Somewhat Useful Facts Thread

[Weasel]

Heh, I did love that show- but no. It was a phrase I heard recently on Discovey Channel's Blue Planet. It is nevertheless true, however.

[MLeo]

I can quite understand why. When you go to the bottom of the sea you are working with so much pressure, while going to the moon gives you hardly any at all. ;)

[Senator]

That's the amount of surface you'd need to cover in Sahara with Solar panels, in order to meet a) The world's energy demants (Welt), b) the EU's energy demants.

[blaXXer]

So, let's get us a nice patch of desert and start building, right?

[captain_obvious]

That'd mean a smeg load of cabling though...VERY heavy duty stuff too....now that stuff costs ;)

sorry, just thinking logistically like I'm paid to do

[MLeo]

Anyone else slightly concerned about the fourth that Europe uses?
Or roughly a third that the US uses? And, comparitively, a mere 0,41666666666666666666666666666667 that the rest of the world uses?

[blaXXer]

Nah, they're just illiterate cavemen to serve as our resource dens, or so I hear from the apologists of capitalism ;)

[Senator]

Meh, attempts at humor, except that in order to do humor, you have to have "charisma". Clinton could do it, Bush can't.
Now let's switch to new targets:

Ok, I suppose it could be a mistake. I often confuse the presidents of Russia and Germany... ok, I never have in my life but still someone could have.
It's not as if he thinks Pakistan and Iraq have a border or something:

Yes okay he does. But look, its not as if it is a war area for a foreign policy advisor to tactically memorize or something.

At least his is knowledgable of Czechoslovakia's relationships with Russia. Don't you just love this authoritative tone? That's a man on to every deal of Russia with its neighbors:

(If only Chezochoslovakia still existed. Which it hasn't for 15 years)

But okay, everyone does one mistake right?

Okay twice.

(in light of which, I can understand why he might think Putin is the president of Germany. If thats the date he is stuck at, Putin as president of the CCCP is of cource the president of Eastern Germany as well)

[JimmyB76]

lol nice

[Senator]

It's the WhiteKnightTwo:

[Kirk]

:lol: Looks like a bad kitbash.

[captain_obvious]

It's the WhiteKnightTwo:

rather special so says the bearded one

[Senator]

...

[Senator]

A cloud is usually composed of 1 gram of water per cubic meter.

This means, that a relatively small cloud, with a volume of about a cubic km, weights about 1 million kg aka 1000 tons, aka about 500 cars.

What saves your head, is that the air around it weights more than that.

Specifically, air's weight changes according to its density, which is thicker the closer to the ground, and less so the more you go up. The height a cloud floats is the height the air below the cloud, is more dense than the cloud itself.

In other words, clouds float for the same reason a piece of wood floats in water. Essentially, then it is as if above us the air is like a sea, on which stuff less dense than it, float. We on the other hand being more dense than air sink at the bottom of it like a rock.

And now you know how crabs feel.

EDIT: Very poetic, but it is actually wrong. Here is the true mechanism: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/science_sky/116567

[Armondikov]

The amount of water inside a cloud is roughly the same as the water outside it (per unit volume). The difference is that the cloud exists in a patch of air where temperature and pressure are such that the air cannot sustain water vapour and liquid droplets form. This process of condensation also requires the presence of a particle to catalyse the condensation, an aerosol. Specifically in this case it's referred to as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).

Various sulphur compounds are good CCN and an increase of them into the atmosphere increases cloud formation. This trick is done in order to break weather systems and dispense with rain early than if the cloud was just to rain out naturally. Suitable compounds are also released by many species of oceanic plankton (and multiple other animals).

Now, he's the important bit of QI: The plankton produce more CCN when its warmer. Therefore, warmer weather means more clouds. However more clouds increases the albedo of the earth. Higher albedo leads to lower temperatures. Lower temperatures means lower rates of metabolism for the plankton which means less CCN, which means less cloud, which means higher temperatures, which means higher metabolism, which means more CCN, which means more cloud, which means lower temperatures...

It's an isolated system and it's unlcear whether it applies to the whole Earth and many other things, but there's some good work gone into it.

[Armondikov]

Did you know that the internet as we know it is only around 5000 days old?

[Senator]

Speaking of crabs...





This is the coconut crab.

Guess why it is called like this, yet it is real and yes it is that big. (It is in fact "the" biggest terrestial crab and yes this means it does just fine on land. In fact it drowns in water)

It is usually found in some tropical islands.

I am very happy that I have this knowledge now because I suspect that if I had gone to a nice tropical island, in a cute beach hut (next to, say, coconut trees), and empirically found out about their existance (eg, wake up with one on the bed) I would have temporarely defacated significant amounts of construction materials.

(Also if one pinches you, you apparently have to tickle its belly to let go)

[lint]

yikes..

[blaXXer]

I think they're way cute

[captain_obvious]

If that thimg pinches you there's no way you'd have a arm left to tickle it with!!!