Recent comments in /f/todayilearned
vibrant_crab t1_ja6ui8p wrote
Reply to TIL a year after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English sent their own Armada to Spain, leading to similar losses of ships and men, and an ignominious English defeat by malektewaus
Damn. They love to talk about the defeat of the Spanish Armada but they never mention the second half of that story.
MeadowmuffinReborn t1_ja6udtm wrote
Reply to comment by NewCanadianMTurker in TIL The Marvel No-Prize is a empty envelope that Marvel awarded fans for "meritorious service to the cause of Marveldom". Typically it was won by submitting an explanation for an error in a comic, but rules varied from author to author. The prize was inspired by George R. R. Martin. by jamescookenotthatone
No, it was just a tongue in cheek and cheap way to encourage readers to keep buying the comics.
ichankal t1_ja6txdi wrote
Reply to comment by drygnfyre in TIL Tolkien assisted on the Oxford Dictionary's first edition, focused on 'W' words waggle to warlock. He "learned more in those two years than in any other"; and certain etymologies continued to puzzle him for years, with many pages of notes written later on 'walrus' for a lecture at Leeds by PianoCharged
> name "Vanessa" were outright invented by Shakespeare
Google tells me it was made by Jonathan Swift.
You might be thinking of Jessica.
Youpunyhumans t1_ja6sbh0 wrote
Reply to TIL about Alice in wonderland syndrome. A neurological condition in which one’s perception of their body image, time, or space is distorted. AIWS may also cause hallucinations, sensory distortion, and an altered sense of velocity. by Deechon
I for sure have experienced this. Happens fairly often, usually when Im lying in bed, close to falling asleep, or just waking up. My limbs will feel distorted, bigger than normal, or super sensitive, like I can feel individual parts of them, or the blood running through my veins, or I just feel like a giant that could step over a mountain in a single step.
Sometimes its mild, other times its quite unnerving and intense, but it never lasts longer than 20 mins or so. Was never able to explain it as a kid, so I didnt try. Now I know what it is.
ArOnodrim t1_ja6s9jh wrote
Smaller bodies have higher heart rates generally.
mathisfakenews t1_ja6s97f wrote
yourredvictim t1_ja6s8gn wrote
Reply to TIL: The concept of steganography which is the hiding of messages in plain sight. For example, Phyllis Latour Doyle (British spy) parachuted into France to spy on Nazis before D-day. She used knitting to record messages. by Geek_Nan
Handy if you are a creep or a crook and you want to send secret messages.
Hide your message in a picture and create an item for sale on ebay. Soon you'll be the top terrorist in your cell! Or wind up in a cell. Que sera sera.
laserdicks t1_ja6s2nd wrote
Reply to comment by ElfMage83 in TIL: The concept of steganography which is the hiding of messages in plain sight. For example, Phyllis Latour Doyle (British spy) parachuted into France to spy on Nazis before D-day. She used knitting to record messages. by Geek_Nan
Why wouldn't they simply use an encrypted messaging service? Who meets in person any more?
[deleted] t1_ja6qbxd wrote
Reply to comment by eviltwintomboy in TIL: Because Nintendo could not get the rights to the Popeye cartoon character, they came up with Mario instead. by A_Bruised_Reed
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wasdlmb t1_ja6q5cm wrote
Reply to comment by ghotiaroma in TIL of the Battle of San Jacinto. Just six weeks after the Texans terrible loss at The Alamo in 1836. The Texans regrouped under Sam Houston, and surprised the Mexican forces and overwhelming defeated the Mexicans. The Texans had 11 soldiers killed and the Mexicans lost 650. by triviafrenzy
I fail to see the relevance.
Also, this is a pet peeve of mine. Chemical irritants are banned in war because, before they were, people would make incredibly powerful irritants that would put people in the hospital for days (sulfur mustard). Tear gas is painful and nothing else, and would honestly probably be fine in war if it weren't for the risk of escalation. We've actually seen it recently in Ukraine being dropped from drones, first by Russia and now by Ukraine, and nobody's raising too much of a fuss about it.
In terms of crowd control, it has its uses. Just like every other tool the police have, it's not about the fact that they use it, it's the fact that they use it when they shouldn't. I say this as somebody who has been gassed while protesting.
Aristocrafied t1_ja6pse6 wrote
Reply to TIL On long-haul flights, flight attendants have hidden sleeping areas above the passenger compartment. by real_zexy_specialist
Thanks for soaking up the radiation
thunder_struck85 t1_ja6ogoe wrote
Don't all small mammals have fast heart beats?
FinancialYou4519 t1_ja6ogez wrote
Reply to comment by drygnfyre in TIL On long-haul flights, flight attendants have hidden sleeping areas above the passenger compartment. by real_zexy_specialist
Air Force One taught me everyone can just grab a parachute with no training and jump out the back with ordinary clothes (cold) to get to safety. If I remember correctly, a woman even say “wheeeee 😃” with little to no winds affecting
majorjoe23 t1_ja6o707 wrote
Reply to comment by karmagirl314 in TIL there is a machine for cancer diagnosis from your poop noises, called Synthetic Human Acoustic Reproduction Testing, or SHART by chockychockster
You’re usually fine trusting FART until 40 or so.
