# Trivia Thread!



## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

Have a favorite piece of trivia you're dying to share? Here's your chance!

Here's mine: 
Tic Tac mints are named after the sound their container makes.


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

There is a significant difference in meaning and application between the words 'effect' and 'affect'.
Many in positions of hiring others look for proper use of these words in their decision making.


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

Spiders have from zero to 8 eyes. The number varies from species to species... and even within the same species.
But the number is always an even number when they have them.

I was never able to count Shelob's eyes I'm afraid...

(p.s. - there is much more to know about spider's eyes but I'll leave that to you.)


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 31, 2022)

If you bite into Wint-O-Green Lifesavers in the dark, they make green sparks. Some coworkers and I chewed up three packs one day, confirming the fact.


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

Speaking of the Great Worms (which I note, we're not) -
The longest earthworm is Microchaetus rappi of South Africa. The longest recorded was 21 ft. but they normally average only around 6 feet.
Poor representatives, the descendants of Ancalagon..!

(OK, I'll quit now.)


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

In the 1980s, Fredric Baur, the founder of Pringles, requested to be buried in a Pringles can. His children honored the request.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 31, 2022)

He must have been a very small man. 🤔


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> He must have been a very small man. 🤔


I was wondering what flavor...cheddar, pizza, bbq


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> I was wondering what flavor...cheddar, pizza, bbq



I would guess 'original' because he was buried in one of the "iconic cans", one of his stated reasons being he was "proud of his design of it."
Only some of his ashes went into it, most of the rest being in an urn buried beside it, with some put in an urn and given to his grandson - so his daughter Linda Baur is proclaimed to have said.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

Nutmeg is a hallucinogen. The spice contains myristicin, a natural compound that has mind-altering effects if ingested in large doses.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Aug 31, 2022)

The largest galaxy is IC-1101 at 4 million light years in diameter.


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## 🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 (Aug 31, 2022)

Tomorrow never comes.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Aug 31, 2022)

Oh no... You went there....


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

Vilisse said:


> Tomorrow never comes.


Is that a fact? 😋


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## 🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 (Aug 31, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Oh no... You went there....


I went to where, I wonder?


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## 🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 (Aug 31, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Is that a fact? 😋


It's more of a saying, actually.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

In the time it took for you to read this sentence, around 50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones.


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## 🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 (Aug 31, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> In the time it took for you to read this sentence, around 50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones.


May White shores embrace - oh wait, it probably doesn't work like that...


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

Vilisse said:


> I went to where, I wonder?


So do we all..!🤪


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

Vilisse said:


> It's more of a saying, actually.


And yet also a fact.


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## Ent (Aug 31, 2022)

If one train is traveling at 50 miles an hour approaching another train traveling at 50 miles an hour from the opposite direction, and they meet in Kuna Idaho, they are both on the same track. Kuna only has one. Ooopss


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## Radaghast (Aug 31, 2022)

The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is 25-37 miles per hour. Swallows are naturally unladen with anything except insects and stuff to build their nests, which I doubt is weighty enough to affect their speed, and they don't carry anything in their claws. Swallows inhabit all continents — including sometimes Antarctica — not just Africa and Europe.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 31, 2022)

Hippos can identify a friend from foe by smelling their dung! Hippos use middens, or outdoor areas where they repeatedly go to the bathroom. Hippos can then sniff the area to find out who’s been there, and if they’re considered a friend.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Aug 31, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Hippos can identify a friend from foe by smelling their dung! Hippos use middens, or outdoor areas where they repeatedly go to the bathroom. Hippos can then sniff the area to find out who’s been there, and if they’re considered a friend.


Not sure if I should be intrigued, or bewildered, or just disgusted....😅


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## Radaghast (Aug 31, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Hippos can identify a friend from foe by smelling their dung! Hippos use middens, or outdoor areas where they repeatedly go to the bathroom. Hippos can then sniff the area to find out who’s been there, and if they’re considered a friend.


Also, hippo males attract females by spinning their dung around with their tails 😆


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Aug 31, 2022)

Radaghast said:


> Also, hippo males attract females by spinning their dung around with their tails 😆


Ok, now I know the correct response for this one is *definitely *disgust... 😅


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## Eljorahir (Aug 31, 2022)

Radaghast said:


> Also, hippo males attract females by spinning their dung around with their tails 😆


Humans: "Love is blind."

Hippos: "Love lacks a sense of smell."


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## Starbrow (Aug 31, 2022)

> The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is 25-37 miles per hour. Swallows are naturally unladen with anything except insects and stuff to build their nests, which I doubt is weighty enough to affect their speed, and they don't carry anything in their claws. Swallows inhabit all continents — including sometimes Antarctica — not just Africa and Europe.


I will be sure to remember this the next time I am on a quest for the Holy Grail.


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## Starbrow (Aug 31, 2022)

There are 108 double stitches on a baseball.⚾


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Aug 31, 2022)

This is probably just common knowledge here, but...

