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

[farmerben]

4 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Have to say there's also a serious lack of computer games about ancient/modern China and Chinese people. You know, letting those teens sit down and read a book and understand them in depth is really unimaginable these days.

I myself have never been to LA and Chicago, but thanks to the GTA and Watch Dogs...

Kessen II is about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessen_II

[steve9728]

10 minutes ago, farmerben said:

Kessen II is about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessen_II

I have about 120 hours of playtime in this game. I rated it passable, but could have done better. Such as those DLCs

(Oh wait I’m talking about Total War. Koei’s three kingdoms… well… literally only for fun)

Edited October 12, 2023 by steve9728

[DDE]

A pattern 1-515/9M "commieblock" could be "bent" by a maximum of 6°, so, this happened. Twice.

However, the tenets soon discovered that having trapeze-shaped rooms is... not fun.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

A pattern 1-515/9M "commieblock" could be "bent" by a maximum of 6°, so, this happened. Twice.

However, the tenets soon discovered that having trapeze-shaped rooms is... not fun.

The trapezoidal rooms seems the biggest liveability blunder.  They should have made them rectangular with the intervening wedges as spaces for electrical, plumbing, and storage.   The proper anechoic shapes of courtyard balconies and other addon structures (terraces, luxury unit add-ons, etc) to the courtyard walls could address the acoustic issues in the courtyard

[magnemoe]

51 minutes ago, darthgently said:

The trapezoidal rooms seems the biggest liveability blunder.  They should have made them rectangular with the intervening wedges as spaces for electrical, plumbing, and storage.   The proper anechoic shapes of courtyard balconies and other addon structures (terraces, luxury unit add-ons, etc) to the courtyard walls could address the acoustic issues in the courtyard

I don't think the trapezoidal shape would be an major issue, curved walls would be but angles not 90 degree would only affect some large furniture. like large sofas. 
Is some curved blocks in Norway but mostly you want the balcony to face southward but here you have balcony  on both sides. 
Now inside would be safe for kids but if making lots of noise you want the other kids to play in the traffic. 

[farmerben]

These medieval structures have balconies only on the inside.  In the days before door locks it would be safer than the alternative.  And from the outside it is very secure against bandits.

[DDE]

44 minutes ago, darthgently said:

They should have made them rectangular with the intervening wedges as spaces for electrical, plumbing, and storage.

That's how they normally did it with angled houses - slap however many standardized sections together (the ring above is 26 sections, the record for straight "towers" is 20 sections at 405 m long) and then squeeze extra balconies to close up the gap.

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

The proper anechoic shapes of courtyard balconies and other addon structures (terraces, luxury unit add-ons, etc) to the courtyard walls could address the acoustic issues in the courtyard

Again, the Soviet architects were quite capable of doing that. The P-55 series were designed for high-noise areas and and shielding for other blocks.

Spoiler

 

[magnemoe]

11 minutes ago, farmerben said:

These medieval structures have balconies only on the inside.  In the days before door locks it would be safer than the alternative.  And from the outside it is very secure against bandits.

I class this more as an very cost effective walled city. Upper level might have outside balconies but they doubles as fighting platforms. 
The Soviets had the blessing of not being threatened by bandits assaulting an housing unit. 
But remember staying at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt and the guards at hotel had AK-74 and body armor who is military grade stuff. 

[steve9728]

15 hours ago, farmerben said:

against bandits.

14 hours ago, magnemoe said:

threatened by bandits

In fact, in addition to bandits, there were also clans fighting with those people in other family names from neighbouring villages. And actually, this is the most often reason for the fights. In some places in the eastern part of our province, this kind of thing has been happening until now. 

There are all sorts of reasons for a fight: it can be water from a farm field, a tree at a junction, or children from two villages fighting. Yeah, it never ends well…

Against bandits? Of course it can and is one of the reasons for building it. But what if I tell you that actually many of them are the home of the bandits - When they are in these round houses they are innocent villagers, when they are out of these round houses, they are bandits.

Add: Door locks have already existed for more than 2000 years in this country. And this round fortress, around 1000 years.

Edited October 13, 2023 by steve9728

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

staying at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt and the guards at hotel had AK-74 and body armor who is military grade stuff. 

 

 

8 hours ago, farmerben said:

These medieval structures have balconies only on the inside. 

A very cozy place. And the neighbours are friendly.

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by kerbiloid

[farmerben]

16 hours ago, magnemoe said:

The Soviets had the blessing of not being threatened by bandits assaulting an housing unit. 
 

