Today I Learned #3: There's a wiki for everything!

[The_J]

TIL: When the guillotine was introduced, the people were unhappy about it, because the executions were too fast and not entertaining enough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Jacques_Pelletier#Execution_day .
TIL also that the last execution by guillotine was performed in 1977 o_O https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamida_Djandoubi .

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL Jeff Bezos initially wanted to call his company "Relentless", and relentless.com still redirects you to Amazon.

 

[Josu]

TIL there is people that claims that Picasso's Guernica is a painting about bullfighting, acording to this people its current symbolism is post-thruth created by lefties

 

[Kaitzilla]

TIL that during the U.S. Civil War that lasted 4 years, the capitals of both sides were only 97 miles apart.

Washington D.C. and Richmond Virginia.

 

[GinandTonic]

TIL that during the U.S. Civil War that lasted 4 years, the capitals of both sides were only 97 miles apart.

Washington D.C. and Richmond Virginia.

For the English Civil War, Oxford and London aren't quite 60 miles apart.

 

[Traitorfish]

For the English Civil War, Oxford and London aren't quite 60 miles apart.

That seems less bizarre, as Oxford was essentially a provisional capital after the king was chased out of London, and would presumably have returned to the city in triumph if things had gone less... beheady. If he'd moved too far it might have seemed like a sign of wavering confidence. But the Confederacy had the choice of situating their capita, anywhere between the Potomac and the Rio Grande, and they chose somewhere within spitting distance of the Union. That's clearly just a bunch of Southern senators who didn't want to have to haul themselves more than the absolute minimum distance.

(Although it does raise a couple of interesting alt-hists: the Royalists win the English Civil War, but wary of the continuing hostility of the London public, the court moves permanently to Oxford, leading England to develop separate political and economic centres; the Confederates win the war and annex Maryland as a slave state, redeeming the namesake of that old slaver Washington as their capital, while the Union moves their capital to- Philadelphia? New York? Perhaps New Jersey as a compromise?)

 

[Samson]

TIL that pretty people tend to be more right wing:

Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican.
​

The idea is that more attractive people are treated better, so tend to be less empathic to hardships that others face. The weird thing is that even though most people do not consciously know this their subconscious does, and will assume that the more attractive candidate is the conservative one.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Not unlikely. Also tied to the Nietzschean analysis of ethics.
That said, it is also very common to identify with an ideology out of will to just stop the fall at some distinct point: if someone else can be argued to be lower than you, then you still have some power.

Power, through beauty (which is ultimately to diminish; everyone ages) can also cause the opposite effect in some cases: someone may form some savior complex and think they should act better towards those they (already) regard as lower.

 

[r16]

when you are rich you are far more likely find some babe or whatever . Does things to offspring over generations .

 

[Kyriakos]

when you are rich you are far more likely find some babe or whatever . Does things to offspring over generations .

It does seem, however, that at least currently this is frowned upon; leading to males needing to look better etc.
Which does create its own problems, given it is more difficult for males to look good, than it is on average for females (and I assume this has to do with perception, not really with anything objective past some surface).

 

[Birdjaguar]

On average:
Prettier people make more money.
Taller men make more money.

 

[Takhisis]

$%#@&ing hell, the Internet just called me ugly.

 

[Arakhor]

Magnetocalorism is fascinating. When you push gadolinium into a magnetic field, it heats up, and when you pull it out it cools back down. But if you leave it in the magnetic field for a while, it will cool down to the ambient temperature, and if you pull it out then, it will cool down lower than the ambient temperature. This is used in magnetic refrigeration, where progressive cycles of cooling can reach temperatures as low as 1 millikelvin.

 

[Birdjaguar]

A 330-ton fatberg is clogging an English city's sewer, and it won't move for weeks
By Rob Picheta, CNN
Updated 5:36 AM ET, Sat May 1, 2021

London (CNN)A massive fatberg, weighing more than 300 tons, is clogging a sewer in an English city -- and authorities say it is unlikely to move for weeks.

The mammoth mass of waste stretches to more than half a mile in length and weighs 330 tons, Seven Trent Water said in a statement.
They estimated that the fatberg may not be cleared until June. "While the true extent of the blockage won't be known until it is removed, it is likely to be one of the biggest blockages Severn Trent has ever dealt with," the company said.

"It's a massive project and it's not resolved yet," added Scott Burgin, operations manager at Severn Trent. "This giant mass is the result of everyone occasionally washing and flushing the wrong things down the drains, and not realising the impact that it's having."



Massive London 'fatberg' to be turned into museum exhibit

Burgin blamed unflushable products like wipes, diapers and sanitary products being flushed in England's second most-populous city. And he issued some alliterative advice to residents of Birmingham: "Our advice is to always leave leftover cooking fat to cool, before disposing of it in the bin and to stick to only flushing the three P's (pee, poo and toilet paper) and bin anything else."

Fatbergs (the word is a portmanteau of fat and iceberg) form over time as items that can't be broken down are flushed or washed down drains instead of disposed correctly. A sewage sensor, which monitors for rising water levels, alerted the company to the Birmingham berg.

Thames Water, which operates the water system in London, says it spends £1 million a month, ($1.4 million), to clear blockages of this kind. In 2018, a massive fatberg in the capital was turned into a museum exhibit.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/01/uk/birmingham-fatberg-scli-gbr-intl/index.html

 

[Broken_Erika]

It's not the first fatberg and it won't be the last.

 

[shadowplay]

The Fatbergs coming this fall on ABC.

 

[Kyriakos]

TIN Vladimir Harkonnen is in The Thing.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

TIL that the city of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada is not pronounced "Rej-EEna" as one would suspect, considering that it is named to honour Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth pronounces it that way.

No, the good people of Canada pronounce it so that it rhymes with vagina.

Next come the Aer Lingus jokes, I guess...

 

[Zardnaar]

TIL that the city of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada is not pronounced "Rej-EEna" as one would suspect, considering that it is named to honour Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth pronounces it that way.

No, the good people of Canada pronounce it so that it rhymes with vagina.

Next come the Aer Lingus jokes, I guess...

We would pronounce it Regyna.used to be a brand of candy here.

Still more Re than Ra.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

TIL that the city of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada is not pronounced "Rej-EEna" as one would suspect, considering that it is named to honour Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth pronounces it that way.

No, the good people of Canada pronounce it so that it rhymes with vagina.

Next come the Aer Lingus jokes, I guess...

You've lived here how many decades, not to know how to pronounce the capital of Saskatchewan?

It's out of date now (due to Newfoundland becoming Newfoundland and Labrador, and the omission of the Territories - Nunavut didn't exist as a separate territory at that time)... but this Stompin' Tom Connors song is how I learned the provincial capitals: