Fun Facts

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Mongrel
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:04 pm

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:11 pm

The medical term for a runny nose is "rhinorrhea".
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Mon May 03, 2021 1:11 am

Wikipedia's "List of Hoaxes on Wikipedia" page is pretty amazing.

The sheer variety is one thing. It's sure interesting to wonder about the motivations behind some of them. But of course many are just plain hilarious.

Comedy value seems to be inversely proportional to hoax age, but the very top of the list features the admission that it took Wikipedia's editors FOURTEEN YEARS to realize that 'Sheik Urbuti' is not a real person.

The shortest entry is pretty great too though:
MESSENGER (NASA probe)
Destination of interplanetary probe changed from Mercury (planet) to Canada.
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby JD » Mon May 03, 2021 5:06 am

There's also Vandalism on Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Silly Things, and Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense.

There was a user called "Willy on Wheels" who moved thousands of pages "on wheels". Wikipedia now has a block on creating accounts ending on "on Wheels".

I seem to recall there was also a really well done article on a completely made-up renaissance-era former European nation which went unnoticed for years.

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby mharr » Mon May 03, 2021 5:46 am

These things make me wonder how many accepted facts in history books and encyclopedias have a similar foundation in truth but no-one knows because they all reference each other. There's one wild haired little tenured professor in a university basement somewhere who won't talk about anything else but no-one's actually listened to a word he says in forty years.

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby KingRoyal » Mon May 03, 2021 10:10 am

mharr wrote:These things make me wonder how many accepted facts in history books and encyclopedias have a similar foundation in truth but no-one knows because they all reference each other. There's one wild haired little tenured professor in a university basement somewhere who won't talk about anything else but no-one's actually listened to a word he says in forty years.


When in college, I was doing an art history course and one of the papers I read was on Francisco de Goya's commissioned painting of the family of King Charles IV, a painting that was commonly taught as subversive and anti-monarchist. The writer of the paper, however, decided to look up the origins of this interpretation only to find that it started in the early 20th century and had no basis in the actual work that Goya did. Some random critic just said it was an anti-Charles IV painting and then art history just accepted that.
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Mon May 03, 2021 4:43 pm

mharr wrote:These things make me wonder how many accepted facts in history books and encyclopedias have a similar foundation in truth but no-one knows because they all reference each other. There's one wild haired little tenured professor in a university basement somewhere who won't talk about anything else but no-one's actually listened to a word he says in forty years.

What's that line? History is the agreed-upon lies?
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Friday » Mon May 03, 2021 5:55 pm

There's a concept where a man is reading a newspaper and comes across a description of a basketball game. The description is hugely flawed to the point where the man, who was a basketball player himself, can easily tell that the person covering this game is an idiot and is just making random crap up. But he admits that perhaps to the layperson who didn't know the rules of basketball intimately like he does, it would perhaps appear convincing.

He then turns the page and reads another article on another subject. He accepts it as true.
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Fri May 07, 2021 7:03 pm

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Sat Jun 26, 2021 10:26 pm

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby JD » Sun Jun 27, 2021 12:02 am

There's a list of minor planets numbered in the order they were discovered. It includes asteroids, dwarf planets, and basically any stellar object smaller than a planet or star.

Pluto's designation is 134340.This is because it was only added to the list in 2006 when it was downgraded to a dwarf planet. Had it been added when it was discovered in 1930, it would have been designated 1164.

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:34 pm

On every 8th of July, at 11:15 UTC, 99% of the world's population is experiencing daylight.

(I was not, personally, experiencing daylight at that time, lol)

(yes, I know that's not that the factoid means)
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jul 14, 2021 1:52 am

The literal translation of the Chinese Hanzi for "penguin" is "business goose".
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Friday » Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:19 am

amazing
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:40 pm

Aw. Apparently this is not correct. https://www.chineseboost.com/blog/chine ... toe-goose/

Though the actual translation isn't half-bad: “standing goose” / “tip-toeing goose”

That said, given how close the two are and how fond of puns the Chinese are, it wouldn't surprise me at all if "business goose" was a common pun or term of endearment (e.g. "trash panda") and this factoid went wild after a non-native reader read a Chinese post or something without realizing it was a gag. Or, if it isn't, it may become one now!
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Sat Jul 24, 2021 5:16 pm

Saw this and immediately thought of Thad talking about old transparent cases. LOL


The green spheres are actually its eyes (they mostly look upwards); the things that look like its eyes are in fact, nostrils.
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby mharr » Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:15 pm

Gotta love it when nature makes things you'd dismiss as cartoonish and implausible in fantasy / sf cover art.

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Caithness » Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:24 pm

What kind of fish has nostrils? Are its gills internal too?

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Re: Fun Facts

Postby Mongrel » Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:25 pm

Caithness wrote:What kind of fish has nostrils?

Most, if not all of them?
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Re: Fun Facts

Postby mharr » Sat Jul 24, 2021 11:20 pm

Afaik fish nostrils are purely sensory and cannot pass water through to the mouth or gills. Kinda like that pokey airspeed thingy on the front of planes. But for smells.

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