I bet you didnt know that

Professor Moriarty · 27-03-2018 8:30pm

Quazzie wrote: »

I think you misunderstood my post

Nah I was just being a smartass.

FrancieBrady · 27-03-2018 8:45pm

Oldtree wrote: »

In ye olden days soft silver and gold coins would be clipped (a bit cut off the edge) or shaken in a bag to get silver/gold dust off them. The clippings or dust would be melted and sold on in bars or used to make counterfeit coins.

I have one like the below, Edward the 1st, you can see the clipping clearly. But my coin also has an additional method of cunning silver extraction on it. A small hole in one quadrant where a small bit of silver was punched out.

That was why they began putting ridges along the edge. If it was clipped you could tell instantly

Realt Dearg Sec · 27-03-2018 9:53pm

Quazzie wrote: »

90%+ of the worlds population could be hit. Surely they can narrow it down a bit more than that

Yeah they probably just didn't bother their holes.

mzungu · 27-03-2018 10:35pm

Park ranger Roy C. Sullivan holds the record for being struck the most times by lightening and surviving. He was struck a total of seven times in a 35 year period between 1942 and 1977.

According to wiki:

The odds of being struck by lightning for a person over the period of 80 years have been roughly estimated as 1:10000. If the lightning strikes were independent events, the probability of being hit seven times would be 1:100007 = 1:1028. These numbers do not quite apply to Sullivan, however, who by the nature of his work was more exposed to storms than the average person. Virginia, where he lived, averages 35 to 45 thunderstorm days per year, most of which fall in June, July, and August.

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

He died of a self inflicted gunshot wound in 1977.

sbsquarepants · 28-03-2018 10:16am

Statistics wouldn't be my strong point - but I have to question this maths.

How the hell could you be statistically 10 times more likely to get hit 7 times, than to get hit once?
By those calculations you're guaranteed to be struck by lightening 10,000 times!

david75 · 28-03-2018 10:22am

Irish freestate passport. (You’ll never guess what colour

)

ohnonotgmail · 28-03-2018 10:22am

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Statistics wouldn't be my strong point - but I have to question this maths.

How the hell could you be statistically 10 times more likely to get hit 7 times, than to get hit once?
By those calculations you're guaranteed to be struck by lightening 10,000 times!

It is just the way that the numbers have been copied and pasted. the odds of being struck once are 1:10000. the odds of being struck seven times are 1:10000 to the power of 7 not 1:100007. this is the equivalent of 1:10 to the power of 28 not 1:1028.

sbsquarepants · 28-03-2018 10:26am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

To be fair it’s crashing not landing.

I understand that....but still we're talking about a roughly 10,000km band around the equator, over a 4 day time frame. As predictions go, it's pretty much "something is going to happen, somewhere, sometime"

sbsquarepants · 28-03-2018 10:27am

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

It is just the way that the numbers have been copied and pasted. the odds of being struck once are 1:10000. the odds of being struck seven times are 1:10000 to the power of 7 not 1:100007. this is the equivalent of 1:10 to the power of 28 not 1:1028.

That makes much more sense!:D

ohnonotgmail · 28-03-2018 10:28am

sbsquarepants wrote: »

That makes much more sense!:D

Of course if the boards software allowed the use of TeX then this misunderstanding would never have happened.

cantdecide · 28-03-2018 10:29am

Car tyres are naturally white and have to be dyed black.

ohnonotgmail · 28-03-2018 12:20pm

The song "I dont like mondays" by the boomtown rats was inspired by a real event. In 1979 a 16 year old called Brenda Ann Spencer killed 2 people in an elementary school in San Diego. When a reporter asked her why she did it she answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day,". She is still in prison.

garbo speaks · 28-03-2018 12:25pm

Human babies are blind for approx. 20 minutes after birth.

SuperS54 · 28-03-2018 1:26pm

garbo speaks wrote: »

Human babies are blind for approx. 20 minutes after birth.

They're not, they are however extremely short sighted and basically colour blind.

