Post a random fact people probably don't know! (And even if they did, they wouldn't care.)

[Benice]

There are 4630 Shaqs² in every hectare.

[ping]

"Doubleyu-doubleyu-doubleyu" takes longer to say than the thing it's supposed to abbreviate.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Ping continues to be a heretic.

[ping]

In the time leading up to the English Civil War, the king Charles I. had great trouble raising money. By law, he was not allowed to raise taxes without consent of parliament (to which purpose the king would call in the parliament), but because Charles and the MPs, let's say, didn't exactly fell in love on first sight, the king dismissed parliament without being allowed to raise taxes. In the follow-up, Charles got creative in how to get some cash without having to assemble parliament again, with one of his tricks being the levy of "ship money". By precedent, in case of emergency and war, the king had the right to order coastal counties to supply him with ships, or pay a monetary fine if they weren't able to. Charles, of course, was very much looking for the latter. He first used it in 1628, demanding ship money from every county in England, already causing serious opposition - no wonder, since I'm pretty sure that there was no war or emergency other than another parliament being dissolved without allowing Charles to raise regular taxes. Charles repeating the demand in 1634 and 1635 and 1636 (you know, looking a little tax-y from over here), while he was still refusing to assemble parliament, was a significant contributor for the imminent outbreak of the civil war.

[ping]

Maybe the greatest opening lines in any science textbook come from "States of Matter" by D. L. Goodstein:

Quote

Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously.

That said, it's a bit dishonest by omission as well - Ehrenfest's death in 1933 was a murder-suicide, shooting his son Wassik (whose trisomy 21 Ehrenfest apparently struggled to accept) before killing himself.

[ping]

In August 2017, a bit over two years after Terry Pratchett's death, a hard drive containing his unfinished projects was crushed under a steamroller. PTerry had made that request to his friend Neil Gaiman, and his assistant Rob Wilkins ended up fulfilling it.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Ping continues to be a heretic.

[Benice]

I believe I mentioned earlier that the 1631 bible had a typo causing it to say "Thou shalt commit adultery" as one of the Ten Commandments, but there was another prominent error elsewhere in that fateful run of the bible- The word greatness misprinted in Deuteronomy 5, thus leading to the passage reading "Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory and his great-asse".

Sadly, at this time, the word only meant "donkey". It's still funny in retrospect.

[Sidereal Wraith]

6 hours ago, WraithReborn said:

Ping still continues to be a heretic.

 

[ping]

1 hour ago, Benice said:

"Thou shalt commit adultery"

It's an interesting coincidence (if it's not deliberate) that you talk about the Wicked Bible right after I mention Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, since it's brought up in their joint work Good Omens from 1990, as well, alongside the Discharge Bible, the Treacle Bible, the Standing Fishes Bible, the Charing Cross Bible, and the Buggre Alle This Bible. I'm not certain at all how genuine most of these are - the Wicked Bible obviously exists, but there are subtle signs that the last one of the list might be made up. In particular, there are three verses added to the third chapter of Genesis after the 24th:

• 24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
• 25 And the Lord spake to the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
• 26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down somewhere, forget my own head next.
• 27 And the Lord did not ask him again.

A footnote all but outright says that the same Angel (one of the main characters of the book, Aziraphale, or Mr A. Ziraphale, by which he went by at the time) added these verses to the proof sheets of the publisher, which might not be historical fact.

The name Buggre Alle This Bible, of course, comes from another lengthy printing error, in the Book of Ezekiel, amid a bunch of "By the border of X, from Y to Z, a portion to A" verses:

• 5 Buggre All This for a Larke. I amme sick to mye Hart of typefettinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a day laike thif Ennywone withe half an oz. of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong daie inn thif mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Wordefhoppe, @*Æ@;!*
• 6 And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east fide even untoe the west fide, a portion for Reuben.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Ping is the master of heresy

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/6/2022 at 1:43 PM, Benice said:

There are 4630 Shaqs² in every hectare.

AriZona, the company behind massive 99 cent cans of tea, also produces a Shaq-Fu Punch, a bottled fruit punch beverage bearing the likeness of Shaquille O'Neal.

Each serving of Pineapple Shaq-Fu Punch contains 90 calories, and there are 2.5 servings per bottle for 225 calories in total.

4,630 of such bottles would contain 1,041,750 calories, or 4,358,682,000 joules.

Since one gram of TNT releases 4,184 joules when detonates, this means a hectare of Pineapple Shaq-Fu punch contains more energy than 1,000 kilograms of TNT.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Speed likes to remain anonymous.

Edited July 18, 2022 by WraithReborn

[Benice]

Wraith has posted the word "Heretic" 42 times on the forums, out of a total of 492 posts containing the word. This pales in comparison to me saying the word "Yakuza" in 370 posts out of a total of 1037 posts. Most of these seem to be in the Mafia subforum. Huh. Didn't know that anyone ever used that one.

...Also, Ruben has posted the word "Beard" 190 times, "Kaga" 594 times and "Berwick Saga" 544 times. I still must catch up to him with the amount I say Yakuza.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Be is of the nice.

Edited July 18, 2022 by WraithReborn

[ping]

Nice Be a large city in the south-east corner of France. For the longest time, it was part of the Duchy of Savoy, and later the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. However, in exchange for France's support for the unification of Italy under the king of Piedmont-Sardinia, Savoy and Nice were ultimately handed over to Napoléon III.

In the videogame Europa Universalis IV, Sardinia-Piedmont Be a formable tag; quite popular for its toothpaste blue map colour.

[ping]

Maybe a bit ironically, given that the American right likes to fearmonger about the left's "War On Christmas", the original War was waged by the English Puritans, i.e. the religious group that the Pilgrims of New England were part of. In short-lived Commonwealth of England, the Puritan-led parliament decided to ban christmas celebrations as a whole. In their eyes, christmas a) smelled like popery, b) the date was picked to match the heathen Saturnalia holiday and c) had no actual basis in the bible. But worst of all, d) people were having fun. And if there's one thing that a good Puritan just can't be having with, it's people being happy.

And maybe setting up an interesting little historical "What If" scenario: Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, at the time some rather unimportant backseat MP in the monarchy of England, noted that if parliament hadn't passed the Grand Remonstrance (a big list of grievances given to Charles I.) in 1641, he would've sold all his belongings and crossed the Atlantic to leave England behind forever.

[Benice]

The lowest note of the Hyperbass Flute is below the human range of hearing.

[ping]

The invention of margarine was commitioned by the French government, specifically Napoléon III, who was looking for a cheaper butter substitute for the military and the armed forces. It was invented by Hippolyte Mége-Mouriès, a male chemist confusingly named after the queen of the amazons. Mège-Mouriès later, in 1871, sold his invention to a Dutch company.

[Benice]

One of the major forces that prompted the USA to install a dictator to replace Guatemala's democratic government was the United Fruit Company; the policies improving worker's rights and granting land to agrigultural labourers made their exploits less profitable.

[GuardianSing]

There are roughly 300 Assyrians living in Finland.

[Benice]

Approximately 2 Million people worldwide speak Esperanto.

[ping]

Another entry in the category "funny names" (for English speakers) is Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy's sister Fanny Hensel. However, it would do her a great disservice to not mention that she was a very talented musician and composer in her own right - but because both Felix and their father Abraham thought that it would be unbecoming of a woman to earn money, they both discouraged her from publishing any of her compositions and the father in particular basically told her to get back to the kitchen, and sure, I fully support music as your hobby, but what would the neighbours think if they saw you getting a job? Felix's attitute seems to be more of a "yeah, well, if she decides to try and publish her work, I'll support her, but I still don't really want her to".

Instead, Fanny was only able to show her talent in a more private environment. In 1821 (when Fanny was 15-16 and Felix was 11-12), their father held semi-private Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday musics) to showcase his children's talent. Apart from Bach or Beethoven, they also featured compositions of the Mendelssohn children. However, in 1829, when Felix left Berlin and Fanny got married, these concerts were discontinued.

Luckily, her husband (the painter Wilhelm Hensel) was much more supportive of Fanny's musical career (and, probably even more importantly, less condescending about it). In 1831, Fanny reestablished the Sonntagsmusiken under her own direction, participating herself as composer, musician, and conducting both orchestras and her own little choir. In that role, she absolutely had a noteable role in Berlin's cultural scene - these little concerts sometimes had up to 300 visitors.

It also seems that Felix managed to at least loosen that giant stick up his arse a little. To his (partial) credit, he never was dismissive of her musical talent - he "just" had that 19th century bourgeoise attitude of "woman's job is housekeeping", but he always valued Fanny's opinion and suggestions about his works above anybody else's, and the two of them had a close relationship for their entire (unfortunately both too short) lives.

Fanny's first published compositions were actually printed under Felix's name in 1827, and while that would've been kinda shitty if he had appropriated them for himself, he didn't seem to be shy about admitting that six of the songs in two of "his" collections were actually Fanny's. Only three years later, London musical magazine The Harmonicon (which, two years later, would also do the first "official" publication of her work) noted that this was the case. Still, this led to a funny little embarrassment for Queen Victoria, who told Felix that his magnificient piece Italien was her absolute favourite, to which Felix had to reply that, well, sorry, that's actually my sister's composition.

Spoiler

(Sketch by her fiancé/husband during the year of their wedding)

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by ping

[ping]

Marie Antoinette, queen of France, caught a lot of public ire a couple years before the French Revolution started thanks to an affair that she had nothing to do with. Basically, a con artist (the Comptesse de la Motte) tricked Cardinal de Rohan by promising him to arrange a correspondence with the queen and then faking her replies, in a tone that suggested that Marie Antoinette had fallen in love with the cardinal. To top it off, when the cardinal pleaded for a personal meeting, the Comptesse hired a lookalike to pose as the queen during a nightly meeting in the gardens of Versailles.

After conning the cardinal out of some money "for charity work done by the queen", de la Motte then presented a letter in which the queen asked de Rohan to act as an intermediary for the purchase of an incredibly valuable diamond necklace, one that had been offered to and refused by the queen prior to this whole affair. The jewelers assumed that the queen would pay them later, and de Rohan assumed that the man fetching the necklace was a servant of the queen, the husband of the Comptesse smuggled to necklace to London in order to sell its diamonds.

Unfortunately for the queen (and, really, the entire royal court, given what's to come), despite the entire fraud being more or less exposed in its entirety, everybody assumed that the whole thing was actually an intrigue with the queen at its center: It was well-known that she actually couldn't stand the cardinal, so people thought that she had been using the Comptesse to ruin his reputation. De Rohan was acquitted by the parliament but still stripped by the king of his abbey and some honours he had received, which reinforced that notion.

[ping]

Maybe the most successful pirate of all time was Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese woman who effectively commanded the Guangdong Pirate Confederation between 1807 and 1810. The confederation was forged by her husband Zheng Yi in 1805, and after his death in 1807, Zheng Yi's adoptive son Zhang Bao ('adopted' in a Garon-esque sense, although the kid was already 15 years old at the time) officially took over, while factually deferring to Zheng Yi Sao. According to Wikipedia, the Confederation in 1805 numbered 40-60k pirates and 400 ships in total, with Zheng Yi Sao commanding 1433 pirates and 24 ships personally (although that number is from 1810).

In 1810, the pirates negotiated a surrender to the Qing rulers, but from a sufficiently powerful position that allowed them not only to achieve a total amnesty, but also a payment in pork, wine, and money for the grunts, as well as a lieutenant rank in the Chinese military and personal command over a small fleet for Zhang Bao. It also allowed Zheng Yi Sao and Zhang Bao to officially marry - they had been in a relationship since Zheng Yi's death, but as Zheng Yi's wife, Zheng Yi Sao was legally considered to be Zhang Bao's adoptive mother, which was annulled after these events. The whole affair isn't quite as gross as it probably seems, by the way - Zhang Bao had already been 18 years old when Zheng Yi Sao and Zheng Yi had married.

Anyway - Zhang Bao died twelve years later, after which Zheng Yi Sao lived a peaceful life as the owner of a gambling house.