Today I Learned

[Astronuc]

In sensitive fruit crops like apples and cherries, irrigation can heavily influence how trees grow and use nutrients—and ultimately determine fruit size and quality.
The optimal irrigation strategy for an apple or cherry orchard depends on a range of factors, from varietal and tree age to row spacing, soil type, topography, and climate. Aerial data can make it easier to determine the right approach by offering insights that account for the variability in these factors across your orchard.

https://www.ceresimaging.net/blog/u...imize-water-management-in-apples-and-cherries

The most rapid cell division in fruit occurs in the month or so after full bloom. Applying the right amount of water at this time is critical to achieving desired fruit size and quality at harvest. Too little water can reduce fruit set, limit fruit per cluster, and even lower yields in subsequent years.

In stone fruit, the final fruit swell phase—approximately two to three weeks before harvest—is also an especially important time to ensure that trees receive enough water for fruit growth. During this phase, it’s critical to avoid applying excess water: this can lead to fruit cracking or splitting, making them unmarketable.

 

[jack action]

TIL:

He was even inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1992.

 

[BWV]

Map of recipients of pensions for dependents of fallen Union soldiers outside the US in 1883

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/widows-dependents-in-the-atlantic-world/

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Map.jpg

 

[Hornbein]

Guitarist "Skunk" Baxter is now a highly paid missle defense consultant.

 

[symbolipoint]

Post #2048,

I wonder how "self-taught" would be effective enough without more formally going through school (university) and going along with its necessary laboratory portion of course-work? Hard to accept that you gain much of that through learning on your own and access to electronic sound equipment and being able to look at the insides of algorithms.

 

[jack action]

TIL that if English and German have common roots, they shouldn't be considered to be "close" in every case:

 

[kyphysics]

Facebook has become Meta (for metaverse).

 

[rsk]

TIL that if English and German have common roots, they shouldn't be considered to be "close" in every case:

​

And then there's this - I know no german but the message is clear

 

[DrGreg]

Today I learned that, on IMDb, the user rating for the film This is Spinal Tap is displayed as marked out of 11 stars.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/

Spoiler

The figure is actually calculated out of 10 (like any other film on IMDb) but incorrectly stated as being out of 11.

 

[kyphysics]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/08/wal...s-to-ramp-up-its-online-grocery-business.html

Walmart is using fully driverless trucks to ramp up its online grocery business​

Walmart and Silicon Valley start-up Gatik said that, since August, they’ve operated two autonomous box trucks — without a safety driver — on a 7-mile loop daily for 12 hours. The Gatik trucks are loaded with online grocery orders from a Walmart fulfillment center called a “dark store.” The orders are then taken to a nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market grocery store in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered.

The program began in December 2020 after getting approval from the Arkansas State Highway Commission. The safety driver was pulled over the summer. The partnership is focused on the so-called middle mile — the transport of goods within the supply chain most often from a warehouse to a fulfillment center or a warehouse to a retailer.

 

[jack action]

TIL that Winston Churchill had his doctor prescribe him alcohol in order to avoid prohibition while visiting the US.

 

[BillTre]

TIL that Winston Churchill had his doctor prescribe him alcohol in order to avoid prohibition while visiting the US.

View attachment 292722​

NIce work-a-round if you can get it.

 

[jack action]

TIL that there is a Darth Vader grotesque on the Washington National Cathedral:

 

[jtbell]

Today I learned why cans of jellied cranberry sauce are inverted with respect to their labels.

When you store the cans with the label upright, the end with the crimped edge, which you open with a can-opener, is at the bottom. The rounded end, which is normally at the bottom, is at the top. An air space forms inside the can at that end, because the can isn't completely filled.

When opening the can, you have to flip it over briefly in order to use a can-opener. When you flip the can over again in order to empty it, the air at the rounded end causes the lump of jelly to slide out in one cylindrical piece, the way most people seem to expect.

