What interesting things have you only recently learned about?
To be clear, this is about things which have been true for some time and you only recently learned about, not things that only happened recently. In particular, recent deaths of celebrities and other high-profile individuals should go in the General RIP Thread
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So, what interesting things have you guys...and gals...only recently learned about?
Edited by Twiddler on Apr 8th 2023 at 1:07:55 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That's not true. The word "tag" as a name for the game has been around since at least the 1700s and probably derived from the scottish "tig", middle english "tek", or latin "tango", all of which mean "touch" in their respective languages.
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
Ben Kingsley is British-Indian.
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
Mweheheh
Only one Blockbuster is left in the United States.
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
There are still Blockbuster stores in operation.
my current job
Today is Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday.
The possum is a potential perpetrator; he did place possum poo in the plum pot.
Mweheheh
The dwarf planet Ceres was discovered more than a century before Pluto.
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
I'm helping!
a bunch: Whenever I hear a fun fact claiming that "X isn't a regular word, but an acronym for [phrase related to its meaning]", I assign a baseline 80% chance of the claim being bullshit.
Europe is so much farther north than you'd think. If you were to go due east from Durham, North Carolina, you'd hit the Straight of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco. Cleveland would line up with Barcelona in northern Spain. Toronto would line up with Florence, Italy. Edmonton with Hamburg, Germany. Oslo, Norway would actually go through the bottom of the Northwest Territories.
37 C is 100 F, I always figured that 100 F was 50 C because it didn't occur to me I've ever lived through heat hot enough to kill anyone (granted with air conditioning). And also it's half I guess, weirdly I knew the average temperature for the human body was 30 something and 90 something in Fahrenheit.
Officially intimidated
Tonight I discovered the existence of the word "Lackadaisical". It refers to someone acting emotionally lethargic over something.
135 - 158 - 273 - 191 - 188 - 230 - 300
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
Wait, where have you been that was 50 Celsius? Or am I misreading that?
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
We've hit over 30 C in the past week or so, and here, that's the sort of weather where the elderly are dying from the heat and hospitals are busy. I can't even imagine what 50 would be like.
(Then again, about 6 hours from now I'll be in the sauna at a bit over 100 degrees.)
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
And then again there's a difference between relaxing in a dry controlled environment of the sauna for a relatively short time (for how long is it, by the way? Two? Three hours?) and actually doing work (physical or mental) in the summer heat pretty much constantly over the course of the day. While sleep-deprived, in some cases.
If I'm not mistaken, when it comes to dangers of living in high temperatures, it's not as much about the temperature itself as about the exhaustion that comes with it.
Edited by Millership on Jul 19th 2018 at 5:19:37 PM
Spiral out, keep going.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
Two or three hours would be a pretty long sauna. I've been there that long (with breaks, usually for a quick swim if the sauna is next to a lake) but only if I've been with a group of friends and we're drinking and so on.
I live in a flat, and there's a sauna in the basement of the block of flats that you can book for a one-hour slot. One hour is plenty for me and my girlfriend - and that hour includes the time we spend in the shower and dressing room, as well.
If I had my own house, it would definitely have a sauna and I'd go more than once a week (maybe about 2-4 times usually) and I'd be there for longer at a time. Still, it does get boring after about an hour if it's just you and your family.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
I've only lived through 36 C-40 C I didn't realize it was news heat wave levels, so I assumed that the news heat wave levels in the States were about like 50 C because they use Imperial and say 100 F
my current job
It's 102 Fahrenheit as of posting where I live.
Edited by WilliamRadarStorm on Jul 19th 2018 at 2:26:49 PM
The possum is a potential perpetrator; he did place possum poo in the plum pot.
Yeah why has it been so hot here lately? I mean for me this is usual summer weather, but now that I'm in Europe it feels extreme
We've been having a heat wave here in Toronto, too.
In the name of being honest
One of Chile's living indigenous languages is Rapa Nui, of the Easter Island fame... which is from the Malayo-Polynesian language family, making it related to freaking Malagasy, which is spoken in Madagascar.
I mean, I knew that the Malagasy people partly descended from Dayak/Iban sailors from Borneo (present-day Indonesia/Malaysia) who landed there in the first millennium CE, but still. This is so dang surreal that it took a while for me to realise. Maritime voyagers be wild, yo.
Crappy Games Wiki is a thing. Why?
Outspoken Cleric
Ne-Yo did a version of 'Friend Like Me'. It's actually really good. (still doesn't beat the original though imo)
FC: SW-1445-0294-1719/PSN: TekkenGirl4Lyfe/Currently playing: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
Making Unicorns Cool Again Since 2010
Dolphins have names for each other.
Portland isn't actually on the coast. It's like 50 miles from it.
Mweheheh
Platypi have teeth.
Peace is the only battle worth waging.
Making Unicorns Cool Again Since 2010
Both the Earth and the Moon have mountain ranges called the Taurus Mountains.
Princess Aurora is underrated, pass it on.