Share something fascinating with the class

[irene adler]

Share a fact or story that utterly fascinates you.

I was listening to a podcast on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini's friendship and now I can't stop reading about how their bromance was destroyed by séance skepticism.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/peopleevents/pande02.html

[mbcdefg]

Doodles that Charles Darwin's children made on the back of his manuscript for "On the Origin of Species":

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-doodles-darwins-children-made-pages-origin-species-manuscript-180949786/?no-ist

[irene adler]

Did you know that in the 1967 (?) Movie Camelot that the pearls on lady Gueneveres wedding dress are actually pumpkin seeds? I was blown away when I found that out this weekend.

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[irene adler]

Sorry, couldn't post two pictures in the same post.

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[UnderProtest]

This was posted not too long ago, but it didn't get the attention it deserved. Did you know that bone china is actually made of bones? I know it seems like an obvious thing given the name, but it fascinates me.

[WinterWine]

Jan 21, 2015 11:30:27 GMT -5 irene adler said:

Sorry, couldn't post two pictures in the same post.

How very MM of them haha.

[Deleted]

Jan 21, 2015 11:30:27 GMT -5 irene adler said:

Sorry, couldn't post two pictures in the same post.

This oddly weirds me out.  

[irene adler]

Jan 21, 2015 11:39:51 GMT -5 WinterWine said:

Jan 21, 2015 11:30:27 GMT -5 irene adler said:

Sorry, couldn't post two pictures in the same post.

How very MM of them haha.

But look how long it has lasted!!! The idea was to make the dress look like a seaside community had come together to create it.

There is a really facinating exhibit of Hollywood costumes in LA right now. If you can, GO!! laist.com/2014/09/30/co-organized_by_the_victoria_and.php#photo-1

[hamster]

You know how power switches (say, on your vacuum) usually have a line for on and a circle for off?

It's not random! The line is actually a 1, and in fact does mean on, and the circle is a 0 and actually means off. It's part of an equation and logic problem used in all sorts of machines (H was giving me a lesson in substation relays)

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had no idea there was a legitimate technical logic to it.

[treedimensional]

Jan 21, 2015 11:50:31 GMT -5 hamster said:

You know how power switches (say, on your vacuum) usually have a line for on and a circle for off?

It's not random! The line is actually a 1, and in fact does mean on, and the circle is a 0 and actually means off. It's part of an equation and logic problem used in all sorts of machines (H was giving me a lesson in substation relays)

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had no idea there was a legitimate technical logic to it.

Did not know. (idea)

[drloretta]

I posted this a while back, but I found there's a religious background to the word placebo. It started with this

noun, plural placebos, placeboes.
1. a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.
a substance having no pharmacological effect but administered as a control in testing experimentally or clinically the efficacy of a biologically active preparation.
2. Roman Catholic Church. the vespers of the office for the dead: so called from the initial word of the first antiphon, taken from Psalm 114:9 of the Vulgate.

So I dug into it (because I was bored at my crappy job that day, LOL) and found this on wikipedia

The word placebo itself originated from the Latin for I shall please. It is in Latin text in the Bible (Psalm 116:9, Vulgate version by Jerome, “Placebo Domino in regione vivorum”, “I shall please the Lord in the land of the living”).

This word gave its name, placebo, to the Office of the Dead church service. From that, a singer of placebo became associated with someone who falsely claimed a connection to the deceased to get a share of the funeral meal, and hence a flatterer, and so a deceptive act to please.

Pleasing has a central meaning to the notion of placebo: placebo is associated with the pleasing of the patient by the therapist, of the therapist by the patient, or both.

Languages and word origins fascinate me

[Emerald1486]

There is a castle in Loveland, Ohio. It was built by Sir Harry Andrews and started as two stone tents for his boy-scout troop in 1929. He worked on it until his death in 1981, at the age of 91. It's called Chateau LaRoche. His original boy scouts were dubbed the Knights of the Golden Trail. The KoGT (not the original members, but the current members) still own and take care of the castle.

[Pom]

Jan 21, 2015 12:10:52 GMT -5 Emerald1486 said:

There is a castle in Loveland, Ohio. It was built by Sir Harry Andrews and started as two stone tents for his boy-scout troop in 1929. He worked on it until his death in 1981, at the age of 91. It's called Chateau LaRoche. His original boy scouts were dubbed the Knights of the Golden Trail. The KoGT (not the original members, but the current members) still own and take care of the castle.

You finally made me go look this up.  We used to visit these castles in West Liberty, Ohio all the time when I was a kid.  They were really lovely at Christmas. I thought of this around the holiday and wondered if they were still open for tours.  Love this stuff.

www.piattcastles.org/piattcastles/About.html

[Emerald1486]

Jan 21, 2015 15:14:59 GMT -5 Pom said:

Jan 21, 2015 12:10:52 GMT -5 Emerald1486 said:

There is a castle in Loveland, Ohio. It was built by Sir Harry Andrews and started as two stone tents for his boy-scout troop in 1929. He worked on it until his death in 1981, at the age of 91. It's called Chateau LaRoche. His original boy scouts were dubbed the Knights of the Golden Trail. The KoGT (not the original members, but the current members) still own and take care of the castle.

You finally made me go look this up.  We used to visit these castles in West Liberty, Ohio all the time when I was a kid.  They were really lovely at Christmas. I thought of this around the holiday and wondered if they were still open for tours.  Love this stuff.

www.piattcastles.org/piattcastles/About.html

They are ones I want to go visit as well! 
I love Loveland Castle and am a regular visitor there

[lya]

Jan 21, 2015 11:59:51 GMT -5 @foodielicious said:

Jan 21, 2015 11:50:31 GMT -5 hamster said:

You know how power switches (say, on your vacuum) usually have a line for on and a circle for off?

It's not random! The line is actually a 1, and in fact does mean on, and the circle is a 0 and actually means off. It's part of an equation and logic problem used in all sorts of machines (H was giving me a lesson in substation relays)

Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had no idea there was a legitimate technical logic to it.

Alternative theory...when drawing a circuit diagram, a line connects two wires, while a gap is a disconnect. The gap is usually highlighted by drawing a circle around each end.

The drawing convention could be derived from the 1 - 0 thing but I think electrical drawings predate binary code. 

Anyway, that's what I figured when wondering why they did it that way

Actually hamster is right.  The line and circle are a 1 and 0 and are derived from binary code.  The meanings for these symbols are actually standards from the International Electrotechnical Commision. 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol

[wise_rita]

Jan 21, 2015 11:37:37 GMT -5 UnderProtest said:

This was posted not too long ago, but it didn't get the attention it deserved. Did you know that bone china is actually made of bones? I know it seems like an obvious thing given the name, but it fascinates me.

I felt the same way about buffalo mozzarella. Mind blown!