Used to do this in payphones as a kid. The numpads were disabled when no coins were inserted, effectively disabling tone dialing. But pulse dialing still worked.
In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.
Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.
The "brat" in "bratwurst" doesn't come from "braten", which means to fry. It actually comes from the old German word "brät", which means finely chopped meat.
I'm convinced people that "can't" just don't know how.
It's the same movement as closing your throat off so you can open your mouth underwater, and you just push "up" past that till it puts pressure on the eustachian tubes, and the rumble is your muscle fibers contracting against that which resonates on your eardrums.
That's a minor sound when I do it if I understand correctly. Audible but light. I can flex the muscles in my jaw/tongue as one would to attempt to pop ears, but pushing out from the back of the mouth and pulling my jaw backwards. I think it slightly restricts blood flow and makes it turbulent past the ear. Sounds like pulsar tinnitus (probably not relatable) but constant as long as I hold it.
I think some people just do the "water lock" thing to close their jaw off naturally to try and stop a yawn, and that's how they "discover" they can do it.
Ooh, I can make a little rumble thunder happen if I do that! But why would anyone want to? And weirdly, just yawning doesn't really do it, but squeezing the eyes while yawning does. Huh.
A compound word that enters another language via direct translation of its parts.
As an example, "loanword" comes from German "Lehnwort", with Lehn = loan and Wort = word.
Grostesques are mythical or fantastical creatures carved into the sides of building. If they have been designed to drain water away from the building, they are called gargoyles .
For 27 years I have been singing this as "at least it settles in a _fun_location", like "you guys may get the sun rise but of course it wants to settle down in California" and I thought that was such a clever line.
The Hawaiian Island chain is a lot bigger than most realize and stretch for miles and miles but the Alaskan Island chain actually goes over the International Date Line. That is what makes it the “eastern” most state.
Fun fact 1: Polish people are honoraribly black after they fought alongside the Haitians against the French (they switched sides as the only reason they were there was because France sent them there)
Fun fact 2: Alaska was almost purchased by Lichtenstein
Fun fact 3: Singapore was given independence against their own wishes
Fun fact 4: Abraham Lincoln read some of the works of Karl Marx as he wrote for his favorite newspaper
The definition of a second is the time it takes for a caesium-133 atom to fluctuate between its two hyperfine ground state 9,192,631,770 times (I did not look the number up).
I can’t 100% give you facts. I just go off of the rough estimate of fossil records for both mammoth and sabertooth tigers roughly and this is just a random thing I like to tell people when I was younger to kind of blow their mind.
Another really good random “did you know” When the battle of Little Bighorn, a.k.a. custard‘s last stand happened the Brooklyn Bridge was just being completed in New York, and there were Native Americans who fought in the battle who were still alive to see Neil Armstrong step on the Moon so in the span of one lifetime we went from custard‘s last stand to one giant leap for all mankind.
Are you this person who, at the family gathering, will loudly decline words in a long dead language they forced you to learn 50 years ago, just to call it useful?
There are several rivers in England called the Derwent.
One of them flows into the Ouse in Yorkshire, another flows into the Trent in Derbyshire, both of which later combine to form the Humber estuary, so the Humber has two Derwents in it
Forza Horizon 4 has an awesome open map based on several disparate areas of England and Scotland pushed together. It includes the Derwent Reservoir and damn, which drains into one of the Rivers Derwent, which leads to Derwent Water - none of which are actually connected in real life. I thought that was a neat Easter Egg.
With decimal you have 10 digits 0-9 and each digit place represents a 10^n*digit, binary is 0-1 digits with each digits place represents 2^n*digit. Binary requires fewer digits to memorize than decimal, but more places to represent the same value compared to decimal. If you are trying to find the most efficient base for balancing the number of digits to memorize vs the number of places a value requires to represent you get a graph like this showing the minimum approaching e (~2.718):
That comes into play when you're doing something like picking a base for computer architecture. Almost all computers theses days are binary, but some were base 3 trinary for a bit. But you don't need to pick an integer value and can pick pi or e as a base too. Here's a better write up with an explanation of radix and bases:
In the 5th century AD, Chinese mathematicians approximated π to seven digits, while Indian mathematicians made a five-digit approximation, both using techniques.
So it looks like they were all approximations, but it actually is much longer like I was always taught.
Working only from memory here: Maine is the US state with the least intense sunshine, as measured in W/m². And it is STILL above the European country with the most intense sunshine, Spain.
The Moon is much further than you'd intuitively assume. In fact, you can fit every other planet in the solar system between the Earth and the Moon. At the same time.
Uh, I mean I could probably write a 30 or 40 page manifesto explaining it, but what it boils down to is the main bottleneck in human society is resource management combined with a lack of vision and purpose.
