Today I Learned...

[seanfhear]

Jack and Bobby Charlton’s dad didn’t watch their World Cup semi final because he wouldn’t change his shift working at the mine!

Must have been the bonus shift.

[OwlsFan]

...(or rather reminded me) that it was a Thierry Henry goal which condemned Wednesday to relegation from the Premier League in 2000. God I love that man.

[Mr A]

...(or rather reminded me) that it was a Thierry Henry goal which condemned Wednesday to relegation from the Premier League in 2000. God I love that man.

Am still boycotting Glilette razors all these years later

[A N Mouse]

TIL Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation' could brick some laptops because of resonant frequencies with the HDD. As in not necessarily the machine playing the video, but one nearby.

Manufacturers had to add audio filters, which may or may not still be in place.

here's the original blog post with the story

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220816-00/?p=106994

but I see it's been been picked up by others including the daily heil in the last week.

[osarusan]

Sergei Krikalev was a Soviet cosmonaut who was on board the space station Mir when the Soviet Union collapsed. Thus, the country which had sent him into space didn't exist any more, and the landing zone for his scheduled return was now in newly-independent and now-not-Soviet Kazakhstan, so there was confusion about who was in charge. He ended up spending 311 days in space, twice as long as planned (Out of his 803-day total, which is the 3rd highest ever).

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.

[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?

[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.