J.R.R. Tolkien died at 81 years of age.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

There are 16 different species of Hedgehogs.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

COFFEE HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER
Thanks to it being jam-packed with antioxidants, coffee remains one of the healthiest beverages in the world.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> COFFEE HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER
> Thanks to it being jam-packed with antioxidants, coffee remains one of the healthiest beverages in the world.


Good news for you! I understand that you are a coffee-consumer, yes?


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Good news for you! I understand that you are a coffee-consumer, yes?


That's probably an understatement


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> That's probably an understatement



LOL. I was waiting for this response.
Methinks Mr. Erestor Arcamen is similar to myself. RARELY does anything happen before, or without, coffee. It must be an emergency for coffee not to come first.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> LOL. I was waiting for this response.
> Methinks Mr. Erestor Arcamen is similar to myself. RARELY does anything happen before, or without, coffee. It must be an emergency for coffee not to come first.


Basically!






And now, this

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but the Guinness World Record holder for “Oldest Cat Ever”—a 38-year-old kitty named Creme Puff—drank coffee every morning of her furry little life (plus enjoying bacon, eggs, and broccoli). Before you dismiss that outright, consider this: The cat that Creme Puff beat out for the record (a 34-year-old cat, appropriately named Grandpa Rex Allen) had the same owner, and was fed the exact same diet.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Now *that *is trivia!


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 1, 2022)

Some interesting trivia from the movie *The Message*:

Production stopped when the financeers withdrew their support, leaving cast and crew stranded for two weeks in Morocco (in a hotel with broken air conditioning; they slept under wet towels). Financing was eventually supplied by none other than Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.

In accordance with Muslim beliefs, Mohammed could not be depicted on screen nor could his voice be heard. This rule extended to his wives, his daughters and his sons-in-law. This left Mohammed's uncle as the central character (played by Anthony Quinn). In the completed film, actors speak directly to the camera and then nod to unheard dialogue.

One of Anthony Quinn's favourite films of his own.

Muhammad Ali expressed interest in playing the role of Bilal, but producer Moustapha Akkad refused, stating that such casting "would smack of commercialism."

The film's adverse media coverage hurt it more than the actual production. One media outlet claimed that Charlton Heston had been cast as Mohammad. Moustapha Akkad and Heston quickly issued a denial but the announcement caused an uproar in the Muslim world regardless. The resulting furor led to widespread protests and riots, notably in Pakistan, where several people were actually killed.

Moustapha Akkad filmed for six months in Morocco, but had to stop when the Saudi government exerted great pressure on the Moroccan government to stop the project.

In July 1976, five days before the film opened in London's West End, threatening phone calls to a cinema prompted Moustapha Akkad to change the title from Mohammed, Messenger of God to The Message, at a cost of £50,000.

As a protest against the release of this film, Afro-American Hinafi Muslims, under their leader, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis (born Ernest McGhee, 1921 - 2003), seized several adjoining buildings in Washington DC, from March 9 - 11, 1977. They took 149 hostages and killed a police officer and a broadcast journalist in a 39-hour-long standoff.

Being filmed in Libya, the cast and crew would have gone the full year without any access to alcohol. They were only allowed access to confiscated liquor after the authorities had labeled them as "alcoholics" and much of what the crew drank started out as 140-proof powdered mix, which had to be watered down significantly to be made drinkable.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Alright, wow. That is TRIVIA. 

There is a donut shop near me, where you get a free donut if you can guess a question right. If there is anything about The Message, I may just have it.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> LOL. I was waiting for this response.
> Methinks Mr. Erestor Arcamen is similar to myself. RARELY does anything happen before, or without, coffee. It must be an emergency for coffee not to come first.


EA, Superhero!


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

I've posted this before. This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies:








> During the scene in which the "La Marseillaise" is sung over the German song "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the Rhine"), many of the extras had real tears in their eyes as a large number were actual refugees from Nazi persecution in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and were overcome by the emotions the scene brought out. The scene was copied from Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion (1937), in which French soldiers in a German POW camp sing the song as a similar gesture of defiance. In that film the song was led by a prisoner who was in drag for a show the prisoners were putting on. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" ("War Song for the Rhine Army").











Cinema’s greatest scene: ‘Casablanca’ and ‘La Marseillaise’


Casablanca is widely remembered as one of the greatest films of all time, coming in at #2 on the AFI’s top 100 list and similarly regarded by many other critics. You can quibble with its exac…



seveninchesofyourtime.com


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 1, 2022)

^ "La Marseillaise" was originally dedicated to a Bavarian officer btw.


> The carillon of the town hall in the Bavarian town of Cham rings the Marseillaise every day at 12.05 p.m. to commemorate the city's most famous son, _Nikolaus Graf von Luckner_.











Nicolas Luckner - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Another fact I *definitely *did not need to know!


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Another fact I *definitely *did not need to know!



My best friend says: 
"‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’"
........................... _Sherlock Holmes_


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> all the lumber of every sort that he comes across


Allow me to recommend to you Nicholson Baker's 150-page essay on the word "lumber". I don't recall if he mentions Holmes, though he does cite Tolkien.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Allow me to recommend to you Nicholson Baker's 150-page essay on the word "lumber". I don't recall if he mentions Holmes, though he does cite Tolkien.


