but how is 144.8 53% of 510.1?
I'm guessing the quoted paragraph had a mistake:
Its surface area diameter is 53 percent the size of Earth's, with a diameter of 4,222 miles.
― Kim Kimberly, Saturday, 9 December 2023 00:43 (six months ago) link
I thought the reason Mars lacks a magnetic field strong enough to spare it from the solar winds is related to its size, like the stored heat and energy at its core created billions of years ago cooled down because the little red fucker is just too small.
That's still the case, but evidence from the InSIGHT lander suggests that the composition of Mars' core (high in sulphur and hydrogen) accelerated the processhttps://www.universetoday.com/154461/we-might-know-why-mars-lost-its-magnetic-field/
And speaking of Mercury, I've always wondered if there's a temperate ring around the interface between the blazing hot "always sunny" side and the freezing "always dark" side.
Mercury's a weird case. Everyone thought that Mercury was tidally locked with the Sun in a 1:1 resonance (one rotation per orbit) and just as you wondered - there were dozens and dozens of stories set on a supposed "temperate zone" in between the light and dark sides. (The "Mercury In Fiction" wikipedia entry lists off a bunch). It wasn't until 1965 when one of the first observations made with the then-new Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico showed that Mercury is indeed tidally locked, but in a 3:2 resonance - it axially rotates three times for every two orbits it makes around the sun. Therefore a temperate zone "ring" is impossible
this explains it better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_msWDG4UDBA
Science fiction adjusted - Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a short story about a Mercurian city that travels around the planet on rails. There's enough stories about traveling cities that "Mercurial Base" (a large installation on a planet extremely close to a star that's also mobile enough to stay in a perpetual temperate zone) has become a trope of sorts
BTW, Mercury's magnetic field? It has a weak one but it's interaction with the solar wind makes for some weird-as-fuck conditions. Magnetic tornadoes for one:https://www.universetoday.com/31953/how-magnetic-tornadoes-might-regenerate-mercurys-atmosphere/
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 9 December 2023 19:15 (six months ago) link
Fascinating!
The KSR Mercury city on rails also shows up somewhere in his Mars trilogy. IIRC it was very disconnected from the rest of the goings-on, and was mainly used as a novel setting to introduce a new character. Would make sense if it was a concept from a short story he just wanted to use again.
― not the one who's tryin' to dub your anime (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 9 December 2023 21:13 (six months ago) link
i only found out about this product yesterday but i've been staring at this box of "Mary's Gone Crackers" for a couple days and only just realized that "gone" is supposed to be a verb and that Mary is not saying that her crackers are real gone, daddy-o.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 00:08 (five months ago) link
I’ve bought that product for years (a box in the pantry now) and only learned that when you just said it! I always interpreted it as you originally did, although maybe it’s supposed to carry the double meaning.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 00:43 (five months ago) link
I think I've only just consciously addressed the fact that the menswear guy's Twitter handle is to be read as "Die, workwear!" and not the analogue of Die Welt.
― Alba, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 11:08 (five months ago) link
Bananas taste much better when sliced horizontally through the middle, as opposed to coin-slices.
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 11:52 (five months ago) link
Never noticed that myself but what I have noticed is that chocolate digestives taste better if you turn them upside down to eat them.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 12:26 (five months ago) link
That depends on which way you think is up! Got into a mega family argument about that very subject a few years ago - some think the chocolate is on the top, some think it's on the bottom. I was shockingly old when I realised there are people who think it's on the bottom, but maybe I'm in the minority?
― you have already voted in this dolt and cannot vote again (Matt #2), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 13:28 (five months ago) link
The chocolate is on the top, obvs.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 13:30 (five months ago) link
You'd be surprised what some people think
― you have already voted in this dolt and cannot vote again (Matt #2), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 13:39 (five months ago) link
tastes better with the chocolate down because your taste buds are on your tongue, not the roof of your mouth, obv
― koogs, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 13:54 (five months ago) link
back when we walked on all fours, your tongue would have been on the top of your mouth as you bent your head down to eat items off the ground. so it makes perfect sense that they originally put the chocolate on the top, they just never got round to updating it
― blazin' squab (NickB), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 13:59 (five months ago) link
Same thing with crackers that have salt on them. Better to orient them so the tasty bits face your tongue.
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:24 (five months ago) link
It’s weird i chew things and it mixes stuff around pretty good
― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 19:01 (five months ago) link
Both Gary Cooper's parents were English and he went to school (for three years) in Dunstable!
― Nine Inch Males (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 20:51 (five months ago) link
orient them so the tasty bits face your tongue
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 23:19 (five months ago) link
Was reading the Calvin & Hobbes thread revival and learned this:
Classic Schultz quote:"We actually had a dog called Snoopy. A real dog. Fans of the strip are not going to like this, but we got rid of him. He fought with other dogs, so we swapped him for a load of gravel."― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, April 14, 2003 12:42 AM (twenty years ago)
"We actually had a dog called Snoopy. A real dog. Fans of the strip are not going to like this, but we got rid of him. He fought with other dogs, so we swapped him for a load of gravel."
― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, April 14, 2003 12:42 AM (twenty years ago)
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 23:21 (five months ago) link
Was Snoopy a real Beagle? Because who would do that to a Beagle?
