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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Fun Facts Friday

Fun Facts Friday

by WaterGirl|  February 3, 20232:16 pm| 269 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Talk About Whatever You Want

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Looks like there’s nothing happening in the back room, and I thought the Fun Facts thread earlier in the week was interesting, so let’s try that again.

Here’s what I wrote on Monday.

I was thinking about all the interesting things I learned on the podcast Jack yesterday, and I thought it might be fun to have a thread where we could all share interesting stuff we have learned in the past few days from reading, or videos, conversations, or podcasts.

I thought I might call it Fun Facts to Know and Tell, and then I wondered about the origin of that particular phrase, so I googled.

Here are some more things that Google told me today:

  • If you sneeze too hard, you could fracture a rib.
  • Cat urine glows under a black-light.
  • Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.
  • There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

Not exactly what I had in mind!

This was fun:

If we’re going to shoot down every foreign asset in our airspace, Trump will have to start taking the bus.#ChineseSpyBalloon

— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) February 3, 2023

Surely this can’t be true, right?  But it was funny.

In a new poll, 7% of Americans said they trust the Supreme Court of the United States.

7%.

I thought it would be lower.

— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) February 1, 2023

So I couldn’t find any survey like that, but I laughed out loud at the final sentence.

Any fun facts to share with us?  Either real or made up?

 

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Previous Post: « TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Another Long Week, Almost Over
Next Post: Friday Evening Open Thread: Spy-by Flyby »

Reader Interactions

269Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 3, 2023 at 2:18 pm

    The human brain named itself.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 2:19 pm

    @BruceFromOhio:

    In multiple languages.

  3. 3.

    Old School

    February 3, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    How to make change for a dollar:

    #1. 100 pennies.

  4. 4.

    ...now I try to be amused

    February 3, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    @Baud: When you put it that way, it’s amazing how many different ways the human brain devised to talk to other human brains.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    Do you think that there really are 293 ways to make change for a dollar?  That seems like too many.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    @Old School:  #2

    10 dimes

  7. 7.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    100 pennies.

    Now you figure out the other 193 ways.

    ETA: Beaten.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:23 pm

    @Baud: Sorry, that one was already taken!

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:23 pm

    @Baud: Quarters are still available!

  10. 10.

    evap

    February 3, 2023 at 2:27 pm

    @WaterGirl:  The number looks wrong, but I think the problem could be stated better.  Does it mean the number of ways to use coins that total to exactly a dollar?    I will try to figure it out and get back to you…

  11. 11.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 2:28 pm

    four quarters.

    Three quarters, two dimes and a nickel.

    Eight dimes and 20 pennies.

    Seven dimes and 30 pennies.

    Two quarters, four dimes and 10 pennies.

    We could be here all day.

  12. 12.

    Pete Downunder

    February 3, 2023 at 2:30 pm

    The difference in time between stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus is more than the time between tyrannosaurus and us.
    Definitions: venomous: if it bites you, you die. Poisonous: if you bite it you die.

  13. 13.

    CaseyL

    February 3, 2023 at 2:30 pm

    20 nickels

    …and then the combinations of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.  I can easily see the total coming to 293.

  14. 14.

    cope

    February 3, 2023 at 2:30 pm

    As seen from any stationary place on the near side of the Moon, the Earth would always be in the same point in the sky though it would change location very slightly due to a minor wobble in the Moon’s axis of rotation called libration.

    My high school astronomy students had trouble with that one.

  15. 15.

    Delk

    February 3, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    I had a friend that worked in a toll booth. Before he got to work he was tested on how quickly he gave back the correct change for different vehicles.

  16. 16.

    twbrandt (formerly tom)

    February 3, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    Fun fact I learned today: JFK did not say “I am a jelly doughnut.”

  17. 17.

    Old School

    February 3, 2023 at 2:32 pm

    Here are the 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

    One is a dollar coin which seems to be cheating.

  18. 18.

    JCJ

    February 3, 2023 at 2:33 pm

    @Pete Downunder:  From your nym I would imagine you have this knowledge because of all the harmless creatures roaming Oz.

  19. 19.

    Pete Downunder

    February 3, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    Space is really big. Travel to the nearest star, proxima centuri, 4.5 light years away, in our very fastest rocket would take 50,000 years. Best pack a lunch.

  20. 20.

    KrackenJack

    February 3, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    @CaseyL:

    Agreed: 95 pennies and one nickel, 90 pennies two nickels or one dime, etc, etc, etc.

  21. 21.

    frosty

    February 3, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    @cope:  I recall having a minor wobble in [my] axis of rotation [due to] libation.​

    ETA The FYWP randomness of visual vs. text is crazy. I never know what’s going to come up in the comment box. This one started as text, edited as text, then edited as visual. Anyone else noticing anything weird?

  22. 22.

    eclare

    February 3, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    The sun is out and ice is melting in Memphis!

    Mood:

    https://youtu.be/dEonJJHFEGg

    Finally got a good link!

  23. 23.

    Pete Downunder

    February 3, 2023 at 2:37 pm

    @JCJ: Exactly. Of the ten most venomous snakes in the world, we have all 10. 8 of 10 most venomous spiders. I could go on.

  24. 24.

    topclimber

    February 3, 2023 at 2:38 pm

    @WaterGirl: Depends on whether they are inflated dollars.

  25. 25.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 2:39 pm

    Three presidents, all Founding Fathers—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—died on July 4. Presidents Adams and Jefferson also died the same year, 1826; President Monroe died in 1831.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:43 pm

    @frosty:

    I recall having a minor wobble in [my] axis of rotation [due to] libation.​

    Rotating tag!

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 2:43 pm

    Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.

    Not just tongues.

  28. 28.

    El Muneco

    February 3, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    @WaterGirl: Start with 100 pennies. Then swap out the first five for a nickel. Then the first ten with two nickels. Then the first fifteen with three nickels until you have 20 nickels.

    Repeat analogously until you have 10 dimes. Then 4 quarters. Then two half-dollars.

    Then you go back to your 20 nickels and replace the first two with a dime, then the first four with two dimes…

    When you have five different things that you can vary, you can get a combinatorial explosion really easily.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    @frosty: Yours is the only report of that I have seen in quite some time, and I have seen that from you twice this week.  I’m sure it’s annoying.

  30. 30.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 2:45 pm

    Blue Birds Aren’t Blue

    https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/06/30/blue-birds-arent-blue-this-is-how-they-fool-you

    “If you grind up the wing of a cardinal, the resulting powder will be red. If you do the same with a blue jay feather, the powder will be brown… This effect is not unique to blue jays. Blue birds are not really blue. They do not have any blue pigment. Instead they use a very cool trick called light scattering.”

     

    Besides humans, only 8 animals can recognize themselves in the mirror

    https://www.salon.com/2023/02/03/8-smart-animals-mirror-test/

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:46 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: Fireworks injuries?

  32. 32.

    djwid

    February 3, 2023 at 2:47 pm

      2 half-dollar
      1 half-dollar, 2 quarters
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 2 dimes, 1 nickel
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 2 dimes, 5 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 1 dime, 3 nickels
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 1 dime, 2 nickels, 5 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 1 dime, 1 nickels, 10 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 1 dime, 15 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 1 quarter, 25 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 5 dimes
      1 half-dollar, 4 dimes, 2 nickels
      1 half-dollar, 4 dimes, 1 nickel, 5 pennies
      1 half-dollar, 4 dimes, 10 pennies

    and so forth and so on.

  33. 33.

    Alison Rose

    February 3, 2023 at 2:48 pm

    Before they chose Bowie, the casting directors for Labyrinth considered Sting, Prince, Mick Jagger, and Michael Jackson for the role of Jareth. All of whom would’ve been interesting choices, some for, uh…less fun reasons than others.

    (Personally, I think Sting might’ve been a bit too boring, Jagger too……Jagger, Prince would’ve been amazing, and Jackson…no.)

  34. 34.

    CaseyL

    February 3, 2023 at 2:50 pm

    @twbrandt (formerly tom):

    I’m glad to hear this, since although the alleged mistake was funnier than hell, it didn’t really fit with how meticulously JFK prepared his speeches.

    Unfortunately, I now want a jelly donut.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 2:52 pm

    Since it’s Black History Month, I like to go beyond the people often mentioned, especially non-Americans.

    Here is a short video on Joseph Bologne, a French musician and swordsman

  36. 36.

    leeleeFL

    February 3, 2023 at 2:53 pm

    @Alison Rose:  Bowie was PERFECT!  I think that was the second time I fell in love with him.  First time was “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:53 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: At your link for the 8 animals who are smart enough to recognize their own images in a mirror…

    They have photos of Trump, McSqueaker, DeSantis and Alex Jones.

    They must have been examples of the animals who are NOT smart enough to recognize themselves in their reflections.

  38. 38.

    JoyceH

    February 3, 2023 at 2:53 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: ​
     

    Blue Birds Aren’t Blue

    Reminds me of a nature documentary I saw some time back, Life In Colour, about how animals deal with color issues. Did you know that the tiger is actually camouflaged? The prey animals, deer and what not, can’t see in the red range, so the tigers just blend into the background grasses. Though there is one breed of deer than hangs out with a monkey species that CAN see in the red range, and screams the alarm when a tiger comes along. The tiger also can’t see in the red range. So David Attenborough, narrating, says, “The tiger doesn’t know that it is orange.” For some reason, that just made me howl with laughter.

  39. 39.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 2:54 pm

    Fun fact.