Sounds intriguing.
ON THE OTHER HAND: will it fly in the face of "...the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic."

Just gotta ask...! 😁


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

I've found two potential books. Mr. Baker seems to have quite a few hanging about looking for proper homes..!_

"__The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber_ (Vintage Contemporaries)". But this book runs to some 368 pages, so may not be 'the one.'_
_
Then we have:

_"__PERHAPS I AM NOT SO VERY MISGUIDED IN DELIBERATELY MAKING A LUMBER-ROOM OF MY HEAD SO LONG AS THAT ROOM IS COEXTENSIVE WITH THE WORLD ITSELF. NO DECOMPOSING QUOTATION IS SO VILE THAT IT CAN'T BE TAKEN IN HAND AND TURNED TO GOOD ACCOUNT."_ This one is showing as a 1958 offering, currently unavailable. I cannot yet find what its page count might be.

i'll keep looking. perhaps elsewhere on the net including an 'essay' in the search...
​


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> I've found two potential books. Mr. Baker seems to have quite a few hanging about looking for proper homes..!
> 
> _"__The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber_ (Vintage Contemporaries)". But this book runs to some 368 pages, so may not be 'the one.'
> 
> ...



AHA. His 1996 essay "Lumber" is included in "The Size of Thoughts." 
On we go.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Glad that you have found it!


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 1, 2022)

Correct. 

He's an excellent writer-- in fact, I enjoyed the Lumber essay enough to read it twice. It can be found here:






Amazon.com: The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber: 9780679776246: Baker, Nicholson: Books


Amazon.com: The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber: 9780679776246: Baker, Nicholson: Books



www.amazon.com





But copies can be found online for far less. The book is appropriate for inclusion here because he applies a magnifying glass to seemingly trivial things; for example, there are (much shorter) essays on the aestetics and production of plastic model airplanes, and the history of fingernail clippers.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Intriguing. I once wrote a paper about vacuum cleaners, but I am afraid it was just procrastination for not wanting to vacuum.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 1, 2022)

This is the first book -- a novel-- by him I read:

It's concerned with the thoughts going on in the mind of a man riding an escalator. I'd recommend that one, if you'd like to read one of his novels.

I would _not _advise beginning with _Vox, The Fermata_, or _The House of Holes_, however.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Hm... Intriguing. I may have to check it out.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Correct.
> View attachment 15453
> He's an excellent writer-- in fact, I enjoyed the Lumber essay enough to read it twice. It can be found here:
> 
> ...



Thank you. If it's seemly for a twice-read for S-eS then it certainly deserves a place in the digital library.
I e-Snagged a copy and am certain it will give me much pleasure in the mornings and evenings upon my shelf before I step out to tend the forest.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

But you live in the forest, so do you need to step out?


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> But you live in the forest, so do you need to step out?


Certainly. My home is where the Hobbits found Treebeard, as he stood upon the shelf. He passed this along to me now. They said "they almost liked the place" (the forest) for a moment while sitting there, and he ever had a heart for the place afterwards, but his time to pass it along came.

He told them: "I can see and hear (and smell and feel) a great deal from this, from this, from this a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lind-or-burúmë. Excuse me: that is a part of my name for it; I do not know what the word is in the outside languages: you know, the thing we are on, where I stand and look out on fine mornings, and think about the Sun, and the grass beyond the wood, and the horses, and the clouds, and the unfolding of the world."

He was right.

And we know it's a shelf because several paragraphs earlier, we read in LoTR: "They came at length to the edge of the *shelf* almost at the feet of the old stump; then they sprang up and turned round with their backs to the hill, breathing deep, and looking out eastward."

The 'old stump' was, of course, Treebeard.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

There are several different types including black, oolong, green, and white. They all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but the difference lies in how the leaves are treated after they are harvested.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> There are several different types including black, oolong, green, and white. They all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but the difference lies in how the leaves are treated after they are harvested.



A riddle? Teas. the answer is Teas. (For a moment I lacked a reference point for this ... i must have missed something that came before.)


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> A riddle? Teas. the answer is Teas. (For a moment I lacked a reference point for this ... i must have missed something that came before.)


Nope, I copied it wrong. Just some trivia about tea, another drink I enjoy. It should read:

There are several different types *of tea* including black, oolong, green, and white. They all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but the difference lies in how the leaves are treated after they are harvested.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Nope, I copied it wrong. Just some trivia about tea, another drink I enjoy. It should read:
> 
> There are several different types *of tea* including black, oolong, green, and white. They all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but the difference lies in how the leaves are treated after they are harvested.



So again, we may seem to have some similarities, as you are also a drinker of Teas. 

We must be cautious, lest the gossips talk.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> So again, we may seem to have some similarities, as you are also a drinker of Teas.
> 
> We must be cautious, lest the gossips talk.


