Apparently,

[rbkwp]

Seeing is Disbelieving

During World War II, the UK and U.S. focused their air warfare plans on the use of strategic bombing, employing long- and short-range aircraft to lead the way and provide ground infantry with an upper hand. Much of the industrial war complexes of both these nations were focused on producing planes, and ensuring the safe return of an expensive, slow-to-produce bomber was a priority. After all, a plane that can make five or perhaps ten runs was worth much more than one which failed to return after a mission or two.

Of course, planes which came back often did so damaged. It made sense to repair those planes. The typical repair job came with additional armor added to the bullet hole-riddled areas of the plane, reinforcing the areas which took the most damage. And, in theory, it would also make sense to add additional armor in those places.

Until a statistician named Abraham Wald stepped in.

Wald earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Vienna in 1931, but, because he was Jewish, was unable to find a job in Austria. He managed to emigrate to the United States shortly after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, and ended up studying econometrics for the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, then based in Chicago. Either while at that post or shortly thereafter, he ended up on a data gathering project for the U.S. military. He was charged with looking at planes which had returned from battle, and recording where they had taken the most damage. As seen above (via the National World War II Museum), he put together a crude before-and-after diagram. The “after” image — the plane on the right — showed where the majority of the damage was, as indicated by the shaded regions. Wald determined that most of the plane — the wings, nose, and fuselage — had taken the worst beating, while the cockpit and tail were generally unharmed. Wald’s superiors suggested that the shaded areas receive additional armor.

Wald, though, objected. If planes were returning with damage to the shaded areas, then, Wald argued, the shaded areas needed the least reinforcement. After all, the planes were able to take significant damage to those areas yet still return. Wald theorized (and mathematically explored, in this pdf) that the fact that the planes lacked damage in the cockpit and tail was more telling. Certainly, the Axis’ targeting of Allies’ planes was both indiscriminate and imprecise; there was little reason to believe that the Axis forces were aiming for, say, the nose, and intentionally avoiding striking the tail. Some planes had to have taken significant damage to the tail and cockpit, and all of those planes had something in common: they, unlike the ones in Wald’s data set, did not return back to base.

On Wald’s advice, the U.S. military leadership reinforced the cockpits and tails on its planes.

 

[rbkwp]

Why Do Great White Sharks Congregate in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean?

Apparently,

Every year, great white sharks swim from California to an isolated spot in
the Pacific, but no one understands why.

Once a year, a large contingent of great white sharks that typically prowl
the coast of California take a break from their hunting activities and head
out to a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Baja
California and Hawaii. Scientists are not quite sure why these massive
sharks, some as long as 22 feet (6.7 m), travel to what has become known as
the "White Shark Café." It takes around 30 to 40 days for them to swim to
this featureless and out-of-the-way spot. After they arrive, the male
sharks inexplicably dive deep into the ocean, typically to depths of 1,000
feet (305 m), as often as every 10 minutes or s

 

[rbkwp]

The Battle over Malibu's Beaches

The city of Malibu, California is best known for its fantastic climate and a 21-mile stretch of beaches. It's also home to the rich and famous; seem above, for example, is a Malibu beachfront property once owned by Barbara Streisand. Given the price of such property, one could imagine the owners wishing to keep the beach area as private as possible. If some random sightseer wants to drive down the road parallel to the coastline, well, there's not much the rich and otherwise-powerful can do. But if you tried to stop alongside those roads as recently as a few years ago, you'd have run into a problem: there were No Parking signs everywhere.

Kind of.

In 1972, California voters went to the polls and passed the California Coastal Commission Initiative, better known at the time as Proposition 20. The Initiative, which the state legislature made permanent four years later, created the California Coastal Commission. The Commission's job was -- and is -- two-fold. First, the body has an environmentalism role, positioned roughly as "to protect and preserve the coast," to paraphrase. Second, in the words of public television station KCET, the Commission is supposed to "guarantee the public's access to that sea and shore." In other words, Prop 20 made sure that all of California's beaches are kept clean and are open to the public.

It's that second part -- public access -- which is important for our purposes today. That beach at the bottom of the cliff in the picture above? If you're in the neighborhood, you -- yes, you -- are allowed to spend the day there, even if you don't live there or aren't particularly rich or famous. And no, you won't be trespassing. The beach is a public space, despite the very expensive house overlooking it.

For vacationers or the like, that's quite the boon. But it should go without saying that Malibu's beachside residents aren't too fond of that law. So when it came to obtaining exclusive use of the beach abutting their property, they got creative.

In November of 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that residents of the area began installing "No Parking" signs on the relevant roadways. But note the phrasing there -- it was the residents, not the town, which put up the warnings. And residents don't have the power to do that. In other words, the signs were fake. As Pat Veesart, then an enforcement supervisor for the California Coastal Commission told the Times, "anybody can go down to Home Depot and buy a 'No Parking' sign and a 4-foot wooden post." Parking alongside those roads, despite what the signs said, was perfectly fine -- except that there's no way for a would-be beachgoer to know that.

For the better part of three years, the Commission -- underfunded and understaffed -- couldn't do much about the fake parking signs. Veesart, in a ride-along interview with NPR in 2013, told a radio reporter that "the number of violations out there far exceed [the Commission's] ability to address them," calling the entire situation "very frustrating." And while the Commission struggled to curtail the outbreak of fake signs, the Malibu residents found more ways to keep visitors off the shores. In the same NPR interview, Veesart noted that some residents created driveways leading to fake garages in order to reduce the amount of parking-friendly curb space. And per the Malibu Times, residents would often get some red paint and give a coat to the curbs near the houses; red-painted curbs, in the area, often meant parking is not allowed.

This scourage of fake no parking zones, thankfully, is beginning to abate. In 2014, the state legislature passed a law allowing the Commission to levy fines against those who put up these false signals and who failed to remove them after a warning. If the person doesn't take down the No Parking sign or restore a red curb to its intended black with 30 days of being so instructed, they may fall prey to a fine "from hundreds of dollars to around $22,000," according to the Los Angeles Times. Whether that will be enough to keep the super-rich from putting up fake No Parking zones is hard to tell at this point, but it seems to be working otherwise.


Sponsored
Socks. That Feel Like Pillows.

Bombas Cushioned No Shows have everything other no-shows don't: arch support, a contoured design that stays on all day, a seamless toe, and super soft plush longstaple cotton that feels soft but not too thick.

Get 20% off with code NOWIKNOW>>


Bonus fact: About an hour's drive up the coast from Malibu is Santa Barbara, another California beach town. If you're downtown there, there's a 75-minute limit for a streetside parking spot. And they enforce that pretty stringently -- just ask Dan Greding, a contractor hired by the city to install the signs in 2014. It took him more than 75 minutes to do the job, and, as the local Fox affiliate reported, "while he was installing the signs, a city parking enforcement officer pulled up his truck and started ticketing it." Despite the craziness of the situation, the legal system decided not to make an exception; when Greding appealed the ticket, the city upheld it.

 

[rbkwp]

What Happened to U.S. Military Vehicles and Equipment after World War II? Inbox

After WWII, the US military dumped thousands of tons of equipment into the
Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Vanuatu.

Espiritu Santo, the largest island of the Vanuatu archipelago in the South
Pacific, was transformed by the United States into a military supply base,
a naval harbor, and an airfield after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
in December 1941. The balmy island became a convenient hub for striking
back at Japan during World War II. When the fighting stopped, the U.S.
military left behind roads, buildings, and runways, but they couldn't get
the French and British colonial authorities to agree to buy the supplies
that the Americans wouldn't be able to transport back home. So the
Americans dumped it all into the ocean -- everything from vehicles and
weapons to clothes and crates of Coca-Cola.

 

[rbkwp]

Apparently,

The Color Changing Building (and Democracy Experiment)

If you go to the Swedish capital of Stockholm, you may find yourself in the suburban district of Midsommarkransen, and specifically, in a neighborhood called Telefonplan. It's an area used to be the headquarters of telecom giant Ericsson, and the corporation's influence is still seen there today, somewhat. During World War II, Ericsson’s global manufacturing efforts were centered in the area; the undertaking was so massive that the company ended up building housing in Midsommarkransen for its workers. Even the name of the neighborhood helps establish Ericsson’s importance to the area; “Telefonplan” translates to “Telephone Square.”

But as the global telecom space shifted, so did Ericsson’s needs. In the 1990s, the company moved its HQ from Telefonplan to Kista, sometimes called Sweden’s answer to Silicon Valley. Over time, the buildings in Telefonplan became less and less busy, and with Ericsson no longer there, many of the old manufacturing and office spaces were converted into commercial and residential spaces. But a different, unique role was in store for Telefonplan Tower, pictured above.

In 2006, a group of artists were able to get access to the tower in hopes of transforming it into a piece of public art. The idea riffed off of a common trend among landmark towers throughout the world, one in which the building’s management will change the colors of the lights to mark holidays and other special occasions. (Here, for example, is a list of the lighting schemes used for the Empire State Building.) This trio of Swedish designers decided to expand on the idea. They used similar technology but added their own special addition, hoping to bring building coloring to the masses. Instead of the landlord deciding what colors the tower would show, random people -- anyone, really -- could use the tower to paint the night sky.

How? Via your phone. If you go to Colour By Numbers, the official website of the project, you'll find instructions. The lights go live at sundown local time in Midsommarkransen, and once they do, you can either dial in or use the iPhone/Android apps to adjust the color. Here's what the app interface looks like:

Don't have a smartphone? No problem. The official site explains how any phone can color along:1. Call 020-720 200 and follow the instructions to colour the tower. The call is free of charge and limited to five minutes. Click the "live" tab above to see a live view of the tower as you change colours. From outside Sweden, call +46 8 122 012 35 (please note that this number is not toll-free).

2. Select the floors you wish to colour by pressing the digits 0 to 9, 0 being the bottommost floor, and 9 the topmost. Finish by pressing #. At any time, you can press * to go back and change your selection of floors.

3. Colour the selected floors. Any colour can be created by mixing red, green and blue. The digits 1 to 3, the top row of numbers on your telephone, control red. 1 gives less red, and 3 gives more. The middle row controls green. 4 gives less green, and 6 more. The bottom row controls blue. 7 gives less blue, and 9 more.But regardless of what you decide to color the tower, you've painted the picture that the artists desired. As Atlas Obscura explains, "the creators hope that the work can stand as a statement on the power of democracy and the power of the public."

That hope continues to this day. The tower is still active -- and colorable -- as of this writing, or will be once the sun goes down in Stockholm.

 

[rbkwp]

Apparently,

Why the Runners' Up Prizes Aren't in Jeopardy

Pictured above are three contestants on the TV game show, Jeopardy!. If you're not familiar with the rules of the show, it's pretty simple: contestants are given trivia questions (in the form of statements) and have to answer them (in the form of questions). Depending on the round, questions can be worth as little as $100 and as much as $1,000, some exceptions notwithstanding. Get the question right, you get that amount credited to your account; get it wrong, that amount is deducted. The last question -- Final Jeopardy! -- works a bit differently; the contestants are given a category and asked to wager some amount of their earnings before seeing the question. Again, if they get it right, that amount gets added; get it wrong, and it's subtracted.

In the end, though, only the winning player's amount matters. He or she gets to take that amount of money home and is invited back to the next game's show. The runners-up don't. They, instead, get consolation prizes: $2,000 for the second-place finisher and $1,000 for third place.

But that wasn't always the case. Before 1984, runners-up took home whatever they earned during gameplay. Why the change? It has to do, originally, with a man who wanted to propose to his girlfriend.

The story starts in the 1960s when the show was aired during the day (and wasn't yet iconic). According to The Jeopardy! Book (written by the show's current host, Alex Trebek, and published in 1990), contestants were often playing very cautiously. Instead of playing to win, they were playing it safe and protecting the cash they earned in early rounds. In 1967, for example, one contestant came on the show with "the express purpose of winning enough money to buy an engagement ring," per the book. Trebek and co-author Peter Barsocchini continue: "He won a sufficient amount for the ring midway through the game and kept his mouth shut from there on." Good for him, but bad for the show: no action makes for boring television.

When the show rebooted in the 1980s as a primetime mainstay, having players drop out mid-game wasn't an option. So, the producers came up with a new idea. They decided that you wouldn't get to keep the money unless you won; therefore, there was no reason to stop playing mid-game. Further, the book notes, this gave laggards some extra incentive to bet the farm in Final Jeopardy; if you can't take it with you anyway, you may as well risk it all in hopes that the leader makes "a historic blunder." (That doesn't happen too often, but it can't hurt to try.)

In the end, though, the runners-up may end up in the red. The $2,000 and $1,000 prizes are primarily designed to account for the losses incurred by the failed contestants. Originally, the runners-up received various merchandise donated by sponsors, but that seemed inadequate, and in 2002, Jeopardy! switched to cash consolation prizes (sponsored by Geico). That's a good thing, too; as Wikipedianotes, "the show does not generally provide airfare or lodging for contestants," therefore, "cash consolation prizes alleviate contestants' financial burden."

But one thing hasn't changed since the 1967 game which precipitated the change. The man who played for that engagement ring played the game right. Again, according to the Jeopardy! Book: "He did, by the way, purchase the ring, marry the girl, and remains married to her twenty-three years later."
Sponsored
Become smarter in just 5 minutes

There's a reason 175,000 people start their day with Morning Brew — the daily email that delivers the latest news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Business news doesn't have to be dry and dense...make your mornings more enjoyable, for free. Check it out.

Bonus fact: On occasion, Jeopardy! will air a special set of games -- a tournament where the contestants all match a theme, such as their annual Teen Tournament for contestants aged 13 to 17. Every so often, though, the theme is "famous people," such as in the irregularly scheduled Jeopardy! Power Players' Tournament. Most recently held in 2016, the tournament featured former CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, best-selling author Jonathan Franzen, and a dozen others, all playing for charity. The episodes lasted a week, but it's not realistic to have influencers of that caliber give up an entire week for filming. The workaround? The Atlantic spills the beans: "the team behind the show is an exceptionally well-oiled machine, filming the five episodes of the tournament—which air from Monday to Friday [ . . . ] —on a single Saturday. (To maintain the illusion of time passing, Trebek changes his suit in between each game. When questioned, he concedes that he owns about a hundred.)"

From the Archives: Judging Jeopardy!: Every once in a while, Alex Trebek will return from a commercial break and announce that the judges -- whoever they are -- have reviewed the gameplay and corrected an error. Here's what's happening during that intermission.

 

[rbkwp]

How Popular Is Tanning in Australia? Inbox

Apparently,

There is a black market for tanning beds in Australia, where they have been
illegal for commercial use since 2016.

The supposed “healthy glow” of tan skin has been popular among
Caucasian sun worshippers since the early 20th century. From "Man Tan" to
spray tans to tanning beds, a bronzed body made life better, or so Western
popular culture claimed. Now we know that exposure to UVA and UVB radiation
causes cancer, and that indoor tanning is especially risky. It's so
dangerous, in fact, that some countries, including Australia, have banned
commercial tanning salons. The 2016 ban, however, has led to something of a
black market, with some Aussies illegally selling time in tanning beds kept
in private homes and backyards

 

[BUSTERHYMAN]

Apparently according to my so-called doctors, teeth marks on my cock are not classified as a serious head wound.

 

[rbkwp]

Who Convinced Abraham Lincoln to Grow a Beard?


Apparently,

Abraham Lincoln was clean-shaven until the 1860 election, when an
11-year-old girl convinced him to grow a beard.

Grace Greenwood Bedell has an unusual place in American history. As an
11-year-old girl living in Westfield, New York, Grace decided that one of
the candidates running for president in 1860 would look better with facial
hair. So she wrote to Abraham Lincoln, telling him that he “would look a
great deal better” if he grew a beard. The former frontier lawyer thought
about it, telling Grace in his return letter that he worried people might
think that growing a beard during the campaign was a “silly
affectation.” Lincoln eventually decided to give it a try, and by his
inauguration in January 1861, he was sporting a full beard, a look that has
been iconic ever since.

 

[rbkwp]

article
makes me start thinking about the former GREAT NEW ZEALAND BUTTER
when in the UK admit i peffered Danish butter
early ECC/Eu supporter over NZ ha

I Can't Believe It's All Butter

I Can't Believe It's All Butter

That -- that is butter. But you knew that already. If you're living in the United States and are east of the Rocky Mountains -- well, east of the Mississippi, for sure, but it's still likely true if you're east of the Rockies -- that's what a stick of butter typically looks like. They come, typically, four to a box, stacked two by two.

If you're an American on the west coast, though, something's amiss -- that's not what butter looks like. (If you're outside the United States, well, sorry. But the story is still pretty interesting.) For all you Californians, Utahns (yes, that's how it's spelled), Idahoans, etc., butter comes in a more squat, fat bar like the one below, packaged four in a box, but lined up vertically in a row.

That's right: east coast butter looks different than west coast butter. And, by and large, the two populations aren't aware of the butter-buying habits of the other. But regardless, why does America country need two different sized sticks of butter?

We don't. But we're stuck with it.

Butter is a milk byproduct -- dairy farmers take excess milk and churn it to separate the butterfat from the buttermilk. The butterfat, once cleared of as much of the buttermilk as possible, is combined with water (at about a 4:1 butterfat to water ratio) and then shaped for packaging. That's basically it. The important part, for our purposes: If a region's milk production isn't enough to meet the demands of the milk-drinking public, there won't be any left over to turn into butter.

If you were in Elgin, Illinois in the early part of the 20th century, that wasn't a problem -- the Midwest had more than enough milk to meet the region's needs. An Elgin company turned the area's leftovers into sticks of butter using machines called butter printers -- kind of like early 3D printers, but they were only used to shape butter and could only make one shape of it. The end result was the butter stick shown at the top and those sticks of butter spread (sorry) throughout the country. As more and more dairies had access capacity, more and more companies made and shaped butter, and they used the same machines as the ones in Elgin -- and therefore made the same sized sticks. In fact, these longer, thinner sticks are now known as "the Elgin."

But on the west coast, they weren't making Elgins -- they weren't making butter at all. American Public Media radio show Marketplace caught up with John Bruhn, formerly a professor at the Dairy Research and Information Center of the University of California Davis, an expert on the dairy industry. Per Bruhn, "in the 1960s, the West Coast was [deficient] in terms of milk production to make dairy bi-products like cheeses and butter. All our milk went to fluid needs. Whole milks, low fat milks and non-fat milks, for example." So, almost no butter was made west of the Rockies.

By the time western dairy production ramped up, there weren't a lot of Elgin-making butter printers left. New technology in the butter-making world led to new machines, ones which created fatter, shorter sticks (now called Western Stubbies). The California dairies ended up buying these new machines, making different-sized sticks. But in the east, tradition won out -- instead of upgrading to the new machines, companies just kept repairing their old butter printers. Today, one can get either type of butter printer.

And both are needed because tradition dictates it -- the custom of bifurcated butter has become a fact of life in the dairy world. As The Kitchn notes, "today, companies like Land O' Lakes continue to produce butter of both sizes to satisfy the stick preferences of the respective coasts." Western butter is short and squat; eastern butter long and thin. Putting shape aside, though, it's the same product -- butter is butter.

But there's one arena in which east coast butter wins the battle: butter dishes, even those in the west, are almost always designed for the Elgin. Sorry, Utahns.

 

[rbkwp]

How Effective Are Spiders at Eating Insects? Inbox


apparently


Spiders eat around 400 million tons of prey each year, equivalent to the
amount of meat and fish consumed by humans.

Spiders are known to eat approximately 10 percent of their body weight
every day. That is equal to a 200-pound (91-kg) man wolfing down 20 pounds
(9.1 kg) of meat each day, which would be awfully hard to do. In a 2017
study published in the journal Science of Nature, scientists Martin
Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer estimated that the world's spiders gobble up
between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey every year -- equal to the
weight of the meat and fish eaten annually by the planet's 7 billion
humans.

 

[rbkwp]

Why Did McDonald's Start "Supersizing"? Inbox

apparently
perhaps not the wisest of moves
ut marketing ploy is a winner huh
value forr money wins out regardkess

“Supersizing” at McDonald’s began as "dino-sizing" -- a marketing
gimmick to promote "Jurassic Park" in 1993.

Back in 1993, Americans began to “super-size” their meals at
McDonald’s, increasing the size of their soft drinks to a whopping 42
ounces (1.19 liters) and pumping up the portions of their French fries. The
practice began with the chain’s tie-in marketing for the first Jurassic
Park film, but back then, folks were urged to order a “Dino-size.”
McDonald’s began to phase out super-sizing in 2004, but other fast-food
outlets have persisted, despite complaints that people are intaking way too
many calories and fat.

 

[rbkwp]

Are Horror Movies Ever Based on Real Events?


Apparehtly
theers no answer there


The 1958 film "The Blob" was based on the true story of four Philadelphia
policemen who found a huge mass of jelly.

Back in the 1950s, in the early years of cinematic science fiction,
schlocky horror films entertained America, often at drive-in theaters.
Titles ranged from I Married a Monster from Outer Space and Creature from
the Black Lagoon to the iconic Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob.
While plots were typically outlandish, and often amusing, The Blob was
actually based on an incident that took place in Philadelphia in 1950.
Police officers reported seeing a parachute land. Upon investigation, they
found a six-foot (1.8-m) mound of purple goo. Within half an hour, the
"blob" had dissolved completely.

 

[rbkwp]

apparently
havent used this thread for some time duh

 

[rbkwp]

havent used this thread for months