― Confessions of an Oatmeal Eater (I M Losted), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 23:32 (five months ago) link
When a pug cross drastically improves the breed, that’s a beagle. well the offspring is a puggle
― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 23:38 (five months ago) link
that the Christian community in Kerala dates from St Thomas, as in the actual apostle, who came to India?!
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 20 December 2023 00:04 (five months ago) link
i rescind my beagle criticism. it was personal lol.
― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r), Wednesday, 20 December 2023 00:08 (five months ago) link
That Jennifer Jason Leigh’s father was Vic Morrow, notoriously killed while filming ‘The Twilight Zone’ movie.
― Dan Worsley, Thursday, 21 December 2023 23:39 (five months ago) link
whoa
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 21 December 2023 23:53 (five months ago) link
Ralph Bates, star of various 70s Hammer movies and well known face on British TV, was the great-great-grandson of Louis Pasteur.
― Nine Inch Males (Tom D.), Friday, 22 December 2023 19:29 (five months ago) link
... apt because he played both Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll, slightly less respectable scientists than his great-great-grandfather.
― Nine Inch Males (Tom D.), Friday, 22 December 2023 19:31 (five months ago) link
Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins shot Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhD4PD75zY
― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Saturday, 23 December 2023 17:25 (five months ago) link
Oooo
― blurbing about music in architecture magazines (flamboyant goon tie included), Saturday, 23 December 2023 17:42 (five months ago) link
It’s not Celcie Ville, it’s Selsey Bill
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 27 December 2023 11:17 (five months ago) link
As noted by Madness in "Driving In My Car".
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Wednesday, 27 December 2023 11:47 (five months ago) link
I have only just now cottoned on to the fact that there are two Wahlbergs, Mark and Donnie, and they're different people. I think that every time I saw the name I thought "oh, that Wahlberg guy" and forgot about it. How wrong I was!
― 1980 Jackanory spinoff (Matt #2), Friday, 29 December 2023 03:11 (five months ago) link
they were in two different musical groups too
― Disco Biollante (Neanderthal), Friday, 29 December 2023 15:06 (five months ago) link
one lit a carpet on fire once
Which one did the underwear ads? I'm betting it was Mark.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 29 December 2023 15:08 (five months ago) link
yup. he was pretty jacked at the time
― Disco Biollante (Neanderthal), Friday, 29 December 2023 15:09 (five months ago) link
that the dipper of Big Dipper fame is one of these:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Dipper_%28PSF%29.png/1280px-Dipper_%28PSF%29.png
and not one of these:
https://www.scepter.com/media/rxindyvg/1gal-gas-1003-375_375-px.jpg
― budo jeru, Friday, 29 December 2023 20:15 (five months ago) link
TIL that some people call gas cans dippers
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Friday, 29 December 2023 21:36 (five months ago) link
not me. i just thought that's what the shape looked like, and i could imagine a "dipping" motion of putting gas in your car with one, so ...
― budo jeru, Friday, 29 December 2023 21:37 (five months ago) link
I lit a carpet on fire once. and my real name is one of those. am I secretly a Wahlberg?
― Colonel Poo, Friday, 29 December 2023 22:57 (five months ago) link
TBH until reasonably recently i thought the Big Dipper was based off
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/SLNSW_23962_Hollywood_Hotel_girls_at_Luna_Park_taken_for_Fullers_Theatres_Ltd.jpg
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Friday, 29 December 2023 23:10 (five months ago) link
nkotb vs funky bunch in white boy steroid dance off
― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r), Saturday, 30 December 2023 02:17 (five months ago) link
Donnie Poo doxxed
― bae (sic), Saturday, 30 December 2023 02:38 (five months ago) link
Today I learned the guitar parts for the Cure’s “Other Voices”. I’m 53. I’ve wanted to play it since I was 16. Also, now I know why I love the broken chord shapes I typically play, they are all over that album and Seventeen Seconds.
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 30 December 2023 09:50 (five months ago) link
Yes those chords are deliciously weird.
Note that Smith has also known to tune a little bit off, intentionally. Not like tuning everything down a specific amount - he wants it wrong, on purpose.
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 30 December 2023 17:48 (five months ago) link
I've long been perplexed and intrigued by the obscure slur "butterface," but never actually knew what it meant. I enjoyed trying to determine what about someone's face would remind someone of butter. I mentioned this to a female friend recently, in the context of wondering why there's never been a band, to my knowledge, called Butterface, and she incredulously explained the origin of the word and let me tell you a small part of me died right there
― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, 31 December 2023 00:37 (five months ago) link
Tip, in the sense of a gratuity, was originally an acronym ('to insure promptitude')
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 31 December 2023 03:32 (five months ago) link
The meaning "give a gratuity to" is first attested 1706.
The popularity of the tale of the word's supposed origin as an acronym in mid-18th century English taverns seems to be no older than Frederick W. Hackwood's 1909 book "Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England," where it was said to stand for To insure promptitude
― Kim Kimberly, Sunday, 31 December 2023 04:04 (five months ago) link
Don't blame me, blame the New Yorker factcheckers!
― Zelda Zonk, Sunday, 31 December 2023 08:47 (five months ago) link
I've heard so many fake acronym stories (posh, golf etc) that I'm immediately doubting this. I was once on a pleasure boat on the Thames where the tour guide proudly explained to us that "wharf" was an acronym for "warehouse at riverfront".
― fetter, Sunday, 31 December 2023 10:35 (five months ago) link
print the legend (to insure promptitude)
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 31 December 2023 10:43 (five months ago) link