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

Capt'n Midnight · 31-01-2020 1:51am

Peter Tordenskjold in case you were wondering.

New Home · 31-01-2020 6:18am

Worth a shot...

Buford T. Justice XIX · 31-01-2020 1:18pm

New Home wrote: »

Worth a shot...

Drew a blank, though:pac:

mzungu · 01-02-2020 12:03am

Ketchup originated in China as a boiled-down brine of pickled fish and spices called ‘ke-chiap’.

joujoujou · 01-02-2020 7:56pm

[...] In the famous poppy field scene in The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Tin Man are stood around Dorothy as she lays unconscious, the snow that was cascading down onto them was in fact chrysotile, a.k.a white asbestos fibres. [...]

:eek:

https://www.asbestosspecialist.co.uk/fake-asbestos-snow-in-the-wizard-of-oz/

...and obvious error in above text, mentioning Dorothy standing around Dorothy.

joeguevara · 01-02-2020 9:26pm

Don’t know why I’m getting them but for the last week on Facebook I have been getting BBC interesting fact of the day.

One I liked most was in 2014 a group of South Korean students protested about the amount of air in crisp packets by turning the packets into a raft and sailing it down a river.

Today’s one has probably been posted but fascinated me. It was a clip from QI where I learned that you make no sound when you sneeze and the Achoo (or similar) is a learned affectation. Deaf people who have never heard the affectation make no noise other than a heavy breath.

Even more interesting that each country has a different noise/affectation.

03-02-2020 10:09pm

joeguevara wrote: »

Don’t know why I’m getting them but for the last week on Facebook I have been getting BBC interesting fact of the day.

One I liked most was in 2014 a group of South Korean students protested about the amount of air in crisp packets by turning the packets into a raft and sailing it down a river.

Today’s one has probably been posted but fascinated me. It was a clip from QI where I learned that you make no sound when you sneeze and the Achoo (or similar) is a learned affectation. Deaf people who have never heard the affectation make no noise other than a heavy breath.

Even more interesting that each country has a different noise/affectation.

I saw that too about sneezing, QI is a great show

worded · 03-02-2020 10:55pm

368100 wrote: »

I saw that too about sneezing, QI is a great show

Is Stephen Fry an anti Irish Toff thought?

I can’t listen to his condescending patronising grating voice any more

I like this thread ....

ArnoldJRimmer · 03-02-2020 11:03pm

worded wrote: »

Is Stephen Fry an anti Irish Toff thought?

I can’t listen to his condescending patronising grating voice any more

I like this thread ....

Aside from the fact that I completely disagree with that statement, he hasn't presented that show in years. Its Sandy Toksvig

Adyx · 03-02-2020 11:17pm

worded wrote: »

Is Stephen Fry an anti Irish Toff thought?

I can’t listen to his condescending patronising grating voice any more

I like this thread ....

He was in Ros na Rún. Speaking Irish...

Realt Dearg Sec · 03-02-2020 11:55pm

worded wrote: »

Is Stephen Fry an anti Irish Toff thought?

I can’t listen to his condescending patronising grating voice any more

I like this thread ....

Have never heard of him expressing an anti-Irish sentiment of any kind. On the contrary he has huge affection for the country, and it is not the kind of condescending affection you sometimes encounter.

Professor Moriarty · 04-02-2020 12:29am

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Have never heard of him expressing an anti-Irish sentiment of any kind. On the contrary he has huge affection for the country, and it is not the kind of condescending affection you sometimes encounter.

His interview with Gaybo was excellent.

seagull · 04-02-2020 4:23pm

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

Aside from the fact that I completely disagree with that statement, he hasn't presented that show in years. Its Sandy Toksvig

Not on the reruns on Dave. You'll still be seeing him there for the next 10 years.

roosterman71 · 04-02-2020 5:00pm

seagull wrote: »

Not on the reruns on Dave. You'll still be seeing him there for the next 10 years.

Be amazed if he was replaced by a different presenter in reruns of the programme

Capt'n Midnight · 04-02-2020 11:30pm

roosterman71 wrote: »

Be amazed if he was replaced by a different presenter in reruns of the programme

Unfortunately they can do that nowadays with CGI

The word SWIMS looks the same upside down.

Oh and the longest word in the English language is smiles.
There's a mile between the first and last letters.

Wibbs · 05-02-2020 1:35pm

The Motorola company got their name because they developed and sold a car radio in the 1930's. The name was a mash up of Motor and Victrola a popular phonograph/record player. They later branched out into other radios, TV and later again integrated circuits. They brought out their first true microprocessor in 1973, though had produced IC's before and probably the first most widely used was in the new fangled quartz wristwatches from 1971 on. Here's my example from 72, where the design on the dial is a stylised schematic of the chip that runs the calculations from the quartz oscillator to tell the time.

Here's the chip itself ;

With its little M. Another thing with earlier chips is that you can usually date them by the code on them. In this case produced in the 37th week of 1972.

05-02-2020 8:09pm

bed is the only word that looks like the object it is describing.

Evade · 05-02-2020 8:16pm

Deleted User wrote: »

bed is the only word that looks like the object it is describing.

Boob(s) looks like multiple views of the object it is describing. Top down, front, profile.

