Things you didn't know until very recently...

I don't really know if you can call that a "thing you didn't know until very recently", considering that it's also a "thing that didn't happen until very recently". I thought the spirit of the thread was more "Things that have been true for a while that you just found out about", not "Hey hey hey current events"... <_<

There is an active effort on the Trump campaign side to surpress minority voters and violate electioneering law. I will not be paid enough to deal with this.

Anime licensers typically show anime films only at LA at the end of the year before it is straight to home video. Too bad HSR isn't here yet...

I had known for a long time that terminal velocity varies depending on the object falling and the density of air, but yesterday I learned how to calculate it (to within a reasonable degree of accuracy, anyway). It's actually surprisingly easy. You just:

1. Multiply 4 times the mass of the falling object in kg, times acceleration due to gravity in m/s², which 9.8 is a reasonable approximation of. In other words, 4 times 9.8 times the mass of the object in kg.
2. Multiply air density in kg/m³ times the surface area being affected by drag in m² (i.e., the bottom side of the object).
3. Divide the answer from step 1 by the answer from step 2.
4. Take the square root of the answer from Step 3.

Voila, a rough calculation of terminal velocity in meters per second.

edited 27th Oct '16 9:04:01 AM by SolipSchism

The Far Side had an All Just a Dream ending.

The Far Side had an ending.

@ post 23199

Yeah, he mentions that in, like, the film's first couple of minutes, right after the opening credits. You could be forgiven for missing it though, as no one ever calls him by name (or even interacts with him much) for the rest of the movie.

Here's something I didn't know until recently. The name "Idaho" is completely made up. It was apparently invented by a lobbyist in the 1860's who successfully passed it off to members of Congress as a Shoshone word meaning "gem of the mountains."

edited 27th Oct '16 5:00:23 PM by Robbery

There really is a movie called Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die. I thought it was just a Simpsons joke.

The American election will not be on Melbourne Cup day this time.

Hillary is faulted for not being perfect enough. Trump is praised for not being an absolute shitbag. This is why the election is still too close to call despite being two weeks away. 2016 is a case out of range of measurement because a woman is a frontrunner, so textbooks may not need to be written after a Trump victory. Forecasters won't be able to predict this election using traditonal models anyway.

Different pencil makers don't agree on what blue looks like. Whoops.

Edit: waitaminute 4chan developed katawa shoujo?

edited 28th Oct '16 4:44:56 PM by KnightofNASA

Tim McGraw hated "My Next Thirty Years" and has never sung it live, despite it being one of his bigger hits.

Re: terminal velocity. That's not really an approximation, it's the actual formula assuming a drag coefficient of 0.5. Which is good enough for a sphere or a cone, but not so much for other shapes (a cube is at 1.05, a streamlined body is at 0.04).

What does the coefficient stand for?

The drag coefficient quantifies the amount of resistance an object experiences inside a fluid environment like air or water. A lower coefficient means the object experiences less resistance and can move faster as a result.

You can buy an amigurumi Grail-kun. However, the Etsy maker no longer offers them for sale, so no new builds for me...

edited 29th Oct '16 4:12:19 AM by Krieger22

Oh, I see. Thanks for the explanation!

Apparently, typing "awesome" when a You Tube video is on fullscreen, makes the red bar go full rainbow mode.

edited 29th Oct '16 9:27:36 AM by Lampodigenio

Just how interesting the Kingdoms of Africa are in their pre-Enlightenment history.

Some such as Benin and Oyo have a much longer literary history than many European nations, and had institutions which rivaled places like China.

The Fly is a remake of an old film that starred Vincent Price. Jeff Goldblum actually sent a letter to Price thanking him for inspiring his acting in this film, and hoped that he likes the remake just as much as he did seeing Price's film. After Price DID see the remake, journalists asked his opinion. He responded, "It was pretty good until the end. That's where it just became silly!"

The world didn't deserve that man.

Both The Fly movies are very good. The original is probably just a little bit better, IMO, but the new version is definitely one of the best remakes of anything I've seen.

The Daiso near my college sells urushi-style bowls.

Footage of a naked man running on all fours was caught on a camera trap (which zoologists use to capture footage of wild animals).

The Bradley effect plus the shy Tories and whether or not it is statistically significant this year (probably not).

edited 30th Oct '16 1:52:33 PM by KnightofNASA

My fifth grade teacher is running for state representative. I actually saw and heard him in a TV ad.

The fear of Halloween is called samhainophobia. I s*** you not.

George Strait's "I Just Want to Dance with You" is a cover.

@kyun I wonder what a phobia of Christmas would be called?