Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch · 04-09-2013 12:19AM

Pope Francis announces that a former Vatican resident, a polish goalkeeper named Karol Wojtyła, is much, much holier than anybody thought before:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/report-pope-francis-says-john-paul-ii-to-be-canonized-april-27/

Obliq · 04-09-2013 08:27AM

robindch wrote: »

Pope Francis announces that a former Vatican resident, a polish goalkeeper named Karol Wojtyła, is much, much holier than anybody thought before:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/report-pope-francis-says-john-paul-ii-to-be-canonized-april-27/

"A French religious sister, who was inexplicably cured of Parkinson's disease, led to Blessed John Paul II’s beatification on May 1, 2011. A second miracle, which must occur after a beatification, involved a Costa Rican woman who was cured of a cerebral aneurism the very day of John Paul II’s beatification."

Well that settles the question of whether miracles happen then. May 1st 2011 is also when my whole family recovered from a bad cold and THREE chicks were born alive. It truly was a beatific day.

robindch · 04-09-2013 02:29PM

Obliq wrote: »

May 1st 2011 is also when my whole family recovered from a bad cold and THREE chicks were born alive. It truly was a beatific day.

May the first is the day my dad was born. No further proof needed.

Saintize the man now.

Cabaal · 04-09-2013 02:52PM

robindch wrote: »

May the first is the day my dad was born. No further proof needed.

Saintize the man now.

Pfft, this is nothing to do with any pope. anyone who thinks this is silly.

Its the power of the force, clearly these people have a high midichlorian count.

May the 1st be with you,

Obliq · 04-09-2013 05:04PM

robindch wrote: »

May the first is the day my dad was born. No further proof needed.

Saintize the man now.

I thought that read Sanitize. As you would a germ.

PopePalpatine · 04-09-2013 06:08PM

May the 1st was the day Ayrton Senna died. Pope JPII's a bastard.

endacl · 04-09-2013 07:59PM

Thwip! wrote: »

Syfy have their new movie

Gorrillanado!!

Sarky · 05-09-2013 02:40PM

robindch wrote: »

May the first is the day my dad was born. No further proof needed.

Saintize the man now.

The first of May is also when outdoor f*cking starts. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Cienciano · 06-09-2013 11:32AM

Cool chemical reaction:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=206_1378404426

robindch · 09-09-2013 01:43PM

Friends are like cousins. Fourth cousins, to be precise:

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/2272bddcdb0d

FouxDaFaFa · 11-09-2013 10:58AM

I thought this was pretty cool.

A 15 year old Canadian invents a flashlight powered solely by the user's body heat.

legspin · 11-09-2013 11:53AM

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

I thought this was pretty cool.

A 15 year old Canadian invents a flashlight powered solely by the user's body heat.

Give that girl a biscuit. I have often though how useful a device like that would be.

FouxDaFaFa · 11-09-2013 12:22PM

legspin wrote: »

Give that girl a biscuit. I have often though how useful a device like that would be.

I sense some experimenting coming on! I wonder if you could put a plate flush with your skin (say on the wrist, inserted in a wristband) with one side left open to the air while running or something and produce enough electricity to power a small mp3 player.

Mark Hamill · 11-09-2013 12:39PM

I wonder could it be combined with the heatsink in a laptop, use the waste heat to recharge the laptop (or even just power the back light in the screen).
Could improve heatsink efficiency and battery life.

Hotblack Desiato · 12-09-2013 12:05AM

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

I thought this was pretty cool.

A 15 year old Canadian invents a flashlight powered solely by the user's body heat.

Caution. Website contains religion.

FouxDaFaFa · 12-09-2013 11:45PM

ninja900 wrote: »

Caution. Website contains religion.

The name fooled me!

Forgive me!

Sarky · 14-09-2013 03:15PM

Just home from best manning my brother's wedding. Nice civil ceremony dealy. In and out in half an hour at most, including photography before heading in. Musicians playing You Shook Me All Night Long at the ring ceremony.

