Today I Learned

[mfb]

Cats can do that as well.
I guess many animals can walk on 2 legs for a while if there is a reason to do so.

 

[fresh_42]

Cats can do that as well.
I guess many animals can walk on 2 legs for a while if there is a reason to do so.

Yes, the closer we look, the more ground we lose ...

 

[zoobyshoe]

Cats can do that as well.

I looked through some YouTubes and don't find any of cats doing it for more than a few steps. They can stand up on two rear legs, it seems, for quite a while, but not actually walk very far that way. The bear in the video I posted, on the other hand, seemed to have shifted to primarily bipedal locomotion: he could walk very long distances on two legs.

 

[mfb]

Well, some cats don't have a choice (there are better videos around, those I found with a quick search)
Some of those make steps

 

[BillTre]

Some dogs can walk on their two front legs.

 

[Electron Spin]

Today I learned if you put an earthworm in very cold water overnight it will get a lot fatter and wiggle more in warmer water.

 

[Ibix]

Yesterday I learned how to make a balloon sword and a balloon dog. Popular skills when small-to-medium children are around, it turns out...

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Today I learned if you put an earthworm in very cold water overnight it will get a lot fatter and wiggle more in warmer water.

I hate to think what the earthworm learned. I'm surprised it survived.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Today I learned if you put an earthworm in very cold water overnight it will get a lot fatter and wiggle more in warmer water.

 

[OmCheeto]

Today I learned if you put an earthworm in very cold water overnight it will get a lot fatter and wiggle more in warmer water.

A few days ago, I discovered that bluefin tuna are warm blooded.
Today I found out that it was only a year and a half ago, that the people in charge of classifying such things, decided they'd found the first warm blooded fish.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Today I learned that light beer drinking may help prevent heart disease but may also increase the risk of some types of cancer. Unfortunately, I did not learn if there is an alternative beverage that helps prevent both heart disease and cancer. In addition, with so many weasel words of the form "may do such and such" I did not learn if anyone really knows what they are talking about on this subject.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I learned that Paul McCartney's actual first name is "James," and "Paul," is actually his middle name.

 

[Logical Dog]

Bill Lear, self taught genius.

The story is prime Bill Lear.

The beefy, bespectacled inventor was in shirt-sleeves, thrashing out a
design problem with one of his Learjet engineers.

The engineer wanted something done one way. Lear wanted it done another.
The argument heated up until a boiling-mad Lear roared: “You put up 50
percent of the money, you make 50 percent of the decisions.”

They did it Bill Lear’s way. Of course.

“He was a bright, energetic, hard-working leader,” says Fran Jabara, a
former paid consultant to Lear and now director of Wichita State University’s
Center for Entrepreneurship.

“To some he was controversial, but to me he was a perfect example of an
entrepreneur. He had many ideas. Some worked, some didn’t,” Jabara said. “He
was always optimistic, sometimes unrealistically so, but most of the time he
was on target. He was fully committed to his projects.”

Bill Lear is best known for designing and building the Learjet – the
world’s first cheap, fast mass-produced business jet – at a factory he started
in Wichita in 1962. The company now is Gates Learjet Corp.

But Lear, who had only an eighth-grade education, also held more than 150
patents. He is credited with inventing the car radio, the eight-track stereo
tape player and cartridges, the autopilot for jet aircraft, the navigational
radio, and the radio direction-finder for general aviation aircraft.

To his admirers, Lear was a creative genius possessed of exceptional
business courage. To his enemies, he was a hot-headed dictator determined to
get his way.

“I found Bill to be very demanding but also a very warm person to work
for,” said Don Grommesh, vice president of research and engineering at Gates
Learjet, who began working for Lear in 1962. “He had a way about him that
caused people to get things done. I think that was one reason for the success
of Learjet.”

