Seemingly trivial things that intrigue you

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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,483
    Rolf F wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    Step83 wrote:
    The whole ad tracking magic/witchcraft is very clever, all relies on cookies and known accounts, so say I signed into Google or YT on any device, I will automatically start seeing targeted ads based on my "profile" but, if you don't sign in and have nothing cookie wise it get fun. the algorithms will start chucking what the perceive to be appropriate products.

    Yeah, very clever. That's why I keep getting bombarded with adverts asking me if I want to book accommodation in Cluj because I went there last year and why it keeps sending me ads for Manfrotto monopods (though, to be fair, maybe that worked as I have three of those!).

    Funnily enough, those ad tracking things never manage to send me links for the things I haven't bought yet but would find useful. Where are the adverts for Georgian peat bellows when you need them?
    Surely you of all people don't favour burning peat.

    No, I certainly don't. But the objects are quite splendid looking more steampunk than any actual steampunk crap ever did! I'd use them principally to help burn coalite on an occasional basis in my open fire! And to look cool hanging on the wall. It may never happen.....
    Best not to think about how coalite is made.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    Step83 wrote:
    The whole ad tracking magic/witchcraft is very clever, all relies on cookies and known accounts, so say I signed into Google or YT on any device, I will automatically start seeing targeted ads based on my "profile" but, if you don't sign in and have nothing cookie wise it get fun. the algorithms will start chucking what the perceive to be appropriate products.

    Yeah, very clever. That's why I keep getting bombarded with adverts asking me if I want to book accommodation in Cluj because I went there last year and why it keeps sending me ads for Manfrotto monopods (though, to be fair, maybe that worked as I have three of those!).

    Funnily enough, those ad tracking things never manage to send me links for the things I haven't bought yet but would find useful. Where are the adverts for Georgian peat bellows when you need them?
    Surely you of all people don't favour burning peat.

    No, I certainly don't. But the objects are quite splendid looking more steampunk than any actual steampunk crap ever did! I'd use them principally to help burn coalite on an occasional basis in my open fire! And to look cool hanging on the wall. It may never happen.....
    Best not to think about how coalite is made.
    Only got that because I can't get that lovely anthracite any more!

    Not actually sure where this stuff is made now. It used to be made at Bolsover and Avenue (one of the worst contaminated land sites in the country - took 20 years to clean up and it was only constructed in the 50s!) but both of those are gone.
    Faster than a tent.......
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 51,195
    Rolf F wrote:
    Where are the adverts for Georgian peat bellows when you need them?

    Look under 'Blacksmiths'. In fact ask the one who looks after your nags. One uses a servant. I don't bother with all that huffing and puffing.

    Now to clear my browser memory 'cos I searched 'Manfrotto monopods'. :roll:
    seanoconn - gruagach craic!
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    Rolf F wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    Step83 wrote:
    The whole ad tracking magic/witchcraft is very clever, all relies on cookies and known accounts, so say I signed into Google or YT on any device, I will automatically start seeing targeted ads based on my "profile" but, if you don't sign in and have nothing cookie wise it get fun. the algorithms will start chucking what the perceive to be appropriate products.

    Yeah, very clever. That's why I keep getting bombarded with adverts asking me if I want to book accommodation in Cluj because I went there last year and why it keeps sending me ads for Manfrotto monopods (though, to be fair, maybe that worked as I have three of those!).

    Funnily enough, those ad tracking things never manage to send me links for the things I haven't bought yet but would find useful. Where are the adverts for Georgian peat bellows when you need them?
    Surely you of all people don't favour burning peat.

    No, I certainly don't. But the objects are quite splendid looking more steampunk than any actual steampunk crap ever did! I'd use them principally to help burn coalite on an occasional basis in my open fire! And to look cool hanging on the wall. It may never happen.....
    Best not to think about how coalite is made.
    Only got that because I can't get that lovely anthracite any more!

