Today I Learned

[Astronuc]

There were only 3 ZIP codes in America without any Ashley Madison accounts!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/were-only-3-zip-codes-175956661.html

An employee at the county clerk’s office told Gawker that there probably was no one on Ashley Madison because you can't get reception in that area, which is about 4 square miles of rural peace.

No WiFi or internet, perhaps?

 

[William White]

obviously using dark net proxies,

 

[DrGreg]

There were only 3 ZIP codes in America without any Ashley Madison accounts!

Does that analysis include the 99.7% of female accounts that are suspected of being fictitious?

Summary: Wikipedia: Ashley Madison § Fake accounts

Detail: Gizmodo: Almost None of the Women in the Ashley Madison Database Ever Used the Site

 

[BOAS]

TIL: How to animate my stepwise (and incomplete) model of the solar system!

 

[nsaspook]

Does that analysis include the 99.7% of female accounts that are suspected of being fictitious?

Summary: Wikipedia: Ashley Madison § Fake accounts

Detail: Gizmodo: Almost None of the Women in the Ashley Madison Database Ever Used the Site

Now they have a perfect defense to say they were not cheating and it was just a role playing game.

 

[Astronuc]

http://news.yahoo.com/far-below-south-dakota-cave-holds-pure-promising-184902493.html

WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK, S.D. (AP) — Hundreds of feet beneath the Black Hills, a team of scientists and researchers snake through dark, narrow and silent corridors of ancient rock to reach their goal: what is thought to be some of the purest water on Earth.

 

[Astronuc]

Voices of reason in Congress have a rough time -

Sen. Jeff Flake - the anti-Trump - and a voice of reason
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-anti-trump-128056697531.html

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned that Wy'east is the native name of our local, tallest mountain, Mt. Hood.
I always thought it was just a clever name for a Western beer YEAST producer.
Coincidentally, Wy'east yeast labs overlooks Wy'east, the mountain, from the town of Hood River, which was named after the river, Hood River, which was named after Mt. Hood.
How Mt. Hood got its name according to wiki: "Lt. Broughton named the mountain after Lord (Samuel) Hood, a British Admiral at the Battle of the Chesapeake."
Ha! Hood Canal, in Washington state, was also named after the Admiral. I was housed at the submarine base in Bangor, on the Hood canal, for 3 years, while in the Navy.
Admiral Hood served in the Royal Navy for 53 years, and lived to be 91.

ps. I looked this all up today, when I heard that yesterday, the name of Mt. McKinley had been officially changed to Denali.
Looks like that took a while.

...
The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975 which is how it is called locally.
...
Congressman Bob Gibbs, who described Obama's action as "constitutional overreach" because he said an act of Congress is required to rename the mountain. The Alaska Dispatch News reported that the Secretary of the Interior has authority under federal law to change geographic names when the Board of Geographic Names does not act on a naming request within a "reasonable" period of time. Jewell told the ADN that "I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time."

 

[nuuskur]

Today, I learned that it is possible to make sense by not making sense.

 

[Astronuc]

TIL, "The DEET within insect repellant is an oily liquid known as diethyltoluamide that mosquitos and other inspects intensely dislike. DEET has been known to destroy the varnish on wooden tables, melt plastics, and even permanently mark TV screens."
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/how-something-you-spray-on-your-kids-can-melt-your-128334848277.html

Don't spray around furniture or cars, or probably anything else of value.

 

[mfb]

It is really effective against insects, however.Edit: Today I learned how automatic subtitles work. I saw this video and didn't understand the speaker. The video has subtitles, but apparently google didn't understand the speaker either because the subtitles do not make sense at all (some of them are funny).

 

[NascentOxygen]

TIL, "The DEET within insect repellant is an oily liquid known as diethyltoluamide that mosquitos and other inspects intensely dislike. DEET has been known to destroy the varnish on wooden tables, melt plastics, and even permanently mark TV screens."
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/how-something-you-spray-on-your-kids-can-melt-your-128334848277.html

Don't spray around furniture or cars, or probably anything else of value.

I recall how a can of repellant with DEET as its active constituent carried a note to the user along the lines of, "Caution: this product may be harmful if used for prolonged periods". Yet it gave no indication of what length of exposure might fall into the category of "a prolonged period".

Hours, days, weeks, or maybe months? Clearly, their legal department wasn't about to commit themselves on this score!

 

[mfb]

Today I learned there are several parties and even persons named "None of the above" or similar.
Wikipedia has a list

 

[nuuskur]

I learned that many imports come from other countries.
[was watching old stand ups by Robin Williams, one of my favourite jokes of his he makes about George W Bush ]

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned the sustain pedal on an electronic keyboard is just an on/off switch. You can hack one together pretty easily:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Redneck-MIDI-sustain-pedal/

 

[Enigman]

So, umm... this exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch
youtube link:

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned that Harlem's famous Cotton Club was actually owned and operated by a pretty nasty white mobster who first got interested in it for it's potential as a speakeasy during prohibition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owney_Madden

 

[mfb]

Today I learned about Civil Forfeiture Laws in the US: Seriously, who invents something as ridiculous as that?

 

[Astronuc]

Today I learned some insight into working within the US Supreme Court from Justice Stephen Bryer.

 

[Hornbein]

President Suharto of Indonesia couldn't speak English.

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned about Civil Forfeiture Laws in the US: Seriously, who invents something as ridiculous as that?

