xkcd

by **OBrien** » Tue May 08, 2012 10:32 pm UTC

TIL just how messed up Peter Green was. Poor guy.

by **SurgicalSteel** » Tue May 08, 2012 11:03 pm UTC

SlyReaper wrote:
SurgicalSteel wrote:
SlyReaper wrote:Today I Learned: how to cook sausages and bacon. You might think this is a very basic skill everyone should have, but I had never tried it. But I've tried it and so far have not died from food poisoning, so I'm calling it a success.

I expect my general level of health to deteriorate from now on.
From context, I'm guessing you mean those little breakfast sausages? If by chance you mean the larger sausages of the italian, polish or spanish variety, could you share your recipe for success? I've never had much luck with those except on a barbeque, and I'm not allowed to barbeque at my apartment anymore.

I haven't the foggiest idea what a "breakfast" sausage is. These were normal sausages consumed at meals that weren't breakfast. They were Cumbria sausages if I recall, so no they weren't Spanish, Italian or Polish.

Sorry, to me breakfast sausage is these little guys:

as opposed to this (italian)

or this (polish)

or this (spanish)

I also didn't mean italian, polish or spanish to be an exhaustive list of larger sausages, but rather examples to differentiate them from the (in my experience) smaller breakfast sausages.

I also think I phrased my not being allowed to barbeque poorly. All that happened was that I moved from an apartment building that allowed barbeques to one that didn't. But thanks for the tips Argon, I'll try those next time.

by **Ephemeron** » Tue May 08, 2012 11:14 pm UTC

Today I learned:

River is more popular as a boy's name than it is as a girl's name.

As a fan of both Doctor Who and Firefly, I am shocked.

by **bluebambue** » Tue May 08, 2012 11:14 pm UTC

In addition to the type of breakfast sausage shown by SurgicalSteel, I also consider the following to be breakfast sausage:

Neither of these have skin on them.

by **The Scyphozoa** » Tue May 08, 2012 11:19 pm UTC

Ephemeron wrote:Today I learned:

River is more popular as a boy's name than it is as a girl's name.

As a fan of both Doctor Who and Firefly, I am shocked.

Yup, I have a male cousin named River. Also, he has a sister named Rylan, and she was born shortly before I met a man named Rylan.

I guess their parents are fans of gender-neutral names.

by **TimelordSimone** » Tue May 08, 2012 11:26 pm UTC

Of course,
(year old Doctor Who spoilers I guess)

Spoiler:

by **emceng** » Thu May 10, 2012 12:49 pm UTC

I have learned, or I am making the executive decision: no whiskey before naked sexy times. Just not the best idea.

by **tastelikecoke** » Thu May 10, 2012 3:28 pm UTC

bluebambue wrote:In addition to the type of breakfast sausage shown by SurgicalSteel, I also consider the following to be breakfast sausage:

I bet it's the flavor and taste that differentiates it? (or you really just call patties sausages?)

by **Jave D** » Thu May 10, 2012 4:22 pm UTC

I'm not as funny as I think I am, and I'm funnier than I think I am.

by **Ptolom** » Thu May 10, 2012 4:38 pm UTC

OBrien wrote:TIL just how messed up Peter Green was. Poor guy.

Did you see the BBC documentary about him? It seems he has come to a reasonably happy ending though.

by **thorgold** » Thu May 10, 2012 5:48 pm UTC

TIL: when the test proctor says you should use the. Real to use the bathroom during an AP test, you should use the bathroom. Calculus is hard enough, with a full bladder it's nearly impossible.

by **Shivahn** » Thu May 10, 2012 10:14 pm UTC

Today I learned that DEA stands for "Drug Enforcement Administration."

I always thought it was the Drug Enforcement Agency.

by **broken_escalator** » Fri May 11, 2012 9:41 pm UTC

TIL what the hairy balls theorem is.
When you try to comb a hairy ball, you cannot comb it perfectly flat; Somewhere hair will stick out.

by **tastelikecoke** » Sat May 12, 2012 3:36 pm UTC

broken_escalator wrote:TIL what the hairy balls theorem is.
When you try to comb a hairy ball, you cannot comb it perfectly flat; Somewhere hair will stick out.