No-Owl9201 t1_ja6n83e wrote
Reply to comment by Muroid in TIL a year after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English sent their own Armada to Spain, leading to similar losses of ships and men, and an ignominious English defeat by malektewaus
Yes that's a much better version, but no doubt they saw that by glorifying these triumphs they could impress all those held captive by the slowly disintegrating British Empire..
ghilliesniper522 t1_ja6n7u4 wrote
Reply to comment by A_happy_monkey in TIL of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. French driver Pierre Levegh crashed into a crowd of spectators. The crash, explosion and subsequent fire killed 84 and injured more than 120. It is still the deadliest car race crash ever. by triviafrenzy
Ik he overturned the regulations but the company itself also has to take blame and so does Biden since he could've reimpleneted the regulation if it was that important
bitemark01 t1_ja6n299 wrote
Reply to comment by square3481 in TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
He punched the highlights out of her hair!
AwesomeScreenName t1_ja6mjk9 wrote
Reply to comment by Beliadin in TIL: Because Nintendo could not get the rights to the Popeye cartoon character, they came up with Mario instead. by A_Bruised_Reed
It was on a bunch of systems:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/s1EAAOSwCmdicCmY/s-l1600.jpg
And as /u/Thin-Rip-3686 said, it was a standup arcade game first.
A_happy_monkey t1_ja6mg5u wrote
Reply to comment by adamcoe in TIL of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. French driver Pierre Levegh crashed into a crowd of spectators. The crash, explosion and subsequent fire killed 84 and injured more than 120. It is still the deadliest car race crash ever. by triviafrenzy
Something about their lives being cut really short I dunno can't quite put my finger on it :/
Muroid t1_ja6mcbb wrote
Reply to comment by No-Owl9201 in TIL a year after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English sent their own Armada to Spain, leading to similar losses of ships and men, and an ignominious English defeat by malektewaus
History is written by the people who were writing history in the language that you speak.
A_happy_monkey t1_ja6mbel wrote
Reply to comment by ghilliesniper522 in TIL of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. French driver Pierre Levegh crashed into a crowd of spectators. The crash, explosion and subsequent fire killed 84 and injured more than 120. It is still the deadliest car race crash ever. by triviafrenzy
Yeah pls educate yourself about literally anything.
Just to get the ball rolling ya know? Get the gears turning.
res30stupid t1_ja6m9gf wrote
Reply to comment by The_Safe_For_Work in TIL: The concept of steganography which is the hiding of messages in plain sight. For example, Phyllis Latour Doyle (British spy) parachuted into France to spy on Nazis before D-day. She used knitting to record messages. by Geek_Nan
Oh, yeah. This is a great way of hiding things and encoding information that only a few people will know.
For example, the BBC was an important part of the war effort since their song selection would convey secret messages to the troops, spies or POWs in Europe who knew the code. For example, the BBC would deliver secret codes in their broadcasts including letting allies know that they were about to launch a major offensive into Europe.
> The document below, from the BBC’s written archives, [sic: link to PDF] shows the unusually long list of code messages to the French Resistance broadcast on the night of 5 June 1944. It was the eve of D-Day, and the small pencilled cross next to the ninth message, indicates that it was this phrase in particular – ‘Berce mon Coeur d’une langueur monotone’ – that signalled the invasion was about to begin:
They would also use music and other means of broadcasting information into Europe, which actually tended to go horribly wrong because it was kept secret from the general staff of the BBC that they were doing it.
The BBC had a special producer credited for song selections when it was meant to be for the Polish resistance under the name of Peter Peterkin, because the Polish news broadcast was kept short just to deliver important updates via code of musical selection.
But notes from within the BBC at that time complain about about how sometimes these vitally important updates weren't delivered because the records just weren't played because the person meant to play them didn't know they were vitally important to the war effort and ignored the given tracklist; other times, they put the recording on and it was the wrong side of the vinyl.
Interesting thing to note as well is that the BBC actually started their European news outlets this way - they would natively translate news stories and broadcast them into European languages in order to get free information out there that couldn't be supressed by the enemy. To their credit, they actually reported on their own losses in the war to intise the enemy to listen in, so that when the tides of the war turned it would actually demoralise the enemy more later on.
In the Horrible Histories book The Woeful Second World War, one woman was actually reported to the secret police because of the BBC. She was having her radio repaired after it broke down and just so happened to have overheard a news broadcast about how the son of her neighbour, believed dead in a failed military operation, was actually caught and turned over to a Prisoner of War camp. When she happily informed her neighbour about this, she was immediately arrested.
That neighbour was a cunt, wasn't she?
iTwango t1_ja6v1p1 wrote
Reply to comment by res30stupid in TIL: The concept of steganography which is the hiding of messages in plain sight. For example, Phyllis Latour Doyle (British spy) parachuted into France to spy on Nazis before D-day. She used knitting to record messages. by Geek_Nan
Wait why would anyone get arrested for that? I'm a bit confused.
Thank you for all of the cool info!