Today I Learned...

[John83]

And him spending so much time away from gravity means that time dilation caused him to be 0.02 seconds older than he would otherwise be.
The idea that the space station is in zero gravity is common and natural but mistaken. Gravity depends on the squared distance from the centre of mass (in this case the centre of the earth). You or I are around 6300 km from the centre of the earth. (Earth is very big.) The ISS (and I assume MIR had a similar orbit) is around 400 km up there, so it's 6700 km up from the centre of the earth. That means that the force of earth's gravity is around 88% as strong (100%*(6300/6700)^2) up there. Any difference will make for time dilation: we know for sure that this is true because if we didn't account for it, GPS would steadily get less and less accurate as the clocks on the satellites fall out of synch with those on the ground.

The reason the astronauts on the ISS (and previously on MIR) seem like they're in zero G is that the station is in freefall. It's just that it's moving sideways fast enough that the ground is falling away at the same speed. This is an orbit. If you could build a 200 km tall building, the ISS could whizz by the roof (though at a blazing 26,700 km/hr, it'd be a blink-and-you'd-miss-it situation). However, you'd still feel gravity (and a severe shortness of breath) standing on the roof.

To actually get to zeroish G, you need to go to the Lagrange point. That's where the James Webb telescope is sitting. It's around 1.5 million km away.

Space is weird.

[nigel-harps1954]

The idea that the space station is in zero gravity is common and natural but mistaken. Gravity depends on the squared distance from the centre of mass (in this case the centre of the earth). You or I are around 6300 km from the centre of the earth. (Earth is very big.) The ISS (and I assume MIR had a similar orbit) is around 400 km up there, so it's 6700 km up from the centre of the earth. That means that the force of earth's gravity is around 88% as strong (100%*(6300/6700)^2) up there. Any difference will make for time dilation: we know for sure that this is true because if we didn't account for it, GPS would steadily get less and less accurate as the clocks on the satellites fall out of synch with those on the ground.

The reason the astronauts on the ISS (and previously on MIR) seem like they're in zero G is that the station is in freefall. It's just that it's moving sideways fast enough that the ground is falling away at the same speed. This is an orbit. If you could build a 200 km tall building, the ISS could whizz by the roof (though at a blazing 26,700 km/hr, it'd be a blink-and-you'd-miss-it situation). However, you'd still feel gravity (and a severe shortness of breath) standing on the roof.

To actually get to zeroish G, you need to go to the Lagrange point. That's where the James Webb telescope is sitting. It's around 1.5 million km away.

Space is weird.

Apt to be reading this in Today I Learned thread. Excellent bit of reading that.

Space is weird, but it's great too.

[Mr A]

It's also big. Really big.

[pineapple stu]

I don't know. I walked down the chemist there last week and that was a long aul way

[pineapple stu]

Johnny Cash was the first person outside the USSR to learn of Stalin's death. He was in the US Air Force at the time and intercepted a morse code message with the information.

And on a similar note, Lenin supposedly spoke English with a Dublin accent. He was living in London at the start of the 20th century and his tutor was from Rathmines.

[OwlsFan]

..that I look my age. Ticket man on the Luas checked everyone's ticket but when he came to me he just said "it's ok" and moved on :-(

[passinginterest]

..that I look my age. Ticket man on the Luas checked everyone's ticket but when he came to me he just said "it's ok" and moved on :-(

Ah, it's like the first time you walk into a club and don't get ID'd there's a moment of this is great and then there's the realisation that you don't look like a teenager anymore!

[pineapple stu]

Vuvuzelas were infamously banned during the 2010 World Cup for being a complete pain in the hole.

But the city also took down a 115 foot long one it had installed on an incomplete freeway in the centre of Cape Town called the Foreshore Freeway Bridge. Though it was installed, it was never actually used, as the Council decided "the jarring sound and volume level was a cause of concern" to city centre traffic.

Could you imagine driving along and having this go off above you?

https://www.capetowndailyphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/cape_town_large_vuvuzela_IMG_2279.jpg

[pineapple stu]

(North) Earl Street, Henry Street and Moore Street are all named after the same person - Earl Henry Moore of Drogheda.

