The thread of learning something new every day
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@Bones my best mate's brother has a doctorate in engineering and pointed that out to me when I remarked he had superhuman ability to do maths.
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@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
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In 1838 Edgar Allan Poe wrote a book called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It was about four survivors of a shipwreck who, after days at sea, decide to kill and eat the cabin boy, whose name was Richard Parker (just like in Life of Pi). In 1884 a ship called Mignonette sank of Trinidad. Only 4 people survived. Eventually the crew who were adrift at sea decided to kill and eat the cabin boy, Richard Parker.
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Arizona entomologist Justin O Schmidt has ranked the sting of over 80 species of insect on his personal suffering, usually accidental, but occasionally induced.
My personal favourite is:
Maricopa Harvester Ant: After eight unrelenting hours of drilling into that ingrown toenail, you find the drill wedged into the toe.
The Natural History Museum has some of them:
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@Bones said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
All Math is a trick
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@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@Bones said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
All Math is
a trickracist and patriarchal.Fixed.
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@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@Bones said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
All Math is a trick
Since when we're you Murkan? Where's your s?
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@booboo said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@Bones said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
All Math is a trick
Since when we're you Murkan? Where's your s?
Don't you live in Little Murica/Oz?
The little lapdogs will do anything to be like big brother.
The z's instead of s are far too frequent over here.
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@Nepia said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@booboo said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@Bones said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@antipodean who knew it was that easy - I'm off to get a doctorate in engineering then.
All Math is a trick
Since when we're you Murkan? Where's your s?
Don't you live in Little Murica/Oz?
The little lapdogs will do anything to be like big brother.
The z's instead of s are far too frequent over here.
We've got a GOM thread so I won't expand. This could descend rapidly
. I've said too much already. -
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Stay on topic you peasants
Wow. A whole new concept. Let's try it.
Watched QI the other night and they said that many things they have said as fact, is in fact, wrong.
That fact may also be wrong of course.The concept of accepted fact changing as we learn more is fascinating in itself. Until we learn enough to disprove that too.
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@Snowy said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Stay on topic you peasants
Wow. A whole new concept. Let's try it.
Watched QI the other night and they said that many things they have said as fact, is in fact, wrong.
That fact may also be wrong of course.The concept of accepted fact changing as we learn more is fascinating in itself. Until we learn enough to disprove that too.
Reminds me of the one time in my life where I was wrong about something - the time when I thought I was wrong but I was actually right.
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@voodoo said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@Snowy said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Stay on topic you peasants
Wow. A whole new concept. Let's try it.
Watched QI the other night and they said that many things they have said as fact, is in fact, wrong.
That fact may also be wrong of course.The concept of accepted fact changing as we learn more is fascinating in itself. Until we learn enough to disprove that too.
Reminds me of the one time in my life where I was wrong about something - the time when I thought I was wrong but I was actually right.
I know you somehow...
Oh yeah, I married you.
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@Snowy said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Stay on topic you peasants
Wow. A whole new concept. Let's try it.
Watched QI the other night and they said that many things they have said as fact, is in fact, wrong.
That fact may also be wrong of course.The concept of accepted fact changing as we learn more is fascinating in itself. Until we learn enough to disprove that too.
I did a course called "Philosophy of Science" at Uni... and yeah, a lot of it was about the theory of science being based on a "kernel" fact/theory (always, actually, theory... the one and only knowable fact is "Cogito, ergo Sum") - which we want to assume is true... and all related "facts" (theories, evidence) form up layers around this kernel, with the outer layers being more "flexible" - in that you can remove/replace/update these as necessary to support/"prove" the inner layers.
And I've always felt a little disconcerted about how smug/certain QI can be, with the whole buzzer-thing, etc - and then presenting the "truth" - when a large number of their questions/factoids/etc are by very nature - questionable, or very open to being proven wrong later.
(I do seem to recall they have a strangely written disclaimer, in the credits, something about "all facts were true at time of broadcast"... which is taking some rather large liberties with the definitions of the words "facts" and "true")
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket - Wikipedia
