Simple things that passed you by for years.

Only recently noticed the Garmin logo with the arrow over the N, like a compass innit.

My Ford Transits fuel gauge arrow points the wrong way then!

I didn’t get the “it’s always in the last place you look” phrase for years 😳

Can some one explain Kaffenback?

Kaffenback – Cafe (caff) and Back – a bike for nipping to the cafe.

Kaffenback – Cafe (caff) and Back – a bike for nipping to the cafe.

The story behind ‘Uncle John’ is quite amusing

Ok, what’s the Uncle John story?

It was a disturbing amount of time before I got the “altogether” joke in Police Squad/Airplane… I think I even had to have it explained to me…

Drebbin: “It’s a different kind of joke altogether”

Everyone: “It’s a different kind of joke”

Ok, what’s the Uncle John story?

Brant had an Uncle John. It’s a cross bike…

I’ve just rectified my laces. Every day’s a school day.

It has always annoyed me that Americans write dates in the format YYYY/MM/DD. What annoyed me even more was when I realised yesterday that this makes perfect sense because numerical and chronological order will be the same, so lists of files that start with a date will already be in order.

They win this round.

They win this round.

Except they don’t.

US format is MM/DD/YYYY. The one that makes sense (YYYY/MM/DD) is ISO.

Brant had an Uncle John. It’s a cross bike…

Theres a wake and wardrobe too

It only really dawned on me recently that imperial measurements are all about dividing things up physically – in the way that a shopkeeper would have a block of something and cut it up into portions. Doing that in metric makes the numbers go all ugly.

It only really dawned on me recently that imperial measurements are all about dividing things up physically – in the way that a shopkeeper would have a block of something and cut it up into portions. Doing that in metric makes the numbers go all ugly.

Also alot of them are in base 12 which divides by 2,3,4 and 6.

Where as 10 only divides by 2 and 5.

This may make them easier to work with when doing mental arithmetic.

gonefishin – Member
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound

Yes.Except the answer is no. Assuming ‘no one is around to hear’ means no living beings, so no fluffy bunnies or owt, either.

The falling tree creates vibrations in the air, which causes our inner-ear gubbins to vibrate, which in turn, the human / animal brain interprets as ‘sound’.

No one around, no ear, no brain = no sound.

That the alphabet song is the same as ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, which is actually Mozart’s ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman.’

Doing that in metric makes the numbers go all ugly.

Because we picked the wrong base.

Base 12 would be much better. Then you can divide in halves, quarters, thrids etc without any bother at all. Too late now though. We’ve already learnt our times table.

Except the answer is no. Assuming ‘no one is around to hear’ means no living beings, so no fluffy bunnies or owt, either.

The falling tree creates vibrations in the air, which causes our inner-ear gubbins to vibrate, which in turn, the human / animal brain interprets as ‘sound’.

No one around, no ear, no brain = no sound.

That’s just twisiting the definition of the word sound. E.g. does an ultrasonic sanner make a sound, yes. Can we hear it, no. Does this make a difference, No. How about those high frequency devices that they proposed to deter young people gathering in groups. If it’s but there are no young people to hear it is it making a sound, yes.

It’s not twisting the definition of the word, it’s an interesting philosophical question.

US format is MM/DD/YYYY. The one that makes sense (YYYY/MM/DD) is ISO.

Really? A lot of the American documents I have seen use YYYY/MM/DD. Maybe military stuff though.

What is ISO and who uses it?

When the earth is swallowed up by the sun, will it continue to emit light despite there being no-one to see it? Yes. Same thing. The question isn’t interesting, it’s philisophical navel gazing.

I’ve just rectified my laces. Every day’s a school day.

Woo hoo – two in one thread. I feel slightly less thick for not knowing this myself now.

we picked the wrong base.
Base 12 would be much better

And we don’t even teach kids Base 10 properly.

Think about it, we teach kids to count from 1 to 10.

That’s stupid.

We should teach them to count from 0 to 9 since that is what every unit position in Base 10 actually does.

That’s just twisiting the definition of the word sound

Noun

1. Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person’s or animal’s ear.

What is ISO and who uses it?

ISO is just the standards body (International Organization for Standardisation), ISO 8601 is an international standard for writing dates.

On the subject of features hidden in plain sight on company logos, I only recently noticed that Amazon have an arrow going A -> Z.

Like Graham S, I also only recently realised that a shoelace bow was meant to be a quick release reef knot, but I was tying a quick release granny knot. But I haven’t been able to adjust my habit on that one.

I made the switch a few years ago. It’s considerably easier if you tie the first knot ‘backwards’ rather than trying to reverse how you create the bow.

That the alphabet song is the same as ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, which is actually Mozart’s ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman.’

… as is ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.

Noun

1. Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person’s or animal’s ear.Nah, I’m with Rusty on this one. If it get’s heard, it’s a sound, otherwise it’s just a vibration.

Also +1 on the shoelace site! I think you (or someone else) posted about it a couple of weeks ago. My mind was blown then, too. Can’t believe I’d been doing it wrong all those years. The whole website is great too. Reminds me of the early days of the web when all sites were like that – a little odd, about random things, where the author is clearly very passionate!

Base 12 phooey. Base 60 all the way!! 😀

1. Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person’s or animal’s ear.

so ‘ultrasound’ would be a misnomer then

Whilst on the subject of base 12 and base 60, did you know that it’s possible to count to twelve using only one hand, by pointing to each finger bone with the thumb? Each finger has three bones, so four fingers x three bones = twelve!! Very satisfactory 🙂

Nah, I’m with Rusty on this one. If it get’s heard, it’s a sound, otherwise it’s just a vibration.

That was where my amateur naval gazing got me to so far. Humans have just evolved in a way that our brains attach a certain reaction to detecting vibrations of a particular wavelength. It’s similar to a bit of scientific kit which detects vibrations and visualises it on a screen. The tree doesn’t actually produce the nice patterns on the screen, that’s just how the kit interprets the vibrations.

There’s lots of other interesting theories/questions which follow, which seems to be taking up a bit too much of my time at the moment 🙂

Anyone remember QXL? A onetime competitor of Ebay. Years ago my company did a project for them and no-one on the project seemed to think the name came from the phonetic sounds – too tenuous I suppose. Well I think I was right….

I’m going to have to go back and check out this shoe lace site. I assume I am doing it correctly…

Edit: Phew, that’s a relief. Although I am only doing the ‘standard’ knot. Perhaps I should branch out a little bit.

That it wasn’t

“…the Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we”

but in fact

“…the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we”

Duh 😳

When the earth is swallowed up by the sun, will it continue to emit light despite there being no-one to see it? Yes.

No. It will continue to emit electromagnetic radiation, certain wavelengths of which the now extinct race of humanoids used to call ‘light’.

That it wasn’t

“…the Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we”

but in fact

“…the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we”

Duh

I thought that was the point of the lyric that it could be read either way. Also as they went around picking up litter there was some kinda eco/socialist/common thing about them.

as a child i had to fill in a form. at the top was a box stating ‘day, month, year’ so they knew my dob.
i stupidly wrote ‘wednesday’ in the day box. took a couple of years before i realised. numpty.

did you know that it’s possible to count to twelve using only one hand

Pffft.. use base 2 and you can count to 31 on five fingers – though it takes some dexterity. 😀

I always believed in the ‘I before E, excpept after C’ rule.

I only realised recently that it’s very flawed. It has caught me out loads of times.

Actually, it’s still catching me out!

Whilst on the subject of base 12 and base 60, did you know that it’s possible to count to twelve using only one hand, by pointing to each finger bone with the thumb? Each finger has three bones, so four fingers x three bones = twelve!! Very satisfactory

Very satisfactory indeed!

No. It will continue to emit electromagnetic radiation, certain wavelengths of which the now extinct race of humanoids used to call ‘light’.

What we call it doesn’t make any difference to what it is.

This isn’t even philosophical navel gazing. Its just semantics.