TIL Thread: Today I learned...

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by diribigal (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:10 pm

I wouldn't want to allow people to shill for apps (that might have a cost or microtransactions) in a space for kids.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:30 pm

good point
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:35 pm

Could it be because it's vaguely similar to "ass"? I've seen some particularly overbearing filters in the past that are set up like that (like in my Neopets days, I heard that "saxophone" was forbidden because it contained "sax," which was one letter off of "sex"). That'd be in line with "esel" being problematic in German, too.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:38 pm

also possible
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:58 pm

Hey I gotta idear

How 'bout if you're gonna enforce such strict standards on a game in order to keep an "E" rating, just force them to not allow any online interactions at all. Makes more sense than trying to make a computer try to anticipate and block every possible thing they could ever do.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:09 pm

thing is, the way the game works in multiplayer, i have to wonder if there's really a point to the filter

you're not really going to be playing with a random person, because either you're going to be playing with a friend on a farm you're hosting

or you'll have a rented server with a farm that's independent regardless whether you're logged on or not
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:10 pm

i feel people wouldn't really do random open servers, because like you don't want some asshole ruining you and your friends farm fun
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:11 pm

although, the filter extends to player names, farm names and horse names, so it's not just a communication thing
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:11 pm

i dunno, things be complicated :-I
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:33 pm



this old video on video game ratings is probably relevent
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Adiwan (?) » Tue Sep 08, 2020 8:18 am

Today I learned that there will be a country-wide test alarm on September 10th at 11 AM in Germany.
TV, Radio, Social Media, sirens, special warning app, loudspeakers, digital billboards....

This is the first time since the unification that this kind of test will be performed.
After that it will be a yearly occurrence in order to raise awareness to those systems.

https://www.bbk.bund.de/SharedDocs/Pres ... kommt.html
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:38 am

huh

we do those every year
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:38 am

only the siren though
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:30 pm

You know the end credits song for "Robot Chicken", which has a chicken making a noise to a tune of a music?

Well, TIL it's playing to the tune of this song:



I never made the connection until I read about the song :-I

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by DaikatunaRevengeance (?) » Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:59 am

:gonk:
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:42 am

So ever wonder why you would see an otherwise black cat with random white spots?

Well, TIL there's a reason for that:


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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon Sep 14, 2020 6:45 am

There's a similar reason behind why tortoiseshell/calico cats are almost always female. The genes for black and orange pigment are normally carried on the X chromosome, and since sex determinance works the same for cats as for us, a tom normally only has one X chromosome and thus the pigmented parts of his fur will only use black or orange as their base color.

A queen with the right parentage can get the black and orange genes on each of her X chromosomes, and early on in her embryonic development, her cells randomly pick one to follow and deactivate the other. As they divide and grow, they keep creating whatever color of pigment was randomly chosen, which is how a calico cat can end up with big patches of black and orange fur or with it all mixed up.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:14 am

TIL that tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant are all in the same genus, solanum.

If you think that's nuts, I found out a while ago that cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and Brussels sprouts are all breeds of the same species, brassica oleracea.

It's a wonder some botanist hasn't managed to hybridize them so farmers can harvest and sell multiple parts of the same plant.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Adiwan (?) » Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:24 am

Tomatoes and tobacco are in the same family of Solanaceae (nightshades) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:55 am



TIL that the shot of Rocky at the top of Philadelphia Museum of Art during the training montage was filmed backwards.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 3:03 am

TIL that New Hampshire doesn't have seatbelt laws (sort of. Under-18 passengers must wear them, but there's no law that states adults must wear them). It's the only state in the country without it.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:18 am

Mr. Big wrote:
Sun Sep 27, 2020 3:03 am
TIL that New Hampshire doesn't have seatbelt laws (sort of. Under-18 passengers must wear them, but there's no law that states adults must wear them). It's the only state in the country without it.
It's "live free or die," not live free and die!
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:26 pm

Also TIL that American beers having a reputation for being crappy is fairly recent. They used to be considered good or alright.

This all changed due to a combination of Prohibition and grain rationing in both World War I AND World War II. Many brewers went out of business because of one or more of the reasons mentioned, and the ones that survived could only produce "near beer" in order to get around the restriction imposed on them.
Last edited by Mr. Big on Sun Sep 27, 2020 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 2:32 pm

It's crazy to think that a war that took place entirely overseas led to rationing—presumably because so many farmers got drafted that it cut into production.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:26 pm

TIL that the most well-known intro used for ABC Eyewitness News (and the song most often parodied whenever TV News is featured in shows and movies) originated as a music for a 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke".

The music is still in use today in Australia, for National Nine News.


(skip to 2:08 for the part used by news stations)

Back then, TV stations would use stock music (or music used in movies) for their intro.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:09 am

I think it was supposed to be reminiscent of a telegraph machine, as if breaking news was coming through the wire as they went to air.

My favorite parody of it was from some Sesame Street special, I think it might have been the New Year's Eve one? Some of the characters were doing their own amateur news broadcast, for some reason, and Cookie Monster was singing the intro music.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Octavia (?) » Mon Sep 28, 2020 5:42 pm

Mr. Big wrote:
Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:26 pm
Also TIL that American beers having a reputation for being crappy is fairly recent. They used to be considered good or alright.
The USA has an incredibly vibrant craft beer scene and they make all sorts of fantastic brews. You just need to look beyond the mass-produced lagers like Budweiser and Miller, which is what most foreigners think of when you say "American beer."
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Sep 28, 2020 6:35 pm

Most beers sold in the US were local brands, too, because at the time there was just no way you could transport them throughout the country. Mass-produced beer being sold nationwide is a relatively new concept, only few decades old.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Oct 06, 2020 2:47 pm

TIL that the term "bucket list" only dates back to 2007, when a movie with that title came out.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:53 am

TIL I am still terrible at managing self-inflicted crises and should never be trusted with responsibilities that affect other people.

:areyousure:
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:53 am

The 1973 Charlie Brown special There's No Time For Love, Charlie Brown has Peppermint Patty saying “By the time we grow up, the metric system will probably be official.”

TIL the US did almost consider adapting the metric system around the time the special aired, but it was thwarted by both big businesses and the public lobbying groups because they didn't want to go through the time-consuming and expensive hassle of changing the country’s entire infrastructure. Not helping was the stagflation going on at the time, which contributed to the defeat. In the end they decided it wasn't worth the trouble and abandoned it.

Nowadays they just teach both systems simultaneously, making it even more unlikely to make the switch permanent.

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Sun Oct 11, 2020 8:57 am

Hence Troy McClure’s “Here Comes the Metric System!” joke.

It’s not official in the US but even here, it’s used by governments both state and federal along with big businesses and of course anyone doing science.

We buy soda in 16-ounce cans as well as 2-liter bottles. What a country! :jingo:
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Adiwan (?) » Sun Oct 11, 2020 4:40 pm

The US are officially metric, as inch and pound (etc) are defined by a metric unit.
However the people in the US refuse to use the metric units.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Wed Oct 14, 2020 4:04 pm

TIL the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine archives YouTube videos. So if you have the URL of a specific video that's been taken down but got a lot of views at the time, you might still be able to watch it.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Pocket (?) » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:42 am

Back in the '90s, Apple made a game console in conjunction with Bandai called the Pippin. It was a huge flop. Today I decided to look up what its deal was, and why it failed. Turns out, Pippin was not meant to be a single device, but a platform they would license out to other companies, Bandai being one of only two that signed on and the only one that actually sold their model at retail. Part of the reason it failed was that Apple refused to do any marketing of their own, expecting their licensees to handle that. Bandai's model was also expensive, costing $600 at launch.

The whole situation feels suspiciously similar to Valve's "Steam Machine" project. The Bandai model even used a controller that had a trackball instead of an analog stick.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Adiwan (?) » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:20 am

The CD-i as well as the 3DO had a similar concept by having multiple manufacturers and they have flopped hard.
Nintendo had also Mattel doing some manufacturing and advertisement for a short while but Nintendo was also doing their part.

The Pippin was a PC with controller ports. For people at the time it was just plain confusing and expensive justifying so much money for a game console. At least that was better than the Amiga CD32, that was not only hardware-wise almost exactly like an Amiga PC but also more expensive and a whole lot more limited.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by pessimizer (?) » Wed Nov 04, 2020 11:50 am

Has anyone brought this up yet?

Today I learned,
that -- apparently -- the flank is not the side of the hind leg.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_anatomy

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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Adiwan (?) » Wed Nov 04, 2020 11:53 am

It is less favorable to say that the CMC were stifled before they got their Cutie Marks.
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Wed Nov 04, 2020 3:14 pm

Two tickets to the cannon show! :yeahhh:
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Re: TIL Thread: Today I learned...

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:44 pm

Another Simpsons example. Remember the episode where Homer becomes a modern artist, and how Lisa, in one scene, mentioned an artist that planted hundreds of umbrellas near a highway that later killed some people?

Well, TIL that was a real thing that happened, in California and Japan.
Last edited by Mr. Big on Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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