    There is a measurement in nuclear physics expressed in barns (as in can’t hit the broad side of). We’re talking millibarns and picobarns. One barn is, relatively speaking, a huge target which it takes real effort to miss.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 2:55 pm

    @CaseyL: Jelly donuts may actually be the only sweets that do not appeal to me.  You may have all the jelly donuts.

  41. 41.

    Geoduck

    February 3, 2023 at 2:55 pm

    There’s a word for the act of throwing someone out of a window: defenestration.

  42. 42.

    Suzanne

    February 3, 2023 at 2:57 pm

    The first new blue pigment developed in over 200 years finally became available in paint form last year. Meet YInMnBlue.

  43. 43.

    JoyceH

    February 3, 2023 at 2:57 pm

    Fun fact – a lot of those decorative monsters on old cathedrals that people call ‘gargoyles’ aren’t really gargoyles. They’re only gargoyles if they incorporate a water spout for directing rain water off the roof of the building. The ones that are purely decorative are known as ‘grotesques’.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 2:57 pm

    @Alison Rose

    Jagger was originally cast as the lead in Fitzcarraldo and was replaced by Klaus Kinski.

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    February 3, 2023 at 2:58 pm

    @evap:

    It does. The number of different combinations, not the number of coins. If it was the number of coins then 100 used in any one example would be the maximum. But you could use 95 pennies and one nickel or 90 pennies and one dime or 85 pennies, one nickel and one dime or……….

  46. 46.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 2:59 pm

    @Baud: 82 rupees – or 8200 paise – that’s a lot of moola!

  47. 47.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:00 pm

    @WaterGirl:
    @El Muneco: That’s the exercise I was doing in my head. So the first two paragraphs get us to 36 collections… We can eliminate 15 pennies with a dime and a nickel, 25 with 2 dimes and a nickel, etc. Is that a number of permutations? Seems like too many for combinations/collections, but not enough for permutations.

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:00 pm

    • In the Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein’s monster describes himself as a vegetarian.
    • Brad Pitt, while playing Achilles in the movie Troy, injured his Achilles tendon on set; production had to be halted for two months.
    • The Eiffel Tower is about six inches taller in the summer. Hot weather makes the iron structure expand.
  49. 49.

    Searcher

    February 3, 2023 at 3:01 pm

    We have never found an adult T-Rex skeleton.

    All tyrannosaur fossils found to date show evidence of growth plates, indicating the animals were still juveniles.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:04 pm

    @prostratedragon: I’m wondering if there might be some mathematical equation that could provide the answer.  Sort of like n * (n-1) …

  51. 51.

    Alison Rose

    February 3, 2023 at 3:04 pm

    @leeleeFL: He really was. And yeah, me and all my friends had crushes on him. The, um…snug-fitting pants didn’t hurt.

    Of course, I also had a crush on Jennifer Connelly, I just didn’t realize that’s what it was at the time :P

  52. 52.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:05 pm

    @Brachiator:  Actually Mozart’s apartmentmate for a while in Paris.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:06 pm

    Lots of interesting facts in this thread!

    Am I the only one who thought this was funny?

    If we’re going to shoot down every foreign asset in our airspace, Trump will have to start taking the bus.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    The Eiffel Tower is about six inches taller in the summer. Hot weather makes the iron structure expand.

    That’s amazing.

  55. 55.

    StringOnAStick

    February 3, 2023 at 3:09 pm

    @Geoduck: Fenestra is the name of what looks like little windows in fossils of coral, fenestra being derived from the Latin root for window (maybe not exactly that spelling, but you get the idea).  It’s been almost 45 years since I took paleontogy in college and that fact stuck with me. So, defenestrate is effectively to “de-window” something.

  56. 56.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 3:09 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    At your link for the 8 animals who are smart enough to recognize their own images in a mirror…They have photos of Trump, McSqueaker, DeSantis and Alex Jones.

    To this day, I remain amazed that Trump has enough brain cells that he can walk on two legs instead of walking on all fours.

  57. 57.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:11 pm

    @WaterGirl:  No.😄

  58. 58.

    JoyceH

    February 3, 2023 at 3:13 pm

    @WaterGirl:  Whenever anyone complains about an art installation or some large structure like a wind farm, complaining about how ugly it is, I always remember the ‘Artists Against The Eiffel Tower’, when the French artistic community complained mightily about the hideous structure being built in their midst.

    “To comprehend what we are arguing one only needs to imagine for a moment a tower of ridiculous vertiginous height dominating Paris, just like a gigantic black factory chimney, its barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments and belittling our works of architecture, which will just disappear before this stupefying folly. And for twenty years we shall see spreading across the whole city, a city shimmering with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see spreading like an ink stain, the odious shadow of this odious column of bolted metal.”

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:14 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: Are there data on how often he uses a golf club holding the wrong end?

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    A fun fact I read in a cookbook but have not had a chance to verify: you can’t make mayonnaise in a thunderstorm.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    @JoyceH: Perspective is a wonderful thing.

  62. 62.

    Kattails

    February 3, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    Just jumping on real quick to send this fun fact, happening right now:  current weather conditions at the summit of Mt. Washington NH.  Glad not to be there.  Now back to work…

  63. 63.

    Math Guy

    February 3, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    @WaterGirl: Actually, that seems low.Now I have something to work on.

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    @Geminid: I think part of your comment got eaten!

  65. 65.

    Uncle Cholmondeley

    February 3, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    @twbrandt (formerly tom):

    I found that article deeply lacking in an explanation of “where the myth came from.”  I was taking German at the time of those articles in the 80s being written (I’ve forgotten most of it), but I was told by more than one teacher that the difference was the article ein.  That is, “Ich bin ein Berliner” meant “I am a jelly donut”, whereas “Ich bin Berliner” meant “I am a Berliner”.

    By the way, I also learned the same thing about the word Amerikaner, which if you use the ein apparently means some kind of cookie.

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:17 pm

    @Math Guy: Get back to us on that!

  67. 67.

    frosty

    February 3, 2023 at 3:17 pm

    @WaterGirl: ​
     Maybe I could start by clearing cookies and cache on both devices and see if that helps. The FYWP text/visual stuff has been going on for months, for me.

  68. 68.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:17 pm

    @WaterGirl:  It wouldn’t be too simple, like a binomial thing, because there are 5 things, and they have to fit constraints on how they could be combined. Maybe an integer program? The stuff of nightmares.

  69. 69.

    Alison Rose

    February 3, 2023 at 3:18 pm

    A very recent cool fact: A Portuguese pooch has become the world’s oldest dog.

    Two weeks after Guinness World Records announced a 23-year-old Chihuahua as the world’s oldest living dog, a much more senior canine came out of the woodwork to claim the title.

    Bobi is 30 years and 266 days old as of Feb. 1, according to Guinness. He is a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo, a livestock guardian dog with an average life expectancy of 12 to 14 years.

    Now he’s the world record holder for oldest living dog. But originally, Bobi wasn’t supposed to live long at all.

    Apparently, in the rural area where he was born, when a family couldn’t care for or keep puppies, it was common to………bury them. It does not say “kill and bury them”, just bury them. Which is fucking barbaric if true and NOT a fun fact, but Bobi’s age is.

  70. 70.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    @Alison Rose:

    Before they chose Bowie, the casting directors for Labyrinth considered Sting, Prince, Mick Jagger, and Michael Jackson for the role of Jareth.

    Alternate casting options would make a great thread itself.

    The creators of Columbo originally wanted Bing Crosby before they chose Peter Falk.

    William Friedlkin considered Peter Boyle, Jackie Gleason, and Jimmy Breslin for the role of Popeye Doyle for The French Connection before going with Gene Hackman.

    Francis Coppola offered the role of Harry Caul in The Conversation to Marlon Brando before going with Gene Hackman.

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    Repeating from several months back.

    The wastrel brother of the ultra wealthy Sultan of Brunei owns a luxury yacht which he chose to name Tits.

    The sultan himself owns thousands of cars, which is reputed to include a Rolls Royce stationed outside the palace, gassed up and engine running 24 hours a day. Also Brunei at one point could boast probably the world’s largest assemblage of rotting cars.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    @prostratedragon: Oh, I totally agree.  I can’t see how there could be an equation.  But that doesn’t mean that people smarter than me couldn’t, so I threw it out there.

  73. 73.

    Dangerman

    February 3, 2023 at 3:22 pm

    @WaterGirl: Seems to me it’s a function of how many pennies to start, i.e.:

    95 pennies? 1 nickel. 1 combo.

    90 pennies? 2 nickels. 1 dime. 2 combos.

    18 more starting piles of pennies to go.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    February 3, 2023 at 3:22 pm

    @Old School:

     

    @WaterGirl:

     

    This is making me think of that old SNL skit about the change bank

    People say, “How do you make any money at a bank that only makes change?  Volume.”  LOL

  75. 75.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:24 pm

    Was looking for something else and caught this beaut:

    Man attempts trip to Sydney, Australia – and ends up in Sidney, Montana

    Heard one years ago about someone getting on a flight to Oakland*, trying to figure out why they were over open water for an hour.

    *How the capital of New Zealand is pronounced.

  76. 76.

    docNC

    February 3, 2023 at 3:24 pm

    Water can exist in three states at once.  Liquid, vapor and solid.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    February 3, 2023 at 3:25 pm

    @Jeffro: here’s a link.    =)

    “First Citywide Change Bank”

    someone should make t-shirts!

  78. 78.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 3:25 pm

    The accuracy of Olympic swimming times are affected by the water in the pool and the concrete used to construct the pools. So, inherently limited as to accuracy.

    Timothy Burke pointed to the 3-centimeter tolerances pools are built to in a 2016 article in the sports blog DeadSpin. Since then, FINA’s regulations have reduced that to a single centimeter. That means Lane 1 can legally be 1 centimeter longer than Lane 8, a 0.0004-second difference at that world record pace. Concrete expands and contracts as both air and water temperatures change over the week and even hour to hour as well.

    More here.

  79. 79.

    JanieM

    February 3, 2023 at 3:26 pm

    @Old School:

    Here are the 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

    One is a dollar coin which seems to be cheating.

    The 293 also counts combinations that include half-dollar coins

    ETA: I hadn’t even thought of those, so my tally was off at first.

  80. 80.

    Anoniminous

    February 3, 2023 at 3:26 pm

    In 1916 Vladimir Lenin lived across the street from Café Voltaire, the birthplace of Dada.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:30 pm

    According to Kari Lake, the governor of Arizona is Kari Lake. You could look it up.

    February 3, 2023 at 2:49 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    Defeated Arizona gubernatoral candidate Kari Lake (R) was interviewed on Steve Bannon’s podcast:

    BANNON: You’re not running for vice president… as Governor of Arizona?

    LAKE: I am the duly-elected governor.

    Bonus fact: Steve Bannon remains alive.

  82. 82.

    Amir Khalid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:30 pm

    @NotMax:

    The wastrel brother of the ultra wealthy Sultan of Brunei

    I think there’s more than one brother. The entire royal family puts the Beverly Hillbillies to shame with its tackiness.

  83. 83.

    Burnspbesq

    February 3, 2023 at 3:30 pm

    Chelsea Football Club spent more in player acquisition fees in the January transfer window than every team in the top divisions in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy combined. And they still suck.

  84. 84.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    That and gout. A lot of gout.

  85. 85.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    @Uncle Cholmondeley: That is how I learned it. Sadly, after my last German class so it was never a point of discussion and clarification.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    Fun fact.
    CNT really is the new black.

  87. 87.

    Amir Khalid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    @trollhattan:

    She’d get in big trouble if she actually tried to exercise the Governor’s powers, wouldn’t she?

  88. 88.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    So, this job market report – I feel like the system has been trying to fuck with us. The tech world has been nothing but layoffs after layoffs – and I think that a lot of this is the system trying to establish a bullwark against the rising influence and power of labor. These layoffs are more opportunistic than actual issues with inflation. It’s a smokescreen.

    That said, my employer just cut my salary by 5% – but then again my employer is having a rough go with the worst quarter of its history and so there is a lot of things going on. We also don’t get any bonuses or merit raises. It’s some sad shit. I can’t say the same for Google or Microsoft. The only explanation I have is that they are pivoting on their businesses. Microsoft is now really heavily investing in chatGPT and google is rolling out its own service – chatGPT is going to change how we get information – what we used to do with google searches is going to be chatgpt instead.

    The interesting about chatGPT is that it acts just like the “computer” in Star Trek. I didn’t think it was quite possible to achieve that level of sentience but here we are.

  89. 89.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    @NotMax:  Oh what a lovely man!

    I used to wonder what one could actually do with so much wealth. I see this fellow — maybe the whole family — has no idea.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 3, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    @Geoduck: It was invented in Prague.

  91. 91.

    cope

    February 3, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    @StringOnAStick: “Fenster” is German for window. And I so remember fenestella bryozoans from invertebrate paleo class.

  92. 92.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    @Anoniminous:

    In 1916 Vladimir Lenin lived across the street from Café Voltaire, the birthplace of Dada.

    Leon Trotsky lived in the Bronx, NY from January – March of 1917

    h/t https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/17/nyregion/fyi-167878.html

    https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/leon-trotsky

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    February 3, 2023 at 3:35 pm

    @NotMax:

    The wastrel brother of the ultra wealthy Sultan of Brunei owns a luxury yacht which he chose to name Tits.
     

    Thirteen-year-old Suzanne is cracking up. 43-year-old Suzanne thinks it is only marginally less funny.

    So. I think I have shared with y’all the story about Spawn the Elder pranking me by changing my predictive text in my phone — not realizing that my personal phone was tied to my work computer and I almost sent work email signed “Mr. Banana Face” before I figured out what was up. Anyway, it dawned on me today that I have never changed all of it back (because funny) and my Apple Watch reminds me of it.

    “You’ve exercised 16 days in a row, Mr. Banana Face! Great job!”

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    February 3, 2023 at 3:35 pm

    @Geminid: I don’t believe that one since I used to make my own mayo all the time in a thunderstorm-prone area.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 3:36 pm

    @Amir Khalid

    The other brother doesn’t hold a candle to the wretched excesses of Prince Jefri.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:37 pm

    @WaterGirl: I think I ate it. I could not think of the right word to describe mayonnaise. I think it’s an emulsion, and that state requires a certain electrical charge state that is prevented by an electrical storm.

    Maybe this summer I’ll try making mayonnaise in a thunderstorm. I’ve never made mayonnaise, so I’d best give it a go onasunny day first. That way I’ll know if it’s me or the lightning.

  97. 97.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm

    @JoyceH:

    That’s why we read this blog.

  98. 98.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm

    @Amir Khalid: it’s all about the title – like it is for Kevin.

  99. 99.

    RedDirtGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:38 pm

    @JoyceH: There’s a great story about someone famous who ate lunch at the cafe at the base of the Eiffel Tower every day while visiting Paris (when it was first erected). A waiter commented that he obviously found the tower fascinating to come back so many times, to which he replied, “On the contrary, it’s the only place I can sit where I don’t see the damn thing!”.

  100. 100.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:39 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: “The Offer” series on the making of “The Godfather” and based on the Michael Tolkin book, proved far better than I had any hope for. All the many casting issues, especially that of Brando, are fascinating. No way should that film have ever been made, given all the forces against, and yet….

    Juno Temple of “Ted Lasso” fame is frankly, reason enough to watch. I see she’s cast in the 5th season of “Fargo.” Hooray for that.

  101. 101.

    HeartlandLiberal

    February 3, 2023 at 3:40 pm

    The original name for the search engine Google was Backrub. It was renamed Google after the googol, which is the number one followed by 100 zeros.

  102. 102.

    Tarragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm

    @Pete Downunder: When discussing the deadly wildlife in Australia with an Australian friend of mine he pointed out something like:

    Yeah, it’s all deadly, but it’s not going out of its way to hurt you.  Just be smart and don’t piss it off.

    The one time I’ve been truly afraid in the wilderness was in the states when a bear walked into our campsite.

  103. 103.

    Leslie

    February 3, 2023 at 3:43 pm

    @Pete Downunder:

    https://imgur.com/HgrMLu2

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 3:43 pm

    @Betty Cracker

    Another canard smashed? Next thing we’ll learn one can roller skate in a buffalo herd.
    ;)

  105. 105.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 3:44 pm

    @Burnspbesq: ​ 

    Yes they did. And yes they do.

  106. 106.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:44 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Think she’s counting on Medusa powers for petrifying any who try and stop her.

    Not kidding when I say she creeps me out at a very deep level. Is there a shipping case she can be returned to?

  107. 107.

    EriktheRed

    February 3, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    Here’s one:

     

    The immensely popular 80s song, “I Melt With You” never actually charted. Not even in the UK.

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 3, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    @RedDirtGirl: Maupassant, best known for The Necklace

    ETA: My father, an American who never saw Paris until around 1980, hated the Eiffel Tower and loved that story.

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:46 pm

    @NotMax: Step on that bastard Superman’s cape all you want, and then mess with Jim until you’re bored.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:47 pm

    @Jeffro: ha!

  111. 111.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:48 pm

    @JanieM:  Thanks. It’s a relief to know that there is a generating function for solving a general class of these problems. Though I needed the table to be convinced.

  112. 112.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:51 pm

    @Suzanne: I laughed out loud.

  113. 113.

    Citizen Alan

    February 3, 2023 at 3:52 pm

    @WaterGirl: I actually thought it would be more than that. Consider:

    1  100 pennies.

    2. 95 pennies and 1 nickel.

    3. 90 pennies and 2 nickels.

    etc. etc. That’s 21 combinations just involving nickels and pennies before you get into all the possible combinations that incorporate the other coins.

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:52 pm

    @Geminid: I like your scientific approach.

  115. 115.

    Gravenstone

    February 3, 2023 at 3:53 pm

    @Alison Rose: Sting coming off his turn as Feyd Rautha would have been … something.

  116. 116.

    different-church-lady

    February 3, 2023 at 3:53 pm

    Here’s a fun fact: the world is absolutely filled with assholes.

  117. 117.

    Searcher

    February 3, 2023 at 3:54 pm

    @WaterGirl: The closest would be Diophantine equation solvers.  For instance, you can use this one to find the 293 positive integer solutions to the equation “100s + 50h + 25q + 10d + 5n + p = 100”

  118. 118.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 3:54 pm

    @trollhattan:  You’re not alone. Does she appear in soft focus in person? It seems to follow her everywhere.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:55 pm

    @HeartlandLiberal: Does anyone remember that on April 1 (of some year) Google changed their page to say K A N S A S, and people thought it a real name change and were appalled?

  120. 120.

    Gravenstone

    February 3, 2023 at 3:55 pm

    @NotMax: The “barn” being roughly the cross sectional area of a uranium nucleus.

  121. 121.

    Amir Khalid

    February 3, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    @Uncle Cholmondeley:

    JFK couldn’t say “Ich bin Berliner” because he wasn’t literally from Berlin. So, to express solidarity with the people of Berlin, he said “Ich bin ein Berliner” — using the indefinite article to convey that he was figuratively a Berliner.

