-nazi-leader-who-in-1937-became-the-oskar-schindler-of-china/251525/

Nixonbot wrote: »

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but there's a few "uncontacted" peoples still out there, in places like the Amazon rainforest.

Probably the most famous is the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal, and they rather violently reject outside contact, firing arrows at helicopters and the like.

They're in the news today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-46286215

So much for Psalms 28:7

mzungu wrote: »

Aye, quite a few in Leitrim!! :pac:

Hey I'm from Leitrim, watch it or I'll get my bow out...oh

I'll ban the lot of yis :mad:

New Home wrote: »

Don't worry Nixonbot, I'm sure that was a typo. He didn't mean Leitrim, he meant Roscommon.

:pac:

Everybody knows that Roscommon was invented to scare small children.

Ryath wrote: »

The rabbit holes this thread can lead you down!

Using a World War 2 anti-aircraft targeting computer.
https://www.diyphotography.net/alfred-hitchcocks-vertigo-possibly-first-movie-use-computer-animation/

Hitchcock hired John Whitney who rigged up a WWII 850-lbs, 11,000-components anti-aircraft targeting computer called The M5 gun director to a platform. It was a mechanical computer which needed 5 soldiers to operate, but a computer nonetheless. He then placed cels on that platform and used a pendulum to achieve the needed endless rotation.

“Whitney realized that the gun director could rotate endlessly, and in perfect synchronization with the swinging of a pendulum. He placed his animation cels on the platform that held the gun director, and above it suspended a pendulum from the ceiling which held a pen that was connected to a 24-foot high pressurized paint reservoir. The movement of the pendulum in relation to the rotation of the gun director generated the spiral drawings used in Vertigo’s opening sequence.

Instruction manual!
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/utils/getfile/collection/p15040coll1/id/175/filename/176.pdf

Cool! I knew it was computer generated imagery (as opposed to hand drawn animation or optical effects) but I didn't know how it was achieved.

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Does anybody know which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The egg came first.