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

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  • #1742
    maudgonner
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,455 ✭✭✭maudgonner


    Baby porcupines are called porcupettes.


    I just thought everybody would like to know that.


    (And their quills are soft when they're born, hardening up a few hours after birth. Which makes sense, otherwise there would be a lot of one-porcupette families and traumatised porcu-mammies :eek:)


  • #1743
    Chancer3001
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,480 ✭✭✭Chancer3001


    97% of birds species dont have a penis.

    But ducks, swans, geese and ostriches do.


  • #1744
    mikhail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,862 ✭✭✭mikhail


    In a similar vein, some species of animal (including humans) have a gall bladder, and some do not, which is not terribly interesting. Much stranger: some giraffes have a gall bladder and some do not. I've never heard of a species with a variable number of organs before!


  • #1745
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    If you did Leaving Cert Physics I'm sure you'll know this but the image on our retina is upside down. Somewhere from there to the brain it gets turned upside-up.


  • #1746
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Deleted User wrote: »
    If you did Leaving Cert Physics I'm sure you'll know this but the image on our retina is upside down. Somewhere from there to the brain it gets turned upside-up.

    Patterns of light are perceived by photoreceptors in the retina, and the information is sent to the brain via the optic nerve and there it gets translated into the picture. The retina and optic nerve are outcrops of the brain. It's all an interesting jigsaw of assembly-line data interpretation.


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  • #1747
    Evade
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,820 ✭✭✭Evade


    Your brain can adapt reasonable quickly to strange vision. If you wore glasses that inverted or mirrored your vision you'd adjust to it after a few days and would be able to function normally again.

    EDIT: If you want to experimentally see that your vision is upside down cover one eye with your hand and gently poke the bottom corner of the open one through the lid. You should see the shadow created by the pressure you're putting on your eye in the top opposite corner of your field of vision.


  • #1748
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Evade wrote: »
    Your brain can adapt reasonable quickly to strange vision. If you wore glasses that inverted or mirrored your vision you'd adjust to it after a few days and would be able to function normally again.

    And there's always tooth-in-eye surgery to restore sight to people who have bad surface damage or scarring to the eye. Amazing stuff altogether.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis


  • #1749
    BonnieSituation
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,088 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    New Home wrote: »
    I heard someone say yesterday that the combined data collected for the photo of the black hole was too big to be transmitted by internet, and was physically brought to one place to be collated.

    Too big for the internet!
    sunnysoutheast wrote: »
    It's very common practice to move very large data sets into the cloud via physical means rather than over the internet.

    AWS will send you out ruggedized drives if you ask for one, or even a shipping container!
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
    - Andrew S. Tanenbaum



    This reminded me of this:

    https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

    and this:

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


  • #1750
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 78,296 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Candie wrote: »
    And there's always tooth-in-eye surgery to restore sight to people who have bad surface damage or scarring to the eye. Amazing stuff altogether.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis

    Some people would have given their eye-teeth for that! :D
    KAGY wrote: »
    I think it's the opposite, though we could be talking about either end of the seeing process. the eyeball can't see anything that it stationary relative to itself. but our eye compensates by being constantly in motion itself. they did an experiment where they glued a target to a contact lens and it disappeared.

    Now, this was in the maps thread, but I'm going to ask here - is that why you "forget" you can see floaters in your eyes unless you're looking at a white surface?


  • #1751
    Badly Drunk Boy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,976 ✭✭✭Badly Drunk Boy


    Evade wrote: »
    Your brain can adapt reasonable quickly to strange vision. If you wore glasses that inverted or mirrored your vision you'd adjust to it after a few days and would be able to function normally again.
    A very basic version of that, but a storage machine in work was changed recently. I told a colleague that it was now a bit counter-intuitive; if you want a high number shelf, go 'down'. He said "Is that a thing? Up is down? Like some film said?". Within seconds I found that he was thinking of the film 'Pirate Of The Caribbean 3'. I haven't seen it but I presume the ship sank and they had to co-ordinate their perception to the new reality (The Poseidon Adventure from my youth.) :pac:


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  • #1752
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,592 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Is that a thing? Up is down?
    It is indeed, this is why most games allow you to have inverted controls.
    https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/feb/28/why-do-video-game-players-invert-the-controls


  • #1753
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 78,296 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    its_steve116 wrote: »
    The Simpsons and Family Guy are animated in South Korea.

    As revealed by Banksy.



  • #1754
    Chancer3001
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,480 ✭✭✭Chancer3001


    The outerbridge crossing connects staten island to new jersey.