    A Berliner something is a something from/associated with Berlin. There are also, z.B., Berliner cocktail sausages.

  122. 122.

    Suzanne

    February 3, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    @WaterGirl: I still think farts are hilarious. I know. I should have outgrown this by now, but……BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA.

  123. 123.

    different-church-lady

    February 3, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    @cain: I don’t know nothing about anything, but my gut is telling me it’s because we’ve reached a point of tech saturation.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 3:57 pm

    @Searcher: Assuming 100s refers to pennies, what is the “p” at the end of the equation?

  125. 125.

    artem1s

    February 3, 2023 at 3:57 pm

    @NotMax: ​
     
    Nope, Jason Robards was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo. Jagger was cast as the drunken ships captain.

  126. 126.

    different-church-lady

    February 3, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    @cain: ​
     

    chatGPT is going to change how we get information

    It’s unquestionably going to change the way we get disinformation.

  127. 127.

    Math Guy

    February 3, 2023 at 4:00 pm

    @WaterGirl: We’ll, I get a recurrence relation of order 50 (because we can use a 50-cent coin), so that means having to work out 50 initial conditions by more-or-less direct computation at which point I throw up my hands and say it is easier to write a short computer program to count the number of ways. Besides, I’m retired now.

  128. 128.

    Gravenstone

    February 3, 2023 at 4:00 pm

    @Geminid: After a quick check with Father Google, it appears this is attributed to the increased electrical charges in the atmosphere impairing formation of the emulsion. As a rebuttal I saw the counterargument that mayo is made commercially year round. But those scale of vessels will be electrically grounded so that would remove the charge imbalance.

  129. 129.

    Alison Rose

    February 3, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: I once read that John Travolta was supposed to be Forrest Gump. I just……..cannot imagine. Not in any way.

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    @Math Guy:

    Besides, I’m retired now.

    That could be a rotating tag.

  131. 131.

    Math Guy

    February 3, 2023 at 4:02 pm

    @Searcher: Yes, and a few lines of code could solve this by exhaustion.

  132. 132.

    different-church-lady

    February 3, 2023 at 4:02 pm

    @djwid: ​
      SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

  133. 133.

    Math Guy

    February 3, 2023 at 4:03 pm

    @WaterGirl: That is high praise on this blog! Thank you.

  134. 134.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    @cain: ​ 

    chatGPT

    What is that?

  135. 135.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    So, jobs report through the roof. Can we all agree that anyone who wrote a hot take about an impending recession any time in the last 6 months should be legally prohibited from being published in any publication until they’ve completed a remedial economics curriculum, and 5 years of actually thinking about what they learned?

  136. 136.

    Citizen Alan

    February 3, 2023 at 4:07 pm

    @Geoduck: Not only that, defenestration was a method of execution!  Wikipedia has an article about important historical events called The Defenestration of Prague, each of which was an event in which an angry mob dispatched hated political leaders by storming government buildings and hurling them from the top floor windows to their deaths. (Mostly. The intended victims of the Third Defenestration of Prague survived a fall of 70 feet, possibly because they landed in a dung heap.)

  137. 137.

    Gravenstone

    February 3, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: If you like that, can I interest you in catGPT?

  138. 138.

    zhena gogolia

    February 3, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    @twbrandt (formerly tom): My former husband was a German professor, and he said the same. There was nothing wrong with what JFK said. I don’t know enough to judge.

  139. 139.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Have not seen The Offer, but I’ve seen multiple sources claiming that studio execs wanted Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, or Ryan O’Neal to play Michael Corleone instead of Al Pacino.

    I think the casting of The Godfather was perfect and will always be grateful to Francis Ford Coppola for not giving in to the enormous pressure that he received for these idiotic casting ideas.

  140. 140.

    TooManyJens

    February 3, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    @cain:

    what we used to do with google searches is going to be chatgpt instead.

    Mostly what I’m doing with google searches these days is getting results that don’t include the terms I was actually looking for because Google thinks it knows better than I do. I guess maybe ChatGPT will at least give me something more anthropomorphized to hate, so there’s that.

  141. 141.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    @Alison Rose

    One name under consideration for Benjamin in The Graduate was Robert Redford, who explained at one point why it wasn’t for him.

    “Even when I was a virgin I didn’t look like one.”

    @artem1s

    Appreciate the correction. The documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo is quite an interesting experience.

  142. 142.

    Betty Cracker

    February 3, 2023 at 4:10 pm

    @trollhattan: We enjoyed “The Offer” a lot too. I wonder how much of the behind-the-scenes stuff was true, e.g., Caan thrashing the guy who played Carlo for real…

  143. 143.

    Jeffro

    February 3, 2023 at 4:10 pm

    @trollhattan:

    @prostratedragon:

    I should go check The Onion, to see if they have an article about Lake like that (with the soft focus following her around)…

    “Sources close to Ms. Lake say…they’re feeling a little bit blurry these days…”

  144. 144.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 4:11 pm

    @Martin:

    Friedman Unit — Recession Edition.

  145. 145.

    Old School

    February 3, 2023 at 4:11 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    Not only that, defenestration was a method of execution!  

    Isn’t it still?  (Mostly for Putin critics.)

  146. 146.

    Alison Rose

    February 3, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    @NotMax:

    “Even when I was a virgin I didn’t look like one.”

    Ha! True, though!

  147. 147.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 3, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    @EriktheRed:

    AAAAAAAaaaand here comes the earworm.

  148. 148.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 4:13 pm

    @Alison Rose:

    Agreed, that casting idea is insane.

  149. 149.

    Searcher

    February 3, 2023 at 4:16 pm

    @WaterGirl: Other way around — 100s is “silver dollars” (because “d” was already taken), and p is pennies.

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    February 3, 2023 at 4:17 pm

    Because, of course…

     

    I don’t want to hear any bullshyt about CONGRESS.

     

    IT’S NOT CONGRESS. IT’S REPUBLICANS. PERIOD. ………………………..

     

    Over half of the House GOP and nearly all Senate Republicans signed briefs urging the Supreme Court to block Biden’s student-loan forgiveness

     

    Conservatives have been flooding the Supreme Court docket urging it to block President Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness — and hundreds of GOP lawmakers just joined the cause.

     

    On Friday, 128 House Republicans signed onto an amicus curiae brief urging the nation’s highest court to block Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers. That’s just over half of the GOP composition in the House, with 222 Republicans holding a slim majority in that chamber.

     

    Signers also included 25 Republican lawmakers on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by Chair Virginia Foxx, who has been a vocal opponent of broad student-loan forgiveness. She said in a statement alongside the brief that the “administration is bypassing Congress, which is elected by the American people to protect their interests.”

     

     

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/over-half-of-the-house-gop-and-nearly-all-senate-republicans-signed-briefs-urging-the-supreme-court-to-block-biden-s-student-loan-forgiveness/ar-AA175cuq?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=db0fea756ab34e098f008ec8be0a2451

  151. 151.

    Citizen Alan

    February 3, 2023 at 4:17 pm

    In less fun news, it is now 3 days since the SLC job closed, so I assume I didn’t get it, seeing as how the start date is 2/13. And surely the judge in question would have given me more than a week to move from Mississippi to Salt Lake City. Disappointing and depressing, particularly since it’s a job that I am in every possible sense perfect for (other than being a 53 yo white dude from Mississippi).

  152. 152.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    @NotMax:

    One name under consideration for Benjamin in The Graduate was Robert Redford, who explained at one point why it wasn’t for him.

    “Even when I was a virgin I didn’t look like one.”

    I heard that Richard Dreyfuss auditioned for the role of Benjamin Braddock.  At least he got a cameo in the film.

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    @Searcher: Ah, okay, thanks.

  154. 154.

    bbleh

    February 3, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @Suzanne: speaking of which, I’m told you can’t fart and sneeze at the same time (disclaimer: I haven’t tried).

  155. 155.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @Citizen Alan: That sucks, I hope you’re wrong in concluding that it’s a no go.  But some places are terrible about getting back to the candidates that are NOT chosen.  Some places don’t want to tell a person NO until the new person is in place and they make sure that person is working out.

  156. 156.

    zhena gogolia

    February 3, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @Citizen Alan: Sorry. I hope something comes through. Although couldn’t it maybe take longer than that?

  157. 157.

    NotMax

    February 3, 2023 at 4:21 pm

    @Alison Rose

    Other side of the coin: really difficult to imagine Tom Hanks in Saturday Night Fever.
    ;)

    Speaking of casting that never happened, Nicholas Cage was seriously being considered to play Superman. And in a movie which never given the green light, the powers that be wanted to sign Arnold Schwarzenegger to play DC Comics’ Sgt. Rock.

  158. 158.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 4:22 pm

    I don’t know whether these count as fun but I heard a Twitter Space yesterday on BBC’s documentary on Modi called the Modi files and the Indian government’s reaction to it. The guest was an eyewitness to what happened in Godhra, he was a part of the Amnesty International contingent which was there to direct relief efforts after an earthquake had hit Gujarat. This person’s eyewitness testimony was chilling, it brought back memories of the early nineties (when I witnessed my city engulfed in violence of and on for 3 years). I just realized that if BJP wins power at the Center again there will be a blood bath in India which will make 1947 pale in comparison.

  159. 159.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    February 3, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    @Alison Rose: ​
      My momma said, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what actor you’re gonna get”

  160. 160.

    ian

    February 3, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    @Pete Downunder:

    The difference in time between stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus is more than the time between tyrannosaurus and us.

