Today I Learned

  • Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
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In summary: Today I learned that Lagrange was Italian and that he lamented the execution of Lavoisier in France during the French Revolution with the quote:"It took them only an instant to cut off this head and a hundred years might not suffice to reproduce it's...brains."
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TIL Another project CERN are involved in w.r.t Climate change study (link to a paper at the end)

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-trees-cloud-formation.html

A nice line, “Particularly the way in which cloud cover will develop in the future remains largely nebulous for the time being.”

I checked on the CERN site and there is an explanatory video showing the kit and techniques.

https://home.cern/news/news/experiments/cloud-experiment-sharpens-climate-predictions
 
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Nearly all cars & trucks have a "black box" (like airplanes) that tracks a vehicle's movements. . . .I learned this from a 48 Hours episode (called, "Kassanndra's Secret"), in which the detective/investigator used one to see where a suspect may have dumped a body.

Didn't realize our cars have these things. Pretty cool!
 
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  • #5,428
kyphysics said:
Nearly all cars & trucks have a "black box" (like airplanes) that tracks a vehicle's movements. . . .I learned this from a 48 Hours episode (called, "Kassanndra's Secret"), in which the detective/investigator used one to see where a suspect may have dumped a body.

Didn't realize our cars have these things. Pretty cool!
AFAIK, the ones in cars only record a few seconds before a crash. It would be far easier to track the suspect's cell phone.
 
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Borg said:
It would be far easier to track the suspect's cell phone.
Do the telecoms really keep records of every cell phone location? They do "on TV" as well as time and duration of all the calls and texts. This seems like an overwhelming amount of data.
 
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gmax137 said:
Do the telecoms really keep records of every cell phone location? They do "on TV" as well as time and duration of all the calls and texts. This seems like an overwhelming amount of data.
Everytime a phone pings a tower or a tower pings a phone - which can be minutes or less apart - it is processed. Dont know how long that data is kept.

But its only a triangulation between towers so not too accurate positioning, and i assume it needs to be requested processing
 
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Cell companies do maintain a record of which cell tower a phone contacts. This is often used in law enforcement to establish that someone was in the vicinity of a crime. Additionally, the police can request all phones that were in the area of several crimes which can resolve to just a few potential suspects.
 
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Google knows where I am (well, where my phone is) all the time, and is even nice enough to send me a report at the end of each month...

1694532327803.png


It does get a little confused about whether I'm running or biking or driving, depending on how fast I ride... :smile:
 
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berkeman said:
Google knows
Yes, but you gave Google permission and they are open about using the data for their own purposes. Do the telcoms use the data they collect in ways not related to their business (simply, do they sell the data)?
 
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Makes me wonder how many other police tools that people haven't heard of before.

My favorite is the Familial DNA Search. Even if law enforcement doesn't have a matching profile of DNA that they find at a crime scene, they can do a familial DNA search to find close or near relatives of the person. And where do they get that DNA? From sites like 23AndMe that happily store the DNA profiles in databases that are accessible by law enforcement. So, if a criminal's family member ever got curious about their DNA, the police will know that someone in their family left DNA at the scene. From what I remember, that includes relatives as distant as cousins, grandparents, etc. It does take a lot of time and resources so it's mainly used on high profile cases.
 
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Borg said:
Even if law enforcement doesn't have a matching profile of DNA that they find at a crime scene, they can do a familial DNA search
This is how they solved the Golden State Killer case in 2018, after at least13 murders and 51 rapes between 1974 and 1986.

The website identified ten to twenty people who had the same great-great-great grandparents as the Golden State Killer; a team of five investigators working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter used this list to construct a large family tree. From this tree, they established two suspects; one was ruled out by a relative's DNA test, leaving DeAngelo the main suspect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
 
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  • #5,436
Borg said:
AFAIK, the ones in cars only record a few seconds before a crash. It would be far easier to track the suspect's cell phone.


At the 30:00 min. mark, they talk about the black box in the murderer's truck and how it ". . .records nearly every move a vehicle makes. . ." Not sure if all black boxes do the same.

With this killer's truck, you can see where he went and at what time/date.
 
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kyphysics said:
With this killer's truck, you can see where he went and at what time/date.
Sounds like that killer wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed...
 
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berkeman said:
Sounds like that killer wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed...
Half a bubble off plumb?
 
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kyphysics said:


At the 30:00 min. mark, they talk about the black box in the murderer's truck and how it ". . .records nearly every move a vehicle makes. . ." Not sure if all black boxes do the same.

With this killer's truck, you can see where he went and at what time/date.

You're forcing me to actually research this a bit. :smile:

According to wikipedia's article on Event Data Recorders, I don't see any mention of long-term storage or location tracking. There is some ambiguity between the implementations of different manufacturers but the main focus of the article talks about only tracking what the vehicle was doing (speeding, braking, seat belt use, etc.) in the seconds before a crash.

