The Interesting Facts Thread™

[That]

The IAU definition of a planet requires a body to 1) orbit the sun, 2) be nearly round in shape, and 3) have "cleared its neighbourhood".

Pretty rude of the IAU to classify me as a planet.

[OrangeRKN]

[VlaSoul]

So I just realised my analogy would only account for half of the moon.

Although I still contest that the moon is less of a planet than, say, Mars - and some people think that's a chocolate bar of some kind.

i mean
im pretty sure a planet has to be the dominant gravitational force in its local area? which is why mercury counts but the moon, titan and pluto do not

[Abacus]

Yeah, forget these IAU chancers.

I say Grcade defines planets!

My go;

Big round things that float around in space for no apparent reason. But if you fall off one, you're in trouble.

[SEP]

So I just realised my analogy would only account for half of the moon.

Although I still contest that the moon is less of a planet than, say, Mars - and some people think that's a chocolate bar of some kind.

i mean
im pretty sure a planet has to be the dominant gravitational force in its local area? which is why mercury counts but the moon, titan and pluto do not

How do you define local area? Because our entire solar system is based around the Sun's gravitational pull?

[VlaSoul]

So I just realised my analogy would only account for half of the moon.

Although I still contest that the moon is less of a planet than, say, Mars - and some people think that's a chocolate bar of some kind.

i mean
im pretty sure a planet has to be the dominant gravitational force in its local area? which is why mercury counts but the moon, titan and pluto do not

How do you define local area? Because our entire solar system is based around the Sun's gravitational pull?

I think it's with the exception of the star the planets orbit around, and I'm not sure how exactly to define it, but when you look at Jupiter or Neptune, they by far exert the most influence on the bodies around them, probably more so than the Sun

tbh OR defined it a lot better than I did

[Abacus]

If you know whether someone is left or right handed, you can usually spot whether they are lying to you or not by just watching what their different hands do.

[Moggy]

If you know whether someone is left or right handed, you can usually spot whether they are lying to you or not by just watching what their different hands do.

What if they are ambidextrous?

[Lime]

If you know whether someone is left or right handed, you can usually spot whether they are lying to you or not by just watching what their different hands do.

What do the hands 'do' that gives them away? And if the other hand to their 'handedness' does it, are they in the clear?

[Tafdolphin]

If a left handed person is lying they will unconsciously draw the word 'shame' with their right hand pinky. If they are right handed, they will slap at the air with their left hand before pointing to magnetic north

[Abacus]

For flips sake, I wrote out a massive response on my phone and it got deleted.

Essentially, watch the non motive hand. Whilst the person is trying to convince you of a lie, their dominant hand will be confident, pointing, assertive. That's because all their energy is going into to convince you of something, and their dominant hand joins in.

Meanwhile, for most people, there is a conflict at play. They won't notice, but their subconscious self retreats into the bits of the body no-one pays attention to, and plays that anxiety out.

So, the left hand (say) will end up twisted up, curled up, or hidden (dropped below the table, / behind their back). It's a physical manifestation of their mental stress and an unconscious reaction for all bar a congenital liar. A confident right hand, with a curled up or hidden left hand means this person doesn't believe what they are saying, or at the least isn't confident of it.

[Abacus]

A monkey is just a very hairy baby.

[Ironhide]

For flips sake, I wrote out a massive response on my phone and it got deleted.

Essentially, watch the non motive hand. Whilst the person is trying to convince you of a lie, their dominant hand will be confident, pointing, assertive. That's because all their energy is going into to convince you of something, and their dominant hand joins in.

Meanwhile, for most people, there is a conflict at play. They won't notice, but their subconscious self retreats into the bits of the body no-one pays attention to, and plays that anxiety out.

So, the left hand (say) will end up twisted up, curled up, or hidden (dropped below the table, / behind their back). It's a physical manifestation of their mental stress and an unconscious reaction for all bar a congenital liar. A confident right hand, with a curled up or hidden left hand means this person doesn't believe what they are saying, or at the least isn't confident of it.

I can barely move my hands so I don't have that particular 'tell' when attempting to lie, I'm still terrible at it though.