More baby facts https://www.factretriever.com/baby-facts

seagull · 28-03-2018 1:32pm

mzungu wrote: »

Park ranger Roy C. Sullivan holds the record for being struck the most times by lightening and surviving. He was struck a total of seven times in a 35 year period between 1942 and 1977.

According to wiki:

He died of a self inflicted gunshot wound in 1977.

If you enjoy stories like this, find yourself the book of narrow escapes

28-03-2018 5:27pm

garbo speaks wrote: »

Human babies are blind for approx. 20 minutes after birth.

Not true, babies can see when they're just born but their vision is blurry and while they can differentiate colors, it's easier for them to focus on starkly contrasting images using very dark and very light colors.

They can focus best on objects held about a foot from their faces - where they usually find a parents face. Over the first three months of life their visual acuity improves enormously.

Fourier · 28-03-2018 7:44pm

Human Infants actually have "better" sight than adults in some ways. Studies have found they have the ability to distinguish ape faces better than adults:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/296/5571/1321

This is because their visual system has yet to "learn" to concentrate on human faces in particular and not perform a detailed analysis on other animals features.

theoneeyedman · 28-03-2018 10:25pm

New Home wrote: »

And the chap that survived the sinking of three submarines, or something.

Do all submarines not sink??

Capt'n Midnight · 28-03-2018 10:50pm

The Battle of Texel was when the cavalry of the French Revolutionary Army captured the Dutch fleet by using the simple tactic of covering the horses hooves with cloth ... to keep the noise down.

The horses were able to get to the ships because the Zuiderzee was frozen over.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-03-2018 10:55pm

Flight record for a blimp being airborne , without refuelling, was 246.2 hours in 1957.

somefeen · 28-03-2018 11:14pm

mzungu wrote: »

Park ranger Roy C. Sullivan holds the record for being struck the most times by lightening and surviving. He was struck a total of seven times in a 35 year period between 1942 and 1977.

According to wiki:

He died of a self inflicted gunshot wound in 1977.

I knew a guy that died from being struck by lightning.
Been terrified of it ever since.

dxhound2005 · 28-03-2018 11:15pm

4.5 million African slaves were taken to Brazil. This is ten times as many as North America.

https://exoduscry.com/blog/general/history-of-slavery-and-abolition-in-brazil/

New Home · 28-03-2018 11:16pm

theoneeyedman wrote: »

Do all submarines not sink??

Usually, they prefer to have a saying in the when and how. But yes, you do have a point, or they'd be.... sub-standard. :pac:

Capt'n Midnight · 28-03-2018 11:19pm

Vikings did not drink out of the skulls of vanquished enemies. This was based on a mistranslation of the skaldic poetic use of ór bjúgviðum hausa (branches of skulls) to refer to drinking horns.

thesandeman · 29-03-2018 2:24am

New Home wrote: »

Usually, they prefer to have a saying in the when and how. But yes, you do have a point, or they'd be.... sub-standard. :pac:

As opposed to being sub-merged.

New Home · 29-03-2018 8:55am

Finally, someone gets my sub-liminal messages!

Ted_YNWA · 29-03-2018 9:21am

New Home wrote:

Finally, someone gets my sub-liminal messages!

Sub-standard attempt at a joke.

New Home · 29-03-2018 9:33am

No, that would have been the submarine.

Riva10 · 29-03-2018 9:34am

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

Sub-standard attempt at a joke.

Subtle attempt at humour :eek:

Skylinehead · 29-03-2018 12:03pm

Leonid Rogozov was the only doctor in a Soviet expedition to set up a research base in Antartica. He developed appendicitis in 1961, and being the only doctor, he had but one choice...

https://i.redd.it/jfyh9rxl7mo01.jpg (link slightly NSFW)

mzungu · 29-03-2018 2:32pm

Skylinehead wrote: »

Leonid Rogozov was the only doctor in a Soviet expedition to set up a research base in Antartica. He developed appendicitis in 1961, and being the only doctor, he had but one choice...

https://i.redd.it/jfyh9rxl7mo01.jpg (link slightly NSFW)

Fair play to him, he sure was a cut above the rest!

