TIL: Today I Learned

[Lemon Merchant]

Today I learned that Tisdale, Saskatchewan had a rather unfortunate slogan until a few years ago.

Ah yes, back before the word Canola became the norm.

And TIL that Canola is sort of an acronym

 

[shadowplay]

TIL the famous Seinfeld bass line was played on a keyboard.

 

[civvver]

TIL that the actor who played AJ Soprano on the soprano's no longer acts but is now a professional poker player in las vegas.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Today I learned that disabling the Windows search service can clear up lag in Mozilla Thunderbird. Though the thread talks about the issue being in Windows 10, this also worked on my system, which is Windows 7. It makes no sense, really, as like the poster in that thread, I don't have it set to index the folder. I don't use Windows search at all anyways, so it's no loss to me.

 

[Zkribbler]

TIL the difference between a pier, quay, wharf, and jetty:

Thank you, Phrossack. I thought wharf and pier were synonyms.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

TIL about r/proplifting, which is about growing bits of plants found on the ground and, as they insist, is not about shoplifting.

 

[Takhisis]

Thank you, Phrossack. I thought wharf and pier were synonyms.

It doesn't help that sometimes there are structures that jut out from land at a right angle to the shore and then angle to left or right so there's also a section that runs parallel to the shore.

 

[Phrossack]

Thank you, Phrossack. I thought wharf and pier were synonyms.

You're welcome!

Just remember: a quay is not a wharf, a pier is not a jetty, whistling is called "piping," and if you call a line a "rope" you will be tossed overboard, unless the line isn't being used, at which point it becomes a rope again.

Sailors have rather insistent terminology.

It doesn't help that sometimes there are structures that jut out from land at a right angle to the shore and then angle to left or right so there's also a section that runs parallel to the shore.

Live in this muddled state no longer and be enlightened:

 

[Hrothbern]

TIL from Nature: the Earth's north magnetic pole is moving at an increasing speed since 1900 from Canada to Siberia:

Update, 9 January: The release of the World Magnetic Model has been postponed to 30 January due to the ongoing US government shutdown.

Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41...=social&utm_campaign=naturenews&sf205676708=1

 

[Kyriakos]

From Nature: the Earth's north magnetic pole is moving at an increasing speed since 1900 from Canada to Siberia:


View attachment 514575

Iirc the north star will soon no longer be used as the most stable (from our pov) object in the sky.

 

[Arakhor]

In 11,000 years, we'll be looking at the Southern Cross anyway.

 

[Kyriakos]

In 11,000 years, we'll be looking at the Southern Cross anyway.

Brexit should be over and done with by then.

 

[Samson]

Today I learned a few new terms in Microbiology. Right now I'm working on my research for clinical microbiology and I've finally found some interesting topic ideas. Hope I'll write it on time. Next year I'm going to get master's degree.

I hope you are not suggesting paying someone to write an essay for you, and then submitting it as your own work as part of gaining a qualification? That would put you at risk of losing any chance of getting that qualification, and even if that does not happen you will not get as much from the course as you should. Studying is hard, but any such short cuts will cost you, one way or another, and not just in the pocket.

 

[Kyriakos]

It is a very widespread practice. I never would use it, obviously, but it certainly existed when i was a student and seems to baloon in time.

 

[Hrothbern]

Back in the 1970s when I started waling on Dartmoor magnetic north was 6 or 7 degrees west of Ordnance Survey maps grid north. Now it is 1 degree west so the correction on a compass in most cases will no longer be significant for navigation. One degree is17m at 1000m and it is quite difficult to follow a compass that closely.

Our western civilisation was by coincidence quite lucky to have such a relatively bright star as the north star during the last centuries with all our travelling and expansions by sea.
North has been during those centuries, as also today, remarkable precise in showing the geographical north. Much more precise indeed as a normal compass or a ships compass in those centuries.

Iirc the north star will soon no longer be used as the most stable (from our pov) object in the sky.

Here a nice article on the moving north relative to the stars because of the Earth's precession and older and ancient civilisations.
http://www.allesoversterrenkunde.nl/!/actueel/artikelen/_detail/gli/the-pivotal-north-star/
And reading from that, that at the beginning of the next century the deviation of the north star to the true north, now 1 degree, even goes down to 0.5 degree.

"But I am constant as the northern star
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament."

So proclaims the Roman emperor in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.

True in 1600. But not true in the time Caesar lived.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Today I learned that the United States once filed lawsuit against 2,116 boxes of boned beef. No, it's even better:

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,
v.
2,116 BOXES OF BONED BEEF WEIGHING APPROXIMATELY 154,121 POUNDS, and 541 Boxes of Offal Weighing Approximately 17,732 Pounds, Defendant.

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh, that was me. Turns out you can change your name to pretty much anything if you bribe the right people.

 

[Kyriakos]

I recall that british person who changed his name to a long sentence, starting with iirc king of ink (?). He was covered by tatoos.
And another changed his name to playstation2.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Oh, that was me. Turns out you can change your name to pretty much anything if you bribe the right people.

So you used to yourself shoot up with Diethylstilbestrol for fun?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

On a more serious note, is there some sort of reason that they sued the meat itself rather than whoever produced the meat?