Anything above the level of the family has resources, needs, and uses that are being managed by people that are ultimately too selfish, too greedy, and not interconnected enough to work together.
110 Comments
Deestan@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 151d
If presented with an old 1970-2000 era landline phone, I can call someone by rapidly hanging up in the pattern of their phone number.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 37 pts · 151d
Used to do this in payphones as a kid. The numpads were disabled when no coins were inserted, effectively disabling tone dialing. But pulse dialing still worked.
Deestan@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 151d
I am pretty sure I could do it sans phone and only the handle, by rapidly pulling the plug out of the socket and putting it back in.
Never thought to try it when I had the chance.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 151d
Often the rj-12 handset cabling would not plug directly into the rj-11 jacks. If they did, I'd be surprised to learn they'd work on the wire as-is.
Deestan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 151d
Yeah, you'd have to change the plug.
rmuk@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 150d
In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.
Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.
30p87@feddit.org · 4 pts · 150d
You're welcome to dial into my Modem on which Doom is listening for a connection at 40c3 :3
Ftumch@lemmy.today · 32 pts · 151d
The "brat" in "bratwurst" doesn't come from "braten", which means to fry. It actually comes from the old German word "brät", which means finely chopped meat.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 151d
That's so brät
SWW13@lemmy.brief.guru · 2 pts · 150d
You are telling me Wurstsalat Crew did lie to me?
ascend@lemmy.radio · 30 pts · 151d
Like 15% of people can rumble their ears and make a sound only they can hear
ToaofTime@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 22 pts · 151d
I always just assumed this was a thing anyone could do, Is there some other name for this i can look into?
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 151d
Voluntary control of the tensor tympani muscle.
lemming@anarchist.nexus · 12 pts · 151d
Auto-Earatic Affixation
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 151d
I'm convinced people that "can't" just don't know how.
It's the same movement as closing your throat off so you can open your mouth underwater, and you just push "up" past that till it puts pressure on the eustachian tubes, and the rumble is your muscle fibers contracting against that which resonates on your eardrums.
Anyone can do it, it's just hard to explain
untorquer@quokk.au · 5 pts · 151d
That's a minor sound when I do it if I understand correctly. Audible but light. I can flex the muscles in my jaw/tongue as one would to attempt to pop ears, but pushing out from the back of the mouth and pulling my jaw backwards. I think it slightly restricts blood flow and makes it turbulent past the ear. Sounds like pulsar tinnitus (probably not relatable) but constant as long as I hold it.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 151d
Yeah, that's it.
I think some people just do the "water lock" thing to close their jaw off naturally to try and stop a yawn, and that's how they "discover" they can do it.
Cratermaker@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 150d
That's odd, I can do either of those things independently. Maybe it's just wired that way for some people?
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 151d
It also makes several values in EEG charts go up
ascend@lemmy.radio · 4 pts · 151d
Oh thats interesting, i wonder what causes it, the thinking of doing it or actually doing it
tetrachromacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 151d
Mine sounds like a snare drum.
lalah@sakurajima.moe · 2 pts · 151d
@ascend it's easier for me to do when I squeeze my eyes shut and yawn. I don't know why
ChexMax@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 151d
Ooh, I can make a little rumble thunder happen if I do that! But why would anyone want to? And weirdly, just yawning doesn't really do it, but squeezing the eyes while yawning does. Huh.
MarieMarion@literature.cafe · 1 pts · 150d
I often do it to dampen unpleasant noises. Car alarm? Siren? I make my ears go Frrrrrrrrrrrr. It helps a lot.
mech@feddit.org · 30 pts · 151d
"Loanword" is a calque, and "calque" is a loanword.
buffing_lecturer@leminal.space · 3 pts · 151d
Whats a calque
jdr@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 151d
It's a loanword from the French "calque"
mech@feddit.org · 5 pts · 150d
A compound word that enters another language via direct translation of its parts.
As an example, "loanword" comes from German "Lehnwort", with Lehn = loan and Wort = word.
Espitemophiliac@piefed.ca · 26 pts · 151d
Grostesques are mythical or fantastical creatures carved into the sides of building. If they have been designed to drain water away from the building, they are called gargoyles .
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 151d
That's not useless! I'm totally using this to impress someone, someday.
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 151d
The English horn is neither English nor a horn.
nikosey@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 151d
rats can't vomit
flamingos are pink due to diet. otherwise they'd be grey
jdr@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 151d
If they didn't diet they'd be fat and fall over
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu · 5 pts · 150d
This is also the reason they sleep with one leg up. If they raised both, they'd fall.
Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 151d
An electric eel is not an eel.
A mountain goat is not a goat.
A maned wolf is not a wolf.
A mountain chicken is not a chicken.
Also, there is an animal called the Headless Chicken Fish.
