Weird thing you learned today - What did you learn today?

[CornBogFitz]

I’ve been trying to develop healthier habits. One thing I’ve been trying to do is learn things that are new. And I’ve been coming across curious questions lately. And in the age of GBT it’s easier than ever to look these strange things up. So this is a place to post the random cool thing you found out about today that you never thought to look up before. school never thought you because it’s totally useless. But it’s still cool to think about. Don’t worry about double posting if it’s two different things. Each of these is supposed to be nonsequitorial rather than a formal discussion. You can discuss if you want to go deeper.

 

[Skitarii]

That OP isn't just a fag, but also a nigger too

 

[Chinese Democrat]

GBT

Please do not exclude our L and Q+ xisters from your future posts, comrade.

 

[CornBogFitz]

Recently I came across the Iliad by Homer. Which got me thinking “how did fictional stories have the power to propagate before the printing press” manpower for books would be used for historical documents or news. Then how did authors like Virgil become popular? The answer is before printing press the average joes memory was amazing. Especially when the average joe wasn’t literate. All these stories were oratory. People would hold contests and the winner would get transcribed, in addition the wealthy would finance such things. Roman’s often had scribes as slaves, and if a play they liked was being performed they would bring them. But particularly in cases like the Iliad . Homer wasn’t the author, as much as he was the brothers Grimm of Greek folklore.

 

[CornBogFitz]

I also learned in very rare instances words can come to mean the opposite of what they were intended. There’s the common “reclaiming” of the word such as the obvious “gay” meaning happy to meaning faggot. There are others that have transitioned slowly. What made me think of this is the word “bully” and how Teddy Roosevelt used it.

Bully originated from the Dutch word “boel” meaning “lover” or “sweetheart” Slowly the word “bully” went from “cool dude” to “manly dude” to “rebellious dude” to “mean dude” the interesting thing is teddy tried to save the word. By the time he was using it it already meant rebellious

1. Hussy

• 1500s → “Short for housewife”
• 1600s → “Gossipy, idle woman”
• 1700s → “Immoral, promiscuous woman”

2. Villain

• 1300s → From Latin villanus, meaning “farm worker” or “peasant.”
• 1400s → “Low-born, uncultured person”
• 1500s+ → “Wicked, evil person” (peasantry = bad in the eyes of the rich).

3. Artificial

• 1300s → “Skillfully made by human hands”
• 1600s → “Contrived, affected”
• 1800s+ → “Fake, insincere”

4. Silly

• 1200s → “Happy” / “fortunate” / “innocent.”
• 1400s → “Harmless” → “simple-minded.”
• 1500s+ → “Foolish”

5. Demagogue

• 1600s → “Champion of the common people”
• 1700s → “Leader who panders to the crowd”
• 1800s+ → “Manipulator who stirs up emotions for power”

Etymology is awesome

 

[Chinese Democrat]

I also learned in very rare instances words can come to mean the opposite of what they were intended. There’s the common “reclaiming” of the word such as the obvious “gay” meaning happy to meaning faggot. There are others that have transitioned slowly. What made me think of this is the word “bully” and how Teddy Roosevelt used it.

"Slut" was also used playfully in the 17th century as a feminine equivalent of "scamp" or "rogue" for boys:

My wife called up the people to washing by four o'clock in the morning; and our little girl Susan is a most admirable slut, and pleases us mightily, doing more service than both the others, and deserves wages better.

 

[Necrosan]

I had no idea that Panthers are just melanated Leopards and Jaguars, which makes me wonder why the Black Panthers were named as such given that Panthers are already black by nature.

 

[CornBogFitz]

Here’s a good one. Pachinko isn’t just a racist way combining chinks+plinko it’s actually its own game. I always thought I was just being casually racist because the game that looks like plinko from the tv show was super favored and a common form of addiction by Asians. But no. Total coincidence!

 

[We Are The Witches]

I figured that with the help of @keyframes animation, radial-gradient(), and filter:hue-rotate(); without any JavaScript, just pure HTML + CSS, I could get creative and make a hypnotic trance sequence:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Trance</title>
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <style>
            html{font:17px Verdana;}
            body{margin:0rem;}
            .panel{animation-name:trance;animation-duration:0.5s;background:radial-gradient(#984646, #7e488c, #465588, #46867d, #3c7c51, #7b843d, #7a5843, #944646);height:100vh;-webkit-animation-iteration-count:infinite;-moz-animation-iteration-count:infinite;-o-animation-iteration-count:infinite;animation-iteration-count:infinite;}
            @keyframes trance{0% {filter:hue-rotate(0deg);} 100% {filter:hue-rotate(360deg);}}
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="panel"></div>
    </body>
</html>

 

[Basement Dwelling Dork]

That the owner of bad dragon dildos and e621 keeps a fucking epstien list of various of popular furries who hang out with him.
He'd only use it whenever he doesn't like them anymore or they get into drama so he'll start leaking them just to boost his own morality.

 

[Yamaha YM2612]

That nimrod, one of the earliest demon worshippers after the flood, was black

 

[CornBogFitz]

That nimrod, one of the earliest demon worshippers after the flood, was black

idk man that’s pre-flood. No one is able to say one way or the other. I like to imagine people like Caine and able had stuff like pink skin and green hair. Cuz they had no kids. Think it would be funny.

 

[Yamaha YM2612]

idk man that’s pre-flood. No one is able to say one way or the other. I like to imagine people like Caine and able had stuff like pink skin and green hair. Cuz they had no kids. Think it would be funny.

Nimrod was post flood. Cain and able did have kids.

Noah > ham > cush > nimrod

 

[CornBogFitz]

Nimrod was post flood. Cain and able did have kids.

Noah > ham > cush > nimrod

Dang looked it up ur right.

Abel still didn’t have kids though

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

I learned about nuclear isomers.
The same isotope can be semi stable at varying energy levels. And they sometimes have different nuclear decay modes.

U-238 is known for having a half life of billions of years. But U-238m has a half life measured in milliseconds. After that, it either just emits a gamma ray and returns to the ground state or it undergoes spontaneous fission and breaks down into smaller atoms.

Tantalum is even more interesting:
Ta-180 decays in about 8 hours. Ta-180m1 is observationally stable. So it is not only more stable than the ground state, it's not even radioactive on human time scales.