Well if I ever decide to throw a TTF tea party, I'll know who to invite first


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Thanks for the clarification of your home! So, does Treebeard still see well? Hath he passed?


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Thanks for the clarification of your home! So, does Treebeard still see well? Hath he passed?



I cannot say.
As the Ages have gone on, even those trees which had already become sleepy in his time, and the Ents who were becoming again positively tree-ish, continued in their digressions.
There became little need for both of us to be in the same area any more.
And with the wars of men ever going on, and the rape of the lands always in progress, the forests became ever smaller and more disconnected.

He it was that chose to move on, saying he would seek out whether there was another area that might have some need of an Ent. 
(It took him a VERY long time to say all this, but I dared not interrupt him to help him to his conclusion before he had even finished his preamble. He deserved (and deserves) much respect.) 

Thus I do fear (though without absolute certainty) I am the last of the Ents.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Sad indeed. Glad that one Enting is left, even if not youthful but quite well-aged.


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## Ent (Sep 1, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Sad indeed. Glad that one Enting is left, even if not youthful but quite well-aged.



He was around longer than all the others (save me) who dealt with Isengard in young Saruman's time...though all were younger than he! Sadder yet, and long in the telling, are the tales of each of those as they determined one by one to abandon all concern for the forests of Middle-earth. 

The proliferation of Man, in his wanton disregard for all living things, coupled with the continued inability to locate any Entwives, finally took its toll. 

But even now, I try not to speak of him in 'past tense' as I cannot truly be sure. Pleasant it would be to see him again, and hear his deep rumble trying to encourage and care for the forests in the midst of Man's destructions.

But... such is life. I remember his instruction well: the one above all. "Let's not be hasty." And that applies to everything. Thus I remain.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

That last word, not being hasty-- you do very well in that I must say, Enting.


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## Starbrow (Sep 1, 2022)

More tea trivia:
Tea bags were invented in 1908 in the United States by Thomas Sullivan. He created small silk bags to give samples of tea to his customers. Some of them thought that the bags were supposed to be put directly in the tea pot, like a metal infuser, rather than emptied out. Thus, the tea bag was created by accident!

Read more: https://www.teaanswers.com/tea-facts-trivia/#ixzz7dgvWkbzP
Follow us: @TeaAnswers on Twitter

Can I get an invitation to the TTF tea party? I'm a big tea drinker and I hate coffee.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 1, 2022)

Ooh! I want an invite too! I drink a lot of tea.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 1, 2022)

Starbrow said:


> More tea trivia:
> Tea bags were invented in 1908 in the United States by Thomas Sullivan. He created small silk bags to give samples of tea to his customers. Some of them thought that the bags were supposed to be put directly in the tea pot, like a metal infuser, rather than emptied out. Thus, the tea bag was created by accident!
> 
> Read more: https://www.teaanswers.com/tea-facts-trivia/#ixzz7dgvWkbzP
> ...


Of course! You and @Elbereth Vala Varda are more than welcome!

Drinking tea is less likely to produce a ‘caffeine crash’ than drinking coffee. This is because the high levels of antioxidants in tea slow the absorption of caffeine, which results in a gentler increase of caffeine in your system and a longer period of alertness with no crash at the end.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 2, 2022)

Did not know the science-- but knew that it was that way. Thanks for the enlightenment. It is the right thread, after all.


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## Eljorahir (Sep 3, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’"
> ........................... _Sherlock Holmes_


*"But the Solar System!"*, I protest!


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 8, 2022)

Trivia from the movie "The Hunt for Red October":


> Despite some speculation, the fact that the political officer aboard Red October was named Putin is most probably a coincidence. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a former KGB agent. At the time this story is set, the real-life Putin would have been a low-ranking agent not known to the general Russian public, let alone to Americans.


More: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099810/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv


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## Ent (Sep 8, 2022)

Trivia: I enjoyed Clancy's early books, but by the time he got to "Cardinal of the Kremlin" they were just ponderous and boring. Haven't read any since. 
(I think maybe they started paying him by the page or word or something... but the result was concrete tomes fit for tying to the feet of somebody the mob wanted to drown.)

Other than that I think his stuff is fine.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 8, 2022)

_"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln --"_


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 8, 2022)

Neptune has only completed one orbit around the Sun since its discovery. Neptune takes a whopping 165 years to complete one full orbit around the Sun. Since it was discovered in 1846, Neptune only recently finished its first full post-discovery orbit in 2011.

Demoted planet Pluto has yet to match this – it is not even close to completing one full, 248-year orbit since its discovery in 1930.


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## Olorgando (Sep 9, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Demoted planet Pluto has yet to match this – it is not even close to completing one full, 248-year orbit since its discovery in 1930.


Hmmm. that pretty much the age that a Dwarf reached on average if not dying prematurely due to warfare - but astronomy from underground?