    One I tell my students when we do ancient Egypt is that the time between the building of the great pyramids and Cleopatra is more than the time between Cleopatra and modernity.

  161. 161.

    The Moar You Know

    February 3, 2023 at 4:30 pm

     

    Besides humans, only 8 animals can recognize themselves in the mirror

    https://www.salon.com/2023/02/03/8-smart-animals-mirror-test/

    @Wyatt Salamanca: Not buying it.  I’ve had two dogs – both golden retrievers – that absolutely recognized themselves in the mirror (one spent a few hours checking out which was the most attractive pose with his bone, I thought I might actually die of laughter).  My current golden not only recognizes himself, but both my wife and I, and knows how to use the large mirror in the bedroom to check out parts of the room and outside he can’t see otherwise.

    Pretty sure the cats I’ve had in the past could do it too.

    Suspect this is part and parcel of humans grossly underestimating animal intelligence (I gotta admit, the fish on that list was a surprise)

  162. 162.

    M31

    February 3, 2023 at 4:32 pm

    @ian: I heard it as “when Herodotus visited the Pyramids, they were older to him than Herodotus is to us”

  163. 163.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 4:34 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Link to the recorded Twitter Space

    *Twitter Space is about the BBC documentary called Modi Files.

    The violence in Godhra was in 2002.

  164. 164.

    M31

    February 3, 2023 at 4:35 pm

    lol there is a bird that lives on my street that fails the self recognition test–it gets really mad at the reflection in car side mirrors and tries to attack the evil rival bird, pecking at them and leaving streaks of poop down your car door

    I didn’t get a good enough look to see what bird it was, some kind of greenish black one, grackle maybe?

    got mad at several evil rival birds up and down the street

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Well, this made me curious!

    So I looked the question up, and after sorting through the stories about severe lightning storms in County Mayo, Ireland I was able to establish that the cookbook where I read this was Ms. Bombeck’s The Joy of Cooking.

    There was a long discussion on Reddit that for all I know is still going on, and some shorter articles agreeing that in fact one cannot make mayonaise in an electrical storm. There was some difference in opinion as to whether this phenomenon is caused by the humidity or by changes in the atmospheric electrical charge.

    So my conclusion is that you have a rare mayonaise power; either your dry humor knocks back the humidity, or you have your own unique electrical charge. Which would not surprise me.

  166. 166.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 4:40 pm

    @Citizen Alan: Sorry to hear that – I’ve been there. But you know what? It just means that there is another job waiting for you that is as good and possibly be better. Every time I’ve had that loss I realized that the job I did end up getting ended up being pretty damn good.

  167. 167.

    les

    February 3, 2023 at 4:41 pm

    @bbleh: I had a college room mate who, after extensive trials, determined you (or at least he) could not fart and belch at the same time.

  168. 168.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 4:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Yeah, I think that’s going to be have an impact on voters especially when they turn around and vote to probably forgive debt by corporations. They are willing to make those rules.

  169. 169.

    Old School

    February 3, 2023 at 4:42 pm

    @M31:

    I didn’t get a good enough look to see what bird it was, some kind of greenish black one, grackle maybe?

    I’ve heard you need to grind up the wings to truly determine the color.

  170. 170.

    RSA

    February 3, 2023 at 4:43 pm

    @Old School: Nice.  Here’s me and ChatGPT:

    find the non-negative integer roots of p + 5n + 10d + 25q + 50h = 100

    The equation p + 5n + 10d + 25q + 50h = 100 has five variables (p, n, d, q, h) and no coefficients are specified for each variable, so it is not possible to find the integer roots of this equation.

    Uh, what?  I tried a slightly different phrasing, then regenerated responses a few times, and got this exchange:

    find the non-negative integer roots of 1p + 5n + 10d + 25q + 50h = 100

    To find the non-negative integer roots of the equation 1p + 5n + 10d + 25q + 50h = 100, we can use brute-force approach. We can try all possible combinations of non-negative integers for p, n, d, q, and h and check if they satisfy the equation. Here’s a solution that uses this approach: [python code elided]

    Not bad! Working code as well.

  171. 171.

    cain

    February 3, 2023 at 4:43 pm

    @TooManyJens: there is also the fact that you could get the information in a variety of ways – including a haiku version of the information.

  172. 172.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 4:44 pm

    @Geminid:

    Betty Cracker: The Mayo Queen!

  173. 173.

    WereBear

    February 3, 2023 at 4:48 pm

    Cat nose prints are like fingerprints. But they also have paw prints.

    Rumor has it phones will recognize them.

  174. 174.

    raven

    February 3, 2023 at 4:49 pm

    From a friend.

     

    The Chinese have been siphoning flatulence from the atmosphere and filling balloons with it. There’s no shortage of flatulence. They’ve got secret siphons below congress and at Mar a Lago. They’re designing engines that run on flatulence. They will revolutionize energy consumption and put big oil out of business. The balloon recently spotted over the US is a trial vehicle.

  175. 175.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 4:52 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

     I just realized that if BJP wins power at the Center again there will be a blood bath in India which will make 1947 pale in comparison.

    When are the elections? Do you think that the government will participate or simply let it happen?

  176. 176.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 4:52 pm

    @raven:

    We need to close the fart gap.

  177. 177.

    Mai Naem mobile

    February 3, 2023 at 4:53 pm

    @Geminid: that can’t be true. I am sure commercial brands make mayonnaise in factories that are open 24/7 in areas with lightning.

  178. 178.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 4:53 pm

    @WaterGirl: It’s pennies. Set all other coefficients to zero and the only solution is 100p = $1. Set all but n and p to zero and you have  5n + p = 100, which will have 21 solutions.

    In school you might have learned that a series of linear equations of x variables requires x equations to result in a single solution (provided that no coefficients are zero). The part we tend to not teach kids in school is given a fewer number of equations, how many solutions would be in the result set. Normally this is infinite but there are unstated constraints on the system, namely that n >= 0 and p >=0, as well as n ∈ ℤ and p ∈ ℤ which become additional equations in our system. The first ones say you can’t have negative coins. The latter says you can’t have non-integer coins – no fractional or irrational coins. Those two constraints pull us back from infinite to finite solutions, and you get two new constraints for each coin type you expand to.

    The two added constraints just tell the mathematician that this is a combinatorics problem, throw out all of the usual techniques for solving a series of linear equations and pull out the combinatoric techniques.

    From a programming perspective I’d probably lean in on two properties of the problem. One, it has an optimal substructure. There is an optimal way to give change, by working through the coins from largest to smallest and giving the maximum number of each coin that fits in the remaining quantity, and then moving down to the next coin to fill in the remainder, and repeating. The other is that I’d also note that the possible answers are to some degree quantized – you will never have a number of pennies that isn’t a multiple of 5, so at least for pennies you can do a substitution with nickels, and I’d then go at it from a subset sum approach. Basically, how many ways to make $0.05. Then how many ways to make $0.10, substituting the $0.05 count everywhere that I need to make a $0.05 count in the $0.10 count. Then $0.25, then $0.50, then $1.00.

    These are fun programming problems to do when you’re learning how to code.

  179. 179.

    Anoniminous

    February 3, 2023 at 4:56 pm

    @NotMax: ​
     

    the powers that be wanted to sign Arnold Schwarzenegger to play DC Comics’ Sgt. Rock.

    Sgt Rock was going to be a panzergrenadier in the 9th (Austrian) Panzer division?

  180. 180.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 4:56 pm

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed his trip to China after a Chinese spy balloon flew across the US

    ….

    A senior state department official said that the balloon would have “narrowed the agenda” of any meetings with Chinese officials “in a way that would have been unhelpful and unconstructive”.

  181. 181.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 4:58 pm

    @Brachiator: 2024. BJP will orchestrate it but maintain plausible deniability. They have  a playbook. It was used in Mumbai and other places after the Sangh destroyed the mosque in Ayodhya. It was used in Godhra. I was used in Delhi a couple of years go.

    Create an “issue”
    Blame Muslims, Congress, civil society
    Engineer pogroms
    Use violence to create fear or ethnically cleanse.
    Blame Muslims

  182. 182.

    Spanky

    February 3, 2023 at 4:58 pm

    @Baud: Difficult, what with all those gaping assholes in the House.

  183. 183.

    hueyplong

    February 3, 2023 at 4:59 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: In The Godfather, Giants baseball announcer Russ Hodges is describing Bobby Thomson’s at bat on a radio in the toll booth as Sonny arrives to meet his fate. You can hear him say “Brooklyn leads it 4-2” just before the killing, which is timed to the moment when Thomson hits the “shot heard ’round the world” to win the 1951 NL pennant.

    Presumably, the jackal who calls himself Bobby Thomson already knows this obscure bit of trivia.

  184. 184.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 4:59 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I hope not, obviously. I heard India’s economy is booming, so hopefully that will deter destabilizing actions.  It depends if Modi is as nuts as the GOP.

  185. 185.

    Anoniminous

    February 3, 2023 at 5:00 pm

    Obligatory fart joke

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    February 3, 2023 at 5:01 pm

    No Friday news dump today?

  187. 187.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 5:02 pm

    @Mai Naem mobile: Those nuts on Reddit adressed that question (see #165). They said that the big metal mixing machines isolate the mayonaise from the atmospheric electrical charge.

    Or something like that; I started to go crosseyed about twenty comments in.

  188. 188.

    TooManyJens

    February 3, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    @cain:

    I feel like that’s not going to make me any happier.

  189. 189.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    @Baud: Its not just Modi. Modi is the front man. Sangh has been preparing for this for almost 100 years.

