what did you learn today?

[sagitel]

we live in a marvelous world. each corner is filled with wonders. so its not surprising that we learn something new every day. take me for example. today i learnt why oil tends to make small orbs and spheres in water and it becomes one big mass instead of staying disorganized. it has to do with oil making the water molecules around it more organized and it lowers the entropy of the system. so it takes the form of the shape with the lowest surface area/ volume. a sphere. and if they conglomerate together the finall surface is lowered so the system has the least amount entropy reduction.
so escapist, what new thing did YOU learn today?

 

[Zhukov]

I learned that painkillers make me sleepy.

I also took did some revision on wisdom teeth being just the worst thing ever.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I learn that some work places suck ALOT more than the one I'm working at.

A co worker whose I haven't seen since Christmas (she only do specific days) said that did NOT once get a day off during the Christmas week. That right, she was working on Christmas Day and she worked at a retail place (I mean retirement homes and hospitel I can get for always working) and it was only a few days ago she had her Christmas dinner. Don't asked me why she hasn't look for another job.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I learned that peanuts are not actually nuts. They're legumes. I read about it this morning on the back of a box of granola bars.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I've been up for an hour and I've already got more proof of a thing I knew to be true already: Vancouverites do not know how to drive on icy roads. Seriously, I'm glad I'm off the road because someone out there is going to kill me by driving like its a sunny May day with perfect road conditions.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I learned that having a bruised rib can really make even the slightest of movements a herculean effort, and an adventure into pain town.

I just had a bad enough cold a few weeks back to give me a coughing fit to where I hurt my ribs, and it still hurts like a *****. I should probably write it an apology letter and buy it some chocolates to see if it will forgive me.

 

[iseko]

The first 11 (N-terminal) amino acids of alpha synuclein are crucial for membrane interaction and subsequent function/toxicity.




Fun day

 

[Cartographer]

I learned that Excel worksheets have headers and footers. I can confidently say I've been using them for more than two decades without realising this.

 

[Barbas]

I learned that the light-switch in the utility room (I can't believe we call it that, this isn't the fudding Enterprise) actually leans with the top half toward the wall when you illuminate. If you don't know what I mean, just imagine a depressed Stay-Puft marshmallow kid sobbing against a wall because his father's been spread over half of New York.

Anyway, this is freakish because where I used to come from, that would be the position the switch would inhabit if all the lights in the room were off. I think the previous family's electrician was either Australian or a Satanist.

EDIT: I moved into this house near the beginning of last year. I would have noticed it in the months between then and now, but I was distracted by the taps that go left, right, up and down. East coast technology, man.

 

[Parasondox]

That when I am ill, I sleep like a baby. It sucks cause when I am fine, I can't sleep for shit.

Also there are some strange sexual fetishes out there. Very very strange one. Here is one. Vampire, sex and actual blood. Where does it come from? Don't ask. I need to stay off the internet for a while.

Damn you internet!!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That The Hateful Eight is chatty as fuck.

 

[happyninja42]

I learned that my kitten really loves to just drag himself along the floor with his claws while he lays on his side. For no apparent reason other than "lulz, it's fun!" He's perfectly healthy and can damn well walk on his 4 paws, but sometimes he just feels like dragging himself along the floor. He starts out under our bed, hooking his claws on the bottom of the box spring, and just scurries along like some rock climber, making all kinds of hellish noise while we're trying to sleep. Then when we reach down to make him stop, he shows his belly, which we have to pet, because damnit he's cute...and then he starts dragging himself away while we pet his belly.

He's a very silly animal.

 

[Lilani]

I learned a new depth to my boss's self-serving ego. Basically, he wants to make a prototype of a thing to show some people so that we can roll out some big fancy tech in a museum. But he doesn't want us to just MAKE the prototype of the thing, which would actually be pretty simple and easy. He wants to make a fully 3D animated simulation of what this thing would look like in action. Again, it would be very easy to just put the thing in the museum space and demonstrate it that way. But instead he wants our 3D graphics guy to spend the next six days or so making a simulated flythrough of the museum space...with the prototype in the simulation video. This would be a bit like saying "Hey, I think we should put a TV in the living room here," and rather than just making a quick mock-up of a TV screen out of some foam board and putting it in the room to see how it fits, creating a 3D model of the room and doing a virtual tour with the TV in the simulated room.

Such a waste of our time, and all so he can promote this tech he's been trying to force into the company for years now, but hasn't stuck because he usually can't fully commit to a project and see it through. And when he does try to push a project, he scares them off by trying to do too much at once.

 

[Byte2222]

I learned that Auger electron spectroscopy uses electrons for excitation and that the previously-unidentified oxygen 1s peak in my XPS data is probably nickel nitrate. Also, I am desperately underlevelled in Xenoblade Chronicles X

 

[Lufia Erim]

I learned i can charge my samsung phone with my ps4 usb ports. So i can play videogames and charge my phone at the same time. I dunno if thats common knowledge but i jut found out and it's usefull for me

 

[cikame]

...I don't think i've learned anything yet today, other than level 5 of Turok is annoying.

 

[SKBPinkie]

A colleague told me today that tater tots are made from mashed / squished potatoes and not just cut out from a potato like how fries / chips are.

I thought it was kinda interesting.

 

[Prepper247]

Passion eventually fades in marriage. You need to keep it alive.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I learned that you need roughly 2000W heater running for a minute to get 100grams of water from 10C to 40C.
This was after I saw someone selling a fancy new heating system that simply attaches to your faucet and supposedly produces instant hot running water... bull friggin shit. For that to work you would need to heat 100g in at least a second, meaning the heater would require 60 x 2000W, which comes to a mere 120kW, that is high production factory level of power consumption which no household could even handle.

 

[Pseudonym]

The difference between a ring and an algebra is that in a ring you can multiply elements by natural numbers, but in an algebra you know you can multiply with real scalars which isn't garantueed in the case of a ring.