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

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  • Registered Users Posts: 18,625 ✭✭✭✭BaZmO*


    That's awesome. Makes perfect sense. It surely has positive applications too. Braking systems? My interest is piqued now :-)
    More googling to do.

    Found this

    https://www.sae.org/news/2017/08/venturi-effect-powers-daycos-new-brake-assist-system

    Afaik as I know it’s used quite a lot in car engines. I think fuel injection is one of the uses.


  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 2,147 Mod ✭✭✭✭Oink


    When you use your fingers to count in binary, one thumb up means 1. The middle finger is number 4. Index and middle finger is 6. So if you work in IT and your boss asks you how many more hours it’ll take you to finish the job....


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    New Home wrote: »
    "Presently" can mean both "Right away" or "In a while".

    Perfect example of the evolution of language. It should actually only mean "right away", but it has evolved, probably only in the last 30 years or so, to mean "in a while".


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    quickbeam wrote: »
    Perfect example of the evolution of language. It should actually only mean "right away", but it has evolved, probably only in the last 30 years or so, to mean "in a while".

    A bit earlier than that. :)

    https://www.etymonline.com/word/presently#etymonline_v_30372


  • Registered Users Posts: 958 ✭✭✭Conchir


    Grueller wrote: »
    The UK? Wales, Scotland and England?

    The UK includes Northern Ireland. The island is called Great Britain.

    Great Britain is the third most populous island in the world, after Java (Indonesia) and Honshu (Japan).


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    There are lots of great contronyms, or words that, depending on context, can have opposite or contradictory meanings.

    Bound: Heading to a destination, or restrained from movement
    Cleave: To adhere, or to separate
    Peer: A person of the nobility, or an equal
    Left: Remained, or departed

    Sanction: to penalise or to allow.
    Dust(verb): to remove dust, or to add it.
    Bolt: leave quickly or fasten.

    Sick: something horrible, something great.

    More recent that last one.

    Sometimes people think that literally is becoming a controymn for figuratively. Actually when used as an intensifier in hyperbole the entitie sentence is figurative. Literally is used figuratively (as is the whole sentence) but it doesn’t mean figuratively - you don’t describe figurative language like that, you just write a hyperbole or metaphor or simile.


  • Registered Users Posts: 226 ✭✭Nuno



    Sometimes people think that literally is becoming a controymn for figuratively. Actually when used as an intensifier in hyperbole the entitie sentence is figurative. Literally is used figuratively (as is the whole sentence) but it doesn’t mean figuratively - you don’t describe figurative language like that, you just write a hyperbole or metaphor or simile.

    Reading this literally melted my brain ;)
    Still though, I love this thread


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Sanction: to penalise or to allow.
    Dust(verb): to remove dust, or to add it.
    Bolt: leave quickly or fasten.

    Sick: something horrible, something great.

    More recent that last one.

    Sometimes people think that literally is becoming a controymn for figuratively. Actually when used as an intensifier in hyperbole the entitie sentence is figurative. Literally is used figuratively (as is the whole sentence) but it doesn’t mean figuratively - you don’t describe figurative language like that, you just write a hyperbole or metaphor or simile.

    That's deadly! ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,633 ✭✭✭✭Buford T. Justice XIX


    Sanction: to penalise or to allow.
    Dust(verb): to remove dust, or to add it.
    Bolt: leave quickly or fasten.

    Sick: something horrible, something great.

    More recent that last one.

    Sometimes people think that literally is becoming a controymn for figuratively. Actually when used as an intensifier in hyperbole the entitie sentence is figurative. Literally is used figuratively (as is the whole sentence) but it doesn’t mean figuratively - you don’t describe figurative language like that, you just write a hyperbole or metaphor or simile.

    2FezjH0.jpg


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    7t372-english-poem-difficult.jpg


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,158 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    KevRossi wrote: »
    This is one of the best threads on Boards.ie, but the first post in the original thread has only received 8 Thanks to date.



    Anyway, there are 7 islands that are divided by international borders.

    What about Korea?


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    Korea isn't an island :eek:


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,812 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    KevRossi wrote: »
    This is one of the best threads on Boards.ie, but the first post in the original thread has only received 8 Thanks to date.



    Anyway, there are 7 islands that are divided by international borders.

    What about Korea?
    It's a bit like monster island. It's a peninsula.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    I like this, it's a good way to remember it.

    511029.jpg


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank were born in 1929.


  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    Automaticity is the ability to do everyday things without thinking or with very little conscious consideration of the action. Things like reading, speaking or making the bed can be acomplished with a high degree of automaticity, and most of us complete many tasks without any real conscious thought about what we're doing as these skills are embedded in habit and repetition. Muscle memory requires a great deal of automacity but things like the visual recognition required to read fluently is dependent on the automaticity that comes with learning and practice and repetition as the skills required are consolidated into the background memory processes and frees up the foreground working memory for more focussed tasks and activities.

    The higher the cognitive burden, the longer it takes to gain a degree of automaticity. Learning the alphabet or numbers requires a great deal of cognitive input until recognition is completely embedded in memory, and lesser or no conscious input is needed to form words out of letters etc. Things that carry a low cognitive burden like flushing the loo are more easily filed away as something that can be done without thinking through or having to consciously remember. For most, anyway.