He also had Drogheda Street (now O'Connell Street) and, to complete the set of streets from his title, Of Lane (now Henry Place)

[SkStu]

The Shrew’s Fiddle

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew%27s_fiddle

A device from the Middle Ages that was used to punish people who were constantly bickering or quarreling.

A version of this would have definitely come in useful on here over the years. I’d have found myself a victim of it a few times.

And, Tets, this version could be the answer to all the moderation problems:


Another version was a "double fiddle" by which two people could be attached together face-to-face, forcing them to talk to each other. They were not released until the argument had been resolved.

[seanfhear]

The Shrew’s Fiddle

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew%27s_fiddle

A device from the Middle Ages that was used to punish people who were constantly bickering or quarreling.

A version of this would have definitely come in useful on here over the years. I’d have found myself a victim of it a few times.

And, Tets, this version could be the answer to all the moderation problems:
Careful Now ~ ~ Don’t be giving the Irish government ideas ! !

[tetsujin1979]

The Shrew’s Fiddle

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew%27s_fiddle

A device from the Middle Ages that was used to punish people who were constantly bickering or quarreling.

A version of this would have definitely come in useful on here over the years. I’d have found myself a victim of it a few times.

And, Tets, this version could be the answer to all the moderation problems:
I subscribe to the Jeff Winger solution to things
http://cochinopop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2.gif

[elatedscum]

The Shrew’s Fiddle

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew%27s_fiddle

A device from the Middle Ages that was used to punish people who were constantly bickering or quarreling.

A version of this would have definitely come in useful on here over the years. I’d have found myself a victim of it a few times.

And, Tets, this version could be the answer to all the moderation problems:

I've been to Freiburg maybe 20 times. Never knew there was a torture museum...

[tetsujin1979]

How to solve a Rubik's cube. I've been able to solve the first two layers for a while, but I could never get the final layer. Watched a few YouTube tutorials and can completely solve a cube in about two minutes now.

[dahamsta]

I was always able to do one side, then learned how to do a second, then forgot again. Now my kid is in the same boat. Time for YouTube I guess, any recommendations?

[tetsujin1979]

found these instructions really easy to follow, the animated cubes showing each move really helped
https://ruwix.com/the-rubiks-cube/how-to-solve-the-rubiks-cube-beginners-method/

And this tutorial on YouTube is really good
7Ron6MN45LY

[CraftyToePoke]

I remember sneaking away with one when the fully growns had given up many years ago, taking off the coloured squares with my teeth and putting them back done. They were stickers then, dunno if they still are.

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, a mate of mine did that as well to win a bet from his older brother that he couldn't solve it.

Not sure if he was found out though. It seemed fairly obvious that the stickers weren't entirely correctly put back on.

[dahamsta]

Oh I did that too but it's much easier to take them apart, and no-one could ever tell. They just pop apart and back together again.

EDIT: I will now prank my kids.

[John83]

If you take a solved one and swap two corner stickers, it becomes unsolvable. Just saying, for the pranksters.

[pineapple stu]

There's no bridges over the Amazon

[dahamsta]

The opening of a new ecommerce fulfillment center (e.g. an Amazon warehouse) costs your county an average of 938 retail jobs, and the average hourly wage of retail workers drops 2.4%.

(via (https://kenthendricks.com/52-things-i-learned-in-2022/))

[pineapple stu]

Macauley Culkin's middle name is Macauley Culkin

[joey B]

50% of the prizemoney in Irish Horse racing is goverment funding,thanks to LOI Central for that one!

[dahamsta]

TIL that in Firefox you can select a row or a column in a table by holding down CTRL and clicking and dragging down or across, or clicking and selecting cells. Mind blown. I've copied whole tables into Excel so many times just for one column of data, it's just not funny.

[SkStu]

Unit 731 - grim.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

[pineapple stu]

When the Voyager spacecraft passed Jupiter, they used Jupiter's gravity to slingshot towards Saturn, gaining around 3,500mph, or about 10% of their speed in the process.

