Fun Facts

[Blossom]

That the word itself is "Umchina" is fucking hilarious.

[Mongrel]

In the immediate postwar era, Hergé illustrated a series of childrens' "History of..." books, featuring mostly cars, planes, trains and other transportation. Each plate has an image of the subject and a smaller image of Tintin in some form of period/regional costume (including, quite interestingly, changes in Tintin's ethnicity and skin tone in several plates).

While preface to these books clearly stated that the illustrations are purely documentary and not to take any notice of them, a couple of the illustrations are weird as fuck to trip over:

[François]

This photograph was taken in the five milliseconds between Tintin finishing to put the uniform on and then proceeding to punch himself in the jaw.

[Mongrel]

It's even more awkward given Hergé's muddled history with Fascism. The short version is that he admitted he sympathized with Fascism before understanding the full consequences of same. He was also widely regarded as in Belgium as a nazi collaborator, because during the war the Tintin strips (Crab with the Golden Claws and both books of the Unicorn story, both of which dealt with the war by simply pretending it did not exist) were published in a major Belgian newspaper, and all Belgian newspapers were under Nazi oversight, running anti-semetic articles, etc. Pretty much anyone who ever had any dealing with Hergé credited him with genuine repentance of his ignorance - pretty much his whole life story is "do dumb racist shit, then learn better and change", but yeah, NAZI TINTIN, is like... *thin, nervous laugh*

Anyway, I thought this one was pretty cute.



Har har har.

[Büge]

A friend of mine from university is a regional finalist in CBC's Searchlight competition. Have a listen to her entry!

[Mongrel]

The orca is a natural predator of the moose

O__o

[Mongrel]

You can detect acupuncture points with a straightforward electrical medical device, because such points are marked by a significant drop in body's local electrical resistance.

Which doesn't necessarily mean poking needles into those posts is a valid/invalid medical treatment (I think doctors have been arguing about whether acupuncture is entirely placebo effect or not for the past thirty years), but it's neat to understand that there is at least some sort of basis for the idea which is probably related to the body's nervous system/electrical transmission.

[Grath]

You can detect acupuncture points with a straightforward electrical medical device, because such points are marked by a significant drop in body's local electrical resistance.

Which doesn't necessarily mean poking needles into those posts is a valid/invalid medical treatment (I think doctors have been arguing about whether acupuncture is entirely placebo effect or not for the past thirty years), but it's neat to understand that there is at least some sort of basis for the idea which is probably related to the body's nervous system/electrical transmission.

I don't have a source for this (my martial arts teacher mentioned it unsourced during a lesson) but with an IR camera, you can actually see Shaolin monks focusing chi in a specific area of the body as heat.

[Mongrel]

EDIT: Oh wait, it appears someone is pulling a fast one.

EDIT: Or not? Now when I run the same search myself, but with the word capitalized, I do get some tiny bumps in the 1890's and 1970's as well as much bigger bump in the late 40's/early 50's.

[Mongrel]

Spencer M. Clark and the five cent bill

"Everyone else uses their government job for a little personal benefit, right? No one will notice this one tiny thing I'm doing."

[Friday]

oh i thought he'd have like printed a bunch of extra 5 cent bills and embezzled them or something

he just wanted to put his picture on some money

that's fine

I mean come on if you were in charge of printing money and you could put your cat on it then we would have Ramona bux

[Thad]

The Chromebook model I own is codenamed "Peppy". Like most of us, I have certain immediate word associations with that name, involving barrel rolls and the proper manner in which to use bombs.

HOWEVER, it did not occur to me that the reference was actually intentional on Google's part.

But it turns out it is!

A bunch of Chromebooks are named after Nintendo characters.

[Mongrel]

Pun-Pun, the omnipotent grognard kobold

[Büge]

Ah yes, Pun-Pun. Like the peasant railgun, it requires a specific interpretation of Rules As Written in 3.x Edition (but more splatbooks). What really surprises me is that you've been around nerds this long and only learned about it now.

[Mongrel]

I don't even know what the peasant railgun is!

EDIT: Oh.

[Sharkey]

Using "Chicken Infested" to build an infinite army of exploding undead chicken skeletons is also an old favorite.

[Mongrel]

Taxi drivers in Nottingham, England refer to the GW headquarters as "The Reichstag" or "The Nazi building".

[Büge]

I wonder if that's because the designers and executives skew that way politically or because they treat their employees like the untermensch?

[Mongrel]

No, it's because the building looks like it was designed by Albert Speer and had a gigantic aquila on it as well as a monumental statue of a Stormtrooper SPESS MEHREEN out front until recent, which have been replaced by WFB icons:

Well, love it or hate it, they're going full bore with it.

This was replaced today




With this

In spite of this cosmetic change, I expect the locals will continue referring to it as "The Nazi Building".

[Mongrel]

how a person makes money on youtube makes creating a short of any kind an absolute waste of time and money

which was not always the case, but interestingly youtube had to change how their payout structure worked because of "reply girls."

how people make money now is through not views but how long a person watches a video, so everything is let's plays now.

Holy shit, so THAT'S why!