MunkyNutts@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 151d
Rocky Mountain oysters are not oysters
northernlights@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 151d
I'd argue that's a useful thing to know.
P1nkman@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 151d
Let me guess; it's a species of antelope.
slazer2au@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 151d
A koala is not a bear.
It is a marsupial which is a different branch of the mammal tree.
jdr@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 151d
Toilet duck is not a duck
Spanish fly is not a fly
Spruce goose is not a goose
Capitalist pig is not a pig
cattywampas@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 151d
None, because knowledge and the search for it is an end unto itself, so all facts are useful to learn and know.
Ftumch@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 151d
Fair enough, but what is the least useful fact you know?
Railcar8095@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 151d
My newly least useful fact is that knowledge and the search for it is an end unto itself, so all facts are useful to learn and know.
Qzr@programming.dev · 13 pts · 151d
The sun will explode. Eventually. Interesting and fascinating, yes. Useful? Nope.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 151d
One of the people that worked in Turkish translation of the "alice in wonderland" for Zambak magazine has the cool birthday "January 1st, 1969."
DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 150d
Damn that's useless! Also, nice!
Monster96@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 151d
The synths that were used in the first doom reboot's music were made from samples of an actual chainsaw running.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 151d
Alaska is the eastern most state of the USA.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 151d
Yeah, but it settles in its final location to the south...
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 151d
I am not sure what that means. Does that mean it is also the southern most state?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 151d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlUKcNNmywk
The joke being if Alaska is "The east" it's where the sun rises, then goes 99% around the planet to Cali
flubba86@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
Pretty sure it's "a finer location".
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 150d
Probably.
I hate how unreliable lyrics website have become.
Used to be some random human bothered copying it from the CD insert, now it's automated closed captioning half the time.
Espitemophiliac@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 151d
For 27 years I have been singing this as "at least it settles in a _fun_location", like "you guys may get the sun rise but of course it wants to settle down in California" and I thought that was such a clever line.
Now I don't know how to feel.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 151d
A lot of 90s music sounds deep because we attribute meaning to it and our memories of the times...
Then you see the lyrics and nope, it was just the heroin
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 150d
Canada is simultaneously to the north, south, east and west of the US.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 150d
That is awesome!
Staff@piefed.world · 1 pts · 151d
What about Hawaii?
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 151d
The Hawaiian Island chain is a lot bigger than most realize and stretch for miles and miles but the Alaskan Island chain actually goes over the International Date Line. That is what makes it the “eastern” most state.
rmuk@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 150d
kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 151d
Fun fact 1: Polish people are honoraribly black after they fought alongside the Haitians against the French (they switched sides as the only reason they were there was because France sent them there)
Fun fact 2: Alaska was almost purchased by Lichtenstein
Fun fact 3: Singapore was given independence against their own wishes
Fun fact 4: Abraham Lincoln read some of the works of Karl Marx as he wrote for his favorite newspaper
sploder@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 150d
The dog that played specks girlfriend in Pee Wees big adventure is also the same dog that played precious in silence of the lambs.
Crackhappy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
The guy who played Cowboy Curtis on PeeWees playhouse also played Morpheus in the Matrix.
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 150d
This feels like one of those fun facts that theatres would have on screen with cheesy background music if you showed up to a movie too early
18107@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 151d
If you put enough energy in one place it will cause a black hole. This type of black hole is called a Kugelblitz.
Current graphics cards do not yet use enough energy to worry about a kugelblitz occurring in the 12-pin connector.
ieGod@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 150d
This is the most interesting new fact I've learned today.
VonReposti@feddit.dk · 9 pts · 150d
The definition of a second is the time it takes for a caesium-133 atom to fluctuate between its two hyperfine ground state 9,192,631,770 times (I did not look the number up).
7uWqKj@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 150d
Congrats 😃👍 btw in that time light in vacuum will travel 299,792,458 metres (didn’t look that up either)
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 151d
when the great pyramids were being built, there were still mammoths and sabertooth tigers walking the earth.
7uWqKj@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 150d
and Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landings than to the building of the pyramids
Machinist@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 150d
I knew about the relict popularion of mammoths that was still around. Wasn't aware of the tigers. Can you please tell me more?
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 150d
I can’t 100% give you facts. I just go off of the rough estimate of fossil records for both mammoth and sabertooth tigers roughly and this is just a random thing I like to tell people when I was younger to kind of blow their mind.
Machinist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
It's f'in neato. I'll be looking into it.
WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
Another really good random “did you know” When the battle of Little Bighorn, a.k.a. custard‘s last stand happened the Brooklyn Bridge was just being completed in New York, and there were Native Americans who fought in the battle who were still alive to see Neil Armstrong step on the Moon so in the span of one lifetime we went from custard‘s last stand to one giant leap for all mankind.
markz@suppo.fi · 8 pts · 151d
But wouldn't it be useful if I can use it here?
matsdis@piefed.social · 3 pts · 151d
Are you this person who, at the family gathering, will loudly decline words in a long dead language they forced you to learn 50 years ago, just to call it useful?
