I bet you didnt know that

HappyAsLarE wrote: »

Relatively speaking, the earth is as round and as smooth as a snooker ball. The biggest difference from lowest crevice to highest mountain is 11 miles. But the planets diameter is 8 thousand miles. We can’t machine such low tolerances.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Oh but we can

We've made silicon spheres whose surfaces are so smooth that if they were blown up to the size of Earth, the distance between the tallest mountain and deepest ocean would be just 3–5 meters

Devices known as optical interferometers have allowed researchers to measure the sphere’s width to nanometer precision

And why do we need such perfect balls ?

To measure a mole.

One of these?

New Home wrote:

*Insert obligatory joke about there not being any moles in Ireland here*

There used to be a few oop North .

cdeb wrote: »

Columbus thought the earth was breast-shaped.



This was from his voyage log. God knows what he saw that made him think that

Several months at sea will do that to a man

I think most of us would have a had a cup of coffee this morning. The coffee 'bean' is not a bean, it's a seed. It's called a bean because it looks like a bean.

Coffee comes from the 'coffee belt', marked here in yello, the green countries are the top 20 producers in the world.



This is the coffee cherry, the bean is on the inside.



You get about 8 cups of coffee from a Kilo of coffee cherries. Here's the breakdown of the steps in getting some coffee from a cherry.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

^^^^
Floaters ?

Not as bad as it sounds...

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/processing.htm
Irrespective of the harvesting method, green coffee beans and overripe coffee cherries inevitably end up mixed with the perfectly ripe cherries and must be separated during coffee processing.

Overripe coffee cherries, undeveloped coffee cherries, sticks and leaves float in water. Ripe coffee beans and green coffee cherries are dense and sink.

Therefore, the first step in coffee production consists of separating the "floaters" from the "sinkers." The coffee floaters are usually sent directly to the patio to be dried and are often slated for internal consumption.

The ripe and green cherries can be sent to the patios to be dried using the natural process of preparing coffee or can be sent to the coffee pulping machines.

gozunda wrote: »

Germanic tribes under the rule of their leader Odoacer, brought down the western Roman Empire

As an ally of Austia-Hungary - the German leader Wilhelm II, went down on history as one of the principal protagonists of First World War.

Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich invaded Poland and instigated the Second World War

As for World War 3 ....

Reclaim your tax ... Had to explain this to my son recently, so I guess not everyone knows it (if you are below a certain age)...

You work, you pay tax. Your tax is calculated by week/fortnite/month. But your tax allowance is by year. So if you have a part time job, summer job, etc you might not earn enough to fill your yearly allowance. So you can claim back the tax you paid! Great way to get a bonus before going back to college or before Christmas. Google it for details.....enjoy!

Ivy, better warn Roan O'Gara and Marty Morrissey.

I used to work in the field of geographical analysis. When someone would ask me what I did for a living I would tell them, "I make maps!"

Of course I didn’t, but it saved me from having to explain that I worked with statistics, mathematics and lots and lots of programming.

I would get two basic reactions:

1) "Wow! That's so fcuking cool! You are truly a God among men!" (90% men, 10% women).
2) "What the fcuk! Have they not finished making all the maps yet? Loser!" (100% women).

Anyway here are some interesting maps that have been doing the rounds online. (I suspect everyone here is an Answer 1 person). Some of these are related to recent posts on this thread


Those countries not invaded by England/Great Britain/United Kingdom in white.




Geographic correlation, well roughly, between the location of the historic coal mining regions in England/Wales and Labour victories in a recent UK general election.




Where would you end up if you managed to dig a hole right through the Earth? Australia? China?

Well no! The antipode of almost every point on land is water.




Turning to what we call “the Antipodes”, here is Australia’s true geographic size relative to Europe.



Yet only 2% of the Aussie population live in the shaded area below




I was recently on the top of a skyscraper in Chicago. I couldn’t get over how large Lake Michigan seemed.

It should not have been a surprise as these are the Great Lakes superimposed on Europe.




The spread of Walmart stores throughout the United States.



Countries that use Fahrenheit Vs those that use Celsius.




Occupation of the highest paid public employee in each US state.




Location of each car bomb detonated in Baghdad between 2003 and 2015.




This is one I saw today for the first time. It’s not a cartogram, just a promotional poster for an ‘80s horror movie. Really good though.