TIL: Today I Learned

[brennan]

What is scary is that this admitted lie still holds a grip on the culture, especially in Brooklyn, where the image is still lauded, parodied, and beloved. Well, good luck with Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where Tony Manero lived, ever regaining that faded glory. The neighborhood is now heavily Muslim.

Dun Dun DAAAAH!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The "confession" was just as oversold as the original story. Tribal Rites was an amalgamation of observations and anecdotes falsely presented as something crafted through actual interviews and the other processes of journalism. The claim to journalism was false, but the observations and anecdotes did describe a real scene. Twenty years later the "journalist" who was at the time too stoned to actually do the work, has a fit of conscience and says it was all "made up," which from the perspective of journalism is at least an acknowledgement of wrong doing. But it is an equally false claim since the guy lacks the creativity to have made it up out of whole cloth. It doesn't meet the standards of journalism, but that doesn't qualify it as fiction either.

 

[BenitoChavez]

TIL that James Buchanan, who was president of the United States back in the 1850s, was gay. Also at least several of his contemporaries knew, or at least suspected this yet it didn't prevent him from becoming president. Pretty amazing considering what attitudes towards homosexuals were/are like in more recent times.

 

[HoloDoc]

TIL that James Buchanan, who was president of the United States back in the 1850s, was gay. Also at least several of his contemporaries knew, or at least suspected this yet it didn't prevent him from becoming president. Pretty amazing considering what attitudes towards homosexuals were/are like in more recent times.

Yeah, I read this last year. Might have been an article on Cracked before I gave up on that site due to it's never-ending commercialisation and the plethora of second-rate articles. There were all sorts of snide suggestions about what Buchanan's role would be when King became Vice President, from memory, with references to him as "the Second Lady," or whatever the equivalent was at the time.

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL that James Buchanan, who was president of the United States back in the 1850s, was gay. Also at least several of his contemporaries knew, or at least suspected this yet it didn't prevent him from becoming president. Pretty amazing considering what attitudes towards homosexuals were/are like in more recent times.

Around 1800 was in general at cosmopolitan level very liberated.
It is with romanticism and Victorianism in the second half of the 19th century that puritan convictions gain ground.

Diaries and correspondence from around 1800 can be quite revealing
From the top of my head:
A high ranking woman in France writing to another woman:
"I have finally got my husband and my lover so far [educated them to be so], that they enjoy each others company"

EDIT
It is also a time where a male wanting to make a political career had only a chance when he got access, was invited to attend the "salons", meeting organised by women (in full self control who they invited).
Being the protegee of these women the fast track upward.

 

[Takhisis]

Add to it the ‘Protestant revivals’ that have gained traction, mostly but not exclusively in the US (last year I posted some morbidly interesting bits about people forcing their children to wear ‘purity rings’).

 

[Hrothbern]

Add to it the ‘Protestant revivals’ that have gained traction, mostly but not exclusively in the US (last year I posted some morbidly interesting bits about people forcing their children to wear ‘purity rings’).

Yes
In my country arounf 1880 the first political party founded was the ARP, the Anti Revolutionary Party. The Puritan reveil of the more strict Protestants (Gereformeerden) against all liberal amoralities of the French Revolution.
It was also called the party of "de kleine luyden", translated "the small people", fiercely Orangist and against the liberal establishment.
To get more weight in the parliament compared to the small elite (in numbers), the ARP contributed strongly in increasing the percentage of people allowed to vote.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Y'all are missing the forest for the trees. Christ. It's not about your kid calling you daddy or mommy. It's about having your value as an individual assigned to a cycle. Women were largely expected to be stages of this cycle instead of just that, women.

Yes, Pence, calling his wife "mother" at this stage in their lives is both strange and a bit weird. It relegates her to that role long after she has moved past it and should be identified by her actual name.

 

[Zkribbler]

Yes, Pence, calling his wife "mother" at this stage in their lives is both strange and a bit weird.

Reagan called his First Lady "Mommy," so maybe it's a Republican thing.

 

[Broken_Erika]

TIL, Babysitting while black is a crime
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45818176

 

[Timsup2nothin]

TIL, Babysitting while black is a crime
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45818176

Just another day in the US of A. Ain't it great?

 

[HoloDoc]

Reagan called his First Lady "Mommy," so maybe it's a Republican thing.

Reagan also mistook a movie he starred in for real military service, so he isn't a particularly reliable source on this.

 

[Samson]

TIL, Babysitting while black is a crime
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45818176

On a somewhat similar note, the other day I learned how dangerous it is to be disabled in america:

Conservative estimates suggest that about a quarter of those who die in these interactions have a disability - whether mental, intellectual or physical. But other research indicates that the proportion may be far greater.

