What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My doctors may be idiots.

[Carl Hickey]

kudos (n.)

"fame, renown, glory," 1799, probably originally in university slang, from Greek kydos "glory, fame," especially in battle, "a poetical word, found chiefly in the Iliad and Odyssey" [Century Dictionary], literally "that which is heard of," perhaps from PIE root *keu- "to see, observe, perceive." In form the word is a Greek singular noun, but the final -s often is mistaken as a plural suffix in English, leading to the barbarous back-formation kudo (attested by 1936).

*keu- 

also *skeu- Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to see, observe, perceive." 



It forms all or part of: Anschauung; caution; cautious; caveat; kudos; precaution; scavenger; scone; sheen; show.


It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit kavih "wise, sage; seer, poet;" Avestan kauui- "seer, poet, wise man;" Middle Iranian škoh "splendor, majesty;" Latin cautio "care, foresight," cautus "careful, heedful," cavere "beware, take heed;" Greek kydos "glory, fame;" Lithuanian kavoti "tend, safeguard;" Armenian cucanem "I show;" Old Church Slavonic čudo "wonder;" Czech (z)koumati "to perceive, be aware of;" Serbian čuvati "watch, heed;" Old English sceawian "to look at," Middle Dutch schoon "beautiful, bright," properly "showy," Old High German scouwon "to watch."

etymonline

= = =

We used to say as kids ['skivaj] see/watch/look at. And abbreviated it to [ski]. 1 x ['skivaj] = 2 x [ski]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Exactly what will kill me, all else failing.

[Rev. Rye]

In America, eggs have to be chilled, but in Europe, they can be kept at room temperature. Why? Because, to ward off salmonella, they wash the eggs, which removes the cuticle (the egg’s first line of defense against bacteria.) The rest of the world just vaccinates the chicken against salmonella, thus removing the need to wash it.

[Jackalope]

Yesterday I didn't know how a G major scale was played on a banjo. Today I know whoever invented the instrument was a madman.

[Rev. Rye]

I've cringed at this commercial for well over a decade.





But what I didn't know is that all four of the main voice actors died of tobacco-related illnesses (Fred and Barney died of emphysema, and Wilma and Betty of lung cancer.)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In America, eggs have to be chilled, but in Europe, they can be kept at room temperature. Why? Because, to ward off salmonella, they wash the eggs, which removes the cuticle (the egg’s first line of defense against bacteria.) The rest of the world just vaccinates the chicken against salmonella, thus removing the need to wash it.

I remember when Sam's Club stacked their eggs at room temperature. That went away in the early 90's irrc.

[Anomalocaris]

In America, eggs have to be chilled, but in Europe, they can be kept at room temperature. Why? Because, to ward off salmonella, they wash the eggs, which removes the cuticle (the egg’s first line of defense against bacteria.) The rest of the world just vaccinates the chicken against salmonella, thus removing the need to wash it.

We need to vaccinate all humans infants against AIDS (acquired intellectual deficiency syndrome)

[Anomalocaris]

The new 500 meter radio telescope dish in China would seem to have a much larger receiving aperture than the 305m dish of Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico that was sadly destroyed by poor maintenance in 2020.    

In reality its receiving aperture is actually slightly smaller at 300m.   The reason for the difference is unlike Arecibo telescope, whose dish is rigid, fixed and the entirety is always in play at once, the Chinese scope’s dish is actually flexible and must be deformed by actuators to aim at specific points in the sky..   Unfortunately for any given point of aim only a 300m circle within the 500 m flexible dish can be pulled into the proper parabolic shape for correct focus.

[Rev. Rye]

Three facts, two bizarre, one more mundane.

1) There is a cartoon called John Dillermand. It's a stop-motion cartoon about a man with a giant, prehensile penis. You might think it's just one of Adult Swim's worse shows. But it's actually made for children. In Denmark.




2) Our modern knowledge of how bird migration works is actually surprisingly recent. Not even on a level of "how do they know exactly where to roost in the winter." Europeans didn't even know where some birds went in the winter until 1822. They only found out when a stork arrived from a winter in South Africa... with an African arrow its neck. It still made it back to Europe in time to be killed by a hunter.




There were still several theories, but my favourite was that they wintered... on the fucking moon. No, I'm not kidding. Weirdly, people even argued that it was supported by Jeremiah 8:7.

3) There's this scene from Bluey:



Until recently, I just assumed it was one of the most random bowdlerisations Disney made of the show, like they didn't want kids to know France was a thing, but it turned out there was actually a reason. Apparently, the Argentine and the Frenchdog were currently working on the strawberry farm where the Russells found them, but someone pointed out that having a Latin American working as a farm labourer had some... racial connotations, so they decided that to have the Frenchdog explain that they were backpackers to eliminate those implications. Even though there’s no backpacks in sight.

Even though, from what I understand, when Argentinians emigrate to the US, they tend to be far less likely to be the desperate, huddled masses that farmers are willing to exploit for cheap labour.