Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Holy shit, the space bar thing, thank you so much TH

it’s insane!

Amazing.

Speaking of months, am I the only one who has to sing "30 days hath September..." in my head EVERY TIME I have to remember which months have 30 days?

You are not the only one, HL.

If it helps: I am 49 years old, I have a degree in English, and I have been a professional writer and editor for 27 years. And yet I sill can't put things in alphabetical order without singing the song in my head.

Try the knuckle trick: press two fists together such that yr thumbs are touching, the knuckles are months containing 31 days, the valleys between are months containing >31 days (the space between your two index knucks do not count as a valley).

also, the milk is the dad and the box is the mom, so milk goeth before cereal

The space bar thing is new in iOS 14

xps i do a similar thing but with fingertips: start with your palms up. ignoring your thumbs, count the months on your fingertips and the gaps between starting from the left. so your left index fingertip is january, the neighboring gap is february, the next fingertip is march, and so on working from left hand to right. months on fingertips have 31 days, months on gaps have 30. learned this as a kid and still use it regularly.

ahhh Ed that explains it :)

No! I've seen it passed around as one weird trick for much longer than that:

https://mashable.com/article/ios-12-precise-text-selection-keyboard/

it works on my Android too, blew my mind

I've never been lost about which month has how many days, etc.

Not bragging because I frequently forget what year it is.

Ha ha - same. Months are internalised but the year sometimes calls for a bit of careful consideration.

I actually thought a colleague was joking when he pulled out the rhyme and then felt bad for calendar-shaming him.

also, the milk is the dad and the box is the mom, so milk goeth before cereal

― Un-fooled and placid (sic)

Oh fuck no, nononono, this video murdered me. I don't know if it got discussed anywhere on ilx, I just saw it on twitter, but it literally made my eyes bleed.

I just watched it. I spent 2 minutes trying to understand the metaphor then threw it on to the mental bonfire.

THought it really weird, was expecting to see the earthen sides of a grave and there's these white tiles going down 6 feet or whatever.
Maybe the soil is wrong to be planted straight into it or at least in a coffin. But it was white tiled like a shower room or something.
I thought poart of the ceremony was normally to thrown the first handful of earth on top of the coffin or at least if you were the spouse or closest kin. Wondered why that wasn't happening.

― Stevolende, Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:02 PM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Could it be that those are temporary panels for holding the dirt back so the hole maintains its shape, and they are lifted out before the hole is finally filled?

― nickn, Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:16 PM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I vaguely understood that most USian burials take place in a concrete vault - there is no dirt-to-casket contact. the casket is lowered into the concrete box, a concrete lid goes on top of that, the dirt is filled in around said vault. Surely practices vary by location and region and funereal industry practice

― cuomo money, cuomo problems (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:55 PM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

As a former gravedigger, I can tell you that in the vast majority of cases of in-ground burials in the US, either a tile or concrete vault is made after the initial hole is dug. This is mostly to avoid collapsed grave walls.

What are being sold as "green burials" and also the traditional Muslim burial rites do not include such concrete vaults, and in many cases, the graves are dug by hand rather than machine because wall collapse is much less prevalent in hand-dug graves.

Anyway, I loved digging graves, tbh, and it paid quite well. Sad I can't do it anymore because of my stoma and the threat of hernia.

Months ~feel~ either "short" or "long" to me. Like wrapped up in their name is the essence of their length.

Sure, you can figure it out by counting knuckles or reciting a rhyme

Or you could take out yr phone and look at a frickin calendar

What the hell is a colander?

after the colander was invented, humans no longer had to pour boiling water through their fingers to sift out the pasta

pre-colander hands:

https://i.imgur.com/qnLJWmU.jpg

Where are all my pastafarians at?

Just imagine what his other extremities look like.

god i feel sorry for band-aids

he better do a quick dick check

i'm sure he's got that thing wrapped up in a diaper down there

y'all on fire in this thread

Apparently, so was that guy.

not exactly shocking since I'm not british, but I just learned about fagging today
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging

Yet another great innovation of the British upper classes

Great wouldn't be the word I'd use

Try the knuckle trick: press two fists together such that yr thumbs are touching, the knuckles are months containing 31 days, the valleys between are months containing >31 days (the space between your two index knucks do not count as a valley).

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Friday, 23 October 2020 05:02 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've read this three times and stared at my hands and I honestly haven't a clue what this means. How am I converting knucklesand valleys to months? Which knuckles? Where is February? How does this add up to 12?

Anyway I came here to post that I was shockingly old to discover that the French were still executing people by guillotine as late as 1977.

The Spanish were still using the garrote in 1974.

Andorra only abolished its use in 1990.

xxxpost Someone noted upthread that fingers work just as well. Look at your hands, palms down. Pinky finger of yr left hand is January (31 days). Space between pinky and ring is February (less than 31 days). Ring finger is March (31 days). Treat your thumbs as if they were one contiguous finger with no space between (September and October, both 31 days). Continue until you run out of months.

This is one of those things that would take like four seconds to demonstrate irl but is a huge PITA to describe with words.

If you don't mind I'll stick to the rhyme.

I do mind, very much so.

Maybe I should compose a rhyme for my trick to help with its popularity.

September and October, both 31 days

The rhyme wins out.

but August has 31 days and September has 30

xp

30 days have September, April June and November
All the rest have 31
So put away your knuckles son
Oh yeah, there's February too
Figure it out - I ain't spoonfeeding you

Anyway I came here to post that I was shockingly old to discover that the French were still executing people by guillotine as late as 1977.

― here we go, ten in a rona (onimo), Tuesday, October 27, 2020 10:39 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they should bring this back

https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/16/84/1996671609-messed_up.gif

If nothing else, I've demonstrated today why I need a mnemonic to remember the number of days in a given month.

The term "alley-oop" was used in football before it was used in basketball.