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## Ent (Sep 9, 2022)

There are 5 primary contributors to tree death.
- Adverse Environment.
- Harmful insects and Disease
- Catastrophic Events
- Old Age
- Timber Harvests

Hanging around here I'm already experiencing the first 4. Perhaps I should run before #5 sets in. 😁


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## Olorgando (Sep 9, 2022)

Well-aged Enting said:


> There are 5 primary contributors to tree death.
> - Adverse Environment.
> - Harmful insects and Disease
> - Catastrophic Events
> ...


Something that you, as an Ent(ing), are at least able to do, in contrast to trees.
But considering what the Ents did to the stone walls surrounding Isengard, you should be able to crumple any annoying harvester like tinfoil ...


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## Ent (Sep 9, 2022)

Olorgando said:


> stone walls


Well.. it's much harder to get a good grip on iron and steel, than on stone... and I can't send my little roots and shoots into it to break it apart as we did with Isengard. (Saruman had the technology... he just lacked foresight.)

And, I am alone. The rest of the Ents have gone to tree or passed, and the Hourns went to sleep long ago.
Thus, if surrounded by steel and iron beasts, the flames come next.

My shepherding is done. Better to seek out a new patch of forest than to remain.


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 13, 2022)

_from Pinocchio (1940):_
According to sequence director Jack Kinney, Christian Rub (the voice of Geppetto) was a Nazi sympathizer who drove the animation crew crazy with his ramblings about the glories of Adolf Hitler. They eventually got even with him when they did the live-action shooting for the scene with Geppetto fishing from inside Monstro the whale. They put Rub on a makeshift stage where he pretended to fish while the stage was jostled by some grips who "rocked the boat" to give the desired effect and effectively "giving Rub a ride he never forgot".


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 15, 2022)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1570476207489040385


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## Starbrow (Sep 15, 2022)

Sepak Takraw is a game like volleyball, except you can only use your feet, knees, chest, or head to hit the ball.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 22, 2022)

Stole this one from Reddit because I thought it was interesting:

The Rope Around The Earth Problem

Take a rope tied tautly around a basketball. Now the rope must be lengthened so that there is a one foot gape between the ball and the rope at all points, as if the rope is hovering a foot away around the entirety of the ball. How much must the rope be lengthened to accomplish this? 6.28 feet.

Now take a rope around tied tautly around the equator of the earth. We have the same goal for the one foot hovering gap around the entirety of the earth. How far must the rope be lengthened? 6.28 feet.


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## Eljorahir (Sep 22, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Stole this one from Reddit because I thought it was interesting:
> 
> The Rope Around The Earth Problem
> 
> ...


Trust, but verify.

π = 3.14 (approximately)
Circle Diameter = D
Add 2 ft to Circle Diameter = D+2

Original Circle Circumference = πD
Larger Circle Circumference = π(D+2) = πD + 2π

Difference Between Larger Circle and Original Circle Circumferences =
πD + 2π - πD = 2π = 6.28 ft

The diameter zeroes out regardless of its value.
It works!

I like a good math puzzler.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 23, 2022)

Very interesting!


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## grendel (Sep 23, 2022)

John Tyler, the 10th (yes tenth) U.S. President, was born in 1790. He has a _grandson_ who is alive today.

Read that again, it is not a misprint.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 24, 2022)

Heard this recently. SHOCKING.


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## Olorgando (Sep 25, 2022)

grendel said:


> John Tyler, the 10th (yes tenth) U.S. President, was born in 1790. He has a _grandson_ who is alive today.
> Read that again, it is not a misprint.


Yup. Tyler's fifth (of seven children) child with his second wife (after eight children with his first wife), Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853, the year Tyler turned 63 (his last child, a daughter, was born in 1860, when Tyler turned 70, less than two years before his own death; this daughter lived to about 87, dying in 1947, or two years after FDR, the US's *32nd* president).
Lyon Gardiner Tyler, who lived until 1935, or about 82, fathered this last surviving grandson of JT's, Harrison Ruffin Tyler Sr., in 1928, the year Lyon turned *75*. That's a late age to become a father in *any* century ...
Harrison Ruffin Tyler Sr. would turn 94 in early November - more precisely om 09 November, the date in 1989 that the Berlin Wall fell ...


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 25, 2022)

WOW.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 26, 2022)

The longest wedding veil was longer than 63 football fields.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 26, 2022)

Oh wow. Who on earth would even..? I have so many questions...


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## Ent (Sep 26, 2022)

Elbereth Vala Varda said:


> Oh wow. Who on earth would even..? I have so many questions...


We're speaking of humanity here.. we must not look for sense or sensibility.


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Sep 26, 2022)

That is fair.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 26, 2022)

There's even a video of it on this page...








