TIL Thread: Today I learned...

[Mr. Big]

TIL that there's a donut store chain in Indiana called Square Donuts. As the name implies, they make square-shaped donuts

[Mechanical Ape]

Indiana, where even the donuts have to be straight

[Mechanical Ape]

TIL a group of unicorns is called a “blessing”

sorry I’m late, there was a blessing of unicorns ahead of me at the shitter

[Adiwan]

So a group of pegasi is a flock?
And a group of normal ponies is just ... a herd, as usual?
I guess a group of seaponies is a harras.

[Orange Fluffy Sheep]

So a group of pegasi is a flock?
And a group of normal ponies is just ... a herd, as usual?
I guess a group of seaponies is a harras.

a call upon the

[Mechanical Ape]

So a group of pegasi is a flock?

An awesomeness.

[Madeline]

An awesomeness.

If it isn’t this already, it should be

[Pocket]

I have a hunch that the majority of terms for groups of animals were entirely made up by writers of trivia books.

[Octavia]

TIL a group of unicorns is called a “blessing”

sorry I’m late, there was a blessing of unicorns ahead of me at the shitter

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 taught me this

[Madeline]

TIL I learned just how,deep the rabbit hole goes with Scott Adams. I knew he was an MRA asshead, but the rabbit hole goes so much deeper than that.

—He assumed Hillary Clinton would have him killed if he didn’t endorse her for president (and I’m sorry to CorvusCrow who pointed this out in the Soapbox and I misread it badly, uuuuugh )
—He tried to market a version of Soulent before Soylent: the Dilberito, which, by his own admission, made you “fart so hard your intestines formed a tail.” It lasted 4 years before he gave up. It was described as a food which “could have been designed only by a food technologist or by someone who eats lunch without much thought to taste”
—His magical thinking is so strong that he believes he can navigate himself through alternate universes through the use of affirmations (writing something down on a piece of paper several times a day, every day, makes it happen) and he credits this for his success

and the rabbit hole can go even deeper than those tidbits

[Mr. Big]

I remember when there was a Dilberito flash game on the Dilbert site. I didn't know until years later that it was an actual product that the game was promoting.

[Madeline]

I remember when there was a Dilberito flash game on the Dilbert site. I didn't know until years later that it was an actual product that the game was promoting.

He also believes that the best way to prove that humans aren’t meant to be meat eaters is that nobody salivates over raw meat, and that condiments exist You can make a lot of good arguments for vegetarianism and veganism but those will never be among them

He also believes in eugenics, which... yeah that actually isn’t shocking in light of his current political beliefs

[Pocket]

I remember he once described eating bacon as analogous to putting sugar in your gas tank. He was really casual about how he said it to, as if it was common knowledge or but people do it anyway.

[Fizzbuzz]

He also believes that the best way to prove that humans aren’t meant to be meat eaters is that nobody salivates over raw meat,

I wouldn't want to eat it raw, but the smell of uncooked beef has sometimes gotten my mouth watering. I'm sure it's in anticipation of whatever I'm going to cook with it, but still.

But really, if you want to go full biotruths then humans aren't meant to be anything more than hunter-gatherers either. Nobody salivates over putting seeds in the ground and waiting several months for them to create more food, yet here we are with that one invention as the backbone of global civilization!

[Madeline]

I wouldn't want to eat it raw, but the smell of uncooked beef has sometimes gotten my mouth watering. I'm sure it's in anticipation of whatever I'm going to cook with it, but still.

But really, if you want to go full biotruths then humans aren't meant to be anything more than hunter-gatherers either. Nobody salivates over putting seeds in the ground and waiting several months for them to create more food, yet here we are with that one invention as the backbone of global civilization!

This is also true. I like carrots, and I like trying to grow carrots, but I’m not going to drool over carrot seeds. It’s such a terrible argument.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that Multisided Records exist, where one side of a vinyl record has multiple grooves. This made it easy to insert an "easter egg", like hidden tracks, songs with alternate endings, etc.

One notable example is a flexi disc MAD Magazine put out in one of the issues, "It's a Super Spectacular Day", which had 8 different endings depending on how you placed the needle. Here's a YouTube recording with all 8 endings

[Smoke]

He also believes that the best way to prove that humans aren’t meant to be meat eaters is that nobody salivates over raw meat, and that condiments exist You can make a lot of good arguments for vegetarianism and veganism but those will never be among them

He also believes in eugenics, which... yeah that actually isn’t shocking in light of his current political beliefs

Clearly he has never tried steak tartare because that's delicious.

[Pocket]

Anyone remember the Christmas special A Wish for Wings That Work with Opus the penguin? Today I learned that one big reason Berke Breathed disowned it and has blocked it from being released in any home video format was that the artists snuck obscene imagery into the backgrounds. As one does.

[Mr. Big]

Anyone remember the Christmas special A Wish for Wings That Work with Opus the penguin? Today I learned that one big reason Berke Breathed disowned it and has blocked it from being released in any home video format was that the artists snuck obscene imagery into the backgrounds. As one does.

I've seen this special maybe a couple of times, but I don't think I noticed it. Any specific examples you know of?