But for every action, Newton's Laws on the conservation of energy say there must be an equal and opposite reaction - in this case a deceleration impact on Jupiter. Which was measured at 1 foot per trillion years.

[osarusan]

Unit 731 - grim.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

The leader of the whle thing was given immunity to head to the US and spill the beans on all of the research that the US could never do for ethical reasons.

[OwlsFan]

You can beat a leading football country in Europe by 2 clear goals despite only having 25% possession.

[pineapple stu]

The words Gallic, soldier, salacious and salad all come from the word "salt"

(As does salary, though I did know that)

[seanfhear]

The words Gallic, soldier, salacious and salad all come from the word "salt"

(As does salary, though I did know that) Have a shake of salt for that.

[ontheotherhand]

Unit 731 - grim.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

This is absolutely horrific. The thought of some of these ****ers being given immunity in the States makes it even worse.

[OwlsFan]

That there is still room for the long ball in football. Trailing 0-4 from the first leg in the Division One play offs, Sheffield Wednesday decided that the time for the tippy tappy stuff at the back was over and they launched every 2nd ball down the line and chased and harried and literally put Peterborough in the words of their former manager "under pressure" and it worked. Result 5-1 and through on penalties.

[seanfhear]

That there is still room for the long ball in football. Trailing 0-4 from the first leg in the Division One play offs, Sheffield Wednesday decided that the time for the tippy tappy stuff at the back was over and they launched every 2nd ball down the line and chased and harried and literally put Peterborough in the words of their former manager "under pressure" and it worked. Result 5-1 and through on penalties.
A few flew over the cuckoo's nest.

[OwlsFan]

You can buy a Swiss knife in duty free in Zurich airport! Hmmmm. Surely they will post them on to the buyer?

[dahamsta]

TIL that "perk of the job" derives from the word "perquisite (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perquisite)".

[dahamsta]

Here's another stupid fact while I'm here, which I'm not even going to explain because it's so, so idiotic it's infuriating: The Immovable Ladder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Quo_%28Jerusalem_and_Bethlehem%29#Immovable _ladder).

[SkStu]

One country outside of Ireland offers students the Irish Leaving Certificate. Libya.

Fascinating, múinteoir.


Only one school outside Ireland offers the Leaving Certificate exam to their students. Since 1997, students at the ISM international school in Tripoli, Libya, take the Leaving Cert, with Arabic being substituted for Irish and Libyan history for Irish history.

[OwlsFan]

Yesterday I learned that the bar stoolers can be right once in a while: we had a pre-match discussion and agreed that we should play a back 4 against Gibraltar but knew Kenny wouldn't change but he eventually did after 45 minutes. Perhaps he had a microphone fitted in O'Donogues.

[pineapple stu]

Today I learned Packie Bonner was nominated for the Ballon d'Or.

[SkStu]

The Scorpions “Wind of Change” / CIA conspiracy theory :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_(Scorpions_song)


The song is the subject of the Pineapple Street Studios podcast Wind of Change, released 11 May 2020, which raises questions regarding the song's origin.[13][14][15] Patrick Radden Keefe, the New Yorker author and host of the podcast investigates the allegation that the song was written by or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, citing a rumor originating allegedly from inside the agency. In a Sirius XM interview with Eddie Trunk on 13 May 2020, Meine stated "It's a fascinating idea, and it's an entertaining idea, but it's not true at all".[16][17] In December 2020, it was reported that a further investigation of the song's origins based on the claims from the podcast will be adapted into a series for Hulu directed by Alex Karpovsky.[18]

[A N Mouse]

The christmas movie Die Hard was adapted from a 1979 book by Roderick Thorp.

The book was a sequel to his 1966 novel The Detective, which was made into a 1968 movie called The Detective.

So when making Die Hard they were contractually obliged to give first refusal of the lead role to the original actor, the 73 year old Frank Sinatra.

https://www.cbr.com/frank-sinatra-lead-role-before-bruce-willis-die-hard/


Then of course none of the big names wanted to take the role as they didn't didn't want to do Rambo, just blow **** up stuff. Willis wanted it, to do more than tv, but was unable to commit because of Moonlighting then Cybil Shepherd got pregnant.