Already in 2018, across the US, at least 136 people with a disability are known to have been killed by police officers, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post and analysis of local media reports.​

 

[Zkribbler]

TIL: In the Heat of the Night was filmed in Illinois because Sidney Pointier felt it was too dangerous for him to travel south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

 

[Takhisis]

TIL that the notorious Adolf Eichmann used to work in a factory that made the gas stove we had in a flat where we used to live.

So, yes, Synsensa, I really did have Hitler next door, as you recently quipped.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

TIL that the notorious Adolf Eichmann used to work in a factory that made the gas stove we had in a flat where we used to live.

So, yes, Synsensa, I really did have Hitler next door, as you recently quipped.

A gas stove made by Eichmann is singularly disturbing.

 

[Synobun]

TIL that the notorious Adolf Eichmann used to work in a factory that made the gas stove we had in a flat where we used to live.

So, yes, Synsensa, I really did have Hitler next door, as you recently quipped.

Of course. I never tell lies.

 

[Hrothbern]

As a schoolkid I once read a Time-Life or Parool-Life book on math with all kinds of nice math stuff.
Like how big is the chance that in your schoolclass two children have the same birthday, which was (ofc) much higer than our intuition. The bridge problem of Koenigsberg (Topology). How many colors do you need for a map if you want to give neigboring areas/countries diferent colors (never more than 4 on a flat map), and many more.

One was about how big the chance is that we inhale an oxygen molecule that was inhaled by Hitler.

The answer was: yes, with one breath already with almost 100% certainty.

Internet is nice:
From a Reddit post the conclusion from the calculation:

So what does this say? It's saying that The probability that a breath contains no oxygen molecules that were once breathed in by Hitler are 1 in e14 billion. The number e14 billion is far too large to mean anything to anyone. To put it bluntly, every single breath anybody ever takes on Earth is certain to share at least one oxygen molecule with one of Hitler's breaths.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthe...uest_what_is_the_chance_that_a_human_inhales/

Spoiler The calculation :

JWson
57✓
730 points
·
1 year ago
·
edited 1 year ago
A person takes around 20,000 breaths per day. Adolf Hitler lived for 56 years, meaning he took a bit over 400 million breaths in his lifetime. One breath is about 0.5 Liters of air, and 21% of air by volume is oxygen, so a breath contains around 0.1 L of oxygen. A rule of thumb is that 22.4 Liters of any gas contains one mole of that gas, or 6 x 1023 molecules. This means that 0.1 L of oxygen contains around 2.7 x 1022 oxygen molecules. If we assume every oxygen molecule Hitler breathed was unique, that amounts to him breathing around 1031 unique oxygen molecules in his lifetime. In reality, some molecules are recycled between breaths, but the percentage is probably quite small. Additionally, the atmosphere contains around 1044 air molecules, which is around 2 x 1043 oxygen molecules.

So, to summarize:

There are 2 x 1043 oxygen molecules in the atmosphere

Hitler breathed around 1031 unique oxygen molecules in his lifetime

A single breath is around 2.7 x 1022 oxygen molecules.

Also, Hitler died over 70 years ago, so I think it's safe to say that the molecules he breathed have had the time to disperse evenly into the atmosphere. That means that a random oxygen molecule has a 1031/(2 x 1043) = 5 x 10-13 chance of being a Hitler molecule. Conversely, the chance of a given molecule not being a Hitler molecule is 1 - 5 x 10-13. The problem is, one breath contains a lot (2.7 x 1022) molecules, so it's unclear whether it's super-likely or super-unlikely for a given breath to contain at least one Hitler molecule.

Here's a nicely typeset version of the equations below, because Reddit's exponential formatting is literally Hitler.

The answer is that it's practically guaranteed, and here's why. The probability of a breath containing no Hitler molecules is:

P = (1 - 5 x 10-13)2.7 x 1022 = bx

The expression inside the brackets can be rewritten as:

b = 1 - 5 x 10-13 = 1 - 1/(2 x 1012)

and the exponent can be rewritten as:

x = 2.7 x 1022 = (2 x 1012) x (1.4 x 1010)

Combining these, the entire expression can be rewritten as:

P = (1 - 1/(2 x 1012))(2 x 1012 x (1.4 x 1010))

Applying the exponent rule which states that amn = (am)n:

P = ((1 - 1/(2 x 1012))(2 x 1012)1.4 x 10^10)

Notice that the inner expression is of the following form:

(1 - 1/N)N

where N is a very large number, namely 2 x 1012. A property of the above expression is that it approaches 1/e, or about 0.368, as N becomes large.

