The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Off Topic => Topic started by: Pokeyonekenobie on July 08, 2021, 03:56:05 PM
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In going through old Newspapers on microfilm, I've learned some really random things lately. So I thought I'd make a thread about it and then others can chime in with things they've learned that others might find interesting.
There was a butter surplus in 1939.
Shirley Temple's pet dog was in "Just Around the Corner" and she gives it a bath in one of the scenes. It got paid $7.50 a day.
One article I saw today talked about the cost of Ed Wynn's shoes. He'd found a pair that was perfect for his act (they got him laughs) and since he couldn't ever find a suitable replacement pair, he paid to have them re-soled and repaired when they wore out. He estimated he'd spent somewhere around $2,000 on his shoes.
The local papers that I'm going through list all the outstanding taxes on properties from the previous year every January. I guess that's one way to find out how in debt your neighbors really are!
When Babe Ruth played some exhibition games in Japan the posters that were made to advertise the events changed his eyes to make him appear more Japanese.
A living mermaid named Serpentina traveled with a trained Flea Circus (complete with juggling fleas) and marine show. The picture of her makes it look like she was a real mermaid. It doesn't look like a costume... Found an article on her along with a picture. Apparently she was born with no bones below her shoulders. So she had arm bones but not a backbone.
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https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12811227/serpentina-unknown
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I just learnt right now that some cars get confused on really hot days and stall.
Hurray car break downs.
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I just learned that in the Sims games 'Live Mode' is pronounced live as in liver and not live rhymes with five. I've been saying it wrong for 20 years.
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I read an article about Soviet kamikaze dogs, basically during WW2 soviets would train dogs to crawl under German tanks while strapped with timed explosives that would then explode destroying not only the poor doggo but the tank too. The problem was that all dogs were trained on parked unmanned tanks, whereas in the battlefield the tanks were moving and firing. The dogs would either be too scarred to approach the moving noisy tanks, or the firing guns would frighten them so much that they'd run right back to the trenches with the bomb still ticking, killing the Soviets inside :lol: Another problem was that apparently the dogs were trained on Soviet diesel tanks whereas German tanks ran on gasoline, and since dogs mainly use smell for orientation, you can guess which tanks they often picked to crawl under based on familiar scent... I guess the moral of the story is: don't use dogs as bombs.
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I learned the Japanese word for idiot from Diamond no Ace.
Thanks to the Shoutbox I learned that an eyeliner sharpener works well on colored pencils.
An amusement park ride that terrified me as a child was redesigned into a much less scary ride a few years after I rode it. The ride still standing but no longer operates due to flood damage that cannot be repaired.
Ponyfan
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I like to think I can write, so I do for fun, & for a fanfiction I had to research some animals & I rapidly became hooked on sharks. They're jawesome!!! There are over 500 species & only four have EVER attacked humans (& that's a rare occurrence indeed). One can walk on reef shallows, one has a beard (that one's name even means shaggy beard), one can gulp air for buoyancy, most (except your pelagic - ocean-roaming - sharks) can buccal pump, they can sense electric currents... If you want more fun sharky facts come to me. If you have sharky facts feel free to share xxx
Oh & I have a plushie sharky collection now, including the Ikea sharky perched on my leggie as I type xxx
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i'm not sure why it's taken me 30 something years to realize that when my Polish ancestors came to the united states sometime around the turn of the 20th century Poland wasn't a country. it was partitioned.
it dawned on me a while back when i was reading a book about the Russian revolution. I can't believe i never thought about it before :blush:
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There was also a plan to have pigeon piloted bombs in the second world war. Thankfully it didn't happen BUT a pigeon was decorated for bravery in one of the wars after managing to deliver a message despite taking injury and losing a leg en route.
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There was also a plan to have pigeon piloted bombs in the second world war. Thankfully it didn't happen BUT a pigeon was decorated for bravery in one of the wars after managing to deliver a message despite taking injury and losing a leg en route.
Was that Cher Ami??? Apt name I think (anybody who risked life & literal limb to rescue me would be a dear friend indeed)
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There was also a plan to have pigeon piloted bombs in the second world war. Thankfully it didn't happen BUT a pigeon was decorated for bravery in one of the wars after managing to deliver a message despite taking injury and losing a leg en route.
Was that Cher Ami??? Apt name I think (anybody who risked life & literal limb to rescue me would be a dear friend indeed)
Quite possibly :)
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That wasps like bees can recognize individuals faces, and remember them.
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That wasps like bees can recognize individuals faces, and remember them.
oh no. i just chased one off my patio this morning. it almost went in the house!
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Mockingbirds and crows also remember individual people and if you were kind or mean to them.
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That wasps like bees can recognize individuals faces, and remember them.
oh no. i just chased one off my patio this morning. it almost went in the house!
Heheh, it's definitely better to be gentle, skirt around them, and try to make peace, as they will eventually get used to you and leave you alone. Wasps are quite nice to have around! But yeah, one probably wouldn't want them inside the house ^^;
On a slightly related topic, I just learned about the Boll Weevil Monument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_Weevil_Monument) and now I want my own miniature replica XD
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I recently learned about this "brilliant" inventor who came up with a totally revolutionary way of storing excess energy in form of a huge crane that uses the energy surplus to lift heavy concrete blocks and then converts it back to electricity when needed by lowering them back to power the generator with gravity... which is pretty much like the plain old pumped storage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) except needlessly more complicated and much less practical :rolleyes:
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Mockingbirds and crows also remember individual people and if you were kind or mean to them.
I read a National Geographic article about this, and it's so cool! There was this little girl that befriended the crows in her yard by leaving them trinkets, and they would bring her gifts in return.
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Oil pumps have an alarm that sounds for several minutes before they turn on.
Ponyfan
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A living mermaid named Serpentina traveled with a trained Flea Circus (complete with juggling fleas) and marine show. The picture of her makes it look like she was a real mermaid. It doesn't look like a costume... Found an article on her along with a picture. Apparently she was born with no bones below her shoulders. So she had arm bones but not a backbone.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12811227/serpentina-unknown
:shocked: As a biologist and pony fan, I am so amazed by this! But then I feel bad for objectifying someone! That's really an amazing story.
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The 1931 paper I'm going through now has advertisements for sliced bread.
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Betty White is older than sliced bread.
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Betty White is older than sliced bread.
:lmao:
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There's apparently a troll conspiracy theory according to which birds don't exist and are actually surveillance drones used by CIA.
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A favourite detail from my years doing classical Japanese.
The Japanese word for thunder and lightning (kaminari) comes orthographically from kami (god) and roar (naru).
So a storm is the roar of the gods in Japanese.
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This smilie > :redx:
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There's apparently a troll conspiracy theory according to which birds don't exist and are actually surveillance drones used by CIA.
lol
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A favourite detail from my years doing classical Japanese.
The Japanese word for thunder and lightning (kaminari) comes orthographically from kami (god) and roar (naru).
So a storm is the roar of the gods in Japanese.
That's really interesting. :) I always enjoy learning about words.
Ponyfan
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Scar tissue is held together by vitamin C (among others) and if you have a vit C deficiency not only will you get scurvy but all your scars will open.
I learned this while googling scar tissue. I have an 11 inch scar on my scalp. Part of it didn't heal together correctly and it's smooth on one side and bumpy and raised on the other. This part of my scar sometimes feels tight and it hurts. I used to have nightmares about it coming undone. I didn't think it could happen but yep, it can! I think I'm going to take extra vitamin C from now on...
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I learned an interesting hack that lets you win almost any game of Guess Who? (as long as the opponent doesn't know it too), it is based on some computer search of ordered sets or something. Basically, your first question is "Does the person's name start with a letter that is after M in the alphabet?" and if the opponent says "yes", you eliminate all names that start with something between A and M, if "no" - all between N and Z. Either way, you already have it narrowed down to only a half after just the first question. Then in the next turn you ask the same question except this time for either G or T, depending on which half you're left with. Then in every subsequent question you replace it with whatever letter is in the middle of your current range, and usually you should win after just four or five turns. And the best thing is, it's not even against the rules, since nothing says you can't ask these types of questions!
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I just learned that in the Sims games 'Live Mode' is pronounced live as in liver and not live rhymes with five. I've been saying it wrong for 20 years.
This comment literally changed my entire life.
Similarly, when you see shampoo that says "no more tears" it isn't referencing the kind that comes out of your eyes. It means the kind you do to paper for example. How crazy is that? I know I'm not the only one that interpreted it like, if it gets in your eyes it won't sting.
BUT, on the same note, did you know that those shampoo bottles with the eyes are meant to be shaped like fish? It's really not a random detail!
https://www.makeupalley.com/product/showreview.asp/ItemId=7192/LOreal-Kids-Shampoo--Strawberry-Smoothie/LOreal-Paris/Shampoo
Forgive my inability to make it a proper image addition but it was my favorite growing up....
I can't believe it took me That long to see it but now it cannot be unseen.
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One quarter of all the bones in your body are located in your feet!!
Each foot has 26 different bones, which is 52 bones in both. Your body has 206 bones.
I learned this when I got a Lisfranc fracture in my right foot back in February.
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I just learned that in the Sims games 'Live Mode' is pronounced live as in liver and not live rhymes with five. I've been saying it wrong for 20 years.
I didn’t know that either! And I have been playing the Sims for more than 20 years.
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I just learned we're considered a genuine "high-risk pregnancy". As in, we actually now have two different doctors with very different skillsets, instead of just one very worried doctor who speaks before she thinks a bit too much.
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I just learned that in the Sims games 'Live Mode' is pronounced live as in liver and not live rhymes with five. I've been saying it wrong for 20 years.
I didn’t know that either! And I have been playing the Sims for more than 20 years.
Also just learned of this thanks to that post! Interesting...
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If you tell someone you're late because someone shot your cat, they will always believe you.
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One quarter of all the bones in your body are located in your feet!!
Each foot has 26 different bones, which is 52 bones in both. Your body has 206 bones.
I learned this when I got a Lisfranc fracture in my right foot back in February.
