What have you learned today?
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
- Start date
Surely this goes into the "share something that makes you smile"-thread?
Well, obviously this is a fake. The pyramids came with all parts included and they are still standing after all these years. No way they're an IKEA build.
Cool news about wood. They can make it transparent now with bonus strength. Practical trials has it tough to do for large sections so you can't make a see-through deck right now and the epoxy seems to yellow under UV light but we're on our way. This is semi old news but there's some renewed excitement because hobbyists are taking a swing at it which helps crowdsource the process a bit. 1000 makers with their favorite epoxies, stabilizers, and vacuum chambers all trying to outdo eachother can narrow down the search more efficiently than three teams of material scientists.
knowablemagazine.org
Soon the aesthetics of the 70s and 90s will come to unholy union as we have electronics that are simultaneously transparent and wood panelled.
Why scientists are making transparent wood
Stronger than plastic and tougher than glass, the resin-filled material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows and more
knowablemagazine.org
Soon the aesthetics of the 70s and 90s will come to unholy union as we have electronics that are simultaneously transparent and wood panelled.
The pyramids, no. But the pryamids, maybe, whatever those are.
Enoch Powell, best known for his "Rivers of Blood" speech about having to protect the British people from immigrants, was minister for health and refused to tighten regulations on imported food. The laxity of which repeatedly led to outbreaks of typhoid fever in Britain.
Which, ok, par for the course, but I didn't know that about him until recently.
Which, ok, par for the course, but I didn't know that about him until recently.
Ok, I knew the story about how Dr John Snow had discovered that the source of a cholera outbreak was a particular water pump and got the government to remove the handle to stop people using it, but I didn't know that they put it back again once the immediate problem had passed because they dismissed his theories.
Today I learned that apparently, it's not uncommon for people in the UK to wash their dishes and not rinse the soap off afterwards. I saw a TikTok video about it and did some semi-diligent Google sleuthing, and confirmed that it IS a thing. How widespread a "thing" it is, I couldn't tell you, but WTF? Any UKers here want to sound off and explain the thinking here??
My old school in-laws were like this. They lived on a well, terrified of the day they would have to replace it or run out of water. At one point, there were 13 people living in a one bathroom cape. They also would not flush toilets of pee. I can't write I ever got sick eating off their plates and silverware but it was icky to me. They'd fill a sink with soapy water, wash stuff off and then just put the soapy dish on the dish rack to dry. But one day someone did have to come out regarding the septic and the guy said he had never before seen such a large build up of urine solids around the waste system. Still, a step up from my wife's grandmother who still relied upon an outhouse for a bathroom back in the old country.
Their food is so horrible that the soap residue actually improves the flavor?
(I kid, I kid.)
The "rinsing off the soap" got me a bit. Questioned myself: What do i do when cleaning dishes: Of course i don't rinse off the soap... the soap is in the water... WAIT A MINUTE.
So, i am german. Learned and did it like this: Put a bit of detergent or soap into hot water - Wash the dishes - put them to dry - end drying with some cloth -put the dishes back. There is no rinsing. Why would there be rinsing? There is no rinsing... that is weird... I mean, doing the dishes under running water like in parts of south-europe is wasteful as hell, but i could imagine a second go through fresh cold water.
Anyway: You use so little detergent/soap and you "polish/dry it off anyway" That would be ppm amounts - no taste left.
So, let me ask you, when you take a shower, do you simply lather up, then step out and dry off whilst still covered in soapy water?
Dishwashers (the machines) have a rinse cycle that is expressly for removing the soapy water and sanitizing after the cleansing cycle. Rinsing your dishes in clean water after cleaning them in soapy water I thought was a basic, universal practice, and never imagined anyone thought otherwise.
I'm told it's unnecessary, but I do it, because, yeah, want my plates to just be plates and water which dries off just leaving the plate.
Who told you it's unnecessary? I thought it was a no-brainer: you rinse off your body after washing in the shower, you rinse off your car after you wash it, your washing machine rinses your clothes off before you put them in the dryer, basically everything that gets washed gets rinsed; whoever drew the line that plates that touch our food and utensils we put in our mouths are ok to sit covered in soapy water before their next use? Not saying it's necessarily or offensively gross, just needlessly negligent.
@Summerstorm, you want to shrug off the practice citing ppm, what if you had the choice of two swimming pools: one was perfectly clean, and the other, one person had peed in. Tell me why'd you'd choose the clean one.
Well, in a shower you don't need an 2extra step" though. Water comes in all the time.
If you compare it to taking a bath though: You take a bath, get out and dry off. No extra shower. Usually at least. (And yeah, steeping in your own dead skin and tallow and not rinsing it off in 2-3 showers now seems a bit weird too.)
But just accept that life and nature and animals... and also humans are just disgusting chaotic lumps of biomass. Just don't think about it, hehe. We eat garbage, shit garbage; put garbage on our skins. We feed our symbionts and parasites with it. It just isn't sleek and clean.
EDIT:
Eh, just assume that both pools had been peed in and the owner of the other first one just lies, hehe. But seriously: I do make a consciously effort to really hard not think about it. (Better for my mental state - i suspect i really go into the deep end if i embraced my inner neat- and cleanfreak)
Here's the TikTok that got this whole ball rolling. I thought he was being sarcastic, y'know, condescending to some stupid American who stated something painfully obvious, but I read a few comments and did some Googling, and nope; he was dead serious. Maybe hamming it up for the sake of entertainment, but serious nonetheless.
Apparently the various people living as hunters/gatherers settled down for agriculture roughly at the same time, and the reason for that was that the Earth got a bit more extreme seasons, which meant agriculture was a more survivable way to live.
Add it to the list of American atrocities that we’re content to just shrug off with a “meh” -