Squall Leonhart · 29-03-2018 2:34pm

mzungu wrote: »

Fair play to him, he sure was a cut above the rest!

Or a cut below the vest?

...

..

New Home · 29-03-2018 2:37pm

New Home · 29-03-2018 8:36pm

New Home · 29-03-2018 8:37pm

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 29-03-2018 9:31pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

4.5 million African slaves were taken to Brazil. This is ten times as many as North America.

https://exoduscry.com/blog/general/history-of-slavery-and-abolition-in-brazil/

Slavery was also abolished in Brazil much later than in the US.

Most Latin American nations abolished it at least ten years before the US though.

Realt Dearg Sec · 29-03-2018 9:32pm

New Home wrote: »

Didn't Chuck Feeney have a net worth in the multiples of billions and gave it all away bar a couple of million?

Realt Dearg Sec · 29-03-2018 9:41pm

Just looked it up, snopes have a thing about it:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/j-k-rowling-drops-off-forbes-billionaires-list/

She did fall off the Forbes list partly due to charitable giving but partly due to tax. Also she wasn't the first to fall off the list due to charity, they say that was John Huntsman Sr. in 2010.

Snopes don't mention Feeney but by any measure he was a prolific giver. Dunno if he ceased to be a billionaire before 2010 but he had certainly given away many billions of dollars by then.

Big Nasty · 29-03-2018 9:52pm

Fact Republic got real old after about 10 seconds.

(I bet you DID know that!)

New Home · 29-03-2018 10:15pm

New Home · 29-03-2018 10:16pm

Only in the US, I presume.

Ted_YNWA · 29-03-2018 10:25pm

Heard that on QI, one serving is deemed to be 1 tictac. 0.0001g sugar per serving (or whatever weight they are)

Greybottle · 29-03-2018 10:44pm

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

Heard that on QI, one serving is deemed to be 1 tictac. 0.0001g sugar per serving (or whatever weight they are)

From Tic Tacs own website...

Tic Tac® mints do contain sugar as listed in the ingredient statement. However, since the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving.

Seems the weight is rounded up or down to the nearest gram so that's how it passes.
https://www.tictacusa.com/en/faq

Ted_YNWA · 29-03-2018 10:57pm

My phone can't do multiple app's all that well, I was round down as well.

New Home · 29-03-2018 11:20pm

This is cool and clever!

70.-Soviet-Song-Contest.jpg?resize=500%2C500

It's a bit like that story (I don't know if it's true or not) about the Americans spending millions to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Ted_YNWA · 29-03-2018 11:29pm

Americans did not need to worry about pencil shavings getting into workings of space craft when pencil needed to be sharpened.

Lady Haywire · 29-03-2018 11:37pm

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

Americans did not need to worry about pencil shavings getting into workings of space craft when pencil needed to be sharpened.

:pac::D

Realt Dearg Sec · 30-03-2018 12:51am

New Home wrote: »

This is cool and clever!

It's a bit like that story (I don't know if it's true or not) about the Americans spending million to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Apparently the space pen story is apocryphal. NASA used pencils in space for years but they sometimes break while writing and that's pretty dangerous in micro gravity. But the anti gravity open wasn't developed by NASA but by Fisher pen company, who offered it to NASA for use (developing it didn't cost millions or anything). The Russians also adopted the same pen.

talla10 · 30-03-2018 4:53am

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Apparently the space pen story is apocryphal. NASA used pencils in space for years but they sometimes break while writing and that's pretty dangerous in micro gravity. But the anti gravity open wasn't developed by NASA but by Fisher pen company, who offered it to NASA for use (developing it didn't cost millions or anything). The Russians also adopted the same pen.

Sell me this Pen

Irish Wolf · 30-03-2018 6:01am

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars <-- last song played on TOTP

(I didn't read the previous 5k posts

)

I bet you didnt know that

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