Even More Things I Did Not Know
- Science has brought us a permanent, but easily-removable, tattooing ink. Does this change the metatext of tattooing? I mean, the pain is still there, but if the permanence isn’t part of the subtext anymore, what does that mean for the story? Is it to obvious to predict the rise of a serial-tattooing culture, or a rift between the permanents and the “freedoms”?
- 100-foot beer fermentation tanks sometimes just wash up on shore. With the mystery numbers on the side, this could easily have been a really advanced form of viral advertising for LOST, or something similar.
- It is, apparently, harder to sleep in places with good GSM coverage. I wonder if this means that humans actually have a sixth sense for parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can’t perceive visually?
- 2007 was the weirdest weather year on record. I’m not surprised–put more energy in, get more weirdness out–but I didn’t know it was a matter of record.
- I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t know the reason why i and j are the most commonly used loop counter variable names–it threatens my geek cred. In my defense, I never wrote any Fortran programs. I bet my rocket scientist pal would have known this.
- I did know that “Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill”, “Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others”, and “Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy”. In fact, these facts are kind of the plague of my professional existence (and, the root cause of my most secret career fears). I did not know that there was scientific proof of this set of facts, or that together they constituted a thing with a name.
- That whole “turn the other cheek” thing apparently has a whole different interpretation in the Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches. Incidentally, I love the idea of priests drawing a line down the middle of the floor and then getting into fights over it, like a pair of siblings forced to share a bedroom, or a back seat.
- The web has reached the level of ubiquity where even things like the annual Wonderboy competition has an interactive online CMS. Of course, given the HGPA site, I probably shouldn’t talk.
- J. Edgar Hoover, making use of the full resources of the FBI, spent 22 years trying to get Einstein arrested as a subversive or spy. I knew about all kinds of other shenanigans that Hoover got up to–indeed the history of the FBI is a large part of the reason why I am so firmly in favour of open, judicial oversight of police powers–but not this one.
- It is possible to make a burger entirely of bacon. Apparently it’s a bit salty.
- In a loose hold’em game, the value of suited hands goes up because they are precisely the types of hands which will benefit from implicit collusion. Not that I know where to find a loose hold’em game.
- You can’t just buy Sudafed in the States. Really. And it might be a conspiracy.
- Doorknobs are an endangered species. Why do I still have doorknobs? Sometimes it seems like life is just a series of “not only was I taking that for granted, but I didn’t even realize there was something to take for granted” moments.
- For a “pocket” digital camera, a 6 megapixel camera might just take much better pictures than a 12 megapixel one. Since I’m still using a 3 megapixel one, this is a theoretical point for me now. However, my gadget geek side is thinking my upcoming trip to Australia is a good excuse for a new camera, so it might suddenly become relevant.
- Belphegor is a demon who helps people to make discoveries. Can I get a medallion of him to go along with my namesake?
- In Catalonia the traditional nativity scene often includes a hidden character who is… um… defecating. That is one weird Christmas “where’s Waldo” game right there.
- Apparently there was once a use for Lysol which I was completely ignorant of… and I wish I could go back to being ignorant. Seriously, I’d like to sanitize my brain. Not with Lysol.
- Squirrels have no soul.
- Joss Whedon did an online comic with Fabio Moon. It’s pretty funny. Part one, part two, part three.
- You can download a lovely performance of Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