    Conflicting input can disrupt even long established automaticity, and this was observed in the 1930's when John Ridley Stroop confused people by printing the names of the colors in other colors, and measured how long it took to process the incongruity. When you're cycling along and suddenly hit a small unforseen bump, your procedural memory hiccups for the moment it takes your attention to focus sharply on what's happening, process the interruption, and for normal service to resume.

    Research shows that we indulge in behavioural automaticity to soothe ourselves, and take satisfaction and comfort in familiar routines and habits and it plays a part in some obsessive compulsive self-soothing behaviours. Autisic people particularly find ease in familiarity but achieving automaticity is often more difficult as greater sensitivity to stimulation disrupts the formation of ingrained memories needed to be able to take the automatic, sucessful completion of a task for granted. This is why some simple tasks can sometimes be very frustrating, and repetition of others that have been mastered so soothing to those affected.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,815 ✭✭✭stimpson


    KevRossi wrote: »
    This is one of the best threads on Boards.ie, but the first post in the original thread has only received 8 Thanks to date.



    Anyway, there are 7 islands that are divided by international borders.

    Here they are:

    DxjGReAW0AEay9t.jpg

    Hans Island is a disputed island that lies between Canada and Greenland that would qualify for this list, if only Denmark and Canada could agree on a boundary.

    In the meantime, they are involved the the friendliest border dispute ever. When Danish military go there, they leave a bottle of Schnapps. And when Canadian military forces go there, they leave a bottle of Canadian Club and a sign saying, 'Welcome to Canada.'


  • Registered Users Posts: 276 ✭✭mookishboy


    OOnegative wrote: »
    A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time, it’s 1/100th of a second.


    a jiffy is about 3 × 10−24 seconds. It has also more informally been defined as "one light-foot"


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭Carry


    Candie wrote: »
    Automaticity is the ability to do everyday things without thinking or with very little conscious consideration of the action.
    (...)
    This is why some simple tasks can sometimes be very frustrating, and repetition of others that have been mastered so soothing to those affected.

    After a work related marathon start into the new year and various house related disasters (the bumps in the routine), that made the already bumpy work marathon very frustrating and time consuming, I'm too lazy to read all the posts I have missed. I'm sure I would have thanked loads!

    But this one got me out of the rut. Or bumped me mentally up, so to speak.
    It's a concept I can anecdotally and empirically confirm.

    You can always rely on Candie to post the right thing at the right time ....:D


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,306 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    Triskaidekaphobia from the Greek triskaideka, meaning 'thirteen', and phobos, meaning 'fear') is fear or avoidance of the number 13. It is also a reason for the fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia

    Funnily enough Steven King has paraskevidekatriaphobia, as did Franklin Roosevelt.


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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,538 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    ^^^^
    September :eek:


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    The Channel Tunnel isn't watertight and has to have water pumped out constantly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,462 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    KevRossi wrote: »
    This is one of the best threads on Boards.ie, but the first post in the original thread has only received 8 Thanks to date.



    Anyway, there are 7 islands that are divided by international borders.

    Here they are:

    snip

    France and The Netherlands have an international border on Saint Martin...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    511152.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 40,060 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    The last time that there was nobody in the united states or canada on a phone call was August 4th 1922. The funeral of Alexander Graham Bell took place on that day and phone companies silenced all telephone services for 1 minute as a mark of respect.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,067 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    During the 1800's orchestras in europe started increasing their pitch. By mid century it meant that most orchestras were performing pieces a whole tone over what they were written in. It caused some problems, especially for singers. Efforts were made to remedy this but they weren't widely adapted.

    So a clause was inserted into the treaty of Versaille (Yes, that treaty of Versaille) required all signatories to adopt the note A as 440hz.


    http://mentalfloss.com/article/547437/why-orchestras-tune-to-440-hertz-a-note


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,209 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    That is mind-blowing! :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,067 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    There was also a clause which involved the return of an african tribal chiefs skull
    ARTICLE 246. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, ... Germany will hand over to His Britannic Majesty's Government the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa which was removed from the Protectorate of German East Africa and taken to Germany.

    The germans had taken it as a trophy from their colony after it's owner, Chief Mkwawa, was defeated during an uprising. When they lost the colony after WW1 the British demanded the return of the skull to prove to the locals that the germans had gone forever and to reward the locals for fighting against the germans in WW1. The germans "lost" the skull and it was only in 1954 that it was returned.

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


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,633 ✭✭✭✭Buford T. Justice XIX


    Alligators don't hibernate as such but they can employ a technique called brumation to slow their metabolism so they can survive periods of intense cold.

    They surface just as the water freezes and poke their snout above the level of the water to enable them to breathe slowly for long periods while their metabolism slows down.


    There's some great pics in the article below of a number of alligators in North Carolina.


    https://www.foxnews.com/science/alligators-frozen-in-north-carolina-swamp-repeat-bizarre-survival-tactic


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  • Registered Users Posts: 18,625 ✭✭✭✭BaZmO*


    Alligators don't hibernate as such but they can employ a technique called brumation to slow their metabolism so they can survive periods of intense cold.

    They surface just as the water freezes and poke their snout above the level of the water to enable them to breathe slowly for long periods while their metabolism slows down.


    There's some great pics in the article below of a number of alligators in North Carolina.


    https://www.foxnews.com/science/alligators-frozen-in-north-carolina-swamp-repeat-bizarre-survival-tactic

    They can also go without eating for up to 3 years. Ultimate survivors.


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