TIL Thread: Today I learned...

[Skipper]

Today I learned nothing. I know just as much as I knew yesterday, which means I now know less than what I would've known had I learned what I didn't.

I lost nothing, but I still feel robbed.

edit: Ugh.

[Skipper]

Actually, today I learned I make horrible page snipes.

[Octavia]

TIL that Super Trouper is a brand of spotlight and ABBA's song where they talk about the Super Trouper beams blinding me actually has a literal meaning.

[Madeline]

TIL that Super Trouper is a brand of spotlight and ABBA's song where they talk about the Super Trouper beams blinding me actually has a literal meaning.

Okay, TIL this because I didn’t know that. I thought it was a metaphor for show biz, and I suppose it still is, but I didn’t know it was a literal reference to anything.

[ToastGhost]

TIL AM and PM stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”. Never questioned it before today.

[Mr. Big]

...you know, it never occurred to me that AM and PM actually stands for something.

Like you, I just never questioned it.

[Fizzbuzz]

I remember wondering about that as a kid because I wanted to know why we had AM and PM for time but AM and FM for radio.

[Pocket]

I had an idea for a joke to do if someone ever makes an RPG starring Homestar Runner. It starts in his room, and when you go up to his clock radio and hit the interact button, he's like "That's my clock radio. It's an oldie, but a goodie. It gets both AM and PM." That feels like something he'd say.

[Madeline]

I remember wondering about that as a kid because I wanted to know why we had AM and PM for time but AM and FM for radio.

That’s how I learned what all 4 of those meant when I was 7. I kept asking about it and my mom chucked a dictionary to me

[Skipper]

TIL AM and PM stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”. Never questioned it before today.

Meridian.

The time of high noon is also known as "meridian passage" because when the sun is directly above you, it passes through the meridian (=longitude) you are on.

[Skipper]

The meridians, by the way, are the vertical lines displayed on charts and globes and represent lines of constant longitude; the horizontal ones are called "parallels" and, as one would expect, they are lines of constant latitude.

The meridians are quite useful for figuring out the current timezone you're in, the so-called "longitude in time". Since the earth makes one rotation in (about) 24 hours, and a circle is 360 degrees, it follows that there is a 1 hour time difference every 15 degrees.

So, take your longitude, divide by 15, and you have your local deviation from UTC. Well, astronomically speaking at least. Some countries are pretty weird about it. Not to mention DST...

For example, my ship is currently underway from Florida (which was LT=UTC-5, at a longitude of about 79 degrees west, so -79.) to the Netherlands, LT=UTC+1. To have proper daylight to start work on deck on time, we had to adjust the clock forward at -60, -45, -30, etc. Roughly, every three days.

And then people complain about losing sleep when going off DST once a year...

[Perrydotto]

I admire your ability to deal with that whole extra level of nonsense!

[Skipper]

It's especially weird when going west around the world across the 180-meridian, like I did back in '12: Rotterdam-Gladstone (Australia) via the Panama Canal. When passing the date line in a westward direction, you lose a day.

In our case, it was Tuesday. And the next day it was Thursday. Where did Wednesday go? And when we arrived at our destination, the whole world carried on like nothing happened, our calendar lined up with theirs. But we lost a day!

[Princess Flufflebutt]

Every single time I hear about DST I think about this video

[Skipper]

I did get paid for it, though. So that's nice.

[Skipper]

TIL AM and PM stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”. Never questioned it before today.

Ha! I was actually wrong in correcting you. It does stand for "meridiem", not "meridian". Guess TIL that!

I stand by the rest of my story, though.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that Krusty Krab is a lobster trap



I worked on the SpongeBob comic books, and I never realized this

[Skipper]

Ha! Never noticed that either. That's cool.

[Perrydotto]

Haha, holy shit. Had no idea, but that rules.