    Yes and they are nuts. Weapons grade cray cray.

    There is a lot of fudging and smoke and mirrors regarding the economy. Crony capitalism has thrived under the BJP

    I don’t think they have yet amassed enough power to pull off their heart’s desire but they are inching closer to it. And another election win would definitely take them (the Sangh Parivar) more powerful than they have ever been.

  190. 190.

    JPL

    February 3, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    @raven: OMG I feel bad for the little green men that have to live inside the bubble.    Maybe to them it smells like bacon, though.

  191. 191.

    Mai Naem mobile

    February 3, 2023 at 5:05 pm

     

     

    @Citizen Alan: sorry that you didn’t get it but I am sure  you’ll end up somewhere better that you’ll end up liking more.

  192. 192.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 5:07 pm

    @Baud: I think the hatred of Modi and his allies runs far deeper than that of today’s Republicans. A lot of what Hitler was irrational in economic terms, but that did not stop him.

  193. 193.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 5:07 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    RE: chatGPT is going to change how we get information

    It’s unquestionably going to change the way we get disinformation.

    Instead of people making shit up, the Internet itself will make shit up.

     

  194. 194.

    Citizen Alan

    February 3, 2023 at 5:07 pm

    @zhena gogolia:  It’s a new judge who starts a week from Monday. Unless something is changed, anyway. My assumption is that she simply assumed I would not be able to move to SLC fast enough and be ready to go on the 1st day, so she hired someone Is who’s already in Utah.  That is happened to me with several  Jobs, the judge or whoever decided decided that it would be easier to go with someone local rather than trust in my ability to relocate across country on short notice.  The price I paid for not leaving the shit hole of Mississippi 25 years ago when I had the chance.

  195. 195.

    Citizen Alan

    February 3, 2023 at 5:10 pm

    @cain:  I know. But the thing that’s eating at me is that I have a good friend who’s been advising me on certain types of jobs I’ve been applying for. And while she’s been highly encouraging, she also bluntly admitted at 1 point that I would almost certainly have been hired to a position 6 months ago or more if I were 10 years younger.

  196. 196.

    bbleh

    February 3, 2023 at 5:11 pm

    @Baud: Donald Trump is ON IT!

  197. 197.

    lowtechcyclist

    February 3, 2023 at 5:13 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Here’s a fun fact: the world is absolutely filled with assholes.

    I read somewhere that the “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” was John Lennon waxing scatological about the seating capacity of the Royal Albert Hall.

    Don’t know if it’s true or not, but it sure sounds like Lennon.

  198. 198.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 5:13 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    2024. BJP will orchestrate it but maintain plausible deniability. They have  a playbook. It was used in Mumbai and other places after the Sangh destroyed the mosque in Ayodhya. It was used in Godhra. It was used in Delhi a couple of years go.

    This is very sad. The opposition has been neutralized or demoralized?

  199. 199.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 5:14 pm

    @hueyplong:

    Thanks for this one.  I can never get enough fun facts about The Godfather!

  200. 200.

    stinger

    February 3, 2023 at 5:14 pm

    @WaterGirl: LOLOL

  201. 201.

    bbleh

    February 3, 2023 at 5:15 pm

    @les: I am also told that the reason is a hard-wired survival mechanism that prohibits closing throat and ass simultaneously to keep sudden overpressure without a place to escape from potentially damaging the brain, but I haven’t investigated further, because really this is a job for a stoned college student.

  202. 202.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Poster that inspired Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

    h/t https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-poster-that-inspired-the-beatles-mr-kite/

  203. 203.

    Bill Arnold

    February 3, 2023 at 5:19 pm

    @TooManyJens:

    Mostly what I’m doing with google searches these days is getting results that don’t include the terms I was actually looking for because Google thinks it knows better than I do.

    Quote the terms you care about. If looking for something for which you have text but no source, e.g. an image with text, quote a small block of text. Add a “-” before words to get pages that do not include that word.

  204. 204.

    bbleh

    February 3, 2023 at 5:19 pm

    @WaterGirl: Or fire-water?

  205. 205.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 5:19 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I just did some googling and it looks like they are in a good position for a win.

  206. 206.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 5:20 pm

    @Brachiator: Actually it is not. Congress is energized by Rahul Gandhi’s padyatra  from the south to the north of India. Opposition parties hold several important states. But BJP is a cultural as well as political behemoth and will be hard to counter. I think they can be defeated but it won’t be easy.

  207. 207.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    So, also took enough chemistry to have learned that electrical charge *is* a factor in emulations, but not really a big factor in mayonnaise because the particles in the emulsion are large enough that other forces overcome the electrical charge effect. But it probably is true that it’s *harder* to make mayonnaise with a high charge density. Factories would simply have a process that can overwhelm that.

    So emulsion is a forcing together of two components with different HLB values. Eggs have an HLB of around 13 – eggs are hydrophilic, they like to bind with water. Canola oil has an HLB of about 7. It’s a moderate lipophilic oil – it likes to bind with fats. The more oppositional the two emulsifiers are (the larger the gap in those numbers) the stronger the London forces are pushing the oil and egg molecules apart are, and the better than can overcome the charge density effects that would pull them back together again. Choice of oil (lower HLB) would probably be enough to allow a manufacturer to never need to worry about the charge density. Would probably also be pretty trivial to just measure the charge density in the air and use that to set the mixing time or agitation force to compensate.

    For the cooks out there, this is why when you want to whip egg whites for a meringue, that you must remove *all* fat from the bowl/mixing utensil. Egg white and yolks have different HLB values – which is why you have to do some work to combine them. Egg whites work like hydrocarbon chains, like detergents. A detergent works by having a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end – the phobic end binds to dirt, and the phillic end binds to water, which allows the water to take the dirt away. A meringue has the phillic ends connecting the egg white molecules to each other and the phobic ends basically try to avoid that and stick into the air because there’s nothing else to grab. The whisking process unwinds those proteins and injects air creating zillions of little bubbles. Any fat in there binds to the phobic ends collapsing those air pockets. And some of the egg yolk is enough to do that. Also any butter that might be stuck in the bowl or whisk from the last time you made cookies or whatever.

    Salt is a good way to do this. Salt will bind with fat, so rubbing it in the bowl will grab that fat and is easy to then rinse away.

  208. 208.

    randy khan)

    February 3, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I think there easily could be, but it would be a pain to figure it out for sure.

    You start with 100 pennies.  You can substitute 1 nickel for every 5 pennies, 1 dime for every 10 pennies or every 2 nickels, 1 quarter for every 25 pennies, 2 dimes and a nickel, 1 dime and 3 nickels, or 5 nickels, and 1 half dollar for every 50 pennies, 5 dimes, 4 different dime/nickel combinations, 10 nickels, 9 different nickel/penny combinations, or 2 quarters.

    Just doing pennies and nickels gets you 21 combinations – from 100 pennies to 20 nickels (and this assumes that the combinations are unordered; if they’re ordered it’s a lot more).

  209. 209.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 5:22 pm

    @Martin:

    MartinGPT > ChatGPT

  210. 210.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 5:22 pm

    @Brachiator: Agreed. GPT is probably going to be as transformational as Google search algorithm was. I don’t think it’ll put Google out of business but it’s gonna hurt pretty bad.

  211. 211.

    Timill

    February 3, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: Eliza for the 21st century.

  212. 212.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    @Baud:At this juncture most Indian media acts like the publicity dept for BJP. They are called Godi media. I would take anything they say with a grain salt.

    Yeah defeating BJP is not going to be easy. But they are not invincible.

  213. 213.

    kalakal

    February 3, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    According to the EU carrots are a type of fruit. The EU has loads of food regs, mostly for health reasons or to stop scams and defined fruit and vegetables according to the  standard botanical definitions.

    They also defined jam as being made from fruit. At which point the population of Portugal got very angry as they’ve been making carrot jam for centuries. In a triumph for political harmony over science carrots were reclassified as fruit

  214. 214.

    Ramalama

    February 3, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    @frosty: or clear your jelly donuts

  215. 215.

    lowtechcyclist

    February 3, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Poster that inspired Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

    h/t https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-poster-that-inspired-the-beatles-mr-kite/

    Cool bit of trivia, thanks!

  216. 216.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 5:25 pm

    @Baud: Gonna assume I get more things wrong than ChatGPT does.

  217. 217.

    randy khan)

    February 3, 2023 at 5:26 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Reputedly, the last words Adams spoke were “Jefferson still survives,” but as it turned out Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.

    Their relationship, its fractures and their reconciliation, is one of the more interesting stories about the Founders.  And they were last two survivors of that group.

  218. 218.

    randy khan)

    February 3, 2023 at 5:28 pm

    As someone who harbors cats, all of them rescues, many of whom have lived in places without littler boxes for big chunks of their lives, I knew the fun fact about cat urine.

    To add my own fun fact, the same lamps that you use for that you also can use to detect uranium glass, which fluoresces quite brightly under UV, but does not actually emit much radioactivity.  (And it’s much more fun to find uranium glass.)

  219. 219.

    Baud

    February 3, 2023 at 5:29 pm

    @randy khan):

    You have a close parens in your nym.

  220. 220.

    Bill Arnold

    February 3, 2023 at 5:34 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:
    I am enjoying the Adani Group’s time of tribulation, after the unleashing of a well-researched attack-report by a short seller, Hindenburg Research.
    From today (been going on since last week):
    Adani crisis ignites Indian contagion fears, credit warnings (Sarita Chaganti Singh, Aditya Kalra and Shivam Patel, February 3, 2023)
    Gautam Adani is said to be tight with N. Modi. From the same state, too.