[OrangeRKN]

So I just realised my analogy would only account for half of the moon.

Although I still contest that the moon is less of a planet than, say, Mars - and some people think that's a chocolate bar of some kind.

i mean
im pretty sure a planet has to be the dominant gravitational force in its local area? which is why mercury counts but the moon, titan and pluto do not

How do you define local area? Because our entire solar system is based around the Sun's gravitational pull?

I think it's with the exception of the star the planets orbit around, and I'm not sure how exactly to define it, but when you look at Jupiter or Neptune, they by far exert the most influence on the bodies around them, probably more so than the Sun

tbh OR defined it a lot better than I did

I wouldn't worry, the IAU don't actually know how to strictly define it either. They just kind of settled on "everyone sort of knows what this means" and left it at that.

[Peter Crisp]

One of the stations for HS2 has just been given approval and looks like this.



https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/camden- ... 01.article

[Abacus]

For flips sake, I wrote out a massive response on my phone and it got deleted.

Essentially, watch the non motive hand. Whilst the person is trying to convince you of a lie, their dominant hand will be confident, pointing, assertive. That's because all their energy is going into to convince you of something, and their dominant hand joins in.

Meanwhile, for most people, there is a conflict at play. They won't notice, but their subconscious self retreats into the bits of the body no-one pays attention to, and plays that anxiety out.

So, the left hand (say) will end up twisted up, curled up, or hidden (dropped below the table, / behind their back). It's a physical manifestation of their mental stress and an unconscious reaction for all bar a congenital liar. A confident right hand, with a curled up or hidden left hand means this person doesn't believe what they are saying, or at the least isn't confident of it.

I can barely move my hands so I don't have that particular 'tell' when attempting to lie, I'm still terrible at it though.

Well, that must stink.

Telling a big lie convincingly is one of life's great pleasures, as D Trump would doubtless testify.

If you don't mind me asking, is this a degenerative thing, or a thing you've always had?

[Vermilion]

If you substitute the word 'fight' for the word 'wank' when reciting the rules of Fight Club, the result is both very immature, and highly amusing...

Wank Club: List of Rules!

1st rule of Wank club: You do not talk about Wank Club

2nd rule of Wank Club: You DO NOT talk about WANK CLUB.

3rd rule of Wank Club: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out, the wank is over.

4th rule of Wank Club: Only two guys to a wank.

5th rule of Wank Club: One wank at a time.

6th rule of Wank Club: No shirts, no shoes.

7th rule of Wank Club: Wanks will go on as long as they have to.

8th rule of Wank Club: If this is your first night at Wank Club, you HAVE to wank.

[That]

Just read an interesting linguistic argument that English only has two tenses. We have a past tense, I played, and a present tense, I play. But we express the future by using context to displace the present tense into a different time. I will play (e.g. tomorrow), or I am going to play (tomorrow), or I intend to play (tomorrow). That's still all play. There's no future verb form, call it -uv, that forms sentences like *I playuv tomorrow. That would be what a real future tense would look like.

Apparently this is pretty well-accepted amongst linguists. The idea of "three tenses" is a useful construct to make teaching the language easier, which is why it's taught that way in schools, but it's not really true.

(EDIT: I just moved this post from TCRT because I remembered we had this one!)

[Tafdolphin]

That's discounting all tense variations, progressive, perfect etc but yeah sounds about right. French has about 13 tenses in total, including the equivalent of your -uv and even splits the future into close future and distant/potential future. I suppose this is why it's known as a much more expressive language then English, or as the 'language of diplomacy' as they like to say over here.

EDIT: Alright fine, there actually 3 tenses, 7 moods and 27 sub-tenses

https://www.quora.com/How-many-tenses-d ... t-are-they

[That]

Mm! Romance languages are a nightmare for conjugation. Especially when it all changes according to grammatical gender too. I'm learning a little bit of Italian and I don't think I'll ever remember all the verb forms, I'm a lost cause really. I'll stick to pointing at things and mumbling "per favore... grazie..." I think.

It was noted in the comments that (at least according to what these people were saying!) Mandarin doesn't have tenses at all, it's all context cues: something like *I play now, *I play yesterday, *I play tomorrow.