TIL what everything else that minutephysics youtube channel tried to teach.

also, sometimes the minutephysics videos don't teach anything, which is a valuable lesson.

by **broken_escalator** » Sun May 13, 2012 2:20 am UTC

When they don't teach you anything, they actually teach you about yourself! :shock:

by **Hofstadter'sLaw** » Sun May 13, 2012 3:49 am UTC

tastelikecoke wrote:
broken_escalator wrote:TIL what the hairy balls theorem is.
When you try to comb a hairy ball, you cannot comb it perfectly flat; Somewhere hair will stick out.

TIL what everything else that minutephysics youtube channel tried to teach.

TIL that some infinities really are bigger than other infinities.

Cool YouTube channel.

by **ahammel** » Mon May 14, 2012 3:12 am UTC

Today I learned that the xkcd fora are perfectly usable with lynx. The only functionality I miss is the spoiler button (no reading the mafia game discussion thread for me

). Also I don't get a separator for the signatures, which can be confusing. But aside from that it's fine.

Thanks, broken Xorg!

by **Dr. Diaphanous** » Wed May 16, 2012 9:54 am UTC

TIL that every page in the forums has 40 posts (except the last page in each topic ofc)

by **bigglesworth** » Wed May 16, 2012 11:21 am UTC

e^iπ+1=0 wrote:I could still do with a decent way to write rho.

I tend to leave a little bit of a line sticking up on p but not on rho.

by **jianmin** » Wed May 16, 2012 3:13 pm UTC

TIL that subsilver2 is a much nicer theme on the fora than the default prosilver.

by **TheGrammarBolshevik** » Wed May 16, 2012 4:54 pm UTC

Your opinion is wrong.

by **jianmin** » Wed May 16, 2012 8:04 pm UTC

When I first tried it, I liked the xkcd logo instead of the pixelated echochamber graphic. It seemed cleaner at first. But everything is moved around and annoying. I changed it back shortly after my last post. xD

by **roband** » Wed May 16, 2012 10:18 pm UTC

TheGrammarBolshevik wrote:Your opinion is wrong.

jianmin wrote:When I first tried it, I liked the xkcd logo instead of the pixelated echochamber graphic. It seemed cleaner at first. But everything is moved around and annoying. I changed it back shortly after my last post. xD

TGB is a fucking Jedi....

by **Kithplana** » Thu May 17, 2012 4:19 am UTC

TIL that fingernails are no protection against the penetrative force of pointy solder points on the bottom of a circuit board.

by **The Scyphozoa** » Thu May 17, 2012 6:55 pm UTC

Fuck you, sympathy pains. I guess I should just stop going on the Internet if I want to avoid stuff like that.

by **Ephemeron** » Fri May 18, 2012 12:45 am UTC

Today I learned that less babies are born in the few days surrounding Christmas, and the birth rate picks up immediately after to compensate. See this infographic.

by **Microscopic cog** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:54 am UTC

Weird how there are so many born in the summer and autumn, meaning that most people have sex in the winter and spring. I' expected more sex in the summer and then more babies during the spring.

by **yurell** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:56 am UTC

People cuddling up during the winter cold, especially when much of the time is spent indoors would be my guess.

by **bigglesworth** » Fri May 18, 2012 10:13 am UTC

Family planning: something that I think is a lot more common than most people commenting on this think. In the UK loads of babies are born in September, the start of most school years, in order that they might be among the oldest in their year and are thus not disadvantaged by missing out on development time beforehand.

by **jobriath** » Fri May 18, 2012 11:17 am UTC

bigglesworth wrote:Family planning: something that I think is a lot more common than most people commenting on this think. In the UK loads of babies are born in September, the start of most school years, in order that they might be among the oldest in their year and are thus not disadvantaged by missing out on development time beforehand.

