"F**k my Hat, I didn't know that!" Amazing things you've only just found out

[olliebean]

He also choreographed the rollerskating.

Credit where credit's due, that was Sean Lock as well you know.

[steve98]

Learned this earlier this year writing an essay on Foster's Rule, but re-remembered it reading The King Must Die. Mammoths lingered on until around 6000 years ago, making them contemporaries of the Minoan civilization. It still amazes me. One of those facts I double check to make sure I haven't made it up, like the blind South Korean winning an Olympic gold medal at archery.   https://news.psu.edu/story/419291/2016/08/01/research/st-paul-island-mammoths-most-accurately-dated-prehistoric

Seems it's pretty common nowadays for (new-technology)  bottom-scraping trawlers to pull up old bones from the North Sea. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, elk, hyenas, bison even sabre-tooth tigers (and the odd Neanderthal). They sell them to collectors (though they don't make a fortune (about £500 for a mammoth head, and £50 a tooth)).

I think that's a leg the model's displaying.

[dissolute ocelot]

Seems it's pretty common nowadays for (new-technology)  bottom-scraping trawlers to pull up old bones from the North Sea. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, elk, hyenas, bison even sabre-tooth tigers (and the odd Neanderthal). They sell them to collectors (though they don't make a fortune (about £500 for a mammoth head, and £50 a tooth)).

eBay has a rib for £110, foot bones £42 to £100-ish from North Sea. I guess skulls will be a lot rarer (unless mammoths have more heads and fewer feet than scientists believe).

[NoSleep]

Seems it's pretty common nowadays for (new-technology)  bottom-scraping trawlers to pull up old bones from the North Sea. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, elk, hyenas, bison even sabre-tooth tigers (and the odd Neanderthal). They sell them to collectors (though they don't make a fortune (about £500 for a mammoth head, and £50 a tooth)).

I believe trawling the North Sea for bones has been going on for at least a century or maybe more. A lot of cutlery used to have bone handles from material dredged up this way.

EDIT: Looks like it has always been a by-product of fishing, going back to the 19th Century; and not a very environmentally-friendly practice.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/10/bottom-trawling-how-to-empty-the-seas

[Helvetica Scenario]

Looks like it has always been a by-product of fishing, going back to the 19th Century; and not a very environmentally-friendly practice.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/10/bottom-trawling-how-to-empty-the-seas

Shrek's got a lot to answer for.

[steve98]

eBay has a rib ]for £110,] foot bones £42 to £100-ish from North Sea.

A mammoth rib would make a great unusual present for an infant that's teething (quite pricey at £110 though).

[thecuriousorange]

The monkey in the film Outbreak also went on to play the one owned by Ross in Friends (Marcel). When they talked about it being cast in the fictitious Outbreak 2 and based an episode around it, that was an elaborate in-joke. And what's more, said animal is still alive.

[Hand Solo]

The Nonce Hunters were going on in Bible times, the anti-homosexual passages in Leviticus etc were actually about boy diddlers:

https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/2019/3/8/what-about-romans-124-27

[Darles Chickens]

The monkey in the film Outbreak also went on to play the one owned by Ross in Friends (Marcel). When they talked about it being cast in the fictitious Outbreak 2 and based an episode around it, that was an elaborate in-joke. And what's more, said animal is still alive.

Not according to this List of Individual Monkeys!  Although they do look exactly the same, so I don't even know how anyone could tell.

[Dex Sawash]

Not according to this List of Individual Monkeys!  Although they do look exactly the same, so I don't even know how anyone could tell.

Wish there was an IM(onkey)DB

[canted_angle_again]

So a certain blonde person who has just become a father has disappeared from the headlines recently because the mother of his new child has left him because he was carrying on with a violinist.

[Gulftastic]

In season 3 of the Wire, the boxing trainer that Cutty goes to for advice on setting up a gym is played by Clarence Clemons out off of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

[famethrowa]

In season 3 of the Wire, the boxing trainer that Cutty goes to for advice on setting up a gym is played by Clarence Clemons out off of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

Was that before he died?

[dissolute ocelot]

Wish there was an IM(onkey)DB

IMDb has monkey actors! Here's Katie who played Marcel in Friends and also appeared in Sam & Cat, The Loop, and 30 Rock, but not allegedly Outbreak. Binx from Outbreak was also in George of the Jungle and both Ace Venturae.

[Artie Fufkin]

So a certain blonde person who has just become a father has disappeared from the headlines recently because the mother of his new child has left him because he was carrying on with a violinist.

Top shagger!

[buzby]

So a certain blonde person who has just become a father has disappeared from the headlines recently because the mother of his new child has left him because he was carrying on with a violinist.

https://maclive.co.uk/electric-violinist/

[Zetetic]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China#Coordinate_systems

Maps etc. in China have to use various deliberately obfuscated co-ordinate systems (that ultimately offer no real secrecy/privacy).

[touchingcloth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China#Coordinate_systems

Maps etc. in China have to use various deliberately obfuscated co-ordinate systems (that ultimately offer no real secrecy/privacy).

Jesus. Don't they do the same (ish) with GPS and put some random inaccuracies in so locations are given a handful of metres out so that non-state bodies can't make accurate guides missiles?

That Chinese approach is fucked, though. No geotagging on photos is practically the Dark Ages now. I couldn't say just how many times I've been somewhere with no phone signal, and later been able to pinpoint the location precisely based on photos I took there.

[Zetetic]

Presumably GPS[nb]in the generic sense rather than specifically the US system[/nb] in China uses those co-ordinate systems, so that your position (and your photos' locations) line up with the maps.

Fundamentally there's no getting away from 1) having to hand over your obfuscation algorithm to manufacturers 2) your co-ordinate system's relations corresponding to relations in reality and more straightforward representations of it, I guess.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Jesus. Don't they do the same (ish) with GPS and put some random inaccuracies in so locations are given a handful of metres out so that non-state bodies can't make accurate guides missiles?

They did at one time but Clinton signed an order in 2000 to turn selective availability off for civilian use.

This probably wasn't entirely altruism, deferential GPS by various private companies had made massive gains in accuracy making it redundant to the point it wouldn't stop an adversary, it just unnecessarily increased the cost of accuracy for civilian use.

[Zetetic]

Oh, I misunderstood what "they" and "GPS" referred to in touchingcloth's post.

Seems a rather different thing.

[touchingcloth]

Yeah, I skimmed the link and misunderstood. I'm still a bit confused:

A marker with GCJ-02 coordinates will be displayed at the correct location on a GCJ-02 map. However, the offsets can result in a 100 - 700 meter error from the actual location if a WGS-84 marker (such as a GPS location) is placed on a GCJ-02 map, or vice versa. The Google.com street map is offset by 50–500 meters from its satellite imagery, while the Google.cn map is not.

If google know how to unobfuscate, the bolded bit strikes me as odd.

[buzby]

Yeah, I skimmed the link and misunderstood. I'm still a bit confused:

If google know how to unobfuscate, the bolded bit strikes me as odd.

The Chinese version of Google Maps had a licence to allow them access to the GCJ-02 algorithm which meant they could pull the WGS-84-based satellite imagery into alingment with the GCJ-02-based map data. This service no longer exists however, since Google fell out with the PRC government and they moved ther HQ to Hong Kong. Google.cn redirects to Google.com/hk now, and cannot be accessed from within China without the use of a VPN.

This blog page explains the state restrictions on the production and use of map data in China, and also mentions that it is illegal to produce or market a GCJ-02 to WGS-84 translation API. Chinese State-licenced map providers have to purchase or licence the WGS-84 to GCJ-02 translation API from the State to use GPS location data with their map data, which is what most Chinese-developed map applications for smart devices (except Google's since their exit from the mainland, it seems) will start to use once they detect they are inside the GCJ-02 geographic zone (Apple and Bing's mobile map applications also do this as well, so they must have a licence either directly or thorugh a local partner).

I suppose the implication is that these applications can have the API disabled by the State at the drop of the hat if required (which would be very easy to do if it was actually a server-based API run by the State that does the conversion).

Google do use GCJ-02-based street map data for their maps of China, but they did not produce it themselves (both Google and Apple source their data from the Chinese map data supplier AutoNavi, who have a state surveying and map distribution licence). Google's satelite imagery is based off WGS-84 GPS co-ordinates, however, which is why there is the semi-random offset between them as they no longer have access to the API to pull it back into alignment with the map data (and even when they did, it couldn't be used outside China).

[Small Man Big Horse]

Not amazing, but it amused me to discover that Gary Numan is 2 weeks older than Gary Oldman.

[thecuriousorange]

That slightly bothers me because they're in the wrong order.

[George White]

Southern TV were owned partly by Rank and partly by DC Thomson.
HTV owned First Independent video, which was previously Vestron video uk.

[pigamus]

The TARDIS never used to make a noise when it landed. Up till 1965 it just appeared silently, no wheezing and groaning at all.

[olliebean]

The TARDIS never used to make a noise when it landed. Up till 1965 it just appeared silently, no wheezing and groaning at all.

Then he started leaving the brakes on.

[non capisco]

The TARDIS never used to make a noise when it landed. Up till 1965 it just appeared silently, no wheezing and groaning at all.

I watched the very first episode last week and it wheezes and groans in that I THINK YOU'LL FIND.

[pigamus]

Not when it lands though, if you'll LEARN TO READ.