Father Hernandez · 05-02-2020 8:41pm

Nepal is 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Ireland in terms of time. (GMT+5:45)

It's neighbour India which has 1 timezone for the whole country is 15 minutes behind Nepal. (GMT+5:30)

Some other 'different' timezones

Iran: GMT+3½
Afghanistan: GMT+4 ½
Myanmar: GMT+6 ½

China spanning 75 degrees to almost 135 degrees west, by longitude and being the third largest country in the world has just 1 timezone. (GMT+8)

The Russian island Big Diomede is GMT+12, even though it’s just 2.4 miles away from Diomede, Alaska, USA which uses GMT-9.

Captain_Crash · 05-02-2020 9:46pm

Father Hernandez wrote: »

The Russian island Big Diomede is GMT+12, even though it’s just 2.4 miles away from Diomede, Alaska, USA which uses GMT-9.

Residents on Little Diomede nickname Big D “tomorrow island”

On the topic of this region of the world, the southernmost state of the Unites States is Hawaii. Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost as we all know. But it is also the easternmost state due to a stretch of the Aleutian chain stretching out west and crossing the international dateline

Capt'n Midnight · 05-02-2020 9:58pm

Greenland goes further West and North than Iceland.

Also further South and East.

New Home · 05-02-2020 10:07pm

Geez, Greenland and Alaska are all over the map! :pac:

Realt Dearg Sec · 06-02-2020 4:24am

Alaska's land area is a good bit more than twice that of Texas (and Texas is bigger than France, so...). In fact Alaska is one fifth the size of the entire lower 48 states. It's incredible, and mostly empty of people, with not even close to 1 million people (and nearly half of the population live in Anchorage, which is about the size of Cork).

I love the discussion of Alaska, by the way. I've always kind of wondered what it's like to live in a relatively remote place like Barrow Alaska, a town of about 4000 people inside the Arctic Circle that has no road connections to the rest of Alaska, which became famous due to 30 Days of Night and also for their high school football team (the Whalers), one of the world's most northern towns. It's weird to me that I live very close to a desert and yet thousands of miles away in the Arctic circle these people are part of the same country, living a life completely incomparable in its practicalities and its culture than mine.

EDIT: I just googled Barrow and they've actually officially changed the name of the town to Utqiagvik. So there you go.

sbsquarepants · 06-02-2020 8:48am

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

EDIT: I just googled Barrow and they've actually officially changed the name of the town to Utqiagvik. So there you go.

You sure that's not their wifi code?:D

I don't know if i'd fancy living somewhere like that but i would definitely love to spend a month or 2, preferably when the vampires aren't in town. I've been mad to visit Alaska ever since watching Northern Exposure years back (probably 25 - 30 years back now)

And i absolutely defy anyone to produce a more hillarious animal than a moose:D

ohnonotgmail · 06-02-2020 10:14am

sbsquarepants wrote: »

You sure that's not their wifi code?:D

I don't know if i'd fancy living somewhere like that but i would definitely love to spend a month or 2, preferably when the vampires aren't in town. I've been mad to visit Alaska ever since watching Northern Exposure years back (probably 25 - 30 years back now)

And i absolutely defy anyone to produce a more hillarious animal than a moose:D

i think a duck billed platypus has to be more hilarious than a moose. So much so that when the first specimen was brought back to england everybody thought it was a hoax.

sbsquarepants · 06-02-2020 11:06am

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

i think a duck billed platypus has to be more hilarious than a moose. So much so that when the first specimen was brought back to england everybody thought it was a hoax.

Maybe a draw, the platypus is quite funny i'll grant you, but a moose is basically a horse as drawn by Salvador Dali, but alive:D

Kat1170 · 06-02-2020 3:01pm

sbsquarepants wrote:

Maybe a draw, the platypus is quite funny i'll grant you, but a moose is basically a horse as drawn by Salvador Dali, but alive

A camel is often described as a horse designed by a committee.

Ipso · 06-02-2020 4:49pm

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Alaska's land area is a good bit more than twice that of Texas (and Texas is bigger than France, so...). In fact Alaska is one fifth the size of the entire lower 48 states. It's incredible, and mostly empty of people, with not even close to 1 million people (and nearly half of the population live in Anchorage, which is about the size of Cork).

I love the discussion of Alaska, by the way. I've always kind of wondered what it's like to live in a relatively remote place like Barrow Alaska, a town of about 4000 people inside the Arctic Circle that has no road connections to the rest of Alaska, which became famous due to 30 Days of Night and also for their high school football team (the Whalers), one of the world's most northern towns. It's weird to me that I live very close to a desert and yet thousands of miles away in the Arctic circle these people are part of the same country, living a life completely incomparable in its practicalities and its culture than mine.

EDIT: I just googled Barrow and they've actually officially changed the name of the town to Utqiagvik. So there you go.

Reminds me of Western Australia; 2.6 million square miles with a population of 2.6 million of which two million live in Perth. That's a lot of empty space.
The first European to record their landing in Australia done so in WA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Hartog

It was another Dutch man who was the first European to see Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Janszoon

Capt'n Midnight · 06-02-2020 9:52pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

i think a duck billed platypus has to be more hilarious than a moose.

Not hilarious if one of the males spikes you.

It's not that the excruciating pain. It's not that the pain can last months.

It's that conventional painkillers like say morphine have no effect on the pain :eek:

ohnonotgmail · 06-02-2020 10:05pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not hilarious if one of the males spikes you.

It's not that the excruciating pain. It's not that the pain can last months.

It's that conventional painkillers like say morphine have no effect on the pain :eek:

how is a venomous mammal not hilarious?

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

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