It's funny you should mention that. I'm was among the youngest in my year and I vaguely planned to have my kids be the same. Reason being they spend less time in school. Perhaps if your target school would give a worthwhile experience the equation changes... Hm! I hadn't thought to update that thought.

by **Krealr** » Fri May 18, 2012 3:04 pm UTC

yurell wrote:People cuddling up during the winter cold, especially when much of the time is spent indoors would be my guess.

There are a whole bunch of people with birthdays very close to my wife's in her hometown. About 9 months before she was born there was a big ice storm that pretty much shut down the city for a week. All those people cooped up with nothing else to do. :mrgreen:

by **SecondTalon** » Fri May 18, 2012 3:19 pm UTC

jobriath wrote:
bigglesworth wrote:Family planning: something that I think is a lot more common than most people commenting on this think. In the UK loads of babies are born in September, the start of most school years, in order that they might be among the oldest in their year and are thus not disadvantaged by missing out on development time beforehand.

It's funny you should mention that. I'm was among the youngest in my year and I vaguely planned to have my kids be the same. Reason being they spend less time in school. Perhaps if your target school would give a worthwhile experience the equation changes... Hm! I hadn't thought to update that thought.

....wait, how does that work?

Krealr wrote:
yurell wrote:People cuddling up during the winter cold, especially when much of the time is spent indoors would be my guess.

There are a whole bunch of people with birthdays very close to my wife's in her hometown. About 9 months before she was born there was a big ice storm that pretty much shut down the city for a week. All those people cooped up with nothing else to do.

Not to spoil your wife's story, but..there's no real proof for that. Anywhere. Ever.

by **Роберт** » Fri May 18, 2012 3:34 pm UTC

SexyTalon wrote:Not to spoil your wife's story, but..there's no real proof for that. Anywhere. Ever.

From the link:

A 2005 study of birth rates following the Oklahoma City bombing looked at 10 years of data and found that the counties closest to the site had indeed experienced higher than expected numbers of births after the attack.

[Richard Evans] and his colleagues looked at hurricane-prone counties on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and compared birth rates that came nine months after the announcement of impending storms.

They found that while the rates went up after the mildest expected disruption (a tropical storm watch) they went down after the most serious (a hurricane warning).

"For low-level catastrophes … you're indoors. The electricity is out. You've got nothing else to do, so you have increased sexuality," Evans said. "But with something severe, you can't make babies if you're running for your life."

He said that for a blizzard, which he equated to a tropical storm watch, he would expect about a 2 percent bump in births — a tot windfall that would come from people like Amanda Jurgovan.

by **SecondTalon** » Fri May 18, 2012 3:44 pm UTC

It spoils the fun if you read the article.

by **JudeMorrigan** » Fri May 18, 2012 8:21 pm UTC

bigglesworth wrote:Family planning: something that I think is a lot more common than most people commenting on this think. In the UK loads of babies are born in September, the start of most school years, in order that they might be among the oldest in their year and are thus not disadvantaged by missing out on development time beforehand.

Hmm. I'd always assumed the glut of people I know with early September birthdays (I'm one myself) had more to do with its being about nine months after New Years. At least in the U.S., trying to time it like that so their children would be among the oldest in their year could easily backfire. I wound up on the other side of the local dividing line and wound up being one of the youngest in my year.

by **e^iπ+1=0** » Tue May 22, 2012 3:36 pm UTC

Today I learned there's a British phrase "keep your pecker up" and it has nothing to do with genitalia.

by **Whelan** » Tue May 22, 2012 9:15 pm UTC

There is? Well I'll be blowed.

by **SlyReaper** » Wed May 23, 2012 12:10 pm UTC

e^iπ+1=0 wrote:Today I learned there's a British phrase "keep your pecker up" and it has nothing to do with genitalia.

I have never heard this phrase.

TIL: the word orangutan means people of the forest. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they're orange.

by **broken_escalator** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:36 pm UTC

Whelan wrote:There is? Well I'll be blowed.

Read that in this voice:

Spoiler:

by **yurell** » Sat May 26, 2012 2:41 pm UTC

TIL that I Vow to Thee my Country has three verses (we only ever sung the first and last at school, even when we performed at the Shrine of Remembrance for Anzac Day).

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