    You'd think its the most outermost bridge given its name but it's named after Eugenis Harvey Outerbridge.


  • #1755
    KevRossi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,574 ✭✭✭KevRossi


    Two countries on the planet have seats that are reserved for unelected religous leaders; Iran and ........
    the UK (House of Lords)


  • #1756
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Horror actor Vincent Price had a cooking show, and released several books on the topic with his wife
    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1610468/


  • #1757
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    And Christopher Lee released three metal albums between 2010 and 2014 - which included Christmas tunes such as 'Jingle Hell' - while in his 90's. His metal career was one of the last adventures of a man who's life reads like a work of fiction. He was related to Ian Fleming, who's literary superspy James Bond was rumoured to have been inspired by Lee's real-life badassery.

    I don't think he had a cookery show though.


  • #1758
    Adyx
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,997 ✭✭✭Adyx


    Really good article on Ars Technica about the electro-mechanical computers used on US warships. They used gears, cams and rollers to do calculus in real-time and the digital computers introduced in the 80's aren't that much more accurate (but are far lighter and require less crew).


  • #1759
    mikhail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,862 ✭✭✭mikhail


    Candie wrote: »
    And Christopher Lee released three metal albums between 2010 and 2014 - which included Christmas tunes such as 'Jingle Hell' - while in his 90's. His metal career was one of the last adventures of a man who's life reads like a work of fiction. He was related to Ian Fleming, who's literary superspy James Bond was rumoured to have been inspired by Lee's real-life badassery.

    I don't think he had a cookery show though.
    There's a story that he pulled up another actor on the LotR set to tell him that that wasn't what a man dying from being knifed sounds like, something he knew from personal experience having served in WWII.

    His service was varied and would make for a hell of a story by itself: he volunteered to help out in Finland, trained as a fighter pilot before an eye injury ended that, worked in RAF intelligence, fought in North Africa and Italy, and hunted war criminals (a job he was put to partly because he was fluent in French, German and Italian, among others). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee#Military_service_during_the_Second_World_War


  • #1760
    scouttio
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 386 ✭✭scouttio


    mikhail wrote: »
    There's a story that he pulled up another actor on the LotR set to tell him that that wasn't what a man dying from being knifed sounds like, something he knew from personal experience having served in WWII.

    His service was varied and would make for a hell of a story by itself: he volunteered to help out in Finland, trained as a fighter pilot before an eye injury ended that, worked in RAF intelligence, fought in North Africa and Italy, and hunted war criminals (a job he was put to partly because he was fluent in French, German and Italian, among others). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee#Military_service_during_the_Second_World_War

    It was his own character getting stabbed. Director Peter Jackson told him to let out a yell. Lee told him thats not what happens when you get stabbed in the back, its more like you feel all the air go out of you


  • #1761
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I was reminded by this by the connection between Christopher Lee and Ian Fleming, above.

    In the 18th Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born to a white father and enslaved mother in Haiti. His dad wasn't a total bad guy as he eventually released the family from slavery and took Thomas to Paris, where despite his mixed-race heritage - or perhaps because of it - he became a well known figure in the lower echelons of the Parisian social scene. He liked to drink, and often found himself in dangerous confrontations with people offended at his confidence in resisting the discrimination people would attempt. In short, he refused to 'know his place'. He became a renowned dueller who once fought three duels in one day, a swashbuckler who never buckled where he could swash. He was also a legendary womanizer. which probably explains a few of the duels.

    As the French revolution gathered swell, Dumas joined the Revolutionary Army to fight for equality and an end to slavery for all men, and was took two years to be promoted to Corporal. Within a further two years, he was a General fighting the revolutionary wars from the front, with and sometimes without, his army behind him. He singlehandedly held a strategically important bridge from the hands of the Austrians after his army chose to flee an apparently hopeless situation - until they eventually came back.. His exploits made the papers and music hall acts wrote songs about him.

    At this point enter notorious racist Napoleon, who, jealous of the notoriety and popularity of Dumas saw his opportunity when Dumas was shipwrecked behind enemy lines and refused to send help to rescue him, or funds to buy his release when he was imprisoned in a dungeon. Napoleon also punished anyone who spoke of Dumas' achievements, and had the press silenced, and so his name sank into obscurity. He spent almost ten years imprisoned, and on his return to France became ill and died within a year.


    His fictionalized exploits were published as The Count Of Monte Cristo, written by his son, Alexandre Dumas.


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  • #1762
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Michigan State University professor emeritus David Wartinger carried out an unusual study after several patients reported passing kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain in Walt Disney World. One even passed three different stones after riding a few times.

