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

zhao

there are no accidents
thats mad.

i didn't know Chopin died at age 39 until yesterday.

the 1 in 3 (or something like that) girls were sexually molested is a real shocker. (but i'm guessing that might include minor things such as seeing a flasher in the park?)

but did you know that 86% of all statistics were made up?
 

STN

sou'wester
Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee was an unused substitute in the second leg of IFK Gothenburg's 1987 uefa final win over Dundee United.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
Well I know it now, but when found out that Gil Scot Heron's dad was the first black footballer to play for Celtic (a Scotish football/soccer team for the overseas ppl) in the 1950's. I was like W0w, I didnt know that.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Well I know it now, but when found out that Gil Scot Heron's dad was the first black footballer to play for Celtic (a Scotish football/soccer team for the overseas ppl) in the 1950's. I was like W0w, I didnt know that.

There's a brilliant BBC4 documentary on GSH that has five minutes talking about this. Not sure if it's be findable...actually, it is!:

 

zhao

there are no accidents
if a sperm is the size of a whale, it would swim at faster than the speed of sound.
 

paolo

Mechanical phantoms
A cubic mile of sunlight weighs about eight pounds. I know that's true cos I read it somewhere
 

hucks

Your Message Here
Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee was an unused substitute in the second leg of IFK Gothenburg's 1987 uefa final win over Dundee United.

Blimey

THE FIVER'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! (THE LATEST AND, MORE THAN LIKELY, LAST IN A SERIES OF ASTONISHING FOOTBALL 'FACTS' WITH WHICH YOU CAN AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS DOWN THE DRINKER TONIGHT)

*COUGH*

*SCREECH OF MICROPHONE FEEDBACK*

*HUSHED SILENCE*

Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee was an unused substitute in the second leg of IFK Gothenburg's 1987 Euro Vase final win over Dundee United.

So it must be true
 
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Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
"An interview with the man who designed the ambient sound at Disney World, ensuring a constant experience rather than one that ends with the end of the ride. It was initially a little uneven, with sound changing volumes depending on where you stood, so they used algorithms to position 15,000 speakers around the park so that the levels would never change."

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/08/how-the-ambient-soun.html
 

zhao

there are no accidents
things we know =

2% of things we think we know =

0.034% of things we know we don't know =

0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000173% of things we don't know we don't know.

yes i am reading the black swan.
 
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paolo

Mechanical phantoms
I always thought that Donald Rumsfeld 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' quote (which I recall he was widely mocked for) actually made quite a lot of sense
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I always thought that Donald Rumsfeld 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' quote (which I recall he was widely mocked for) actually made quite a lot of sense

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

This seems to be a skewed take on Confucius, as quoted in Thoreau's Walden: "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."[1]

The statement won the 2003 Foot in Mouth award from the Plain English Campaign,[3] and is also hailed as an example of found poetry by the GOP Ministry of Official Poetry.

Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Zizek extrapolates from these three categories a fourth, the unknown known, that which we don't know or intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know:[7]
“ If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns," that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns" - the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to known about, even though they form the background of our public values.

The term was in use within the United States military establishment long before Rumsfeld's quote to the press in 2002. An early use of the term comes from a paper entitled Clausewitz and Modern War Gaming: losing can be better than winning by Raymond B. Furlong

...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
yes i am reading the black swan.

Actually I assumed your were channelling Donny Rumsfeld. ;)

Edit: dammit, note to self - read to end of thread before replying.

I think Rummy's comment does make sense, as does Zizek's lemma to it.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
Well I know it now, but when found out that Gil Scot Heron's dad was the first black footballer to play for Celtic (a Scotish football/soccer team for the overseas ppl) in the 1950's. I was like W0w, I didnt know that.

gosh yes i read about that in a newspaper about three weeks ago and was gobsmacked
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The Ancient Egyptians worshipped cats because they thought they were funny.

These giant cat heads were built underground, and seen by no-one:

BrassEye_for_the_Queer_Guy-Pyramid_Cat.png
 
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