Substituting this into our equation, we now have:

P = (1/e)1.4 x 1010

So what does this say? It's saying that The probability that a breath contains no oxygen molecules that were once breathed in by Hitler are 1 in e14 billion. The number e14 billion is far too large to mean anything to anyone. To put it bluntly, every single breath anybody ever takes on Earth is certain to share at least one oxygen molecule with one of Hitler's breaths.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

As a schoolkid I once read a Time-Life or Parool-Life book on math with all kinds of nice math stuff.
Like how big is the chance that in your schoolclass two children have the same birthday, which was (ofc) much higer than our intuition. The bridge problem of Koenigsberg (Topology). How many colors do you need for a map if you want to give neigboring areas/countries diferent colors (never more than 4 on a flat), and many more.

One was about how big the chance is that we inhale an oxygen molecule that was inhaled by Hitler.

The answer was: yes, with one breath already with almost 100% certainty.

Internet is nice:
From a Reddit post the conclusion from the calculation:

Spoiler The calculation :

JWson
57✓
730 points
·
1 year ago
·
edited 1 year ago
A person takes around 20,000 breaths per day. Adolf Hitler lived for 56 years, meaning he took a bit over 400 million breaths in his lifetime. One breath is about 0.5 Liters of air, and 21% of air by volume is oxygen, so a breath contains around 0.1 L of oxygen. A rule of thumb is that 22.4 Liters of any gas contains one mole of that gas, or 6 x 1023 molecules. This means that 0.1 L of oxygen contains around 2.7 x 1022 oxygen molecules. If we assume every oxygen molecule Hitler breathed was unique, that amounts to him breathing around 1031 unique oxygen molecules in his lifetime. In reality, some molecules are recycled between breaths, but the percentage is probably quite small. Additionally, the atmosphere contains around 1044 air molecules, which is around 2 x 1043 oxygen molecules.

So, to summarize:

There are 2 x 1043 oxygen molecules in the atmosphere

Hitler breathed around 1031 unique oxygen molecules in his lifetime

A single breath is around 2.7 x 1022 oxygen molecules.

Also, Hitler died over 70 years ago, so I think it's safe to say that the molecules he breathed have had the time to disperse evenly into the atmosphere. That means that a random oxygen molecule has a 1031/(2 x 1043) = 5 x 10-13 chance of being a Hitler molecule. Conversely, the chance of a given molecule not being a Hitler molecule is 1 - 5 x 10-13. The problem is, one breath contains a lot (2.7 x 1022) molecules, so it's unclear whether it's super-likely or super-unlikely for a given breath to contain at least one Hitler molecule.

Here's a nicely typeset version of the equations below, because Reddit's exponential formatting is literally Hitler.

The answer is that it's practically guaranteed, and here's why. The probability of a breath containing no Hitler molecules is:

P = (1 - 5 x 10-13)2.7 x 1022 = bx

The expression inside the brackets can be rewritten as:

b = 1 - 5 x 10-13 = 1 - 1/(2 x 1012)

and the exponent can be rewritten as:

x = 2.7 x 1022 = (2 x 1012) x (1.4 x 1010)

Combining these, the entire expression can be rewritten as:

P = (1 - 1/(2 x 1012))(2 x 1012 x (1.4 x 1010))

Applying the exponent rule which states that amn = (am)n:

P = ((1 - 1/(2 x 1012))(2 x 1012)1.4 x 10^10)

Notice that the inner expression is of the following form:

(1 - 1/N)N

where N is a very large number, namely 2 x 1012. A property of the above expression is that it approaches 1/e, or about 0.368, as N becomes large.

Substituting this into our equation, we now have:

P = (1/e)1.4 x 1010

So what does this say? It's saying that The probability that a breath contains no oxygen molecules that were once breathed in by Hitler are 1 in e14 billion. The number e14 billion is far too large to mean anything to anyone. To put it bluntly, every single breath anybody ever takes on Earth is certain to share at least one oxygen molecule with one of Hitler's breaths.

"If we assume every oxygen molecule Hitler breathed was unique..." is a horrifically bad assumption. They also aren't dealing with the survivability of an oxygen molecule. Oxygen molecules are constantly reacting out of existence and being formed as products of other reactions. I'm not going to put together some sham calculation laden with wild assumptions, but I would guess that it is unlikely that there even ARE oxygen molecules that were breathed by Hitler.

 

[Takhisis]

A gas stove made by Eichmann is singularly disturbing.

Yes… as explained in the article, Perón's government gave an amnesty to all the Nazis and (as is not explained in the article) the Eisenhower/Nixon duo decided that Perón wasn't a real Nazi because he was anti-communist. He remains an icon of some self-proclaimed leftist political groupings, so this place is as politically insane as the US.

It's gas water heaters that Eichmann worked on, actually, but, well, the company made all sorts of natural gas appliances. Cooking stoves, calefaction gear…

Of course. I never tell lies.

Do you take me for a Cretan?