Half the audience were over 70, and they loved how it was personal and intimate and above all, short. And having the registry in the same hotel as the afters party meant people could start drinking within 30 seconds of leaving the ceremony. All the good parts of a wedding without any of the preachy bollocks and pointless ritual faff while stuck on a rock hard pew in a drafty church.

I have no idea why anyone would bother with a religious thing, having seen how superior the civil version is in every way.

Dave! · 14-09-2013 07:30PM

Sarky wrote: »

Just home from best manning my brother's wedding. Nice civil ceremony dealy. In and out in half an hour at most, including photography before heading in. Musicians playing You Shook Me All Night Long at the ring ceremony.

Half the audience were over 70, and they loved how it was personal and intimate and above all, short. And having the registry in the same hotel as the afters party meant people could start drinking within 30 seconds of leaving the ceremony. All the good parts of a wedding without any of the preachy bollocks and pointless ritual faff while stuck on a rock hard pew in a drafty church.

I have no idea why anyone would bother with a religious thing, having seen how superior the civil version is in every way.

Dunno why that's considered a good thing tbh. One of the reservations I'd have about civil ceremonies (having never been to one, but probably having one myself whenever the time comes) is that they appear sterile, impersonal, etc. Ignoring the religious waffle of Church weddings, I think the ritual, pageantry, beautiful building, etc., is quite nice.

I gather Humanist weddings would include a bit more song-and-dance and sentiment than a civil ceremony, so I'd probably be inclined to go for that.

Each to their own I guess.

Hotblack Desiato · 14-09-2013 08:43PM

Well we did the HSE civil ceremony in Grand Canal St. It was not impersonal or sterile at all. We could choose any (non-religious) music we wanted ('Baby I Love You' - The Ramones :pac: ) there were lots of OAPs present and they all liked it. Everyone who wanted to, got the chance to take a pic of us signing the registry. Basically we could do whatever we wanted within the half hour time slot. How's that impersonal compared to a religious ceremony which is largely dictated to you?

They don't allow overtly religious music or readings though. Some people who were divorced, going for marriage no.2, but still hung up on the catholic thing :rolleyes: were apparently trying it on, trying to make it a bit more churchy...

Peregrinus · 15-09-2013 01:39AM

Sarky wrote: »

Just home from best manning my brother's wedding. Nice civil ceremony dealy. In and out in half an hour at most . . .

Gotta say I went to a Presbyterian wedding in Scotland which was done and dusted in 13 minutes. They don't muck about.

Sarky wrote: »

And having the registry in the same hotel as the afters party meant people could start drinking within 30 seconds of leaving the ceremony . . .

Remarks like that will give atheists a certain reputation, you know!

Sarky · 15-09-2013 11:43AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Remarks like that will give atheists a certain reputation, you know!

When 86%* of the attendees were Catholic, I would draw a different conclusion myself. Not a single complaint, everyone loved it. The only comment on the civil ceremony was from an elderly aunt who asked "Is that legal?" She was one of the first into the reception.

* probably more than than, given the skew towards the elderly in the audience, but let's stick with census figures...

smacl · 15-09-2013 12:08PM

ninja900 wrote: »

We could choose any (non-religious) music we wanted ('Baby I Love You' - The Ramones :pac: )

Wowzer, we chose the same, along with Zappa's the closer you are and fatboy slim's praise you. To be fair, we'd been together for over twenty years prior to getting married, and only did so on the advice of our lawyer. Nice day and night out though, the kids loved it.

kylith · 15-09-2013 12:11PM

Sarky wrote: »

The only comment on the civil ceremony was from an elderly aunt who asked "Is that legal?"

No, auntie. We decided to go through all the hassle and expense of having a wedding, but decided not to bother with the whole 'legal' thing. :rolleyes:

MrPudding · 15-09-2013 12:18PM

Sarky wrote: »

The only comment on the civil ceremony was from an elderly aunt who asked "Is that legal?"

I hope you responded with, "unlike a religious wedding, yes."

