Today I Learned #4: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

[Arakhor]

Shouldn't it be Aiskhylos if you were going to transcribe it directly?

 

[Takhisis]

*Aiskhýlos, actually.

 

[Kaitzilla]

TIL everyone has a hobby.

 

[Ajidica]

I learned another pejorative term for McMansion is 'Garage Mahal' and I love it.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I learned another pejorative term for McMansion is 'Garage Mahal' and I love it.

I like 'starter castle'.

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL the original "Ferris Wheel" was friggin' huge. Built by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. for the 1896 Chicago World's Fair, the "Chicago Wheel" was 80.4m / 264 ft tall. Each of the cars seated 40 passengers, and the Wheel took 9 minutes to make a revolution.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

The Wheel was filmed by August and Louis Lumiere in "Chicago, grande roue, catalogue no. 338" (1896).

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL a "bobcat" is a Lynx and not a Mountain Lion (aka cougar, aka puma).

I was watching a YouTube vid of a cat that someone caught on a night-vision camera. The video was labeled "bobcat", but when I watched it, it was clearly a Lynx, with the short tail, pointy ears and Elvis sideburns. Turns out, a bobcat is a Lynx. I always thought a bobcat was a Mountain Lion. The characteristic short tail is sometimes called a "bobbed" tail, hence the name.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Today I learned that HTTP 451 (Unavailable for Legal Reasons) was given that number as a reference to Fahrenheit 451.

 

[Kaitzilla]

TIL that in all of human history, only 1 submarine has been sunk by another submarine by torpedo while both were underwater.

The True Story of the Only Underwater Submarine Battle Ever

The Hunt for Red October dramatized for the public one of the tensest forms of warfare imaginable: combat between submarines submerged deep under the ocean’s surface, the nerve-wracked crews scouring the fathomless depths for their adversary’s acoustic signature using hydrophones. However, while...

nationalinterest.org

He was waiting for U-864 to surface before launching his torpedoes, but thanks to its snorkel, U-864 could operate underwater for extended periods of time. The German submarine began zigzagging side to side, likely having detected the British sub.

After three hours of pursuit, the Venturer was running short on battery and would soon have to surface itself. Launders decided he would simply have to attack U-864 while it remained submerged. He calculated a three-dimensional intercept for his torpedoes, estimating his adversary’s depth by the height of the snorkel mast protruding above the water. However, he knew the enemy submarine would quickly detect a torpedo launch, and planned his firing solution to account for evasive maneuvers.

At 12:12, Venturer ripple-fired all four of its loaded torpedoes in a spread, with 17.5 seconds between each launch. Then the British submarine dove to avoid counterattack.

The U-Boat immediately crash dove as well, then swerved evasively. After four minutes, it had managed to duck under three of the incoming torpedoes. But Launders had launched the second pair of torpedoes at lower depths. The fourth torpedo struck U-864, breaking it in two; the gruesome sound of popping rivets and cracking metal filled the Venturer’s hydrophones. The U-Boat fell 150 meters to the bottom of the ocean, taking with it all seventy-three onboard and sinking Operation Caesar along with it.

 

[r16]

wrong . But classified all the way from ... to ...

 

[Kyriakos]

Til:

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Two things I learned:

a) Outlook.com is now eating PM notification emails from CFC.
b) CFC will temporarily block you from changing your email if you do it too many times in a period of time.

I managed to accidentally lock myself out of my account. Thankfully that's resolved now, seems the block was just a temporary cooldown.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Glad it's fixed.

I've got some learning to do. Seems the FF group I'm part of on FB was admin-less for long enough that FB invited one of the members to be the admin. He decided he didn't want to be the only one... so now I'm learning how to admin FB groups.

 

[Birdjaguar]

World population increases by 75 million
Total population estimated at 8 billion as of January 1
BY MIKE SCHNEIDER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year’s Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday. The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.

The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year’s Day of 335.8 million people. If the current pace continues through the end of the decade, the 2020s could be the slowest-growing decade in U.S. history, yielding a growth rate of less than 4% over the 10-year-period from 2020 to 2030, said William Frey, a demographer at The Brookings Institution.

The slowest-growing decade currently was in the aftermath of the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the growth rate was 7.3%. “Of course growth may tick up a bit as we leave the pandemic years. But it would still be difficult to get to 7.3%,” Frey said. At the start of 2024, the United States is expected to experience one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.5 seconds. However, immigration will keep the population from dropping. Net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 28.3 seconds. This combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 24.2 seconds.

People look at Christmas lights in downtown Lisbon on Dec. 23. The world’s population is set to reach 8 billion January 1. ARMANDO FRANCA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

[Birdjaguar]

SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches X-37B plane, one of the US military’s most fascinating secrets​

SpaceX’s hulking Falcon Heavy rocket returned to the skies Thursday evening, and this time it launched a mysterious spacecraft for the US military that will carry out cutting-edge research.

The rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 p.m. ET, carrying the military’s X-37B space plane — which is uncrewed and operates autonomously — to unprecedented altitudes. The launch streamed live on SpaceX’s website. The side boosters returned to Earth and safely touched down.

It is not clear, however, exactly where the space plane is going.

The X-37B’s activities in space have long been the subject of fascination and speculation in the space community as amateur enthusiasts race to track its whereabouts and share theories about its activities.

Resembling a miniature NASA space shuttle with the windows blacked out, the reusable and fully autonomous X-37B has been known to carry out research on concepts such as relaying solar energy from space for use back on Earth and studying the effects of radiation on seeds used to grow food.

And this mission — the seventh trip to space for an X-37B plane — promises to be even more intriguing than earlier flights.

[/URL]
The X-37B orbital test vehicle concludes its sixth successful mission in 2022.

More at link.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/world/spacex-x37b-space-plane-military-scn/index.html

 

[Broken_Erika]

TIL Jerry O'Connell, who played Quinn Mallory in Sliders plays Commander Jack Ransom on Star Trek Lower Decks.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

TIL Jerry O'Connell, who played Quinn Mallory in Sliders plays Commander Jack Ransom on Star Trek Lower Decks.

He's done a fair bit of voice acting over the years.

And no matter what I think of Lower Decks (not much), this is still a better thing for him to do than that horrible Love Boat reality show he did last year (the levels of eyebrow-waggling smarm was sickening).

 

[Broken_Erika]

And no matter what I think of Lower Decks (not much), this is still a better thing for him to do than that horrible Love Boat reality show he did last year (the levels of eyebrow-waggling smarm was sickening).

Lower Decks seems to be aimed at like late Gen X and millenials and up.
Also this is apparently one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy.....It will drink your bones.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The battlefield of Cannae!

The battle was fought on the plains in the background.

"Here is how to find the battlefield. The modern name and address as of summer 2015 is Parco Archeologico “Canne della Battaglia”, SP142, 76121 BT, Italy. I have no idea if that address will remain good next year so here are the latitude and longitude of the parking lot for the museum: 41°17’44.65″N 16° 9’12.80″E. "

The Battlefield of Cannae: a Site Visit – Battles and Book Reviews

www.military-history.us

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL Jerry O'Connell, who played Quinn Mallory in Sliders plays Commander Jack Ransom on Star Trek Lower Decks.

And he's married to 'Number One' from Strange New Worlds.