That’s so many. I bet about half of those are broken for me with the amount of times I’ve gotten my toes banged up :yikes:
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Today I learned there are only 24 "super tusker" elephants left in the world.
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Mockingbirds and crows also remember individual people and if you were kind or mean to them.
I read a National Geographic article about this, and it's so cool! There was this little girl that befriended the crows in her yard by leaving them trinkets, and they would bring her gifts in return.
This is amazing to find out...
oh, a group of Crows together is called a Murder. ^.^
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In this 1921 newspaper I'm looking at there's an article about schools in Zion, Illinois. Apparently they were teaching students that the Earth was flat. I'll copy it out so you can see (yes, I am leaving in any errors they printed.) :lol:
"Zion schools of which Wilbur Glenn Voliva, the overseer of the colony is president, have adopted his new theories of a flat world and the absence of gravitation, and the 1000 grade and high school pupils believe them implicitly, according to their teachers.
The public school maintained by the state board of education and attended by the children of nonmembers of Voliva's Christian-Catholic Apostolic church still teaches, however that the world is a globe moving through limitless space and that it was the attraction of gravity which caused the apple to fall on Isaac Newton's head.
At the Zion schools the new course of study teaches that:
The earth is a flat circular world, with a north pole in the exact center, no south pole and surrounded by a wall of ice which keeps adventuresome mariners from fall off the rim.
That the earth has no motion but remains stationary in space.
That the sun is not millions of miles in diameter and 91,000,000 miles away, but is really a little orb thirty-two miles across and only 3,000 miles from the earth.
That the law of gravitation is a fallacy and when objects are thrown into the air they continues to rise until the force which impelled them is expended and then fall back to earth because they are heavier than air."
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That's pretty much Flat Earth today too. The Sun and Moon are spotlights that move across the surface. Other planets are round, but Earth is not.
In a nutshell.
Flat Earthers are my favorite. I joined the official Flat Earth Society forum almost 20 years ago. Back then, it was mostly comprised of people who were trolling everyone... it was a way to debate ridiculous things to point out stuff that people really believe in. Kinda like Pastafarians. But now with social media I think there really are people who believe it and don't get the point of the original Flat Earth Society.
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I just learned today about an interesting piece of schizo-tech called electric-steam locomotive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive), which is pretty much like a regular steam engine but with a pantograph on the roof to power an electric heater that is used to boil the water instead of a regular coal furnace.
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If you are sewing fine fabric on a sewing machine, you can use tissue paper to help stabilise it :)
Love pkw xxx
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I recently read about a creature from Arthurian legends called the Questing Beast, which apparently had the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the legs of a deer and the butt of a lion. Sounds like some medieval bard was probably high when coming up with this completely baffling mishmash of different unrelated animals? Actually, a possible explanation is that the real source of this legend was simply some very poorly interpreted second hand accounts of travelers to faraway lands who just saw a giraffe for the first time in their life.
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That's pretty much Flat Earth today too. The Sun and Moon are spotlights that move across the surface. Other planets are round, but Earth is not.
In a nutshell.
Flat Earthers are my favorite. I joined the official Flat Earth Society forum almost 20 years ago. Back then, it was mostly comprised of people who were trolling everyone... it was a way to debate ridiculous things to point out stuff that people really believe in. Kinda like Pastafarians. But now with social media I think there really are people who believe it and don't get the point of the original Flat Earth Society.
There are people who genuinely believe it now, pretty sure Louis Theroux made a documentary about them...
Post Merge: March 04, 2022, 11:20:31 AM
I other news a woman where I work has relatives in Ukraine but she's not worried. Apparently it's not as bad as leaving people in Afghanistan. The Russians aren't as bad as the Talibanis so its fine. I had asked her whether she had relations in Europe and whether they were ok. I wasn't sure what she would say and I thought I was genuinely open to talking about it with someone with any view. Then I realized that I'm terrified and don't have the stomach for any sort of discussion really. Lesson learnt.
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Well, since i learn something new every day, here it all is... Tins of tunafish are more expensive and let's face it, smaller than they used to be. So yesterday, I tried mashing up the tunafish with half a tin of kidney beans to make wraps for him and me. I added salad and mayo. The thing I learned is that this does not make the tunafish any better. It's kind of about the same. Nutritous, probably, but not that exciting. Not the exciting life hack i was hoping for anyway.
Today learned that the randomly spaced curbstones and pavers in my driveway leave a space too small for the caravan we are getting. Second, they are heavily concreted into the ground to about 1ft in width and about 2ft below the surface. I learned that we will not be moving them.
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Today I read an article about relocating rhinos in Africa. They strap them upside down to a helicopter to transport them to the reserves and safe spaces.
Also, trained dogs that go after poachers have saved over 100 rhinos.
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I just learned a moment ago that there was apparently some guy who was so asocial that he literally taught his dog to climb up to the roof and throw bricks at people who rang his doorbell.
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I learned recently that there is a LOT of sheep breeds in the world. Some are very rare, like some horses.
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I learned how to destroy padlocks with pliers. ours decided to permanently lock itself, so goodbye. :devious: