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

[darthgently]

Ok, it took me years to feel "ok" in my gut with the unintuitive double slit experiment result.

Now I'm back to nearly square one.  Apparently, not only does light somehow seek out the shortest path in space, as if it explores, it also appears to also do so in time. 

<Brain broken, please stand by while rebooting>

Will/has this result be/been replicated?

 

[DDE]

8 hours ago, darthgently said:

coincidentally

Not.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Not.

I meant coincidence that the debunk episode came out within days of Jacke's post.  But yeah, maybe not

[DDE]

11 hours ago, darthgently said:

I meant coincidence that the debunk episode came out within days of Jacke's post.  But yeah, maybe not

My instigating quip was in fact a result of that video. Think I've heard the myth before, but only in passing.

[kerbiloid]

On 10/24/2023 at 8:45 PM, DDE said:

see how many fingers they have? Take that, Stable Diffusion

And now about the Novgorodian wooden computer AI.

On 10/24/2023 at 9:29 PM, magnemoe said:

Has been know some time that the official literacy  numbers in medieval times was way to low. Reason was that the church and state counted literate==Latin., if you could write in the local language it did not count. 

+1
99% could write.

1% could read what they've written.

[kerbiloid]

To add a shovel to the fan...

A photon is piercing the space at light speed.

So, it's  total length is growing. Thus, its volume is growing. Thus, it should cause adiabatic expansion. Thus, the photon should be cooling very quickly.
Thus, the photon has reached the relict temperature, keeps expanding, becomes cooler than background, and starts shrinking back under the relic pressure from everywhere.

[DDE]

Apparently the Russian KSP slang for kerbals is "cucumbers".

Learnt in Roscosmos chat where everyone whined about Astronomy being dropped as a school subject, and I advocated compulsory KSP in schools instead.

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

Apparently the Russian KSP slang for kerbals is "cucumbers".

Learnt in Roscosmos chat where everyone whined about Astronomy being dropped as a school subject, and I advocated compulsory KSP in schools instead.

If Minecraft is used in some schools in the US I don’t see why KSP can’t too worldwide.

Way back in 2020 when I was deciding whether to buy KSP or not, one of the first articles I read reviewing it called it “Minecraft with rockets”.

[darthgently]

23 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If Minecraft is used in some schools in the US I don’t see why KSP can’t too worldwide.

Way back in 2020 when I was deciding whether to buy KSP or not, one of the first articles I read reviewing it called it “Minecraft with rockets”.

I'd like to see a KSP educational variant that used Oregon Trail as a guide.  If I had any request for colony mode, that would be it.   

Possible mission failure messages:

"Your crew has died from fatal lithobraking".

"Billyjimbob Kerman died from gravity on surface of Eve from lack of exercise in centrifuge during transit"

"Your craft has been crushed by Jool"

[kerbiloid]

21 hours ago, DDE said:

I advocated compulsory KSP in schools instead.

Children must know, that the planets are running around the Sun because it's written in the Configuration Files, and that the world is created by Harvester.

Also, food and room are negligible. Look at the Kerbals. They don't eat, live in Mk1 for years, and don't cry. Be like them.

Oops, sounds a little gnostically.

[wumpus]

On 10/26/2023 at 3:50 PM, kerbiloid said:

And now about the Novgorodian wooden computer AI.

+1
99% could write.

1% could read what they've written.

I'm shocked that any would bother.  Perhaps it was more useful than I thought.  The other question is if anybody progressed past a reading level of a "first year after learning to read" that a modern child would have.  With no books and little else to practice with, they couldn't have been any good at reading or writing.  I'd be impressed if 1%  could read what somebody else "literate in only the vulgar" could write.

 

On 10/27/2023 at 11:09 AM, darthgently said:

I'd like to see a KSP educational variant that used Oregon Trail as a guide.  If I had any request for colony mode, that would be it.   

Possible mission failure messages:

"Your crew has died from fatal lithobraking".

"Billyjimbob Kerman died from gravity on surface of Eve from lack of exercise in centrifuge during transit"

"Your craft has been crushed by Jool"

Once upon a time there was KerbalEdu, a KSP edition for education.  As far as I know, this is the only edition of KSP with included DRM.  The wiki link has a webpage for it, but I'm not getting any response.  It's dead, Jim.  I think it died before the release of KSP 1.0, and certainly wouldn't have survived the K2 buyout.  I don't think it was ever all that successful, and probably had too much trouble trying to retrofit all the Edu mods to work with the then-evolving KSP code tree.

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/KerbalEdu

[Royalswissarmyknife]

On 10/28/2023 at 4:42 PM, wumpus said:

Once upon a time there was KerbalEdu, a KSP edition for education.  As far as I know, this is the only edition of KSP with included DRM.  The wiki link has a webpage for it, but I'm not getting any response.  It's dead, Jim.  I think it died before the release of KSP 1.0, and certainly wouldn't have survived the K2 buyout.  I don't think it was ever all that successful, and probably had too much trouble trying to retrofit all the Edu mods to work with the then-evolving KSP code tree.

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/KerbalEdu

Petition for Cabbage to be added to Ksp-2. 

[FleshJeb]

Octopus Lady covers deep sea hydrothermal vents, including a little tangent on exobiology. I love her work, and this one is even better than her average.