[Cthulhu Inc]

The meridians, by the way, are the vertical lines displayed on charts and globes and represent lines of constant longitude; the horizontal ones are called "parallels" and, as one would expect, they are lines of constant latitude.

The meridians are quite useful for figuring out the current timezone you're in, the so-called "longitude in time". Since the earth makes one rotation in (about) 24 hours, and a circle is 360 degrees, it follows that there is a 1 hour time difference every 15 degrees.

So, take your longitude, divide by 15, and you have your local deviation from UTC. Well, astronomically speaking at least. Some countries are pretty weird about it. Not to mention DST...

For example, my ship is currently underway from Florida (which was LT=UTC-5, at a longitude of about 79 degrees west, so -79.) to the Netherlands, LT=UTC+1. To have proper daylight to start work on deck on time, we had to adjust the clock forward at -60, -45, -30, etc. Roughly, every three days.

And then people complain about losing sleep when going off DST once a year...

Most places in the world have the clock time ahead of the solar time

[Pocket]

So does this map turn redder or bluer during Daylight Saving Time? And is red or blue better when it comes to matching daylight hours to when most people are actually awake?

[Mr. Big]

The mention of "Bridge to Terabithia" in another thread made me look it up on Wikipedia. TIL there was a film adaptation in 2007, directed by Gabor Csupo of all people.

Yes, one-half of Klasky-Csupo. Co-creator of "Rugrats". He directed the film version

[Cthulhu Inc]

So does this map turn redder or bluer during Daylight Saving Time? And is red or blue better when it comes to matching daylight hours to when most people are actually awake?

It turns redder during DST.

[Bigdog]

Most places in the world have the clock time ahead of the solar time

all I'm getting from this is that Greenland is basically a giant Bomb Pop

[Pocket]

TIL that German for skunk is "stinktier", which sounds like what you'd call a lousy character in a fighting game.

And that badger is "dachs", which explains where the word dachshund came from.

[Adiwan]

"Stink" is based on the word "Gestank" which means "bad smell" or the verb "stinken" (to stink) and "Tier" means "animal". So a Stinktier is just a bad smelling animal. Logical!
Dachshund is called "Dackel" in Germany and I have no knowledge of its etymology.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that Matt Groening has 8 kids.

I was looking up his bio and this was mentioned. Huh

[Pocket]

TIL the fairly recent set of top-level domains includes ".red" and ".blue". I wonder how many people have bought up a matched set and what they intend to do with them.

[Highbrow Dash]

TIL the fairly recent set of top-level domains includes ".red" and ".blue". I wonder how many people have bought up a matched set and what they intend to do with them.

I'm still sad we couldn't get friendship.horse

[SlateSlabrock]

It's not currently registered. Was it on the list of forbidden words?

[Bigdog]

TIL the fairly recent set of top-level domains includes ".red" and ".blue". I wonder how many people have bought up a matched set and what they intend to do with them.

someone register [red.]vs.blue and [blue.]on.blue

any other good ones?

[Princess Flufflebutt]

pokemon.red pokemon.blue

[Madeline]

clues.blue

[Adiwan]

im.blue/daba_dee_da_ba_daa_da_ba_dee_da_ba_daa_da_ba_dee_da_ba_daa

[Madeline]

ijust.blue.myself

[W.T. Fits]

kaibacorp.blue/eyes/white/dragon.png

[Octavia]

whatsblackandwhiteand.red/allover

[drunkill]

I had an idea for a joke to do if someone ever makes an RPG starring Homestar Runner. It starts in his room, and when you go up to his clock radio and hit the interact button, he's like "That's my clock radio. It's an oldie, but a goodie. It gets both AM and PM." That feels like something he'd say.

I feel like you should tweet this to the strongbad account and they would like it.

[Highbrow Dash]

It's not currently registered. Was it on the list of forbidden words?

It was very expensive, but now that you mention it it's only $40 per year now

[Octavia]

TIL that Steve Martin was never actually a cast member on SNL.