The surprising reason why Ocean Spray cranberry sauce labels are upside-down (cnn.com)

It's also true for the Aldi store-brand cranberry sauce that we use.

(Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.)

 

[dlgoff]

Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.

And to you as well.

 

[berkeman]

When opening the can, you have to flip it over briefly in order to use a can-opener. When you flip the can over again in order to empty it, the air at the rounded end causes the lump of jelly to slide out in one cylindrical piece, the way most people seem to expect.

Very clever! That almost sounds like something that could have been patented...

 

[rsk]

This week I learned that the street where I live (don't judge, I've only been here a month) is named after a Vietnamese poet.

Ho Xuan Huong was a rebel of sorts, her poetry was scathing of societal norms and full of double entendres. She was known as "The queen of nom poetry" - nom being the writing system used in Vietnam before colonists adapted it to the latin alphabet.

I learned this because a newspaper article floated by on social media (don't judge, it's a great way of staying in touch with friends and family around the world) reporting that UNESCO is to honour her and a male poet, Nguyen Dinh Chieu, after whom the next street parallel to mine is named.

I haven't read any of his poetry yet but I will. In the meantime, here is one of hers, which I recognise because I remember seeing it on the wall of a cafe where they do the best veggie spring rolls in all of Hanoi.

Here is one of her poems

"Sisters, do you know how it is? On one hand,
the bawling baby; on the other, your husband
sliding onto your stomach,
his little son still howling at your side.
Yet, everything must be put in order,
Rushing around all helter-skelter.
Husband and child, what obligations!
Sisters, do you know how it is?“

Here is a page full of them

and here is the newspaper article

 

[BWV]

Ho Xuan Huong - Chinese name though, correct ?

 

[jtbell]

Map of recipients of pensions for dependents of fallen Union soldiers outside the US in 1883

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/widows-dependents-in-the-atlantic-world/

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Map.jpg
View attachment 291248

The large clusters in Ireland and the German-speaking area surely reflect the waves of Irish and German immigrants beginning in the 1840s. I have great-great-grandfathers from Ireland and Switzerland, both of whom served in the Union Army in the Civil War. Fortunately both of them came home after the war.

According to family history/folklore, the Swiss one had to change his name when he enlisted in the Army, because it was too difficult for the recruiter. He took the name of the farmer whom he worked for as a laborer, a short non-German name that was easy to spell and pronounce. My father's mother and about half of his aunts and uncles ended up with that name.

 

[Keith_McClary]

1 Out of Every 15 Lights in The Sky Could Soon Be a Satellite, an Astronomer Warns ​

Starlink plans to replace each of the 42,000 satellites after five years of operation, which will require de-orbiting an average 25 satellites per day, about six tons of material. The mass of these satellites won't go away – it will be deposited in the upper atmosphere.

Because satellites comprise mostly aluminum alloys, they may form alumina particles as they vaporize in the upper atmosphere, potentially destroying ozone and causing global temperature changes.

This has not yet been studied in-depth because low Earth orbit is not currently subject to any environmental regulations.

That's only Starlink.
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44 tonnes or 44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on the Earth each day.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[BWV]

View attachment 293463This already happened back in February in Europe

 

[Keith_McClary]

View attachment 293463

If upside down means rotated by 180.

 

[DaveC426913]

If upside down means rotated by 180.

Technically, upside-down and right-to-left works.

 

[mfb]

1 Out of Every 15 Lights in The Sky Could Soon Be a Satellite, an Astronomer Warns ​

I glance up and notice a bright satellite moving across the sky, almost certainly a Starlink, since they now make up almost half of the nearly 4,000 operational satellites and they're extremely bright.

Almost certainly BS. The satellites are only bright shortly after launch when they fly in close formation. An individual bright satellite is not Starlink. But hey, reality wouldn't make such a good story!

With no regulation, I know that in the near future, one out of every 15 points you can see in the sky will actually be relentlessly crawling satellites, not stars.