Similarly, the NHTSA article on Automotive Black Box Data Recovery Systems that mainly refers to late 90's era GM vehicles, states that the GM EDR only maintain the final five seconds before a crash. That's probably what I'm remembering in my earlier post.

EDIT: On reviewing what was said in the 48 hours link, it sounds like that vehicle has longer storage capability. Since it's probably a newer model, I guess that it had some sort of On-Star storage capability that would have location data available to it.
 
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  • #5,440
We are losing our leadership in UFOlogy to Mexico

NYPICHPDPICT000038111238.jpg
 
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BWV said:
We are losing our leadership in UFOlogy to Mexico
Um... oh dear?
 
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BWV said:
We are losing our leadership in UFOlogy to Mexico
I read somewhere that it was due to a bicycle crash...
 
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BWV said:
We are losing our leadership in UFOlogy to Mexico

View attachment 331902
And I thought you already lost this position to Belgium some 30 years ago!
 
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Borg said:
You're forcing me to actually research this a bit. :smile:

EDIT: On reviewing what was said in the 48 hours link, it sounds like that vehicle has longer storage capability. Since it's probably a newer model, I guess that it had some sort of On-Star storage capability that would have location data available to it.
I'm going to Google this a bit too when I have more time. I feel like all the trouble of a black box to only have 5 sec. of recording time before a crash isn't worth it maybe, so it'd be good to know that newer models have more recording capability.

I'd be curious if there's this same ability on all newer cars from the cheapest to the more expensive types - or, if it's maybe just on nicer vehicles?
 
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BWV said:
We are losing our leadership in UFOlogy to Mexico

View attachment 331902
Am I looking at the picture correctly that the head is very long (back depth-wise)? That would literally be like the stereotypical image of aliens you see depicted in fiction. . . .Of course, this thing looks like it's body is that of a small baby, but the head is intriguing (if I'm viewing it correctly)?

Or, is the head just rested on a rock (I think you all will see what I mean if you look closely) that is creating that elongated effect?
 
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kyphysics said:
Am I looking at the picture correctly that the head is very long (back depth-wise)? That would literally be like the stereotypical image of aliens you see depicted in fiction. . . .Of course, this thing looks like it's body is that of a small baby, but the head is intriguing (if I'm viewing it correctly)?

Or, is the head just rested on a rock (I think you all will see what I mean if you look closely) that is creating that elongated effect?
Seriously? Did your parents and older siblings never take you to the movies? Did you never have cable? Did you never feel like you were being lifted up into the air when you were riding your 1-speed bicycle?
 
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berkeman said:
Seriously? Did your parents and older siblings never take you to the movies? Did you never have cable? Did you never feel like you were being lifted up into the air when you were riding your 1-speed bicycle?
Wait, what are you saying? You think it's a fake? I'm not arguing it isn't, btw. Only curious if it's supposed to have an elongated head in the back or if that's just an erroneous visual effect I'm interpreting from the head resting on a rock or something.

I can't tell from the picture.
 
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TIL NASA Made the awaited announcement regarding the UAP study.
Main take away, no evidence of ET but they do not know what they are. A new NASA director UAP has been appointed and work will continue. Results will be transparent.
That's as far as I got.
 
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At the 1924 Paris Games, a Hungarian judge accused three Italian fencers of losing on purpose to teammate Oreste Puliti so he could more easily advance in the saber competition. Puliti threatened the official and was disqualified.

The irate fencer then challenged the judge to a duel with real swords. His challenge was accepted.
 
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  • #5,451
Hornbein said:
At the 1924 Paris Games, a Hungarian judge accused three Italian fencers of losing on purpose to teammate Oreste Puliti so he could more easily advance in the saber competition. Puliti threatened the official and was disqualified.

The irate fencer then challenged the judge to a duel with real swords. His challenge was accepted.
Thats better than my UAP post!
 
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. . .net worth is overrated
 
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TIL that I shouldn't eat even slightly-rancid butter, even if it means tossing out a couple bagels slathered in cream cheese.

(Actually a few days ago : still recovering... said recovery definitely not bolstered by wondering if it was the cream cheese... and subsequently preparing and eating a KD with more than half a brick tossed in)
 
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hmmm27 said:
KD

??
 
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Kraft Dinner - "mac'n'cheese" - Canadian cuisine.
 
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hmmm27 said:
Kraft Dinner - "mac'n'cheese" - Canadian cuisine.
It's what's for dinner, eh? :smile:
 
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hmmm27 said:
Kraft Dinner - "mac'n'cheese" - Canadian cuisine.
Yes, the land where even the French have crappy food
 
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