    For Adani, a former school drop-out from Gujarat, the western home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

  221. 221.

    Brachiator

    February 3, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    Ridley Scott is planning a Gladiator sequel.

    Does Russell Crowe come back from the dead?

  222. 222.

    Princess

    February 3, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    @Citizen Alan: The most recent defenestration of Prague was when the communists threw Jan Masaryk out the window in 1948. Not a mob but definitely an execution.

  223. 223.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    @Bill Arnold: I had never heard Adani’s name before Modi went to Delhi. Adani is Modi’s oligarch. They are both from the state of Gujarat

    Other famous Gujaratis, M. K. Gandhi and Jinnah.

  224. 224.

    John Revolta

    February 3, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: I read it was a newspaper story about the state of the streets.

  225. 225.

    UncleEbeneezer

    February 3, 2023 at 5:37 pm

    Hollywood man found with high-powered arsenal facing several charges, including solicitation of murder
    Police say the 25-year-old from Indiana, who recently moved to Hollywood, had an arsenal of weapons, as well as rifles pointed out the windows of his 18th floor apartment building along Sunset Boulevard.

  226. 226.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    February 3, 2023 at 5:37 pm

    From 1987:

    Stunned Lawrence Welk fans around the country have been discovering that their recently purchased copy of Welk’s World’s Greatest Polkas compact disc actually is a raucous recording of hard-core punk rock.

    Polka fans were treated to such songs as “Love Kills” and the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious singing a violent parody of the Frank Sinatra chestnut “My Way.”

    Labelers at a Japanese CD pressing plant mistakenly applied the Welk labels to 10,000 copies of the soundtrack to the film Sid and Nancy, said Bernice McGeehan, spokeswoman for Welk Enterprises, the band leader’s record company.

    h/t https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1987-02-26-0110210077-story.html

  227. 227.

    Bill Arnold

    February 3, 2023 at 5:46 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    2024. BJP will orchestrate it but maintain plausible deniability.

    They would argue plausible deniability. Like with the COVID-19 death toll, many in the world would call them liars.
    I watched with interest when wikipedia’s page on pogroms was purged of an entry for the Gujarat pogrom by a few Indian IP addresses a while back. The BBC documentary might be a sufficient source for adding it back.

  228. 228.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 3, 2023 at 5:51 pm

    @Bill Arnold: It can be argued that the Gujarat pogrom is what catapulted Modi from an RSS also ran to the front of the pack nationally

    The reason I keep writing these comments is because Modi struts on the world stage as a democratic leader while perpetrating a climate of fear and violence against those who don’t buy into the so called Hindu greatness agenda

    Sangh parivar is actively rewriting history and not just on Wikipedia.

  229. 229.

    mrmoshpotato

    February 3, 2023 at 5:51 pm

    • If you sneeze too hard, you could fracture a rib.

    This sounds decidedly unfun. :)

    Can’t imagine what else such a violent sneeze would mess up.

  230. 230.

    David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    February 3, 2023 at 5:59 pm

    Fun Facts Friday: a lot of people don’t know this, but John McCain was a POW

  231. 231.

    Origuy

    February 3, 2023 at 6:04 pm

    I don’t see how you get 293 ways to make change for a dollar. There are 13 ways to make up a quarter in coins:

    1Q
    2D1N0P
    2D0N5P
    1D3N0O
    1D2N5P
    1D1N10P
    1D0N15P
    0D5N0P
    0D4N5P
    0D3N10P
    0D2N15P
    0D1N20P
    0D0N25P

    If N is the number of ways to get a quarter, then adding in half dollars and an dollar coin gives you

    1 dollar coin = 1
    2H  = 1
    1H2N  = 2×13 = 26
    4N = 4×13 =52

    Sum that up, I get 80 ways to break a dollar into coins.

  232. 232.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 3, 2023 at 6:09 pm

    @David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I actually read that somewhere, but– and hold on to your hat for this one– did you know self-made television personality and award-winning blogger Megan McCain is his daughter? It’s such common name, I had no idea

    (Years ago, I actually heard her respond to a charge of living off the old man’s fame by saying, “Oh, I guess that’s why I have an award-winning blog and two book contracts?” Um… yeah?

    I don’t know if the award in question was the coveted Silver Sow, but I’m pretty sure it was not a Buckeye News Hawk Award)

  233. 233.

    zhena gogolia

    February 3, 2023 at 6:14 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca: That’s hilarious!

  234. 234.

    Old School

    February 3, 2023 at 6:15 pm

    @Origuy: Scroll up to link in comment #17.

  235. 235.

    AWOL

    February 3, 2023 at 6:17 pm

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    “I think the casting of The Godfather was perfect and will always be grateful to Francis Ford Coppola for not giving in to the enormous pressure that he received for these idiotic casting ideas.”

    The casting for that nauseating glorification of the mob movie was determined by the mob, who protested how their image and ethnicity was being besmirched. (Columbo led this shit; he was blown away in Columbus Circle during an ethnocentric rally a few years later.) Coppola and the studio gave in or else the film wouldn’t be made, and a number of murderers, rapists, drug manufacturers, torturers, thieves, sex traffickers, and all-around bully sociopaths received their SAG cards and appeared in the overrated flick. James Caan, a wannabe mobster like Jerry Orbach, made a pig of himself on the set.

  236. 236.

    Feathers

    February 3, 2023 at 6:17 pm

    Human urine also glows under a black light, so you can’t be sure it was the cat.

    Note: also dog and mouse. And semen and blood. Although blood turns black. I’m guessing the watching of CSI and it’s ilk, as well as true crime documentaries are not big here. I don’t watch them either, but I’ve seen enough shows  to know how they examine a crime scene.

  237. 237.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 6:20 pm

    In today’s ethnic LGB, and especially T, cleansing news:

    • Ron DeSantis has filed a complaint against the Orlando Philharmonic and stripped its liquor license for hosting “A Drag Queen Christmas.” They claim it was a felony violation. They are weaponizing the state to eliminate queer existence. Yes, really.
    • Arizona bill, SB1698, would ban “dressing in clothes other than your assigned gender” while “singing, dancing, and monologuing” in public. 15 year jail sentences and sex offender registry.
    • South Dakota’s House passed a ban on gender affirming care for minors by a 60-10 vote yesterday. Wyoming and West Virginia did the same thing. (Apologies if I mentioned this in yesterday post, there’s so many anti-trans bills (250+ this year alone) that it’s hard to keep track of them all.)
    • The NC Senate Rules Committee will be holding a meeting discussing SB49 (the “Don’t Say Gay” bill) on Monday at 5:30 p.m. Voices in opposition are desperately needed.
    • Not sure how recently this occurred, but a trans woman was denied a gender marker change on her driver’s license, despite having her gender change recognized by the Social Security Administration (which all other government agencies are supposed to reference). She went outside and took her top off, was arrested by police for an indecent exposure charge that only applies to women and then placed in a men’s jail. It’s the perfect encapsulation of society.

    But definitely some good news:

    • The very first drag ban to pass a state house in the United States has been gutted!. All instances of “drag” were removed from Arkansas SB43. It would have banned “anyone exhibiting a gender identity different from their assigned gender at birth” from performing in any way that any person could deem “prurient”—including according to supporter, the very act of drag queens reading to kids at story hours—and likely would’ve banned Pride celebrations.
    • A trans protective bill that protects abortion access and access to gender affirming care passed through committee in New Mexico.
    • The WA State Senate passed SSB 5028 which would allow, among other things, for anyone changing their name to match their gender identity/expression to have their petition sealed so their deadname will not be a public record.

    As far as fun facts, here’s a quick a Twitter thread with examples of how trans people have existed for thousands of years in cultures all around the globe.

  238. 238.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 6:25 pm

    @JoyceH: Color vision is one of humans’ superpowers. In addition to being about to seeing a wider color spectrum than most animals, we also have a fairly unique ability for our brains to automatically increase the differentiation between similar colors. So, for example, a gray squirrel on a gray tree trunk stands out more to us than it does to its normal predators.

    It’s one of the fun facts I learned about when being taught how to color-correct photos.

  239. 239.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 6:27 pm

    @Amir Khalid: The Eiffel Tower contains a small apartment where Eiffel would stay occasionally. It’s still can be used today.

  240. 240.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 3, 2023 at 6:29 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer: Sounds like economic anxiety.

  241. 241.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 3, 2023 at 6:34 pm

    @randy khan): I asked this a while back, but why do bills go 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 while coins go 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100? Yes, I am ignoring the $2 bill.

  242. 242.

    zhena gogolia

    February 3, 2023 at 6:37 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Thank you for this.

  243. 243.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 6:39 pm

    Those of us of a certain age, may remember “The Beat Girl.” It’s an image instantly familiar to anyone connected to the ’80s ska world: it’s a young girl dancing to ska music in pristine ’60s fashions on the cover of the of the seminal 1979 album by The Beat.

    Turns out she was a pioneering trans woman, Brigette Bond, who had an extremely colorful life history — among other things she draped herself over Billy Graham’s car in a mini-skirt when Graham visited the UK to rail against them — who was a successful performer in her own right. She’s the subject of a recent documentary.

  244. 244.

    Origuy

    February 3, 2023 at 6:39 pm

    @Old School: OK, I guess my analysis is wrong, but I’m not sure where. Not going to think about it anymore, though.

  245. 245.

