Interesting Stuff You Saw on the I-net Today

[crp]

some things have meanings - 

[abarbarian]

Watch an alternative " I Love Lucy"  

 

Quote

NASA will provide coverage of upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for Lucy, the agency’s first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. 

Lucy is scheduled to launch no earlier than 5:34 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 16, on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Live launch coverage will begin at 5 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA will hold a prelaunch briefing Wednesday, Oct. 13, and science and engineering briefings Oct. 14.

 

 

[sunrat]

[zlim]

Apparently the above has been circulating for a few years

https://www.truthorfiction.com/100-year-old-rhododendron-and-the-woman-who-planted-it/

[sunrat]

41 minutes ago, zlim said:

Apparently the above has been circulating for a few years

https://www.truthorfiction.com/100-year-old-rhododendron-and-the-woman-who-planted-it/

Nice rhododendron anyway. I saw several beautiful ones on my walk today as it's prime flowering time for them here. Not that big though!

[crp]

close call, i think i would have freaked out.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/meteorite-crashes-into-womans-bedroom-golden-bc-1.6207904

 

[ebrke]

On 10/11/2021 at 11:00 AM, sunrat said:

Nice rhododendron anyway.

I have a big old rhododendron in my yard. I think it's probably going on 35-40 years old--nothing near 100 though!

[abarbarian]

Chinese tombs yield earliest evidence of cannabis use

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Researchers have uncovered the earliest known evidence of cannabis use, from tombs in western China.
The study suggests cannabis was being smoked at least 2,500 years ago, and that it may have been associated with ritual or religious activities.
Traces of the drug were identified in wooden burners from the burials.
The cannabis had high levels of the psychoactive compound THC, suggesting people at the time were well aware of its effects.
Cannabis plants have been cultivated in East Asia for their oily seeds and fibre from at least 4,000 BC.

 

'Cannabis burned during worship' by ancient Israelites - study

 

Quote

Ancient Israelites burned cannabis as part of their religious rituals, an archaeological study has found.
A well-preserved substance found in a 2,700-year-old temple in Tel Arad has been identified as cannabis, including its psychoactive compound THC.
Researchers concluded that cannabis may have been burned in order to induce a high among worshippers.

 

 

[sunrat]

Good to see traditions from milleniums ago still being followed today.

[abarbarian]

World's first Western movie 'filmed in Blackburn'

 

Hardly surprising every one I grew up with played cowboys and indians.

 

 

Quote

 

Forget Hollywood - the world's first Western was shot in the countryside of Lancashire, new research has suggested.

Kidnapping By Indians was filmed in 1899, four years before The Great Train Robbery, which until now was widely seen as the genre's first film.

 

Quote

It follows the plot of a young girl being kidnapped by native Americans before being rescued in a gunfight.

Shot in fields close to Blackburn, the producers used local actors, including some made up as native Americans in a way that might seem unpalatable in the 21st Century but would have been regarded differently at the time.

 

Quote

Bryony Dixon, a curator of early film at the BFI, said a strong case could be made for the significance of Kidnapping By Indians.

She said the storyline of a white girl being kidnapped by Indians was an essential theme and was present in the Last of the Mohicans novels and many other Wild West productions.

"It has native American Indians and it is a fiction-drama with many Western tropes," Ms Dixon said.

"It doesn't have all of the elements of a Western but then again neither does The Great Train Robbery."

 

[sunrat]

Food for thought. The linked article at Forbes is well worth reading.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/11/07/1853246/will-self-driving-cars-be-able-to-handle-bears

 

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A second question is whether the bears might figure out how to communicate with the AI driving system. You know, bears are pretty sharp. Perhaps a truly enterprising bear could convince the AI to take the bear for a cozy ride while inside the self-driving car.

Don't be especially surprised if you start to see bears riding around in self-driving cars.

And please remember, you heard about it here, first.

 

[abarbarian]

On 11/8/2021 at 1:14 AM, sunrat said:

Food for thought. The linked article at Forbes is well worth reading.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/11/07/1853246/will-self-driving-cars-be-able-to-handle-bears

 

 

 

Won't be a problem over here in the UK as we do not have native bears roaming around.

[abarbarian]

The World Through a Lens

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With travel restrictions in place worldwide, we’re turning to photojournalists who can help transport you, virtually, to some of our planet’s most beautiful and intriguing places.

This is well worth a peek at. There are a ton of different sets of photographs. A neat way to while away a few minutes every now and again.