    Wartinger published a pilot study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, and expanded on this by loading up his backpack with 3d model of a hollow bladder containing four appropriately-sized fake kidney stones and taking to the rollercoaster for 20 rides. His findings supported the results of the pilot study. In the pilot study, there was a 64% pass rate when sitting in the last car of the ride. The front car had a less impressive 16% pass rate. The expanded study saw a 70% back-car-pass-rate, and both studies had a 100% pass rate when it involved upper kidney chamber stones.

    Not all roller coasters are equally efficient, and other theme park rides didn't yield the same results. Prof Wartinger explains that the ideal coaster for passing kidney stones "is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements." So there you have it, certain rollercoasters can be an efficient way to expel kidney stones.

    One can only imagine how efficient they are at curing constipation.


  • #1763
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 78,296 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    I can tell you this for nothing, though. If your problem is that you've a weak stomach, it's always best if you sit in the front car... good luck on the loop-the-loop, though.


  • #1764
    GrumpyMe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,195 ✭✭✭GrumpyMe


    New Home wrote: »
    ...it's always best if you sit in the front car....
    Not for the other riders!;)


  • #1765
    Carry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭Carry


    Candie wrote: »
    Michigan State University professor emeritus David Wartinger carried out an unusual study after several patients reported passing kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain in Walt Disney World. One even passed three different stones after riding a few times.

    Wartinger published a pilot study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, and expanded on this by loading up his backpack with 3d model of a hollow bladder containing four appropriately-sized fake kidney stones and taking to the rollercoaster for 20 rides. His findings supported the results of the pilot study. In the pilot study, there was a 64% pass rate when sitting in the last car of the ride. The front car had a less impressive 16% pass rate. The expanded study saw a 70% back-car-pass-rate, and both studies had a 100% pass rate when it involved upper kidney chamber stones.

    Not all roller coasters are equally efficient, and other theme park rides didn't yield the same results. Prof Wartinger explains that the ideal coaster for passing kidney stones "is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements." So there you have it, certain rollercoasters can be an efficient way to expel kidney stones.

    One can only imagine how efficient they are at curing constipation.

    Though passing kidney stones in real life, not in a backpack, is no fun ride whatsoever, believe me...


  • #1766
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 78,296 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    GrumpyMe wrote: »
    Not for the other riders!;)

    That was my point. :) At least there you won't get anyone else's "stuff".


  • #1767
    Sleepy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,560 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Imagine being given a prescription to go ride Big Thunder Mountain in Florida! Wonder would the medical card cover the flights and accommodation? If you could swing your partner as a carer for the trip, it might almost be worth having kidney stones (or bribing a dodgy doctor to say you have them) in the first place!


  • #1768
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 78,296 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    I've been picturing Dr Nick doing an "infomercial" on how to pass kidney stones the fun fun fun way! ^^^


  • #1769
    cdeb
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,432 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    In Life, The Universe, and Everything - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book dealing with the Krikkit Wars - one of the bails the evil (or misunderstood) Krikkiters need forms part of a Rory Award for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay.

    The American editors thought this was a little risqué for the US market, so they made Douglas Adams change that bit. He did - in the US edition, the award is for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay.

    Proof that mindless American censorship for the perpetually offended didn't just take root in recent years.


  • #1770
    mikhail
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,862 ✭✭✭mikhail


    cdeb wrote: »
    In Life, The Universe, and Everything - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book dealing with the Krikkit Wars - one of the bails the evil (or misunderstood) Krikkiters need forms part of a Rory Award for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay.

    The American editors thought this was a little risqué for the US market, so they made Douglas Adams change that bit. He did - in the US edition, the award is for Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay.

    Proof that mindless American censorship for the perpetually offended didn't just take root in recent years.
    One of the tv channels recently started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning. I remember the showrunner, Joss Whedon (probably more famous now for directing Avengers Assemble, but was a big contributor to the Toy Story script among other accomplishments), mentioning once that the characters in Buffy use the word bollocks quite a lot. It's not such a common swearword in America, and the censors didn't pay it any heed as they didn't know what it meant, but Whedon went to school in England.


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  • #1771
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 95,149 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    mikhail wrote: »
    One of the tv channels recently started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning.
    E4 https://www.channel4.com/programmes/buffy-the-vampire-slayer

    And BBC are showing What We Do In The Shadows.



    Real life vampire bats cooperate. They'll give each other blood even ones they aren't related to.

    Not really altruism because a small vampire bat will die if goes without food for about three days. Because offering one of your neighbours a free meal might mean they'll return the favour and save your life next week.


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