This fails to mention the assumption of magnitude 6 visibility, which is extremely rare where most people live. If the limiting magnitude is 5 or even 4 - easily reached even in more rural places due to light pollution - the number of visible satellites is close to zero. And that's assuming no further improvement in making the satellites less visible.
It also fails to mention that this only applies to a relatively short window after sunset or before sunrise most of the time - which makes the assumption of magnitude 6 visibility questionable even without any light pollution.

It keeps going in that style. Misleading or just wrong claims all over the place. There are astronomers writing actually good articles with useful criticism, but this is not an example. It's just trying to mislead the public.

 

[Keith_McClary]

It keeps going in that style. Misleading or just wrong claims all over the place. There are astronomers writing actually good articles with useful criticism, but this is not an example. It's just trying to mislead the public.

They have a paper (accepted in Astronomical Journal).

 

[BillTre]

On her third time out with her metal detector:

Now she wants to be an archeologist.

 

[mfb]

They have a paper (accepted in Astronomical Journal).

... which doesn't have invented anecdotes and all the other rubbish of the article.

 

[BillTre]

TIL that trust in science has increased both internationally and in the US.
I was surprised, I guess due to the pervasive mis-information out there.
Maybe, when in need of good advise, a more reasonable source is sought out.

Keep spreading those science positive explanations.
Science, when successfully applied, will be the most convincing.
(I call this the engineering approach to confidence in scientific concepts.)

from NY Times article:

Results from the public opinion poll, in a report published by the Wellcome Trust, a foundation focused on health research in London, showed that about 80 percent of people from 113 countries said they trusted science either “a lot” or “some.” About three-fourths of the 119,000 surveyed said they trusted scientists, either “a lot” or “some.”

Even in the US, trust went up:

Within the United States, the survey found that 54 percent of Americans said they had “a lot” of trust in scientists, an increase of 9 percentage points from the 2018 poll. The most recent U.S. survey data was collected from August 2020 to October 2020, as confirmed Coronavirus cases per 100,000 people rose by 60 percent.

With certain exceptions:

A more recent Gallup poll conducted in July found confidence in science has increasingly diverged across partisan lines. Since the last poll was taken in 1975, Republican confidence in science fell by 27 points while Democrat confidence increased by 12 points.

 

[fresh_42]

I think the morons are only louder. A demonstration of a bunch of <insert stupidity of your choice, e.g. anti-vaxxers or fake news people> is news, people in a library or those searching for real references and sources are not.

The problem is that they convey the impression that they build a majority or at least a notable minority. If I turn on the news or read my FB feeds, then I get an impression which is basically the opposite of the impression I have talking to real people. With exceptions. Those exceptions turned militant in the last few years if you ask me.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think the morons are only louder. A demonstration of a bunch of <insert stupidity of your choice, e.g. anti-vaxxers or fake news people> is news, people in a library or those searching for real references and sources are not.

The problem is that they convey the impression that they build a majority or at least a notable minority. If I turn on the news or read my FB feeds, then

Yeah. My second thought. (My first thought was: Whaaa? Watching the news, no way has trust in science gone up...)

I get an impression which is basically the opposite of the impression I have talking to real people.

Hm. I don't know if I'd trust this though. I suspect most people (including you) are surrounded by people of their own type.

 

[BillTre]

TIL that today is National Trick Shot Day (Nov. 7, this year).
So proclaimed by the Harlem Globe Trotters (whom I like).

The Globe Trotters claim to have originated the Trick Shot. I suspect its more like perfected it.

Gravity-defying feats of physics take trick shots to the next level.

Since it's 11 PM, you have an hour to upload your trick shot video to their contest!

 

[DaveC426913]

Nov. 7

 

[BillTre]

Opps, make that Dec. 7!

 

[jtbell]

Today I learned that IKEA's products are named after places in Sweden, and the Swedish tourism board has launched a campaign based on those places:

Discover the originals of Sweden

"Welcome to Bolmen: More than an IKEA toilet brush"