I wouldn't say it's been blocked from home release. It was released on both VHS and DVD (both now out of print, but still). You can still buy a copy of the DVD on Amazon.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that ComicGenesis (formerly "KeenSpace") is still around. I knew KeenSpot is still going, but I didn't know ComicGenesis was still around with it.

Although, as you can imagine, not many people use it anymore. Kind of a Internet Ghost Town.

Incidentally, I looked at it, and wow, the site design hasn't changed in over 15 years.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that when Nickelodeon picked up "SpongeBob", they hardly paid attention to the production because they were hoping that another show they picked up at the same time would be their next big hit.

That other show Nick was hoping would be their huge hit? "CatDog".

It didn't work out that way

[Mr. Big]

This month is the 100th anniversary of the "Ripley's Believe it or Not" franchise, so I've been hearing some things about it.

Like the cartoon that's regarded as the first to grab attention: Bob Ripley did a cartoon where it stated that Charles Lindbergh was not the first to fly across the Atlantic, but the 67th. This lead to a ton of letters, accusing him of being anti-American and such (it can't be overstated just how big of a celebrity Lindbergh was at the time).

The kicker? Bob Ripley was technically telling the truth. Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic SOLO, and Ripley intentionally left out that word.

Ripley was a bit of a troll, it seemed

Here's a documentary about Ripley that's worth watching:

[Pocket]

TIL each of the 12-13 full moons of the year have their own names. I found this out because next month there's going to be a wolf moon that's also a blood moon and a supermoon.

"Strawberry Moon" sounds like the name of a '90s anime.

[Perpetual Motion]

Is that better or worse than the fabled "three wolf moon?"

[SlateSlabrock]

Worm Moon

[Mr. Big]

TIL about Jack Kirby's birthplace on the Lower East Side of New York.

It was such a crime-ridden hellhole that as soon as Kirby was able to, he left and never came back, not even for a visit.

[Pocket]

Today I finally decided to look up what the Korean alphabet is like, because it's always struck me as interesting that typed Korean is immediately distinguishable from Chinese and Japanese, which are much harder to tell apart. I learned:

• Korean is almost always written in a form called Hangeul that's not only phonetic, they even have distinct symbols for each consonant and vowel. But then they Voltron those characters together into more complex forms representing each syllable.
• Proposals to start just writing everything out in long form have been made, and have so far been unsuccessful.
• They had a traditional letter-per-word method of writing, almost identical to hanzi and kanji, which they called Hanja. But it's been almost completely phased out. In North Korea it's been outright banned. (Side note: It's just now dawning on me that this means the three neighboring countries effectively wrote in the same language even though their spoken languages were completely different.)
• Just like with Japanese, they've been shifting from a tradition of writing in vertical columns arranged right-to-left, to writing left-to-right in rows.
• And just like Chinese, the method of transliterating the language into Roman lettering changed a few decades ago.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that former Disney animator Don Lusk died Dec. 30 at age 105.

He was an animator on Disney classics like "Pinocchio", "Bambi", "Cinderella", and many more. He left the studio in 1960, where he worked at various places. He animated on several "Charlie Brown" specials, for instance. He spent the last 20 or so years of his career at Hanna-Barbera, where he directed shows like "Smurfs", "A Pup Named Scooby Doo", "Yo Yogi", and "Captain Planet".

Looking at the list of cartoons he worked on, he had a REALLY wide and varied career in the 60 years he was in the business.

[diribigal]

Today I learned that the notes I left to myself when writing a draft of my next paper amount to a list of 121 things I need to fix in the next month or so before I'd feel good submitting.

[Aramek]

Today I learned I've had a cutting board built into my countertop this entire time.

[minty]

I learned that "Word" and "Wordperfect" are entirely different programs. I always assumed it was the same program with a name change, like how "Paintbrush" became "Paint."

[Pocket]

I still think Paint Shop Pro should have been renamed "PicturePerfect" when Corel bought them out and tried to market it as a photo retouching tool.

[Octavia]

I had WordPerfect for my Apple IIGS

[Madeline]

I learned to type in WordPerfect, and then I had to relearn my favorite shortcuts when I left middle school and go to high school where all they used was Word

[Mr. Big]

TIL there's a live-action remake of the Rankin-Bass special "The Year Without a Santa Claus".

And yes, the Miser Brothers are in it

[Mechanical Ape]

TIL youtuber Jenny Nicholson was one of the Friendship Is Witchcraft duo, and now I really want her to guest-voice on the actual show.

[Highbrow Dash]

TIL youtuber Jenny Nicholson was one of the Friendship Is Witchcraft duo, and now I really want her to guest-voice on the actual show.

It still blows my mind that she did basically every voice for FiW

[Madeline]

I haven’t thought about FiW in a long, long time, but Jenny’s channel is great. Her voices were really good.

[!saak]

TIL I've turned into a hipster:

- Browses eBay for vintage lenses
- Drinks craft beers
- Wears vintage clothing including waiscoats and dress jackets
- Has a music taste that delves in the obscure
- Has STRONG OPINIONS about media that are definitely THE RIGHT ONES

[Mr. Big]

- Has STRONG OPINIONS about media that are definitely THE RIGHT ONES

I feel called out