    Bill Arnold

    February 3, 2023 at 6:43 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    In addition to being about to seeing a wider color spectrum than most animals,

    Birds, though, are mostly tetrachromats, and a few are (probably) pentachromats, like pigeons. Mantis shrimp, 12(16?) color receptors.

    True Facts About The Mantis Shrimp (Ze Frank, youtube, 4:00)

  246. 246.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 6:47 pm

    @Citizen Alan: Ugh. Sorry to hear that.

    @Brachiator: ChadGPT is Mansplaining As A Service. A service that generates vaguely promising sounding yet totally fabricated and baseless lectures in an instant, with unflagging confidences in its own correctness on any topics, without concern, regard, or even awareness of the level of expertise of its audience.

  247. 247.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    February 3, 2023 at 6:47 pm

    @Origuy: I came up with 292, listing them explicitly in a spreadsheet. I may have missed one.

    Not quite following your notation, but if you’re assuming that you have to break it into multiples of 25, what happens to options like 10 dimes?

  248. 248.

    JPL

    February 3, 2023 at 6:49 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: The right had to create a new reason for folks to vote.  It’s disgusting when hate wins, and we have to work twice as hard to prevent that.

  249. 249.

    TooManyJens

    February 3, 2023 at 6:59 pm

    @Bill Arnold: Yeah, that’s what I do when my first search fails; it’s just irritating to have to. “Yes, I wanted the results to include [x], that’s why I searched for it.”

  250. 250.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 7:13 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Never forget that California is here for you.

    I know it’s bleak out there, but it’s not bleak everywhere. I believe every UC hospital now has dedicated clinics for surgical and non-surgical gender care. UCSF, like they have with abortion, have a dedicated program to providing training to doctors and nurses in gender care. For those that don’t know, UCSF is essentially a dedicated medical university for the UC system – it sits in the spot that UC Berkeley’s medical school/hospital would be. And the entire system leans on UCSF to develop curriculum, etc systemwide. Similar to how Harvard Med pretty much has a role in the entire healthcare system in the state of Massachusetts. We relied on UCSF to develop the training for each of the UC and CSUs to now provide abortion services through student health. Similar training is being developed for gender care through all of these student health units.

    Sooner or later this fever in the rest of the country will break – as it always does, and *someone* is going to need to be prepared to lay out how take care of people from the vacuums that legislatures have created.

    The bill linked above makes CA a sanctuary state – don’t bother bringing any subpoenas for people who fled your state for care, we’re gonna ignore them. Same as we do for abortion issues. I think there’s funding in there to ramp up services in anticipation of increased demand, as we did with abortion providers.

    Not related to the US situation, but Abigail Thorne (Philosophy Tube) has a pretty interesting video about her challenges getting care through the UK system. Some applies to the US, some doesn’t. Her discussion at the end about how bureaucracies stabilize themselves against competing demands and change was very eye-opening. Wish I had explored those ideas back at the start of my career – I probably could have fixed a lot of things that I just didn’t understand how to fix when I was working.

    Watching that vid for about the 5th time now. Grab a bottle of wine before you cue it up, it’s feature-length, but totally worth it.

  251. 251.

    Martin

    February 3, 2023 at 7:15 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: I loved that album. Thanks for the rec. Had no idea that caricature referred to a real person.

  252. 252.

    Steeplejack

    February 3, 2023 at 7:19 pm

    @EriktheRed:

    Not true.

  253. 253.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    February 3, 2023 at 7:46 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: This was irritating me and it seemed it should be simple enough to write a Python program to enumerate them. So I did. It’s 293.

  254. 254.

    Sister Golden Bear

    February 3, 2023 at 7:59 pm

    @Martin: I had no idea The Beat Girl was an actual woman either.

    We are getting some wins, and hopefully we’ll ultimately prevail. The anti-trans arguments being used are almost verbatim from the anti-gay arguments used in the ’80s and ’90. Personally, living in CA makes me relatively safe, but the SCOTUS could easily change that, and I admit I’m dusting off my 2016 plans for leaving the country in case things go terribly wrong in 2024 and we end up with a Republican trifecta, As has been said of terrorism, we need to be lucky every time, they only need to get lucky once.

    As far as the UK (aka TERF Island), I’m all too familiar with the problems there. The ironic thing about the moral panic about teens getting trans healthcare is that the NHS wait times just to get a consultation are so incredibly long that virtually all trans teens reach adulthood first.

    But the way anti-trans hatred has been fully mainstreamed and the fever pitch it’s reached is terrifying. The British government just overruled Scotland’s law allowing trans people to self-identify, i.e. being able to change legal gender without getting medical permission — and Labour promptly rolled over an acquiesced to it without a whimper. So far a constitutional crisis seems to have been averted, but there’s still hope the Scots hate the Brits more than they hate trans people and will tell London to fuck off.

  255. 255.

    caphilldcne

    February 3, 2023 at 8:33 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: thank you for sharing that!  I love ska and that was just fascinating!!  Hoping Scotland tells england to screw off too. I cannot understand this TERF thing – it’s like 2nd wave feminism’s hydra head. Unfortunately the Christian nationalist nazis have really doubled down on literally engaging in a spiritual war they believe is quite real and they’re gonna keep coming after our trans and LGB+ kids. We’re just going to have to keep strong and beat them back til it’s over.

  256. 256.

    SFAW

    February 3, 2023 at 8:34 pm

    If you sneeze too hard, you could fracture a rib.

    Actually, if you fart, burp, and sneeze at the same time, you will die.
    [NB: Stolen from National Lampoon, circa 1970.]

  257. 257.

    Chris T.

    February 3, 2023 at 8:44 pm

    @Pete Downunder:

    Come to Australia, You Might Accidentally Get Killed

  258. 258.

    J R in WV

    February 3, 2023 at 8:55 pm

    I doubt that a sneeze could break a rib. I have it on good authority however that coughing during whooping cough can fracture multiple ribs, which is why I got a vaccination booster for whooping cough not long ago.

  259. 259.

    frosty fred

    February 3, 2023 at 9:05 pm

    @J R in WV:  I promise you one thing, sneezing after you’ve broken a rib hurts like a sumbitch. (Ask me how I know.)

  260. 260.

    Chris T.

    February 3, 2023 at 9:08 pm

    @J R in WV:

    I have it on good authority however that coughing during whooping cough can fracture multiple ribs

    It can indeed. And even if you don’t do that, you can do other damage (I got some minor bronchial scarring from my bout of pertussis). Plus, the cough-until-you-barf part is no fun either.

    If you got your pertussis vaccine as a child in the 1960s, it has worn off now and you should get another. (They gave me mine too late, but insisted on giving it to me anyway, and I figured why not.)

  261. 261.

    prostratedragon

    February 3, 2023 at 9:23 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear: Thanks for all your updates — and good to see some positives in addition to all the appalling things that we’d better keep up with.

    That historical thread was interesting; one of the replies gave a quotation fom Sartre that might be the sharpest thing he ever said:

    Off of the quote machine from GoodReads btw pic.twitter.com/QUWfOOdV5N— Viridian Lakes (@ViridianLakes) February 1, 2023

  262. 262.

    Ascap_scab

    February 3, 2023 at 9:29 pm

    The human eye sees more shades of green than any other color because green falls near the middle of the human visible spectrum.

  263. 263.

    Yet Another Haldane

    February 3, 2023 at 9:33 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: I don’t know about sneezing, but it wouldn’t surprise me.  I cracked a rib coughing during a case of pneumonia, and unfun captures the experience nicely.

  264. 264.

    Geminid

    February 3, 2023 at 9:34 pm

    @Chris T.: A couple years ago I coughed while I was picking something off the floor and felt a pain in my lower ribs. I think I just did some cartilage damage. That did not cost me any function. It just stayed more or less sore for over a year.

  265. 265.

    Tehanu

    February 3, 2023 at 11:07 pm

    I’ve got a little list:

    Alan Arkin wrote the lyrics of “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).”

    Lincoln Logs were invented by John Lloyd Wright (son of…).

    Jean-Paul Sartre was the great-nephew of Albert Schweitzer.

    Frank Faylen, Dobie Gillis’s father on the TV show, was married to Carol Hughes, who played Dale Arden in the Flash Gordon serials.

    When Andre the Giant was 12 years old, his acromegaly prevented him from riding the bus to school, so a neighbor volunteered to drive him every day.  The neighbor:  Samuel Beckett.

  266. 266.

    randy khan

    February 3, 2023 at 11:34 pm

    @Baud: How odd.  I wonder where that came from.

  267. 267.

    EntroPi

    February 4, 2023 at 7:01 am

     

    @NotMax: The sultan himself owns thousands of cars, which is reputed to include a Rolls Royce stationed outside the palace, gassed up and engine running 24 hours a day.

    Dead thread, but…

    Guy down the street from me growing up had a couple of Rolls Royces, also London taxi  cabs.  Know in PVD as the Micky Mouse lawyer for the sign in his window.

    We had an Oldsmobile station  wagon.

  268. 268.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    February 4, 2023 at 12:49 pm

    The 7% number is probably from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/10/supreme-court-public-opinion-legitimacy-crisis/ — a Gallup poll about how many people have a great deal of confidence in the judicial branch.

    Still, the numbers are all record lows for this poll (which only started in 2000, probably after another great ruling by the Court).

  269. 269.

    Barney

    February 4, 2023 at 4:51 pm

    The word “feisty” is derived from “feist”, a term (mostly southern US) for a mongrel. This in term comes from an obsolete English word for “fart”. So when you call someone “feisty”, you’re comparing them to a small, farting dog.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-surprisingly-physical-word-history-of-feisty

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