CelloMike@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 151d
There are several rivers in England called the Derwent.
One of them flows into the Ouse in Yorkshire, another flows into the Trent in Derbyshire, both of which later combine to form the Humber estuary, so the Humber has two Derwents in it
rmuk@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 150d
Forza Horizon 4 has an awesome open map based on several disparate areas of England and Scotland pushed together. It includes the Derwent Reservoir and damn, which drains into one of the Rivers Derwent, which leads to Derwent Water - none of which are actually connected in real life. I thought that was a neat Easter Egg.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 150d
Television is one of the few words combined by one greek part and one latin part.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 151d
Nipples can't operate heavy machinery.
FanciestPants@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 150d
Not with that attitude
orlyowl@piefed.ca · 6 pts · 151d
Cheese is unhealthy for mice.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 151d
Especially when attached to mousetraps.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 151d
I am like 90% sure mice are immune to unhealthy.
Sunsofold@lemmings.world · 6 pts · 151d
This is true.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 151d
This statement is false.
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 151d
The most efficient base is the number e
jdr@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 151d
On diesel? With its time management? Efficient how!?
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 150d
With decimal you have 10 digits 0-9 and each digit place represents a 10^n*digit, binary is 0-1 digits with each digits place represents 2^n*digit. Binary requires fewer digits to memorize than decimal, but more places to represent the same value compared to decimal. If you are trying to find the most efficient base for balancing the number of digits to memorize vs the number of places a value requires to represent you get a graph like this showing the minimum approaching e (~2.718):
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=beta%2Flog%28beta%29+from+1.5+to+5
And the derivative approaching e:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=derivative+beta%2Flog%28beta%29
That comes into play when you're doing something like picking a base for computer architecture. Almost all computers theses days are binary, but some were base 3 trinary for a bit. But you don't need to pick an integer value and can pick pi or e as a base too. Here's a better write up with an explanation of radix and bases:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160324100419/http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2001/11/third-base/2
ikidd@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 150d
Wombats shit is cubic.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 151d
I am currently naked.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 4 pts · 151d
me2
SaraTonin@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 150d
The sun accounts for more than 99.99% of the mass of the solar system
daannii@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 151d
Snakes have two penises. Or at least pythons do.
rmuk@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 150d
For all our differences we still have so much in common.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 151d
The PC I had as a teenager had teal trim.
fubarx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 151d
That REAL Pi actually ends at 7 digits. Discovered by a greengrocer named Dennis.
There's been an easy say to calculate it since 1800s using an abacus.
Edit: thought the /s was implied with, you know, "Dennis." I knew I should have gone with "Humperdink."
WindyRebel@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
I would like to learn more about this. Wiki says:
So it looks like they were all approximations, but it actually is much longer like I was always taught.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 150d
What makes it "real"? Pi is an irrational number, by definition it doesn't end
bdonvr@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 151d
The closest US state to Africa is Maine
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 151d
Working only from memory here: Maine is the US state with the least intense sunshine, as measured in W/m². And it is STILL above the European country with the most intense sunshine, Spain.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 151d
The Moon is much further than you'd intuitively assume. In fact, you can fit every other planet in the solar system between the Earth and the Moon. At the same time.
enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 151d
the fact that it is useless
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 150d
Physiologically, rats can't vomit. (Not to brag or anything, but I also know somebody who claims they saw it happen once)
stringere@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 150d
A sperm whale penis is 14 feet long.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 151d
I know how to fix the entire world.
Everything flawlessly. Human satisfaction at all time highs.
So much so that the largest problem that humanity would face is the ennui of not knowing what to do with itself.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 151d
As to why this is a useless fact:
Even if I'm 100% correct, nobody wants to hear it.
No one will work with me to accomplish these things.
All this knowledge does is add misery to my own life, knowing that I could make things better if only.
davidgro@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 150d
Ok, I'll bite. What's the quick summary of your idea?
Of course I'm skeptical, I think there must be at least one major issue keeping it from having happened already, but also curious.
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 150d
Uh, I mean I could probably write a 30 or 40 page manifesto explaining it, but what it boils down to is the main bottleneck in human society is resource management combined with a lack of vision and purpose.
Anything above the level of the family has resources, needs, and uses that are being managed by people that are ultimately too selfish, too greedy, and not interconnected enough to work together.
davidgro@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 150d
Sure, but what do you propose to manage said resources?
So far planned economies haven't gone well in practice. (Not that the unplanned type is great either)
bizarroland@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 150d
Like I said, it would take a manifesto to explain it.