Pointless but it makes me go: "Wow, didn't know that."

Pestario

tell your friends
Immryr's search for a Go gameboard in another thread lead me to some interesting facts on wikipedia:

The game complexity of Go is such that describing even elementary strategy fills many introductory books. In fact, numerical estimates show that the number of possible games of Go far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe

and

As of June 2008, the most powerful supercomputer in the world, IBM's "Roadrunner" distributed cluster, can sustain 1.02 petaflops. At this rate, even given an exceedingly low estimate of 10 flops required to assess the value of one play of a stone, Roadrunner would require 138 hours, more than five days, to assess all possible combinations of the next eight moves in order to make a single play.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I have gone off NNT big time. The man is a self-obssessed crank.

well the beginning is certainly not without eyebrow raising passages, either total cliche or simply "oh wow he goes from that... all the way to this in one sentence. as if a simple matter of course???"

but not ready to give up since i like the premise (a lot), and i'm hoping there are rewards later. did you find it completely a waste of time?

any suggestions for better along these lines?
 
all the gold in the world would fit in the space beneath the arches of the Eiffel Tower

fish are not soluble in water

speaking of gold, i learnt this week that there has been no independent audit of the amount of gold in Fort Knox since the 1950s. It might be long gone for all anyone outside the Federal Reserve knows.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_(crocodile)

Gustave is a massive Nile crocodile living in Burundi. Estimated to be around 6.7 metres (22 ft) in length and weighing around 1.3 tons, he is the largest confirmed crocodile ever seen in Africa.[1] He is a notorious man-eater, who is rumored to have claimed as many as 300 victims from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. While this number is likely exaggerated, Gustave has attained a near-mythical status and is greatly feared by people in the region. He is said to hunt and leave his victims' corpses uneaten.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
If you were to lay all the wearisome cliches about the total length of blood vessels, nerves etc. in the human body end-to-end, they'd stretch to the moon and back.
 

allegiant

Evenly Distributed
Once upon a time there was an actual documented 'dancing plague' in France, in the 16th century. Numerous people began throwing shapes for days without rest, and over the period of a few weeks, most of the participants died from heart failure, strokes, or enfeeblement.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Dissensus quiz question for Thursday - name cities that are built on seven hills.

After Rome, I'll give you Bath (apparently - I didn't know any aside from Rome). Ten (at least) to get in all.
 

lanugo

von Verfall erzittern
At the end of the 17th century Tsar Peter the Great introduced a tax on beards in Russia. Every man fond of his facial hair had to pay in order to be allowed to keep it. The fee for full beards was especially high.

I, for one, absolutely support this policy and call for it to be reintroduced immediately! Beards are just silly.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
spaceb.jpg

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