    Not actually sure where this stuff is made now. It used to be made at Bolsover and Avenue (one of the worst contaminated land sites in the country - took 20 years to clean up and it was only constructed in the 50s!) but both of those are gone.
    I worked there in the 1980s working for tiling company. We were lining the coal hoppers with glass tiles. It had a really good canteen, it was so cheap they might as well given the food away.
  • Space is fathomably big.

    That planet they found a few weeks back that is most like Earth is 111 light years away.

    To put that into perspective Mars takes 9 months to get to and is 3 light minutes away.
  • Excrement. Sitting at a café today on my ride and watching people go by. This was not a large city by any means but loads of people going about their business.

    Got me thinking if everyone in the world did a number 2 each day just how much excrement that would produce.

    Must be a helluva lot.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,207
    Excrement. Sitting at a café today on my ride and watching people go by. This was not a large city by any means but loads of people going about their business.

    Got me thinking if everyone in the world did a number 2 each day just how much excrement that would produce.

    Must be a helluva lot.

    Guessing at 250g per person on average and the world population being 7.7 billion my quick maths came out at around 1.9 million tonnes.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,483
    Space is fathomably big.

    That planet they found a few weeks back that is most like Earth is 111 light years away.

    To put that into perspective Mars takes 9 months to get to and is 3 light minutes away.

    Can't work out if the missing 'un' is deliberate or not.

    If you think that's a long way, the observable universe is 93.016 billion light years in diameter. Or 8.8x10^26m.

    And there are parts of the universe too far away for the light from them to have reached us yet, and parts further away still, from which light will never reach us.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 51,195
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    [Like Jesus - decided some 400 years after his death that he was the true son of god in a marginal vote in his favour.]

    The modern replacement for creation is... creation. Creation of the Universe from an epicenter.
    To support this, clusters of stars in the red shift and clusters in the blue shift.
    It's also marginal (but by no means definitive) so we veer on expansion ('cos it fits the theory).

    They even revise the ages of stars because they cannot possibly be older than... the beginning of the Universe. Despite those ages being well established previously.

    The only definitive and provable expansion, is the hot air emanating from the neo creationalists mouths.

    [Though I get your point]
    seanoconn - gruagach craic!
  • It was more of a genuine question than a rhetorical one.

    I don't know much about astro physics.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,508
    rjsterry wrote:
    Space is fathomably big.

    That planet they found a few weeks back that is most like Earth is 111 light years away.

    To put that into perspective Mars takes 9 months to get to and is 3 light minutes away.

    Can't work out if the missing 'un' is deliberate or not.

    If you think that's a long way, the observable universe is 93.016 billion light years in diameter. Or 8.8x10^26m.

    And there are parts of the universe too far away for the light from them to have reached us yet, and parts further away still, from which light will never reach us.

    Of course, the light itself experiences no time, so it is all much of muchness to light as it all happens instantaneously. It's the problem with trying to think about these things as the human brain struggles to imagine no time.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,483
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    Not exactly.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • orraloon
    orraloon Posts: 12,607
    There is a recent Infinite Monkey Cage episode on How We Measure The Universe. Happened to listen to it yesterday. Available on podcast and I assume BBC Sounds.
  • Pinno wrote:
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    [Like Jesus - decided some 400 years after his death that he was the true son of god in a marginal vote in his favour.]

    The modern replacement for creation is... creation. Creation of the Universe from an epicenter.
    To support this, clusters of stars in the red shift and clusters in the blue shift.
    It's also marginal (but by no means definitive) so we veer on expansion ('cos it fits the theory).

    They even revise the ages of stars because they cannot possibly be older than... the beginning of the Universe. Despite those ages being well established previously.

    The only definitive and provable expansion, is the hot air emanating from the neo creationalists mouths.

    [Though I get your point]

    Is that when those six stones were created that Ironman used to save us all? Or this that another story of epic fictional proportions?
  • chris_bass
    chris_bass Posts: 4,913
    Pinno wrote:
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    [Like Jesus - decided some 400 years after his death that he was the true son of god in a marginal vote in his favour.]

