Fun Facts

[Friday]

I love dumb, unintuitive but true number stuff like that. My personal favorite is that any normal 52 deck of cards shuffled honestly will result in a sequence never before seen on earth and never seen after.

Because 52! is 8.0658175e+67.

So 80,658,175,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different ways to arrange a deck of cards or so.

[atog]

Scientists: "God does not play dice with the universe!"

God: *builds RNG into literally every interaction between entities in the cosmos, sits back, and watches the shitshow* *popcorn*

[Silversong]

My personal favorite is that any normal 52 deck of cards shuffled honestly will result in a sequence never before seen on earth and never seen after.

My partner used to shuffle cards all the time as a fidget, and I would complain he was using up all the unique decks.

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

Not really a new or obscure fact, but I think it's kind of wild that the USAF's B-52 bomber fleet has not only been in active service since 1955, but are slated to continue to 2050, for a minimum operational lifetime of ninety-five years (the current fleet is made up entirely of airframes built in the late 70's into the mid 80's).

Even if every single one were pulled off service today, the B-52 has already been in continuous operation as a major strategic combat aircraft for seventy-eight years. That's not only already longer than any other plane, but longer than most basic military equipment like artillery, tanks, trucks, and even rifles of the past two centuries (the M60 being a similarly eternal-by-modern-standards weapon). There are SWORDS, which had shorter service lives.

In military aerospace, a field where technology changes every decade, age and wear can increase maintenance and operations costs exponentially, it's just one of those things you'd never believe if it wasn't real: a combat aircraft in service with the most modern military of the world, for just shy of a century.

[atog]

On July 4, 2005, after the successful rendezvous and deployment of the Deep Impact comet probe and its impactor with comet Tempel-1, the rocket surgeons at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory got a congratulatory surprise concert from none other than Bill Halley & the Comets, who were on a nostalgia tour that summer and made a special detour to play for them.

1:26:30 here. (YT being pissy about embeds with timestamps)

[Büge]

There was a brief period in the early 20th century when syphilis was treated by injecting the patient with Malaria parasites. The Malaria would induce a fever that would kill the syphilis-causing bacteria (Malaria was a much more survivable affliction and could be treated with quinine) and often led to a full recovery after the Malaria was treated. This technique was known as "malariotherapy", and won its developer, Austrian physician Julius Wagner-Jauregg, the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1927.

Don't applaud, he was a Nazi.

[Upthorn]

My great grandmother was actually a nurse who administered malariotherapy!

[Friday]

Don't applaud, she was a Guild.

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

6. Chingadera (Spanish)

I mean I guess we use "fucker" for that in English too but it's probably not the first example I'd use if I were writing a thesaurus

[Büge]

6. Chingadera (Spanish)

I mean I guess we use "fucker" for that in English too but it's probably not the first example I'd use if I were writing a thesaurus

"I want more life, Huppeldepup."

[Mongrel]

I wish I could still buy Vegemite :(

[KingRoyal]

Today I learned about The Great Illusion, a book published in 1909 that argued that war in Europe was highly unlikely because of the state of modern capitalism at the time.

After some minor unpleasantness, the author would go on to re-publish it and even win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1933!

[Mongrel]

The funny thing is that holding territory outside of cities generally has become more of a burden for governments than a benefit, but then I heard Capitalism wonks also had lots to say about our supposed Rational Self-Interest too.

[Friday]

He argued that war was economically and socially irrational[7]

That's from the wiki page, and it's the absolute number one mistake I constantly see very intelligent people making. People far more intelligent than I, even. (Which is not a very high bar to clear, honestly.)

The thing is, he's not wrong. War is economically and socially irrational. That's absolutely true. The problem is that you, a rational human being, are assuming other human beings behave rationally as a rule.

Ironically, assuming other human beings will always behave rationally and in their own best self-interests is one of the most irrational beliefs you can possibly hold. It's why everyone thinks no one will ever use nuclear weapons ever no matter what, for example. Because due to MAD, it would be irrational, or more aptly, insane. It's like, uh, have you met people? And I'm not even talking about religious fanatics?

The rest of the stuff about capitalism and such is whatever and we can discuss whether or not he's right or wrong. But I have waged a war against assuming human rationally to predict their behavior my entire life and despite hundreds of very recent examples to the contrary, everyone still assumes that the people in power are like, robots beep boop cost risk analysis beep boop how will this affect ecosystems 10,000 years in the future beep boop when in reality they self destruct (taking tons of other people with them) fucking nigh constantly.

[Mongrel]

I've always liked how the alternatives superficially appear to be to either continue to grossly overestimate the competence and wisdom of the people in charge, or to get batshit hysterical about how everyone in charge is insane and evil and then turn to someone even crazier and more evil to fix that for them.

[KingRoyal]

That's from the wiki page, and it's the absolute number one mistake I constantly see very intelligent people making. People far more intelligent than I, even. (Which is not a very high bar to clear, honestly.)

The thing is, he's not wrong. War is economically and socially irrational. That's absolutely true. The problem is that you, a rational human being, are assuming other human beings behave rationally as a rule.

Yeah, he is correct that war does not make economic sense like that. His mistake was assuming that war is often waged based on a cost/benefit analysis and not for the more common reason of resource acquisition.

What makes it funny is declaring that war in Europe is irrational right before a massive war in Europe. And then he did he twice.

Ironically, assuming other human beings will always behave rationally and in their own best self-interests is one of the most irrational beliefs you can possibly hold.

factoid actualy just statistical error. Average person makes rational decisions every day. Economists, who live in a cave & make 10,000 irrational decisions each day, are an outlier adn should not have been counted

[Mongrel]

You know, not to promote being a petty asshole, but it's always fun to watch an economist sputter when they're told economics isn't a real science.

[Silversong]

Economics professor in my town once said, "My father was a mathematician. I'm an economist. I expect my son to complete the fall from grace and become a rock star."