TIL: Today I Learned

[SS-18 ICBM]

Rounding up, I guess.

 

[madviking]

Rounding up, I guess.

the bane of engineers everywhere

 

[timtofly]

One syllable words.

There is also the need to avoid measuring something twice and being short each time.

 

[Phrossack]

TIL that a 1728 archery competition featuring the best 100 archers in all of China was allegedly won by a man who scored a bullseye with a bow with a whopping 240 lb draw weight!

For comparison, your average recurve hunting bow today draws between 45 and 70 lbs, Qing dynasty military exams required a bare minimum of 80 lbs, and men had to be able to draw a 133 lb bow to be allowed to join the Emperor on a hunting expedition. The known world record for draw weight today is 200 lbs.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

TIL Batman works for the GRU.

 

[Kyriakos]

TIL that a 1728 archery competition featuring the best 100 archers in all of China was allegedly won by a man who scored a bullseye with a bow with a whopping 240 lb draw weight!

For comparison, your average recurve hunting bow today draws between 45 and 70 lbs, Qing dynasty military exams required a bare minimum of 80 lbs, and men had to be able to draw a 133 lb bow to be allowed to join the Emperor on a hunting expedition. The known world record for draw weight today is 200 lbs.

Pretty sure he would still die if he was one of Penelope's suitors

 

[Phrossack]

Pretty sure he would still die if he was one of Penelope's suitors

I've read one theory saying that the suitors couldn't string the bow because it was an unfamiliar eastern recurve, which requires a very specific stringing method. The Manchu bow is also an eastern recurve design that is highly specialized and requires a similar method.

Had this champion been there, he probably would've been kicked out of Odysseos's house for being a time-travelling Manchu.

 

[warpus]

TIL that a 1728 archery competition featuring the best 100 archers in all of China was allegedly won by a man who scored a bullseye with a bow with a whopping 240 lb draw weight!

For comparison, your average recurve hunting bow today draws between 45 and 70 lbs, Qing dynasty military exams required a bare minimum of 80 lbs, and men had to be able to draw a 133 lb bow to be allowed to join the Emperor on a hunting expedition. The known world record for draw weight today is 200 lbs.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this story was.. overembellished...

 

[Phrossack]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this story was.. overembellished...

Certainly possible. However, we should bear in mind that this was a society in which tens if not hundreds of thousands of men practice archery for most of their lives and in which draw strength often equaled career and social advancement via military exams and imperial hunts. 82 lbs, a draw weight above what most archers draw now, was considered barely acceptable to them. They had the means and the motive to produce lots of powerful archers, and when you have that many people trying that long and that hard (the champion was said to have won 100 taels of silver), it seems entirely plausible that at least a few men out of a few million over the course of centuries would be that strong.

 

[bhsup]

Well I feel kinda disgusted with myself now. Clearly the implication was that Quagmire was practicing archery with an old Chinese bow and not...well...something else.

 

[madviking]

TIL that Joy Division has two studio albums but twelve compilation albums.

 

[bhsup]

TIL there is apparently a (one assumes) band called Joy Division.

 

[madviking]

they're pretty famous, yo

 

[bhsup]

And i just learned about them. Today. Hence the post in the TIL thread.

 

[Atlantic Pacf.]

Certainly possible. However, we should bear in mind that this was a society in which tens if not hundreds of thousands of men practice archery for most of their lives and in which draw strength often equaled career and social advancement via military exams and imperial hunts. 82 lbs, a draw weight above what most archers draw now, was considered barely acceptable to them. They had the means and the motive to produce lots of powerful archers, and when you have that many people trying that long and that hard (the champion was said to have won 100 taels of silver), it seems entirely plausible that at least a few men out of a few million over the course of centuries would be that strong.

Dear goodness...This reminds me of the English longbowmen who trained so hard that their skeletons got deformed.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

TIL that there's an Avenue Rd., a Street Rd., and a whole bunch of Boulevard Aves. and Avenue Blvds. I'll probably try out searching others later.

 

[shadowplay]

TIL there is apparently a (one assumes) band called Joy Division.

<--- my username is one of their best songs.

 

[Hygro]

And i just learned about them. Today. Hence the post in the TIL thread.

When I saw New Order in 2013 they did some Joy Division songs. I'm surprised you didn't know them, but it must be cool to be an 80s guy and discover a whole new 80s blockbuster.

 

[bhsup]

Kinda like how I felt, I suppose, when back in the 90s I shockingly saw a Star Trek TOS episode I'd never seen before. Or was it early 2000s? No, I think 90s...

 

[Antilogic]

I still remember a night back in the early 2000s when I saw a new TNG episode after having seen every other episode at least three or four times on rerun. I don't know how I missed it the first time. Or second, or third...