    The modern replacement for creation is... creation. Creation of the Universe from an epicenter.
    To support this, clusters of stars in the red shift and clusters in the blue shift.
    It's also marginal (but by no means definitive) so we veer on expansion ('cos it fits the theory).

    They even revise the ages of stars because they cannot possibly be older than... the beginning of the Universe. Despite those ages being well established previously.

    The only definitive and provable expansion, is the hot air emanating from the neo creationalists mouths.

    [Though I get your point]

    that isn't what the big bang says! it says that it seems that the etire universe was at a singular point over 13 billion years ago and then began to expand. but no one knows what happens at t=0 as everything tends to infinity so it doesnt mean the universe was created just that is when time began. there are many theories about t=0 and before (if you can even have "before" without time) but no one knows for sure.

    if we are moving at the speed of light in one diection and something else is moving in the opposite direction the light from there won't ever reach us and vice versa unless something slows down. it's all relative!
    www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes
  • mr_goo
    mr_goo Posts: 3,770
    Chris Bass wrote:
    Pinno wrote:
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    [Like Jesus - decided some 400 years after his death that he was the true son of god in a marginal vote in his favour.]

    The modern replacement for creation is... creation. Creation of the Universe from an epicenter.
    To support this, clusters of stars in the red shift and clusters in the blue shift.
    It's also marginal (but by no means definitive) so we veer on expansion ('cos it fits the theory).

    They even revise the ages of stars because they cannot possibly be older than... the beginning of the Universe. Despite those ages being well established previously.

    The only definitive and provable expansion, is the hot air emanating from the neo creationalists mouths.

    [Though I get your point]

    that isn't what the big bang says! it says that it seems that the etire universe was at a singular point over 13 billion years ago and then began to expand. but no one knows what happens at t=0 as everything tends to infinity so it doesnt mean the universe was created just that is when time began. there are many theories about t=0 and before (if you can even have "before" without time) but no one knows for sure.

    if we are moving at the speed of light in one diection and something else is moving in the opposite direction the light from there won't ever reach us and vice versa unless something slows down. it's all relative!

    Fascinating topic that I'll always struggle to comprehend.
    Still cannot for life of me fathom out why we only see one side of our moon. No matter how many times my son (who studied relativity at uni) explains it to me. I just glaze over, get a nose bleed, headache and cry.
    Always be yourself, unless you can be Aaron Rodgers....Then always be Aaron Rodgers.
  • Imagine a being or energy that does not use and understand time or speed and is not restricted by it,like our thinking on this planet.
  • rjsterry wrote:
    Space is fathomably big.

    That planet they found a few weeks back that is most like Earth is 111 light years away.

    To put that into perspective Mars takes 9 months to get to and is 3 light minutes away.

    Can't work out if the missing 'un' is deliberate or not.

    If you think that's a long way, the observable universe is 93.016 billion light years in diameter. Or 8.8x10^26m.

    And there are parts of the universe too far away for the light from them to have reached us yet, and parts further away still, from which light will never reach us.

    Kind of the whole point
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 4,993
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.
  • chris_bass
    chris_bass Posts: 4,913
    Mr Goo wrote:
    Chris Bass wrote:
    Pinno wrote:
    Isn't it expanding at the speed of light?

    [Like Jesus - decided some 400 years after his death that he was the true son of god in a marginal vote in his favour.]

    The modern replacement for creation is... creation. Creation of the Universe from an epicenter.
    To support this, clusters of stars in the red shift and clusters in the blue shift.
    It's also marginal (but by no means definitive) so we veer on expansion ('cos it fits the theory).

    They even revise the ages of stars because they cannot possibly be older than... the beginning of the Universe. Despite those ages being well established previously.

    The only definitive and provable expansion, is the hot air emanating from the neo creationalists mouths.

