Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)

[tater]

Webb image of Jupiter

[magnemoe]

On 8/21/2022 at 5:43 PM, DDE said:

Il-18, 1957

This image bugged me a lot, why is the inner engines much larger? 

had to google it and the inner engine cowls also hold the landing gear. Problem solved

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

This image bugged me a lot, why is the inner engines much larger? 

They are closer to the belly, eat more.

[Maria Sirona]

22 hours ago, tater said:

Webb image of Jupiter

That's beautiful. What is that red glow near the poles? Methinks it's aurorae

[TheSaint]

Wind turbine blades could be recycled into gummy bears, scientists say

[kerbiloid]

Even spent tyres could.

Just with knife.

[Hyperspace Industries]

12 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

Wind turbine blades could be recycled into gummy bears, scientists say

Why not just build the things out of metal, then you could recycle it into cool stuff, like jet engines, car engines runnin’ on petrol, coal fired steam trains, and other cool stuff.

The fuel of course would be algae oil.

Fun fact: algae decomposes to crude oil in minutes to seconds if properly heated,

[kerbiloid]

50 minutes ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

Why not just build the things out of metal

+1

Spoiler

 

[magnemoe]

57 minutes ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

Why not just build the things out of metal, then you could recycle it into cool stuff, like jet engines, car engines runnin’ on petrol, coal fired steam trains, and other cool stuff.

The fuel of course would be algae oil.

Fun fact: algae decomposes to crude oil in minutes to seconds if properly heated,

Think they want composites for the blades to keep them light, for the larges windmills you probably get issues that an twice as long steel or aluminium blade is not only 8 times heavier as in the square cube law but more. This demand an much more beefy housing and tower. 
They would obviously never convert them to food. Reused aluminium are not used for food storage like beer cans, that is reused from trash or deposit. 

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, TheSaint said:

Wind turbine blades could be recycled into gummy bears, scientists say

Mmmm, wind-flavoured gummies. Hope the blades weren’t downwind from a landfill or rendering plant…

Edited August 24, 2022 by StrandedonEarth
Finally Had time to proofread

[Pixophir]

1 hour ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

Why not just build the things out of metal

It's a weight thing.

Leight weight (actually as light as reasonably possible) blades turn more efficiently specifically in lighter winds, the rotor hub doesn't need to support that much weight, so lasts longer, and they are easier to transport. A composite material is the best choice to make a blade in one piece for light weight and strength.

Though the assembly of large turbines still need pretty impressive lifting equipment.

Edit: ninja'd :-)

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Pixophir

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

It's a weight thing.

Leight weight (actually as light as reasonably possible) blades turn more efficiently specifically in lighter winds, the rotor hub doesn't need to support that much weight, so lasts longer, and they are easier to transport. A composite material is the best choice to make a blade in one piece for light weight and strength.

Though the assembly of large turbines still need pretty impressive lifting equipment.

Edit: ninja'd :-)

 

You added the turn more efficiently specifically in lighter winds part who is probably also important. 

[DDE]

Share of visits of online shopping sites that end in a purchase (2021)

Edited August 27, 2022 by DDE
Oh, come on, Joe...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

What is a kf online and why would I shop there? 

[DDE]

Methanol doesn't play well with aviation aluminum.

As a result, aircraft have to use various mixtures of water, ethanol and glycerin for their coolants, hydraulic shock absorber ("Chassis Liqueur" of Soviet fame) and deicers. Tu-22 with its 500 L of 70% alcohol was just the craziest of the bunch.

[magnemoe]

59 minutes ago, DDE said:

Methanol doesn't play well with aviation aluminum.

As a result, aircraft have to use various mixtures of water, ethanol and glycerin for their coolants, hydraulic shock absorber ("Chassis Liqueur" of Soviet fame) and deicers. Tu-22 with its 500 L of 70% alcohol was just the craziest of the bunch.

That one had an fun side story, procurement noticed that the alcohol was always almost or completely used up during flights. Even short flight during the winter in Russia so it was very obvious there the coolant went. 
So they thought about replacing it with something you could not drink. But the crews managed to stop this, arguing that the cooling system generated leaks pretty often, demonstrating this by letting them smell alcohol in the cockpit and one major advantage with ethanol is its low toxicity so it continued fly with 500 liter alcohol. 
This had the benefit that it was very easy to get enthusiastic ground crews for the  Tu-22

[kerbiloid]

The solution was found long ago.