 

I liked this set. I have wanted to visit the Moscow Metro since I first saw pictures of it back in the early seventies. Makes the london underground and the New York subway look so so tacky and dismal, both of which I saw in the seventies.

 

The Stunning Grandeur of Soviet-Era Metros

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Between 2014 and 2020, Frank Herfort visited more than 770 metro stations in 19 cities, creating a remarkable archive of architectural and artistic splendor.

 

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The Moscow Metro alone, which opened in 1935 and serves as a propagandistic model of Soviet might, has more than 200 stations and spans hundreds of miles.

 

 

cccp-underground-soviet-metro-stations

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by abarbarian

[sunrat]

Appears they don't like you hotlinking. And there's a paywall.

[abarbarian]

An Extraordinary 500-Year-Old Shipwreck Is Rewriting the History of the Age of Discovery

 

Quote

But no example of these carvel-built “ships of discovery,” Iberian or otherwise, had ever been found intact, a deficit Castro describes as “one of the big holes in our puzzle.” Specialists have had to infer their design from artist interpretations and a few surviving miniature models, and had only the murkiest understanding of how this revolutionary technology spread through Europe. 

That was about to change. In 2013, Niklas Eriksson, an archaeologist and expert in medieval ships at Stockholm University, inspected the wreck off Stora Ekon.

 

Quote

Weapons experts are similarly thrilled. Guy Wilson, of the Royal Armories, who specializes in early hand weapons, says that dated examples of crossbows from this period are practically nonexistent. The new find appears to be of a relatively advanced design and will be crucial for understanding the development of this quintessential medieval weapon. In fact, the team seems to have stumbled across what Foley describes as “a small arms locker.” By June, they recover no fewer than four complete crossbows, as well as components from several others, plus numerous wooden arrows, known as quarrels, with their wood, leather or feathered flights intact. The team also recovers the wooden stock from an arquebus, or early handgun, as well as the suggestively carved handle of a “bollock dagger,” popular among sailors and used for penetrating an opponent’s armor. “To have another dated example of European arms technology, 50 years before the Mary Rose”—a warship belonging to Henry VIII that sank in 1545—“is very exciting,” says Wilson. “It’s going to be amazingly important.”

 

One of the most important historical finds made this century and a interesting story.

[crp]

On 11/19/2021 at 2:14 AM, abarbarian said:

An Extraordinary 500-Year-Old Shipwreck Is Rewriting the History of the Age of Discovery

 

 

from one single ship??

[abarbarian]

On 11/22/2021 at 1:23 AM, crp said:

from one single ship??

 

The title of the article is probably a tad over the top. However the find has a whole host of never before seen artefacts including the ship itself that have revealed a great deal of new knowledge about the era.

I though it was a most interesting read.

[amenditman]

History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the ‘Origin of Species’ with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them. Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

[amenditman]

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Does it work that way with whiskey?

[amenditman]

6 minutes ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

Does it work that way with whiskey?

Yes!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Volumetric displacement in conical structures... Physics. It's a wonderful thing.

[zlim]

Being a retired math/maths teacher, I found this article very interesting, especially this by Jason Padgett

Math is literally everything. We are math, and everything that we experience is

 

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/midwest/assaulted-in-robbery-victim-develops-sudden-genius-syndrome/

[V.T. Eric Layton]

We had an interesting discussion on Diaspora a week or so about this topic (math). The question was asked, "Is math man-made, like language, or is it universal?"

 

My answer was that the symbology humans use to understand mathematics are man-made and will cease to be meaningful, like language, should our species go extinct. However, mathematics IS the Universe... at least this particular one that we find ourselves in.

[crp]

our math is manmade. the math of the universe - i'm not convinced one way or another. i'm still waiting to see someones do quantum mechanic numbers and some of the famous numbers like pi in base 8 and base 12.

 

[crp]

some cars are about to be seriously downgraded in resale value -

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2021/12/report-the-end-of-3g-could-leave-your-vehicle-with-fewer-features/

 

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Fortunately for me, I won't have any issues with this on my '82 Chevy Truck or my '96 Chevy Suburban. :)

[sunrat]

2 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

Fortunately for me, I won't have any issues with this on my '82 Chevy Truck or my '96 Chevy Suburban.

Same with my 2008 Ford XR6. Not planning to replace it any time soon, if ever.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

36 minutes ago, sunrat said:

Not planning to replace it any time soon, if ever.

 

Me, neither.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I like to tell folks that the only thing electronic in my '82 when I drive it is the cell phone in my pocket.