I just learned that it was the United States Congress, in 1970. [The RICO act]
Originally intended to reduce crime by removing the profit, it appears to have evolved into exactly what it was designed to prevent.
Now the police are profiting, via legalized crime.
Fascinating.

Losing By Forfeit? [Oregon State Bar Bulletin, 2006, By Janine Robben]
...in 1988, ... Congress appropriated money to hire approximately 90 assistant attorneys general nationwide ... to start implementing federal criminal forfeiture laws. Those laws had been on the books, but largely unused, since 1970.
...
In addition, some local governments, ... have their own forfeiture statutes, which typically are used to seize and forfeit vehicles to punish and deter crimes like drunk driving and prostitution.

Interesting history behind it:

Policing for Profit [The Institute for Justice, ≥2009]
...
Kings, for instance, could seize an instrument that caused the death of another in order to finance the deceased’s funeral mass. The idea arose from a superstitious belief that objects acted independently to cause death.

While the concept of deodand gives rise to the “guilty property” legal fiction, American forfeiture law did not arise strictly from this concept but rather from the British Navigation Acts of the mid-17th century.
...

 

[OCR]

TIL...

Yep!

And Drakkith agrees......

 

[Borg]

Today I learned about Civil Forfeiture Laws in the US: Seriously, who invents something as ridiculous as that?

I read the Washington Post article when it came out. Those laws need to change.

 

[Hornbein]

I read the Washington Post article when it came out. Those laws need to change.

I've known about this since Bush I, who encouraged this as part of the "war on drugs." I remember when the cops raided a big estate in southern California looking for drugs. The owner came out with a gun and the cops shot him dead. No drugs were found.

Needless to say the war on drugs will never end. Too many people making too much money from it.

Now we have the grossly unfair situation where white people get marijuana legally and black people get life in prison for the third "offense."

Notice how all the victims in the TV show were white. If they were black, no one would care.

 

[Astronuc]

One night in Texas, a very strange thing happened: The so-called spot price of electricity in Texas fell toward zero, hit zero, and then went negative for several hours. As the Lone Star State slumbered, power producers were paying the state’s electricity system to take electricity off their hands. At one point, the negative price was $8.52 per megawatt hour.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impossible-just-happened-in-texas-2015-9
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/rec...-ercot-prices-into-negative-territory/405606/

 

[Borek]

I just learned 2015, as well as 2013 and 2014, are sphenic numbers - and next three consecutive years sharing this particular property will be 2665, 2666 and 2667.

 

[mfb]

Negative electricity prices might be new for the US, they are quite common in Germany.

They were first introduced in 2008 on the German/Austrian Day-Ahead and 2007 in the German Intraday market.
[...]
56 hours on 15 days with negative prices were observed on the Day-Ahead market in 2012. On the Intraday market there were 41 hours on 10 days. If these markets were not coupled, negative prices would occur more often, and price peaks would be more acute.

Source
That was 2012, the share of renewable energies increased significantly in the last three years.

 

[jim hardy]

so is 42 sphenic ?

Since 42 is the meaning of the universe I always use its factors for lotto .
But so far , the universe seems unimpressed.

 

[zoobyshoe]

so is 42 sphenic ?

Since 42 is the meaning of the universe I always use its factors for lotto .
But so far , the universe seems unimpressed.

The first few sphenic numbers are: 30, 42, 66, 70, 78, 102, 105, 110, 114, 130, 138, 154, 165, ... (sequence A007304 in OEIS)

 

[jim hardy]

Today I learned about Civil Forfeiture Laws in the US: Seriously, who invents something as ridiculous as that?

How can highway robbery NOT be a crime ?

I wonder if anybody has fought back against the practice on grounds it deprives them of their right "to be secure in their persons, houses papers, and effects" against unreasonable siezures ,
using
42 U.S. Code § 1983 - Civil action for deprivation of rights

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress,

Sounds to me like you could claim a tort and sue in civil court provided the agency doing the seizing has violated some law(gotta have an injuria to have a tort)
and here's a handy one to cite
18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States,...
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;

A jury might be incllned to give a fellow his money back. And his house. That's the only check there is on this sort of license to steal.

I'm no lawyer , just curious.
But i do believe you don't want any part of government to become self funding, that takes them out from under congressional control. Read Albert Speer's memoirs - it was Himmler's dream to get independent of Hitler by manufacturing and selling armaments using slave labor.

 

[jim hardy]

Thanks, Z , i thought so - 2, 3, 7 .

 

[OmCheeto]

TIL that "sapient" means "wise".
I looked it up, as I have recently finished watching the latest series of Dr. Who, and was curious how the TARDIS had come by its name.
I thought it was a joke name, derived from perhaps a phrase like; "...and the reTARD IS...".
Wiki didn't really explain, but did say that TARDISes possesses a degree of sapience.

Today I also learned where to direct you, should you have any further questions: Any Dr. Who fans?
I didn't really become a fan until about a month ago.

 

[Hornbein]

I learned that the government of Moldova stole a billion and a half dollars from its people. Quite a sum, since their GDP is eight billion.

 

[Astronuc]

Of approximately 39000 ocean-going cargo ships sailing each year, about 200 sink! Well, that's only 0.5%, but I would want to be on one of those in the middle of a storm.

None of the experts imagined that 'freak' waves occurred so often, i.e., they are monsters, but not freaks.



Lot's of opportunities for marine engineers.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned that each and every commercial airliner is struck by lightning about once a year.

So said the Weather Channel.