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

Spoiler

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 8/27/2022 at 5:38 AM, DDE said:

Oh, come on, Joe...

I missed this!

 

Grin!

[DDE]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

That one had an fun side story, procurement noticed that the alcohol was always almost or completely used up during flights. Even short flight during the winter in Russia so it was very obvious there the coolant went. 
So they thought about replacing it with something you could not drink. But the crews managed to stop this, arguing that the cooling system generated leaks pretty often, demonstrating this by letting them smell alcohol in the cockpit and one major advantage with ethanol is its low toxicity so it continued fly with 500 liter alcohol. 
This had the benefit that it was very easy to get enthusiastic ground crews for the  Tu-22

Not just that, any denaturate could be an issue, and so the military ended up procuring massive amounts of medical-grade ethanol, to the absolute joy of all involved.

There's also a story of Mikoyan (the M in MiG) going to the other Mikoyan - a seemingly unsinkable Politburo member - to get teetotalers off his back. Then there's the other story that Mikoyan wrote that he's going to top his planes off with Armenian cogniac if that is what it takes to meet performance targets (fun fact: a decade or so prior someone had dismissed UDMH as a rocket fuel by comparing its cost to Armenian cogniac).

[kerbiloid]

https://nplus1-ru.translate.goog/blog/2017/09/01/patient-sapiens?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Electroacupunture of sausage.

[DDE]

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

https://nplus1-ru.translate.goog/blog/2017/09/01/patient-sapiens?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Electroacupunture of sausage.

Quote

The quintessence of this charade was an explanation given to a students by one of the rent-a-cops turned narcologists. The device found "traces" of [redacted] but the wam claimed that she had never dealt with [redacted]. "Perhaps you've never taken [redacted], but you may have found yourself in proximity to potential addicts. The bioenergoinformation nature of their cravings has imprinted itself onto you, and was detected by our device," the operator claimed.

Yo dawg, I've put sticked some electricity into your homeopathy...

Alternative quip: is it possible to create an "information-based copy" of large-denomination bills? Or does it only work for its fellow placebos?

Edited September 1, 2022 by DDE

[kerbiloid]

34 minutes ago, DDE said:

I've put sticked some electricity

Spoiler

 

 

[DDE]

https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.11215

This sounds either too easy - you'd think other meteor cams would pick up such stratospheric "traffic" - or, ahem, region-specific...

[kerbiloid]

34 minutes ago, DDE said:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.11215

Quote

Phantoms are observed in the troposphere at distances up to 10 - 12 km. We estimate their size from 3 to 12 meters and speeds up to 15 km/s.

https://rg.ru/2017/03/07/zagadochnoe-foto-vymyshlennogo-chudovishcha-porazilo-internet.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4281314/Human-shaped-cloud-appears-Zambian-shopping-centre.html

Edited September 1, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Codraroll]

I've finally learned a fun fact worth bumping the thread for.

People might not know a whole lot about Ethiopia, but it's a big country in east Africa. Addis Ababa, the capital, is a regional hub of modern development, surrounded by (occasionally drought-stricken) farmland. It's close to the Rift Valley and has a wetter climate than the drought on Africa's horn, but not quite the rainforest of the African interior either. It's sort of a mid-range place as far as climate goes, really.

People don't know a lot about Bhutan either, but the common image of it is a tiny, traditionalist country in the Himalayas. Like Nepal's older little sibling. The entire country is mountainous, with the human settlements nested in narrow valleys between tall, icy peaks. The capital Thimphu is the quintessential Himalayan city, crammed into one of the country's innermost valleys with a view of the tall mountains above. Thimphu is very much a mountain city, being the fifth highest-elevated capital city in the world.

In fourth place? Addis Ababa. The East African metropolis, with the farmlands and fields and forests, is located at a higher altitude than the mountainous Thimphu of the Himalayas.  The three capitals located at even higher altitudes are the Andean capitals of South American countries; La Paz, Quito, and Bogotá. You frequently hear stories about people getting altitude sickness when visiting those places. But I wouldn't ever guess Addis Ababa was next on the list.

Oh, and for the record: Kathmandu, Nepal, is also known for being way up in the mountains, with that infamous airport planes can hardly land on. It's all the way down on eighteenth place on the list.