MrP

smacl · 15-09-2013 12:19PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Gotta say I went to a Presbyterian wedding in Scotland which was done and dusted in 13 minutes. They don't muck about.

Was best man at a traditional Chinese wedding in Hong Kong a few years ago and it took three days. Christian, with much traditional Chinese ceremony tacked on here and there, proper banqueting and a rocking party. The best bit was the groom, myself, and the other groomsmen carrying a glazed pig across Hong Kong on our shoulders to present to the brides mother, and then being set all sorts of quests by the brides sisters to prove that the groom was worthy to pass through the gates of the apartment. Nothing as straightforward as slaying a dragon either; among other things, we had to sing a top ten single in cantonese to the future mother in law and eat a bucket of pickled duck eggs.

Bannasidhe · 15-09-2013 12:28PM

This piece of kit is called an ameroid constrictor

.

http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/15135?show=full

It consists of a stainless steel sheath enclosing casein clay.

Casein is a phosoprotein most commonly found in mammalian milk - it is used in making cheese and as a binding agent for safety matches among many other things - it was used by the ancient Egyptians to bind their version of tempera paint.

Now - it is inside my dog and, if all goes well it will save his life.

He has a portosystemic shunt - a.k.a a liver shunt - which means his blood does not get detoxified and the build of of toxins are poisoning him. He was unlikely to make it to his 2nd birthday and would have had a horrible death unless we PTS.

Just clipping off the shunt is not really an option as that can lead to hypertensive shock and as his liver is very underdeveloped it just couldn't cope with a sudden influx of blood. That is where the casein clay comes into it.

The constrictor is placed around the shunt and tightened with a wee screw. Over 8 weeks the clay absorbs fluids from the body and expands - at the same time the casein causes a reaction in the soft tissue which 'scars'.
These two processes combined mean the shunt is sealing itself off slowly while also reducing blood flow in a controlled manner giving it no option but to go but through the liver where it should have being going in the first place. The liver (all being well) is regenerating while this all happens.

From hieroglyphs to cheese to a little bit of kit that has improved surgical success rates for portosystemic shunts from 50% to 95%.

I f*cking love science!

Sarky · 15-09-2013 12:35PM

Are you sure you wouldn't just have a bit of an aul' pray for the doggy instead? :pac:

Science is awesome. It's gonna save your doggy ^_^

Bannasidhe · 15-09-2013 01:02PM

Sarky wrote: »

Are you sure you wouldn't just have a bit of an aul' pray for the doggy instead? :pac:

Science is awesome. It's gonna save your doggy ^_^

Oh don't! The doggy in question is a long-term foster from an animal rescue and the surgery is fecking expensive and the rescue is stretched to breaking point so I decided to sort out all the logistics include fundraising myself.

Sooooo I did a FB page telling the story from the perspective of the dog (raised 1,000 euro in 4 days!!!) - people have been posting saying prayers for you little guy messages and I thought okaaay - we'll just take those in the context of 'sending best wishes/good vibes' etc and thank them but then someone posted a long 'Heavenly father, we blah blah you' prayer on the fecking page which has OH very amused as I'm going 'gnnnnnhhhhhh' and really want to delete it but that would be churlish as loads of people who donated thanked it- I really want to reply and say 'it was a brilliant vet, obsessive medical control over symptoms and diet, some serious research into the latest advances (requiring much use of medical dictionaries) plus a research vet making a connection between cheese and scarification and designing this lovely bit of kit - 'god' gave him the fecking shunt!!!'

FouxDaFaFa · 15-09-2013 01:32PM

Bannasidhe wrote: »

(raised 1,000 euro in 4 days!!!)

WTF

Have you considered becoming a Nigerian Prince?

Bannasidhe · 15-09-2013 01:38PM

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

WTF

Have you considered becoming a Nigerian Prince?

It was actually 1,200 euro in total with donations coming in from NZ, US, Aus, Brazil and India - but mostly from Cork (like).

He's a very cute dog.

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