Cyprus Woman Breaks Guinness World Record for Longest Veil Ever, Stretching Over 6 km


The length of the veil is 6962.6 metres, almost the same length of a 63-and-a-half American football fields.




www.news18.com


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## Berzelmayr (Sep 26, 2022)

> Meloni is an avowed fan of fantasy, particularly J. R. R. Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_, which she called a "sacred text".[162] As a youth activist with the Italian Social Movement, she attended "Hobbit Camp" and sang along with the extremist folk band Compagnia dell'Anello (named after _The Fellowship of the Ring_).[162] Later, she named her political conference Atreju, after the hero of the novel _The Neverending Story_.[162] The Italian far-right has traditionally associated itself with fantasy, which it considers to share its "vision of spirituality against materialism".[162]











Giorgia Meloni - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 27, 2022)

Yeah, I saw that.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 27, 2022)

James Garfield could write in Greek with one hand and in Latin with the other at the same time.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 27, 2022)

I thought the fact that John Stuart Mill read all of Plato's Dialogues in Greek by age nine was impressive, until I read that the philosopher and literary theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was a "precocious child, mastering Latin and Greek by the age of eight." He earned a master's degree in philosophy at age 17.


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## HALETH✒🗡 (Sep 27, 2022)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> James Garfield could write in Greek with one hand and in Latin with the other at the same time.


It must be difficult.
I've started to study Latin recently. One of the sentences from our textbook sounds a bit frightening


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## Erestor Arcamen (Sep 27, 2022)

HALETH✒🗡 said:


> It must be difficult.
> I've started to study Latin recently. One of the sentences from our textbook sounds a bit frightening
> View attachment 16059


I took three years in high school and yeah, it was very difficult. I can't imagine writing it with one hand while doing another with the other hand.


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## Ent (Sep 27, 2022)

Perhaps I'm not the only one that feels woefully inadequate when I hear of such things?!

But then, many who can do seemingly 'great' things, are often quite bereft of others.
Einstein, for example, was extremely brilliant in some areas, while completely inept, woefully ignorant, and lacking common sense in others. (so it is said by some.) 

(Which is not to say I am not also completely inept, woefully ignorant, and lacking common sense, even though I don't have any ability to engineer parallel universes or write different stories with all 7 lower branches at once.)

There's a Russian village where every resident is a tightrope walker.​There's one Russian community where the normal thing to be able to do is walk a tightrope - Tsovkra-1—a small, secluded village in the southern republic of Dagestan. Everyone who's physically able can do so. The tradition has existed for more than 100 years, and is even taught in school to the village children. Though only 400 people still live in the region, at least 17 tightrope walkers from the area have found fame in circuses due to their impressive aerial abilities.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 27, 2022)

The Enting said:


> Einstein


"When the mathematicians got hold of my theories, even I couldn't understand them!"


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## grendel (Sep 27, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I thought the fact that John Stuart Mill read all of Plato's Dialogues in Greek by age nine was impressive, until I read that the philosopher and literary theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was a "precocious child, mastering Latin and Greek by the age of eight." He earned a master's degree in philosophy at age 17.


We ain't even gonna mention Mozart...


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## Erestor Arcamen (Monday at 6:39 PM)

Ancient Persians believed in a divination method called fāl-gūsh, or hiding somewhere and eavesdropping on people’s conversations and believing what you heard foretold your future


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## CheriptheRipper (Monday at 8:41 PM)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> In the time it took for you to read this sentence, around 50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones.


Bold of you to assume how fast I read


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## Deimos (Monday at 10:06 PM)

grendel said:


> We ain't even gonna mention Mozart...


Page from Mozart's first Symphony, written when he was 7 years old.
(So boys and girls, what part of the sandbox were _you_ playing in at 7?)


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## Deimos (Monday at 10:13 PM)

Atmospheric trivia:

If you've ever seen a double rainbow (not an uncommon phenomenon) on the primary one the colors proceed from red to violet with red starting on the outside of the arc ending with violet on the inside of the arc (which makes sense because red light waves are longer than blue/violet light waves.)
But on the secondary bow it is reversed; violet is on the outside of the arc and red is on the inside.


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## Deimos (Monday at 10:31 PM)

The word "trivia" is plural; singular is "trivium". 
Trivium is Latin for a crossroads or street corner [tri via = 3 way/street] 
A street corner is where the common folk would pick up gossip or news of everyday events.
_(Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Chariot transporting household overturns on the Appian Way! Penates scattered everywhere!) _
So what one heard on the trivium was "trivia".


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## Eljorahir (Monday at 10:51 PM)

Atmospheric Trivia (Part 2):

If you want to remember the order of the colors in a rainbow, just remember the name Roy G. Biv.

*R*ed
*O*range
*Y*ellow
*G*reen
*B*lue
*I*ndigo
*V*iolet


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## Deimos (Monday at 10:58 PM)

Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I _still_ consider Pluto a _planet_, thank you very much) 
*M*other *V*ery* T*houghtfully *M*ade *A J*elly *S*andwich *U*nder *N*o* P*rotest


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## Eljorahir (Monday at 11:04 PM)

Deimos said:


> Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I _still_ consider Pluto a _planet_, thank you very much)
> *M*other *V*ery* T*houghtfully *M*ade *A J*elly *S*andwich *U*nder *N*o* P*rotest


T is for Terra?
And, A is for Asteroids?


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## Deimos (Monday at 11:29 PM)

Eljorahir said:


> T is for Terra?
> And, A is for Asteroids?