John Zimmerman, aviation writer for The Wichita Eagle and the Beacon
during the 1960s and now president of Aviation Data Service Inc. in Wichita,
said people in aviation would “like Bill one minute and hate the ground he
walked on the next......”

http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/profiles/a103/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Lear#Tributes_and_honors
http://www.quoteswise.com/william-lear-quotes.html

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Today I learned a lot, because I was not feeling very well, and couldn't get any real work done.

I learned that listening to Heino's cover of Rammstein's Amerika is a very good musical experience. I already loved Heino, but now I'm going to listen to Rammstein too, because they are clearly an awesome band.

This caused me to find out more about Rammstein. For those who are unaware, Ramstein is in Rheinland-Pfalz and is the home of a famous USAF base. I learned that the incorrect spelling of Ramstein is said to be a mistake. The band named themselves after the Ramstein air show disaster of 1988, in which some Italian planes collided.

As I continued my online explorations, I found out that President-Elect Trump's German family is from Kallstadt, also in Rheinland-Pfalz. This is not a surprise, since many of us have ancestors from that region of Germany. It was a major source of immigrants to the USA.

To quote from the song:

"We're all living in Amerika,
Amerika ist Wunderbar.
We're all living in Amerika,
Amerika, Amerika."

Finally, I learned the following motto in Die Muttersprache: "Gileb und gfeirscht wie fria."

 

[mfb]

"? und gefeiert (?) wie früher"
? and celebrated as in the past

Google is not very helpful with the dialect.

 

[fresh_42]

Geliebt? (loved) and gefeiert (party)? or gefreit (married)? or gefeilscht (chaffered)? - Schwaben halt ... (Swabians ...)

 

[mfb]

Gelebt!

Gelebt und gefeiert wie früher
Lived and celebrated as in the past

 

[BillTre]

TIL someone made a soft robotic 3D print of a carnivorous plant snap trap.
Engineering marches on!

 

[collinsmark]

TIL someone made a soft robotic 3D print of a carnivorous plant snap trap.
Engineering marches on!

Oh, my.

Here's an image of said object:

 

[OmCheeto]

TIL that Pill bugs have gills. [ref]

And, that they taste like dirt filled shrimp. <my interpretation, from the article>

ps. My sister used to eat them like candy, when she was about 1 year old.

 

[BillTre]

TIL that Pill bugs have gills. [ref]

And, that they taste like dirt filled shrimp. <my interpretation, from the article>

ps. My sister used to eat them like candy, when she was about 1 year old.

Nice ref.
They're amphipods (crustacean subgroup).
None of my reptiles or amphibians wanted to eat then. I heard later they are supposed to taste bed as a defense mechanism.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Gelebt!

Gelebt und gefeiert wie früher
Lived and celebrated as in the past

Because I have done many tests on Google translate, I'm not surprised it can't handle dialects. It's even more amusing to do a "translation cycle." I've done many such tests, such as English->German->Chinese->Swahili->Hungarian->Arabic->English.

The motto is from a town festival in Pfalzen, which is in the South Tirol, not to be confused with Pfalz as in Rheinland-Pfalz. You can find a nice video of the festival by searching Youtube for Pfalzner Dorffest 2012. Politically speaking, Pfalzen is part of Italy, not of Germany. In fact it's not far from the Austrian border.

The nice thing about some of the dialects is that they sound very soft and musical. Apparently the Bavarian dialect is the favorite of Germans. The purest German, whatever that means, is supposed to be spoken in Hanover.

Here is a funny video on the subject of an unfortunate man who does not know Badisch. (How did he get the job if he can't read the sign?)



Here's a video in which a German girl tries to speak in 12 different dialects.



I think what I learned today is to keep on with my efforts to master standard German.

 

[mfb]

The first one is a reference to a video about analphabets: Here is the original. There is one with subtitles around but I didn't find it. Forget the automatic subtitles, they are completely wrong.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

The first one is a reference to a video about analphabets: Here is the original. There is one with subtitles around but I didn't find it. Forget the automatic subtitles, they are completely wrong.

