TIL: Today I Learned
- Thread starter Cutlass
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H.P. Lovecraft < Yivo
Looks like krang became one with the technodrome.
Timsup2nothin
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Chances are good that the giant meatball the size of the sun was ugly to start with.
Nobody tosses a dwarf!
hobbsyoyo
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The GPS algorithms were designed to rollover gracefully. It's already rolled over in the past and there were no issues with it. This is a legitimate feature and not a bug.
.
hobbsyoyo
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I don't know why they went with this implementation but they did. I would not be surprised if the root cause of the requisite rollovers is legacy 1970's design architecture. The constellation took 20 years to develop, 10 to launch and all that started some 40+ years ago.
Silurian
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Initial meetings about GPS took place in 1973.
From BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47212151
From BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47212151
hobbsyoyo
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Yeah and it wasn't operational until the very late 80's, early 90's.
It's also an extension of previous DoD satellite-based navigation efforts which go back even further. It didn't spring from nothing - the Navy in particular was fielding satellite constellations that offered many of the same functions of GPS.
TIL that the the reef-dwelling Cleaner Wrasse fish has joined the elite class of species that recognize themselves in a mirror. The list of self aware critters grows and now includes selected mammals, birds and fish.
https://thehimalayantimes.com/scien...ts-at-surprising-cognitive-abilities-in-fish/
https://thehimalayantimes.com/scien...ts-at-surprising-cognitive-abilities-in-fish/
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
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Today I learned that there are Braille versions of Playboy magazine. (Link's SFW.)
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
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Today I learned that it's possible to make a GIF file that's small enough to fit on an IBM 96-column punch card, with room to spare!
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Apparently Yukio Mishima was gay.
Zkribbler
Deity
TIL that my home town of Los Angeles got its last snowstorm four days after I was born. Today, it may get another one.
Whatever will everyone do?
Snowed in Las Vegas today.
Timsup2nothin
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TIL about the British Empire's more humane form of the death penalty in 1857.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun
From New York Public Library
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/1857/nypl8.html
I don't think the American Colonists ever got any of that.
Good thing we won our rebellion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun
From New York Public Library
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/1857/nypl8.html
I don't think the American Colonists ever got any of that.
Good thing we won our rebellion.
TIL the Americans covered themselves in glory in 1861 at the start of the Civil War.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Witness_Bull_Run.htm
After a Confederate Artillery fired on Fort Sumter in April, members of Congress complained about the Union Army's inactivity. They traded rumors that President Abraham Lincoln was delaying military action in order to forge a compromise with the South. They demanded a quick campaign to prevent the Confederate Congress from convening in Richmond. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune summed up the sentiment with repeated headlines that demanded: "Forward to Richmond!" Such outcries pressured Lincoln to launch an offensive. It occurred at Bull Run.
On the morning of July 21, 1861, civilians from Washington rode out to Centreville, Virginia, to watch a Union Army made up of very green recruits--they signed up for a 90-day war--march boldly into combat. Men, women, and even children came to witness the predicted Union victory, bringing along picnic baskets and opera glasses. Bull Run soon became known as the "picnic battle." Among the civilian ranks were some of Congress's most powerful senators--many of whom had called for just such a campaign. They quickly learned that war can be unpredictable.
The Union Army performed well that morning, but by early afternoon the Confederates had brought in reinforcements, forcing an intense battle over a space known as Henry Hill. When Union generals finally called retreat around 4:00 p.m., the frightened soldiers fled for their lives. "I saw the 12th New York regiment rush pell-mell out of the wood," commented one reporter. Soldiers threw down their weapons and ran from the battlefield, sweeping up civilians in the retreat.
Near the battlefield, a group of senators were eating lunch. They heard a loud noise and looked around to see the road filled with soldiers, horses, and wagons--all headed in the wrong direction. "Turn back, turn back, we're whipped," Union soldiers cried as they ran past the spectators. Startled, Michigan senator Zachariah Chandler tried to block the road to stop the retreat. Senator Ben Wade of Ohio, sensing a disastrous defeat, picked up a discarded rifle and threatened to shoot any soldier who ran. While Senator Henry Wilson distributed sandwiches, a Confederate shell destroyed his buggy, forcing him to escape on a stray mule. Iowa senator James Grimes barely avoided capture and vowed never to go near another battlefield.
Senators returned to Washington "with gloomy faces," noted one reporter, where they delivered eye-witness accounts to a stunned President Lincoln. Only one member of Congress, New York Representative Alfred Ely, made it to Richmond that day--as a prisoner of war. The Union Army's defeat at Bull Run shocked and sobered members of Congress, making it painfully clear that the war would last much longer than 90 days and be harder fought than anyone had expected. It certainly would be no picnic.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Witness_Bull_Run.htm
Senators Witness the First Battle of Bull Run
July 21, 1861
The first land battle of the Civil War was fought on July 21, 1861, just 30 miles from Washington--near enough for U.S. senators to witness the battle in person. Southerners called it the Battle of Manassas. Northerners called it Bull Run, after a stream running through the battlefield.July 21, 1861
After a Confederate Artillery fired on Fort Sumter in April, members of Congress complained about the Union Army's inactivity. They traded rumors that President Abraham Lincoln was delaying military action in order to forge a compromise with the South. They demanded a quick campaign to prevent the Confederate Congress from convening in Richmond. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune summed up the sentiment with repeated headlines that demanded: "Forward to Richmond!" Such outcries pressured Lincoln to launch an offensive. It occurred at Bull Run.
On the morning of July 21, 1861, civilians from Washington rode out to Centreville, Virginia, to watch a Union Army made up of very green recruits--they signed up for a 90-day war--march boldly into combat. Men, women, and even children came to witness the predicted Union victory, bringing along picnic baskets and opera glasses. Bull Run soon became known as the "picnic battle." Among the civilian ranks were some of Congress's most powerful senators--many of whom had called for just such a campaign. They quickly learned that war can be unpredictable.
The Union Army performed well that morning, but by early afternoon the Confederates had brought in reinforcements, forcing an intense battle over a space known as Henry Hill. When Union generals finally called retreat around 4:00 p.m., the frightened soldiers fled for their lives. "I saw the 12th New York regiment rush pell-mell out of the wood," commented one reporter. Soldiers threw down their weapons and ran from the battlefield, sweeping up civilians in the retreat.
Near the battlefield, a group of senators were eating lunch. They heard a loud noise and looked around to see the road filled with soldiers, horses, and wagons--all headed in the wrong direction. "Turn back, turn back, we're whipped," Union soldiers cried as they ran past the spectators. Startled, Michigan senator Zachariah Chandler tried to block the road to stop the retreat. Senator Ben Wade of Ohio, sensing a disastrous defeat, picked up a discarded rifle and threatened to shoot any soldier who ran. While Senator Henry Wilson distributed sandwiches, a Confederate shell destroyed his buggy, forcing him to escape on a stray mule. Iowa senator James Grimes barely avoided capture and vowed never to go near another battlefield.
Senators returned to Washington "with gloomy faces," noted one reporter, where they delivered eye-witness accounts to a stunned President Lincoln. Only one member of Congress, New York Representative Alfred Ely, made it to Richmond that day--as a prisoner of war. The Union Army's defeat at Bull Run shocked and sobered members of Congress, making it painfully clear that the war would last much longer than 90 days and be harder fought than anyone had expected. It certainly would be no picnic.
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