Bingo, squared 😁

To fully appreciate the consistency of this mnemonic you have to see that all the planets names are the Latin names for the Greek gods, which is rather funny considering everything the ancient Romans knew about astronomy they assimilated/borrowed/stole from some other civilization. Even the word "planet" is of Greek origin.
Terra is Latin for earth, as in ground; cf._ terra firma_ which is a synonym for The Earth
Even Luna is Latin
If the planets had Greek names they would have been:
Hermes
Aphrodite
Gaea (moon would be called Selene...name of the element Selenium is derived from it)
Ares (Deimos along with Phobos were henchmen of the god Ares, yet they retain their Greek names even now as the two moons of Mars)
Asteroeidēs (Romans directly took the "aster" (star) part of this word to make a Latin word _astrum_ for star)
Zeus
Chronos
Ouranos
Poseidon
Hades

(and I have no idea what would be a mnemonic for that list 😱)


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## Ent (Tuesday at 7:30 AM)

It is said "Tomorrow never comes."
However, note these facts:

Tomorrow as a First Name
- Estimate: there are 253 people named Tomorrow currently alive and born in the United States. Tomorrow is the 15,270th most common for women, and the 23,226th most common overall. 
- The average person named Tomorrow is 35.32 years old. 
- Fewer than 5 people named Tomorrow were born in the U.S. in 2021.
- The popularity of Tomorrow peaked in 1979, when it was the 3,904th most popular name for baby girls.
- Tomorrow is almost exclusively a female name. The Social Security Administration does not record any males born with the name Tomorrow. 

SO: If you happen to know any of these "Tomorrows", and they show up at your door, Tomorrow has indeed come. 
And I would guess they show up at supermarkets, Doctor offices, schools, meetings, relatives houses, ..... 
So maybe Tomorrow does really come - more often than we know.


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## Eljorahir (Tuesday at 7:41 AM)

Ent said:


> It is said "Tomorrow never comes."
> However, note these facts:
> 
> Tomorrow as a First Name
> ...


And, Tomorrow was the name of the pitcher on the baseball team in an infamous Abbott and Costello routine.

"Tell me the pitcher's name."
"Tomorrow."
"You don't wanna tell me the name?"
"I'm tellin' ya the name!"
"Then go ahead!"
"Tomorrow!"
""What time?"
"What time what?"
"What time tomorrow ya gonna tell me who's pitching?"
"Now listen! Who's not pitching. Who is on first!" ... ... ... ... ...


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## Ent (Tuesday at 7:44 AM)

Eljorahir said:


> the name of the pitcher


thanks for the memory..!


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## Olorgando (Tuesday at 8:43 AM)

Deimos said:


> Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I _still_ consider Pluto a _planet_, thank you very much)
> *M*other *V*ery* T*houghtfully *M*ade *A J*elly *S*andwich *U*nder *N*o* P*rotest


Yes, Pluto's degradation in 2006 was controversial even among the professional astronomers.
What they *do* agree on is that the total mass of the objects in the Asteroid Belt is far too small to have been able to form a single planet, especially in the relative proximity of Jupiter.

The mnemonic for the (formerly) nine Planets in German runs as follows:

Mein Vater Erklärte Mir Jeden Sonntag Unsere Neun Planeten (E being for "Erde", and it would also fit nicely for Earth ... 😁 )


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Tuesday at 9:24 AM)




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## Erestor Arcamen (Tuesday at 9:39 AM)

In 1943 a group of German sailors on a U-Boat placed a weather station on the Canadian coast (Labrador) so the Germans could more accurately predict the weather for military operations (since weather in the Northern hemisphere generally moves west-to-east). The weather station was marked with fake signs indicating that it was a Canadian military facility and for unauthorized personnel to keep out.

The weather station was eventually discovered by the Canadians In 1977.

https://www.adventurecanada.com/new...ation that,the treacherous shores of Labrador.


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## Eljorahir (Tuesday at 9:48 AM)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> In 1943 a group of German sailors on a U-Boat placed a weather station on the Canadian coast (Labrador) so the Germans could more accurately predict the weather for military operations (since weather in the Northern hemisphere generally moves west-to-east). The weather station was marked with fake signs indicating that it was a Canadian military facility and for unauthorized personnel to keep out.
> 
> The weather station was eventually discovered by the Canadians In 1977.
> 
> https://www.adventurecanada.com/newfoundland-and-labrador/top-of-the-world-the-secret-nazi-weather-station#:~:text=But the weather station that,the treacherous shores of Labrador.


Interesting article. However, I must admit, I was hoping the story would include a dutiful German sailor still manning the station in 1977 not knowing the war was over.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Tuesday at 10:23 AM)

Eljorahir said:


> Interesting article. However, I must admit, I was hoping the story would include a dutiful German sailor still manning the station in 1977 not knowing the war was over.