Referring to the Soviet designers of the '50s and '60s that's probably true.  I recently heard a podcast that blamed the failure of the White army during the revolution on their excessive looting of every area that came under their control.  Meanwhile the Soviets stirred up mobs to loot anybody that could be considered a class enemy.   

[DDE]

Walrus can get a tan that looks more like a suburn.

Taken from a paid Gazprom post on VK.

[DDE]

Soviet medics could get pretty creative. My paternal great-grandmother somehow managed to bring up three kids amidst the post-WWII poverty and famine, and a doctor gave her a prescription for malnutrition and general mortal exhaustion.

Brewer's yeast. Straight from the tap at Tbilisi brewery. Beer would thus give her a whole 'nother level of warm fuzzies for the rest of her life.

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

Soviet medics could get pretty creative. My paternal great-grandmother somehow managed to bring up three kids amidst the post-WWII poverty and famine, and a doctor gave her a prescription for malnutrition and general mortal exhaustion.

Brewer's yeast. Straight from the tap at Tbilisi brewery. Beer would thus give her a whole 'nother level of warm fuzzies for the rest of her life.

No joke, brewer's yeast is incredibly nutritious

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Brewer's yeast

Liquid Bread - at least the brown colored beers I like to drink. 

[farmerben]

We used to sprinkle dry yeast on popcorn.  To a sober alcoholic it's like catnip.

[DDE]

This happened.

Usachev, Onufrienko, 1996. Set Pepsi back about $600k.

[kerbiloid]

Coca-Cola developed the nuke dispenser for Orion, why Pepsi should be worse?

Also, today it could be a commercial orbital station module.

[DDE]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Coca-Cola developed the nuke dispenser for Orion, why Pepsi should be worse?

Amateurs. Wait until you hear about the Mattel M16.

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Coca-Cola developed the nuke dispenser for Orion, why Pepsi should be worse?

Also, today it could be a commercial orbital station module.

I find that amusing but a bit weird. I think an autoloader for a naval gun would be an much better match. Able to handle an + 100 kg projectile in heavy sea. 
Downside is that the ready magazine who the gun pulled from was never very large even then guns was primary weapons like the 6 and 8" armed cruisers with autoloaders from the 40s and 50s. 
 Same is true for modern 5" and smaller, crew need to backfill the ready magazine. from shells stored in racks. 

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I think an autoloader for a naval gun would be an much better match.

There would be a whole fleet of Orions, but only one Stephen Segal to operate the naval gun loaders.

Edited October 24, 2023 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

Anyway, I've violated the "how about no more tools of killing" mandate, I guess, so...

In 1951 Nina Akulova, a woman on maternity leave taking a side job at archeological dig in downtown Novgorod, stumbled upon a filthy piece of bark that had writing scratched on it. It turned out to be a 1390s tax statement.

By season's end, they had nine such finds. And then they kept coming, and coming, and coming... the discovery didn't actually get publicized until several years later because it was blowing the ideologically important thesis of near-total medieval illiteracy out of the water.

Because, it turns out, medieval Novgorodians wrote a lot. Prayers, business disputes, post-it notes, invoices, curses, a Russo-Karelian dictionary, interrogation transcripts, crass limericks, love letters, a note to the missus asking to send someone over with a clean shirt, doodles under a spelling lesson...

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

[magnemoe]

37 minutes ago, DDE said:

Anyway, I've violated the "how about no more tools of killing" mandate, I guess, so...

In 1951 Nina Akulova, a woman on maternity leave taking a side job at archeological dig in downtown Novgorod, stumbled upon a filthy piece of bark that had writing scratched on it. It turned out to be a 1390s tax statement.

By season's end, they had nine such finds. And then they kept coming, and coming, and coming... the discovery didn't actually get publicized until several years later because it was blowing the ideologically important thesis of near-total medieval illiteracy out of the water.

Because, it turns out, medieval Novgorodians wrote a lot. Prayers, business disputes, post-it notes, invoices, curses, a Russo-Karelian dictionary, interrogation transcripts, crass limericks, love letters, a note to the missus asking to send someone over with a clean shirt, doodles under a spelling lesson...

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

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. 
Also it does not take so long to get good enough to be able to write an simple letter or an inventory.  
Add that people wrote on bark and stuff who tend not to survive, more so that it was not writing who had much purpose to survive long. 

[Jacke]

15 hours ago, DDE said:

Amateurs. Wait until you hear about the Mattel M16.

It's a myth.

 

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, Jacke said:

It's a myth.

 

That is a good episode from Gun Jesus (most recent coincidentally).  Deals with Mattel M16 @ 7m in or so.  Here is cued up link: