Share/Learn a Random Fact

[Moonface]

@Maniakkid25: I'm guessing nobody who had to verify that paper ever asked to have both authors physically present or something? I can't believe they would accept the paper knowing the other author was actually a cat.


So, for anyone who remembers that Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet eSports are a thing, I just had YouTube recommend me this for whatever reason (I have never watched anything remotely about jigsaw puzzles for this to be given to me):



Yes, turns out there is a World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship. I'm not really surprised by it but just find it funny how things I would never consider having a competitive scene actually have one.

[Mr EliteL]

Huh yeah not surprised, can imagine people just taking out a puzzle or two of the same and timing each other/their own completion/progress. Obviously two at the same time for a competition. I'm not watching that but damn they even have teamplay looks like with the Pairs category.

[Moonface]

Huh yeah not surprised, can imagine people just taking out a puzzle or two of the same and timing each other/their own completion/progress. Obviously two at the same time for a competition. I'm not watching that but damn they even have teamplay looks like with the Pairs category.

For the little of the video I played it seems everyone gets the same puzzle and nobody knows the puzzle beforehand, so they have to do it blind. Not sure if they get an image to work from or not but I get the feeling they don't. I would expect pairs to be easier if two people get one puzzle since one person could try to sort pieces while the other puts them together.

[Moonface]

Paint Drying (2023 film)

I love the person who did this and genuinely thought this was fake when I saw an image of the Wiki article until I Googled it. I don't know if the guy really achieved anything with this stunt in the end but I'd be happy just with the satisfaction that someone had to sit through this just to give it a rating.

[Mr EliteL]

Woah, it's 10 hours long and that's without the cuts because he filmed for 14 hours, and the file of the film submitted was 310GB. Hoo boy that's some good quality paint drying indeed.

[Maniakkid25]

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've heard of this subject. Not the movie, but the actual act of filming a wall to watch paint dry. WAAAAAAY back a long time ago, there was a dude who put up a web cast of paint peeling in real time. This was before Twitch, mind, so it was more a series of updated images of the wall in the process of peeling. And of course there are the absolute nutters who post crap like this on Youtube. It's almost its own genre of video, at this point.

The internet is a wonderful place sometimes.

[Moonface]

WAAAAAAY back a long time ago, there was a dude who put up a web cast of paint peeling in real time. This was before Twitch, mind, so it was more a series of updated images of the wall in the process of peeling. And of course there are the absolute nutters who post crap like this on Youtube. It's almost its own genre of video, at this point.

The internet is a wonderful place sometimes.

This particular story reminds me of the person who was taking a photograph daily of a head of lettuce to see if it would last longer than British PM Liz Truss would (and it did so quite easily in the end).

[Moonface]

I just learned that there's an organ (the musical type) in Germany that is set to play for 639 years in total, and the chord was changed about ten days ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68209691

That marks the 16th chord change since 2001, out of a total of 64. However, that 64 is for the number of chord changes for part 1, which runs until 2072. There's no information for the total number of parts or chord changes for the entire sequence which will run until 2640. Although, we'll probably all be pretty close to dead by the time part 2 starts.

[Maniakkid25]

Oh, yeah, this. The piece is called "As Slow As Possible" by I believe John Cage. John Cage was (R.I.P.) well known for his "postmodern" pieces of music. His most famous is 4'33", which is literally 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Not complete silence, mind; the piece is meant to be the unintentional sounds made by the audience. Yeah, that's the kind of composer John Cage was.

[Moonface]

I'm curious what would happen if that organ ran into an issue that makes it stop working. Would the period of time where nothing plays while it gets fixed just be seen as part of the overall composition/experiment, or would it just be seen as a failure? I'm also curious if this thing would actually be maintained until 2640 or if people would stop caring about it.

[Moonface]

I know I only just posted in this thread last but this video came up as soon as I opened Reddit just now and it's one of the wildest things I've seen a band member do at a concert that doesn't involve consuming a bat:

After throwing his microphone up and getting the cable tangled in the stage structure, Eddie Vedder, lead singer of the band Pearl Jam, decided to climb the structure without protection to free it and then climbed down the microphone cable.

That man has some serious faith in that cable holding his weight because you'd never catch me expecting a microphone cable to have enough strength to hold my weight and my arse is only like 115lbs.

[Moonface]

I saw a video earlier of what can be best described as a large scale water fight and learned that it was actually footage from the Water Festival of Songkran. It actually used to be a much quieter affair with just gently pouring or sprinkling water on people but then Westerners got involved and made it way more boisterous which apparently got received very well by the locals.

Alas I can't find the video I saw now to show how fun it looked.
It definitely sounds like one of the most fun New Years festivals out there though.

[Moonface]

Any other Americans here who knew this one? I just learned from a thread over at The Coffee House that the Happy Birthday song copyright hasn't been enforceable since 2015, yet I have never heard a restaurant using it in my entire time of living in the US and I've had friends tell me post-2015 that restaurants aren't allowed to use the song, presumably because they thought the copyright was still enforced.

Original News Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35057667.amp

[Moonface]

So I just learned that there's a war named after Toyota, and yes I am referring to the car company. I saw it mentioned in the comments of a video where someone was demonstrating the ridiculous durability of the Toyota Hilux. Apparently the thing is so well made it's referred to as the AK-47 of trucks because so many of them get used for warfare.

[Maniakkid25]

That isn't the only reason why the Hilux is the AK-47 of trucks. The AK is infamous for its durability due to the ability to keep it working with the most basic of equipment. I once heard that you can keep the thing running with a shoestring and oil. Why is this relevant? Well, nearly 20 years ago (Jesus Christ), the psychos at Top Gear once abused the ever-loving shit out of a Hilux, and managed to get the thing running with nothing but basic mechanic tools. No parts replacements, just straight adjustments. It's a WILD trilogy of clips, let me tell you!