I thought the literacy rate in Germany is virtually 100%. Are there really more than 7 million illiterates out of 80 million? Does this include people who were not educated in Germany?

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Here are two more.





Last one for now.

 

[fresh_42]

I thought the literacy rate in Germany is virtually 100%. Are there really more than 7 million illiterates out of 80 million? Does this include people who were not educated in Germany?

What I've found on official websites (age between 18 and 64):
7.5 M - cannot read or write longer texts
2 M out of them with difficulties to read or write single words
13.3 M - deficits to read and write frequently used words
I haven't found figures about the structure of these numbers.
In total it is
82.2 M - total population
9.1 M - foreigners
17.1 M - immigrants

 

[fresh_42]

Platt in Canada: (esp. at 6:10, for missing subtitles write the Canadians)

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Platt in Canada: (esp. at 6:10, for missing subtitles write the Canadians)

Their map left out Pennsylvania. Some Amish and Mennonites in Pennsylvania speak Plaut. Of course it's not nearly as widely spoken as Pennsylvania Dutch.

 

[fresh_42]

Their map left out Pennsylvania. Some Amish and Mennonites in Pennsylvania speak Platt. Of course it's not nearly as widely spoken as Pennsylvania Dutch.

The entire situation is funny:
An Ethiopian born black man speaks to Canadian villagers in a rare coastal German language hardly understood in the rest of Germany.

(It's more than just a dialect and has once been spoken all around these coastal areas. Some words have a greater similarity with their English counterparts than with German words.)

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

The entire situation is funny:
An Ethiopian born black man speaks to Canadian villagers in a rare coastal German language hardly understood in the rest of Germany.

(It's more than just a dialect and has once been spoken all around these coastal areas. Some words have a greater similarity with their English counterparts than with German words.)

Their dialect is rather pleasant. It reminds me of Afrikaans.

Pennsylvania Dutch has lots of words borrowed from English. But still in traditional communities the kids grow up speaking their dialect. Obviously they learn English in school. If I ever meet some of my distant Amish or Mennonite cousins in person, it will be interesting to see if we can communicate at all in German, or if we must use English. I think partial communication in German should be possible.

Oh well, now it's back to work. Thanks for posting.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Today I learned just how seriously scientists are taking the threat of LED screens to our eyesight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...indness-screen-time-blinding-kids-adults.html

I saw "computer glasses" in Fry's the other day but did not have time to look them over. I don't know if they are supposed to provide protection from the problem mentioned in this article, and if so how effective they are.

This seems quite serious for people who stare at LED screens all day. For now I will keep on using my old CRT monitor.

 

[jim hardy]

Today I learned just how seriously scientists are taking the threat of LED screens to our eyesight.

Interesting that it's short wavelength white light. I find LED flashlights uncomfortable, so am not surprised about the damage.

and driving at night into oncoming HID Xenon and LED headlights is sheer torture. I've written my congressman and senator asking for a ban on them.
And i sent the attached letter to NHTSA in response to a recent call for comments on some silly rule.

Do they bother anybody else, or am i just a grumpy old man with failing eyesight ?

 

[jedishrfu]

Interesting that it's short wavelength white light. I find LED flashlights uncomfortable, so am not surprised about the damage.

and driving at night into oncoming HID Xenon and LED headlights is sheer torture. I've written my congressman and senator asking for a ban on them.
And i sent the attached letter to NHTSA in response to a recent call for comments on some silly rule.

Do they bother anybody else, or am i just a grumpy old man with failing eyesight ?

Yeah, they bother me too. I'm old but not so grumpy yet.

 

[jim hardy]

hmmm two days left for public comment on that rule in my letter to NHTSA

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...6-28125/vehicle-defect-reporting-requirements

 

[mfb]

If it is UV-based, then glasses help.

For now I will keep on using my old CRT monitor.

Avoid something with a potential risk, replace it by something with certain risks?