To describe her as "perky" would be a gross understatement, but you will never have so much information shotgunned into your poor little brain in such a short period of time.

https://youtu.be/6R8hdRiEWkY

Weird, the regular video embed isn't working, no matter which style of link.

Edited October 31, 2023 by FleshJeb

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

Octopus Lady covers deep sea hydrothermal vents, including a little tangent on exobiology. I love her work, and this one is even better than her average.

To describe her as "perky" would be a gross understatement, but you will never have so much information shotgunned into your poor little brain in such a short period of time.

https://youtu.be/6R8hdRiEWkY

Weird, the regular video embed isn't working, no matter which style of link.

Here is an excellent way to come down gently from that great blast of perkiness

 

[DDE]

When RAF Bomber Command formed the dedicated dambuster squadron (the 716th) for Operation CHASTISE, the other squadrons were scoured for their best pilots, and their ground crews.

Nobody specified best ground crews

So the other squadrons showed their appreciation for the top-secret outfit by sending them absolute sloths, drunkards, pregnant auxiliaries and the like.

[darthgently]

27 minutes ago, DDE said:

When RAF Bomber Command formed the dedicated dambuster squadron (the 716th) for Operation CHASTISE, the other squadrons were scoured for their best pilots, and their ground crews.

Nobody specified best ground crews

So the other squadrons showed their appreciation for the top-secret outfit by sending them absolute sloths, drunkards, pregnant auxiliaries and the like.

There is a wartime comedy movie script in this.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

When RAF Bomber Command formed the dedicated dambuster squadron (the 716th) for Operation CHASTISE, the other squadrons were scoured for their best pilots, and their ground crews.

Nobody specified best ground crews

So the other squadrons showed their appreciation for the top-secret outfit by sending them absolute sloths, drunkards, pregnant auxiliaries and the like.

No idea how the air force organize ground crews reqarding to planes. I assume the maintenance crew are assigned to an squadron as its very good to know about issues with an plane, left engine tend to run hot and right landing wheel is temperamental. 
Even more important during an war as planes can have patched combat damage you have to look over. 
While the other ground crew I assume is general, refueling, loading, make sure maintenance crew has the parts they need and so on, but that even the maintenance crew was assigned to an base and did not follow the planes normally. 

[AstroWolfie]

If you were to choose to have a Samoyed as a guard dog, they would suck at it. Due to their friendly dispositions, they wouldn't attack threats and just kinda smile and bark at them

*pic related, not mine but one i found online*

[magnemoe]

31 minutes ago, AstroWolfie said:

If you were to choose to have a Samoyed as a guard dog, they would suck at it. Due to their friendly dispositions, they wouldn't attack threats and just kinda smile and bark at them

*pic related, not mine but one i found online*

Do they enjoy an bath? Thinking some treats, hot water and pink  or purple hair dye would do wonder  

[darthgently]

37 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Do they enjoy an bath? Thinking some treats, hot water and pink  or purple hair dye would do wonder  

Don't be cruel

[TheSaint]

4 hours ago, AstroWolfie said:

If you were to choose to have a Samoyed as a guard dog, they would suck at it. Due to their friendly dispositions, they wouldn't attack threats and just kinda smile and bark at them

*pic related, not mine but one i found online*

Free association story of the night:

Our last dog was an American Staffordshire Terrier. Colloquially known as a "pit bull". She apparently had been bred by someone who intended to use her for dog fighting or some other nefarious purpose, so when she was only a couple of weeks old they cut her ears off in the classic pit bull style. But they cut her ears too close to her head, so they became severely infected. And since dogs are disposable to that sort of worthless scum, instead of treating her they dumped her on the side of the road somewhere. Someone found her and dropped her off at the Humane Society, who nursed her back to health, and then my wife adopted her about six months before we met.

She was the best guard dog ever. If someone came and rang the doorbell, she would charge the door and bark like she was going to tear the door off its hinges and swallow them whole. If we opened the door and let them in she would turn around and hide behind Mom. When salesmen came to the door if we opened it we were not surprised to hear their sales pitch from ten or twelve feet down the driveway. At one point, when we were still living in California, the doorbell rings one day. My wife answers the door, and it was a Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy. Apparently the house next door to us had been burgled during broad daylight, and many of the other houses in the neighborhood showed signs of attempted forced entry. He wanted to inspect our house for signs of forced entry as part of his investigation. He and my wife went around the house and looked and saw nothing amiss. My wife looked down at our dog and said, "Good girl." The deputy laughed.

[AstroWolfie]

I just got a little pupper a few months ago and she is CRAZY. I had trick-or-treaters come by my part of the apartment i'm living in and I had to keep her in her quiet space. It has a TV and stuff so I just put KSP on my PS5 on and focused on one of my space stations to try to chill her out. It didn't work, but she was doing head tilts at the TV.

[darthgently]

Crazy coincidence that Oregon Trail popped in my head the other day, starting at 4:55 going to 12:25 or so in vid below is interview with creator of Oregon Trail in latest Smarter Every Day episode.  The basics of good game dev never changes.  No matter how good the skin of graphics and sound, if the skeleton of good play dynamics isn't there all those decorations are lipstick on a pig.  I hope colony mode captures this well. 

 

 

[DDE]

SK-M547-55-U was the final use for Soviet intermediate-range transporter-erector-launchers scrapped under the late INF Treaty

[DDE]

And I'll just let the whole presentation roll