    [Though I get your point]

    that isn't what the big bang says! it says that it seems that the etire universe was at a singular point over 13 billion years ago and then began to expand. but no one knows what happens at t=0 as everything tends to infinity so it doesnt mean the universe was created just that is when time began. there are many theories about t=0 and before (if you can even have "before" without time) but no one knows for sure.

    if we are moving at the speed of light in one diection and something else is moving in the opposite direction the light from there won't ever reach us and vice versa unless something slows down. it's all relative!

    Fascinating topic that I'll always struggle to comprehend.
    Still cannot for life of me fathom out why we only see one side of our moon. No matter how many times my son (who studied relativity at uni) explains it to me. I just glaze over, get a nose bleed, headache and cry.

    I can't claim to know a lot about it but basically the moon rotates at the same rate as it orbits the earth. This isn't down to chance ans, as far as i know, wasn't always the case millions of years ago. Because the earth is much bigger than the moon it has mishapen the moon slghtly making a bulge pointing towards the earth which acts kind of like a break, slowing the nearer side. this has the effect of keeping the bulge pointing towards earth.....


    i think!
    www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,483
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.

    There's an explanation in that Wikipedia link I posted. But crudely, the universe has expanded since the light was emitted. The object which emitted the light is no longer where it was when the light was emitted.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 4,993
    rjsterry wrote:
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.

    There's an explanation in that Wikipedia link I posted. But crudely, the universe has expanded since the light was emitted. The object which emitted the light is no longer where it was when the light was emitted.

    Yeh I know, but I'm still struggling.
    I can (just about) grasp the time begins at big bang thing, but if two objects have been moving away from each other at the speed of light for 13.8 billion years, how come they are now 90 billion years apart. Why not 27.6?
  • Mad_Malx wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.

    There's an explanation in that Wikipedia link I posted. But crudely, the universe has expanded since the light was emitted. The object which emitted the light is no longer where it was when the light was emitted.

    Yeh I know, but I'm still struggling.
    I can (just about) grasp the time begins at big bang thing, but if two objects have been moving away from each other at the speed of light for 13.8 billion years, how come they are now 90 billion years apart. Why not 27.6?

    That is because you are trying like so many here to make balance out of chaos,you seek order and control.

    How would it help you if you are given the answer even if you don't understand the question?

    everything is possible.
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 4,993
    Deep
  • Interesting though,it has increased my frown lines for many years.
  • Mad_Malx wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.

    There's an explanation in that Wikipedia link I posted. But crudely, the universe has expanded since the light was emitted. The object which emitted the light is no longer where it was when the light was emitted.

    Yeh I know, but I'm still struggling.
    I can (just about) grasp the time begins at big bang thing, but if two objects have been moving away from each other at the speed of light for 13.8 billion years, how come they are now 90 billion years apart. Why not 27.6?
    This is all so far away from my being able to grasp it with my little brain, I don't even bother trying. Of greater concern is whether I've got enough milk for my muesli in the morning.
  • Mad_Malx
    Mad_Malx Posts: 4,993
    Checks fridge .... I'm ok!
  • My ignorance of the universe isn't entirely flippant... I know it's out there, and really rather big, but it's so far out of my comprehension that apart from gasping in awe of it when I look at the stars, I'd rather devote brain energy to human-sized phenomena, such as linguistics, which is almost as awe-inspiring and fascinating (and one which I can relate to my experience of my world).

    Having said that, having been to CERN a couple of times, I have found the quest, in true Feynmanian fashion, to find out about the very smallest things in the universe to be a Thing (probably) Worth Doing, so I'm glad there are people out there with bigger brains, who can probably do both that and remember the milk.
  • chris_bass
    chris_bass Posts: 4,913
    Mad_Malx wrote:
    How things can be more light years away than the age of the universe.

    Things are moving thorough space as space itself is expanding, imagine driving along a road that was like elastic and stretching out as you drive along it, you'd be moving faster than your cars maximum speed. It's kinda like that idea I think
    www.conjunctivitis.com - a site for sore eyes