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Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!!

07-04-2018 , 10:35 AM
So they just shrugged their shoulders and moved on?
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-04-2018 , 12:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllBlackDan
Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 a few months after launch, on 19 December 1977.
Voyage 2 was launched before Voyage 1? How did that happen?
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-04-2018 , 01:48 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2

Quote:
4. Butrica, Andrew. From Engineering Science to Big Science. p. 267. Retrieved 2015-09-04. Despite the name change, Voyager remained in many ways the Grand Tour concept, though certainly not the Grand Tour (TOPS) spacecraft. Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977. The decision to reverse the order of launch had to do with keeping open the possibility of carrying out the Grand Tour mission to Uranus, Neptune, and beyond. Voyager 2, if boosted by the maximum performance from the Titan-Centaur, could just barely catch the old Grand Tour trajectory and encounter Uranus. Two weeks later, Voyager 1 would leave on an easier and much faster trajectory, visiting Jupiter and Saturn only. Voyager 1 would arrive at Jupiter four months ahead of Voyager 2, then arrive at Saturn nine months earlier. Hence, the second spacecraft launched was Voyager 1, not Voyager 2. The two Voyagers would arrive at Saturn nine months apart, so that if Voyager 1 failed to achieve its Saturn objectives, for whatever reason, Voyager 2 still could be retargeted to achieve them, though at the expense of any subsequent Uranus or Neptune encounter.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-14-2018 , 07:51 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fechner_color

The Fechner Color is the name of the colors one would see when looking at something that is spinning fast. There is a demo called Benham's Top here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benham%27s_top

***

Another entry into the Humans Are Awful Awards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism

The Persians outvie all other barbarians in the horrid cruelty of their punishments, employing tortures that are peculiarly terrible and long-drawn, namely the 'boats'
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07-16-2018 , 09:39 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauro_Prosperi

In 1994, Mauro Prosperi entered into the Marathon of the Sands, a race through the Sahara Desert, and didn't finish.

In 1998, he entered again, but stopped due to a stubbed toe.
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07-17-2018 , 07:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by daveT
Another entry into the Humans Are Awful Awards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism

The Persians outvie all other barbarians in the horrid cruelty of their punishments, employing tortures that are peculiarly terrible and long-drawn, namely the 'boats'
Holy ****, that's brutal. Humans....
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-17-2018 , 07:26 AM
I remember hearing about that in Carlin's King of Kings podcast. Wikipedia article was a cool read too, I love ancient history.


The Italian guy surviving getting lost in the Sahara is crazy. I can't believe he entered the race twice more.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston

Quote:
was a pioneering Scottish surgeon. Liston was noted for his skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival.
Quote:
Liston's most famous case
Amputated the leg in under 2​1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he dropped dead from fright.

That was the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality.
The article lists his 4 most famous cases, they're all pretty good.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-17-2018 , 10:14 AM
Doesn't sound like very much skill.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-17-2018 , 11:28 AM
I don't know how to judge his skill in the context of the time. I'm just glad that isn't today.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-18-2018 , 09:36 PM
Quote:
Amputated the leg in 2​1⁄2 minutes, but in his enthusiasm the patient's testicles as well
I'd probably choose to go with the surgeon who took a few minutes longer but promised not to chop my balls off.
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07-19-2018 , 01:39 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrassplayer
I remember hearing about that in Carlin's King of Kings podcast. Wikipedia article was a cool read too, I love ancient history.


The Italian guy surviving getting lost in the Sahara is crazy. I can't believe he entered the race twice more.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston





The article lists his 4 most famous cases, they're all pretty good.
There's a great BBC comedy series called Quacks in which the main character is a surgeon named Robert Lessing, almost certainly based on Robert Liston.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-19-2018 , 01:57 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichGangi
Holy ****, that's brutal. Humans....

The historian in me wondered whether, if we only have the Persians’ enemies as sources for the practice, they actually did it.
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07-19-2018 , 02:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by krunic
There's a great BBC comedy series called Quacks in which the main character is a surgeon named Robert Lessing, almost certainly based on Robert Liston.
Never heard of it, thanks!
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-21-2018 , 06:52 AM
Hyperthymesia is a neurological disorder which leads people to be able to remember much more than the average person. People with hyperthymesia remember an abnormally vast number of their life experiences

Marilu Henner is reportedly affected

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype...ia?wprov=sfla1
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07-24-2018 , 03:47 AM
Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
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07-24-2018 , 12:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllBlackDan
Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
I experienced this once in my teens and never knew it had a name. I remember that the simple word "of" sounded so strange and foreign to me that I actually questioned myself on the spelling of the word (ov? uv?). For a brief few minutes, it seemed like the word was nonsensical, a very strange moment that I don't recall ever happening to this extent again.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-24-2018 , 12:49 PM
I have definitely experienced this. One day when you’re alone in your car on a long drive, take a random word and say it out loud a couple of hundred times. I suspect you’ll experience this phenomenon again.
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07-24-2018 , 01:23 PM
Yeah, I experience that maybe half a dozen times a year if not more. Especially if I am writing something repetitively for some reason.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-25-2018 , 07:21 AM
Pretty interesting, I've never heard of or experienced this. I'm curious about the application, which is unfortunately just a stub in this article:

Quote:
An application has been developed to reduce speech anxiety by stutterers by creating semantic satiation through repetition, thus reducing the intensity of negative emotions triggered during speech.
I used to stutter a lot as a kid.






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_tossing

Fox tossing was apparently a sport in Europe during the 17th and 18th century.

Quote:
Augustus II the Strong, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, held a famous tossing contest in Dresden at which 647 foxes, 533 hares, 34 badgers and 21 wildcats were tossed and killed.
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07-28-2018 , 10:48 PM
Mysorean rockets were an Indian military weapon which were the first iron-cased rockets successfully deployed for military use

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets
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07-29-2018 , 04:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by that_pope
Yeah, I experience that maybe half a dozen times a year if not more. Especially if I am writing something repetitively for some reason.
Same - I had no idea there was a name for it!

ETA: I also experience this occasionally in a visual sense.

ETA again: "Lapse of meaning with visual fixation" is also mentioned in that wiki article!
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-30-2018 , 03:41 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllBlackDan
Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
I have experienced this plenty of times. I think it’s pretty common. Bill Cosby Even has a joke about this where he says the word “obey” over and over and then doubts if it’s really a word. He says something like “I think it’s just pig Latin nonsense”.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
07-30-2018 , 08:06 AM
INTERESTING MF THANGS ALERT BOO YA

Lusitania
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07-30-2018 , 03:12 PM
Yep, I have that and the previous one still to listen to.

I hold out on them so I have something to look forward to when I am not feeling any of my regular podcasts.
Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!! Quote
08-03-2018 , 06:28 AM
Vesna Vulovic was a Serbian flight attendant. She holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 metres (33,330 ft)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesn...87?wprov=sfla1
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