Somewhat Useful Facts Thread

[Senator]

Today's useful fact is Phillip Stark. Phillip Stark is a kind of famous product designer, mainly known for having made this juicer:



On the other hand, he is rather less famous, for having made this Teddy Bear as well:



I cannot fathom why...

[Senator]

From "The Metropolis of Tommorow", Hugh Ferris

1929





Art Deco Awesomeness!

[Senator]

Fact: State 6 is a site like youtube, with much fewer videos of cource, but very nice quality.
http://www.stage6.com/2007-Films/video/1760758/Tale-of-Rock

[Senator]

"How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries."
Executed in electric chair in Oklahoma.
~~ James French, d. 1966

[Senator]

"Cherenkov Radiation
If you see this in the air, the good news is you can probably live long enough write your last will and testament.
If you write very quickly".

[Senator]

Steganography is an encyption technique where messages can be hidden inside the data of pictures.

This way, someone could, for some excuse, be posting pictures after pictures in a forum thread coordinating intelligence operations passing on plans etc, and by reading say a thread in another forum get replies, right under your nose.
And then one day just post a trigger phase like "the red queen has broken the mirror" give the order for the operation to begin.

[Weasel]

"Cherenkov Radiation
If you see this in the air, the good news is you can probably live long enough write your last will and testament.
If you write very quickly".

That's a cool pic. I have actually seen the effect first-hand, through a port hole of armored glass. It seemed more of a greenish hue, but I think that was because the glass itself had a slightly yellowish tint.

[William T. Riker]

I don't think it is possible to see that in the air.

[Weasel]

I think it depends whether or not the medium that the photons are passing through, are significantly slowed to less than C, IIRC. Passing through water, the particles are slowed to .75 C, and are therefore visible. In my case, the effect was visible because the medium in the reactor vessel was cooling water.

My understanding is that should the Earth ever be hit by a beam from a neutron star, the sky would glow green due to the reaction with the ionosphere, or something to that effect. And then, if we saw that glow, we'd indeed have very little time to describe it on paper before we died from acute radiation poisoning.
 

[Senator]

Cherenkov Radiation comes from particles going faster than the speed of light in a medium, it is the equivalent of a sonic boom but for light, a photon boom. I don't know if you can see the one from a nuclear reactor specifically in the air (my dad always told me never to lower the cooling liquid of active nuclear reactors) but if you do see it, then this generally means that there are a lot of particles around you going faster than light does inside air. Which is probably bad.

In addition, even if the one from a nuclear reactor specifically wasn't seen on air, it would be emitted once it entered the next best water like substance, in this case your eye so you would end up "seeing it" one way or the other.
I believe this is the case with flashes astronauts report seeing when in space, caused by high energy cosmic radiation particles.

[Armondikov]

I assume this isn't about light breaking c, just breaking the speed in the particular medium?

[Weasel]

I believe this is the case with flashes astronauts report seeing when in space, caused by high energy cosmic radiation particles.

You're not confusing that with the plasma that forms around a vehicle during re-entry? Or am I?

[William T. Riker]

Cherenkov Radiation comes from particles going faster than the speed of light in a medium...

Yes, that's what I remembered as well.

I believe this is the case with flashes astronauts report seeing when in space, caused by high energy cosmic radiation particles.

You're not confusing that with the plasma that forms around a vehicle during re-entry? Or am I?

I think Senator was referring to the glow inside the astronauts eyes when the fluid in the eyes is strucked by charged particles from a solar flare.

[Senator]

In case you don't know: 1 = 0.999999999?

[MLeo]

Random trivia: In floating point numbers on computers there are instances of N where N == N - 1

[limey BSc.]

Random trivia: In floating point numbers on computers there are instances of N where N == N - 1

Surely the only time when N = N - 1 is when N = infinity? I am of course only speaking of N as a mathematical number, not as a computer variable being overwritten by a number 1 less than itself.

[MLeo]

Well, the one isn't certain, and I'm meaning equals instead of assign.
The one could be smaller, "epsilon" comes to mind, ie. the smallest representable number.
So 9999 - epsilon == 9999

[Senator]

No it doesn't. The logic behind that arguament is flawed.

1/3 =/= 0.33333333

However if 1/3 is not 0.333... then what is it?

[MLeo]

You know Weasel, I actually agree with you there.

A quote you may almost certainly have heard here (yes, this is my trivia mind at work here, I always like to say: My mind works in mysterious ways, remembering things I don't have to remember, but forgettings things I would like to remember, ie. French/German/Dutch....).

'Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.'  -Rich Cook

Oh, another one of my favourite quotes:
'Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.' -Confucius

And this is one I think I may have invented myself:
'If someone tells you he knows everything, then he must have forgotten that he can't know everything.'

[MLeo]

0.3333333...33333 is a simplifications for those who don't "accept" 1/3 and move on.
People like my little sister who, for the moment, can't wrap her head around the concept of 1/3.

I know I couldn't (at first, same with the number i). And I'm fairly more suited for maths, than say, language.