That’s happened with a few Japanese soldiers








60 years after the war ends, two soldiers emerge from the jungle


Mystery surrounds Japanese men, both in their 80s, who say they have been in hiding since second world war.




www.theguardian.com













Onoda: The man who hid in the jungle for 30 years


A new film tells the strange story of Japan's controversial WW2 hero. Its themes of nationalism and fake news still resonate, writes James Balmont.




www.bbc.com


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## Deimos (Tuesday at 10:53 AM)

Olorgando said:


> Yes, Pluto's degradation in 2006 was controversial even among the professional astronomers.
> What they *do* agree on is that the total mass of the objects in the Asteroid Belt is far too small to have been able to form a single planet, especially in the relative proximity of Jupiter.
> 
> The mnemonic for the (formerly) nine Planets in German runs as follows:
> ...


I got as far as _My Father_...and I recognized _Sunday_ and _Nine planets..._had to Google translate the other words. 
Ya got nothing for the Asteroids in there!


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## Ent (Tuesday at 11:37 AM)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> That’s happened with a few Japanese soldiers


Yes. The concept also spawned some of the incredible "American Ninja" kung-fu type flicks. 
(I'm still trying to figure out what was 'incredible' about them but hey...they're good mindless fare along with Godzilla and Sharknado.)


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## Olorgando (Tuesday at 1:21 PM)

Deimos said:


> I got as far as _My Father_...and I recognized _Sunday_ and _Nine planets..._had to Google translate the other words.
> Ya got nothing for the Asteroids in there!


Right! The mnemonic was specifically for *planets* (being much closer to the topic than a jelly sandwich  ), and the asteroids definitely *ain't*, not even Ceres, with a diameter of about 939 km or 584 miles. Pluto's diameter is about 2,377 km or 1,477 miles, that of Pluto's main moon Charon 606 km or 377 miles.
And while on the topic of moons, two of these, Jupiter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan (largest and second-largest satellite in the solar system), are actually larger in diameter than the certified planet Mercury (but have a smaller mass), and never mind Pluto.


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## Deimos (Tuesday at 3:22 PM)

Olorgando said:


> Right! The mnemonic was specifically for *planets* (being much closer to the topic than a jelly sandwich  ), and the asteroids definitely *ain't*, not even Ceres, with a diameter of about 939 km or 584 miles. Pluto's diameter is about 2,377 km or 1,477 miles, that of Pluto's main moon Charon 606 km or 377 miles.
> And while on the topic of moons, two of these, Jupiter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan (largest and second-largest satellite in the solar system), are actually larger in diameter than the certified planet Mercury (but have a smaller mass), and never mind Pluto.


oooookaaaay... my mnemonic was actually for the Solar System, because you do [sometimes] have to take into account the Asteroid Belt.
One of those thangs just might get bumped out of orbit and crash into earth.... It happened once, could happen again. 😉
(And where I first saw the mnemonic was a Heinlein novel...just can't remember which one, except that it was one of his Juvenile novels.)
But I do not need a mnemonic to remember the order.... I learned the order when I was 10, just from reading [planetary] astronomy books.


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## Olorgando (Tuesday at 4:03 PM)

Deimos said:


> oooookaaaay... my mnemonic was actually for the Solar System, because you do [sometimes] have to take into account the Asteroid Belt.


Yeeeeehes ... but then you're missing the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, source*s* of comets. They can cause a lot of excitement, just think of Shoemaker–Levy 9 and its fireworks display on Jupiter in July 1994 ...


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## 🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 (Tuesday at 4:30 PM)

Olorgando said:


> Yeeeeehes ... but then you're missing the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, source of comets. They can cause a lot of excitement, just think of Shoemaker–Levy 9 and its fireworks display on Jupiter in July 1994 ...


And then, way out beyond the Solar System lies a myriad of exoplanets that a mnemonic just can't cover...


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## Deimos (Tuesday at 5:46 PM)

Olorgando said:


> Yeeeeehes ... but then you're missing the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, source of comets. They can cause a lot of excitement, just think of Shoemaker–Levy 9 and its fireworks display on Jupiter in July 1994 ...


"Source of _*SOME*_ comets".... Comets with a period shorter than 200 years originate in the Kuiper Belt; longer period comets come from the Oort Cloud. 
I refuse to consider planets or "planet like objects" that have periods greater than Pluto. (Run away! Run away!🥶) 
One must draw the line somewhere. Sedna ( a dwarf planet in the Kupier Belt) has a period of 12000+ years.😬


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## Deimos (Tuesday at 5:48 PM)

🍀Yavanna Kementári🍀 said:


> And then, way out beyond the Solar System lies a myriad of exoplanets that a mnemonic just can't cover...


And yes, If I don't go there (Kuiper Belt or Oort cloud, or beyond) I don't need a mnemonic 😁


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## Olorgando (Tuesday at 6:01 PM)

Deimos said:


> "Source of _*SOME*_ comets".... Comets with a period shorter than 200 years originate in the Kuiper Belt; longer period comets come from the Oort Cloud.


Edited "source" to "sources" in my post (I sometimes manage to miss last letters of words - I type with four fingers on the real keyboard, three of the right hand and one on the left, and with the mouse pointer like just now when using the on-screen keyboard 😬 )


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