Things you've always wondered about but couldn't be bothered to find out

[A Boy Named Crow]

4 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

If you had a solar powered led light shining on a solar panel could it power the led light? 

Nah, the system isn't going to be 100% efficient, power loss would eventually cause the light to go out.  You'd also need a bit of start up energy to get the LED going in the first place. 

[Dick Dastardly]

6 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Nah, the system isn't going to be 100% efficient, power loss would eventually cause the light to go out.  You'd also need a bit of start up energy to get the LED going in the first place. 

I was thinking about this while i was out walking the dog. So the light is powered by a small solar panel. The led is then totally enveloped in a ball made out of solar panels. This is sealed so no light can get out. The ball solar panel provides power to the led ( so the led can still be powered at night) as well as charging batteries. 

P. S. I'd had a few last night when i posted an realise it's a bs post 😂😂😂

[JudyJudyJudy]

On 07/06/2022 at 22:59, Lone Striker said:

Back in the 1200's,  1300's and 1400's  - long before newspapers or organised mail services - did any ordinary person  in Britain know who the King or Queen or Pope was ?   Or even what  King or Queen or Pope actually meant ?    Loads of  people couldn't read or write, so how did they know what was going on ?     Did they just live like Baldrick, blissfully unaware of pretty much everything except how sh1t life must have been back then  ? 

 

 

Gossips carried news from places to places much like on this . And pigeons

On 08/06/2022 at 08:47, Dirk McClaymore said:

 

'Hoose Jock' is a quasi-racist term coined by fervent nationalists to describe Scottish born unionists.

Although not directly racist in itself, the context in which it is employed and term from which it is derived most certainly is.

See also 'Uncle Tam'.

 

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=house ******

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom

If a person has to argue that a phrase isn’t racist it usually means it’s racist 

[JudyJudyJudy]

On 08/06/2022 at 13:02, Lone Striker said:

👍  Interesting question you've come up with.  When you think about it, there would almost be no point in trying to draw a picture of a wanted outlaw in the first place unless he had an easily recognisable feature - like a deformed ear, or big birthmark on his face.   

 

No photos, so just reliant on other Wild West folks describing some stuff to an artist.   Maybe most  of the wanted folk just looked much the same  on the posters ?   In which case, the sheriff might get a good response - with a tiny probability that the actual outlaw was one of the guys being fingered !  😉

 

 

 

 

 

[il Duce McTarkin]

23 minutes ago, JudyJudyJudy said:

If a person has to argue that a phrase isn’t racist it usually means it’s racist 

 

There will be exceptions, but this is a good as a general rule.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Dirk McClaymore

[A Boy Named Crow]

2 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

I was thinking about this while i was out walking the dog. So the light is powered by a small solar panel. The led is then totally enveloped in a ball made out of solar panels. This is sealed so no light can get out. The ball solar panel provides power to the led ( so the led can still be powered at night) as well as charging batteries. 

P. S. I'd had a few last night when i posted an realise it's a bs post 😂😂😂

Your problem is still going to be heat in the system. Any heat produced is effectively lost power. Each time the power goes round the system, some power will be lost. 

 

EDIT hang on, is there a separate solar panel too, as in the inside and outside of the ball us a solar panel? If so,  then yes,  this might be a pretty efficient way of keeping an led going...but what would be the point if nobody could see it, and how would you know if it was still working? Schroedinger's LED...

Edited June 11, 2022 by A Boy Named Crow

[JudyJudyJudy]

4 minutes ago, Dirk McClaymore said:

 

There will be exceptions, but this is a good as a general rule.

🤙

[Dick Dastardly]

38 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Your problem is still going to be heat in the system. Any heat produced is effectively lost power. Each time the power goes round the system, some power will be lost. 

 

EDIT hang on, is there a separate solar panel too, as in the inside and outside of the ball us a solar panel? If so,  then yes,  this might be a pretty efficient way of keeping an led going...but what would be the point if nobody could see it, and how would you know if it was still working? Schroedinger's LED...

I was thinking you could use a smaller solar panel to light the led, which is then used to power the bigger, enclosed solar panels and create more electricity than was being created by the smaller solar panel on its own. World energy crisis solved. 

[milky_26]

1 minute ago, Dick Dastardly said:

I was thinking you could use a smaller solar panel to light the led, which is then used to power the bigger, enclosed solar panels and create more electricity than was being created by the smaller solar panel on its own. World energy crisis solved. 

i like it, you have found a way to break the laws of physics

[Dick Dastardly]

1 minute ago, milky_26 said:

i like it, you have found a way to break the laws of physics

That's exactly why i must be wrong. I could probably try and sell the idea to Elon Musk though. 

[A Boy Named Crow]

1 minute ago, Dick Dastardly said:

I was thinking you could use a smaller solar panel to light the led, which is then used to power the bigger, enclosed solar panels and create more electricity than was being created by the smaller solar panel on its own. World energy crisis solved. 

I think if you manage to pull that off, you'd create a rip in the space time continuum, people would be disappearing from polaroid photos left right and centre!

The size of the second solar panel doesn't mean it can grab more power from the light generated by the first panel. It can only produce (a bit less than) what you put in. 

[Dick Dastardly]

1 minute ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

I think if you manage to pull that off, you'd create a rip in the space time continuum, people would be disappearing from polaroid photos left right and centre!

The size of the second solar panel doesn't mean it can grab more power from the light generated by the first panel. It can only produce (a bit less than) what you put in. 

Even if it's really shiny? 

[JudyJudyJudy]

Why do fools fall in love ? 
 

and 

 

What becomes of the broken hearted ? 
 

 

[Seaside jambo]

Why did he shoot the sheriff and not the deputy 

[A Boy Named Crow]

13 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Even if it's really shiny? 

I reckon shininess is has an inverse relationship to power genetated,  it'd reflect the light away. You'd want it to be dark, really dark, like Back To The Future Part 2!

[been here before]

18 minutes ago, Seaside jambo said:

Why did he shoot the sheriff and not the deputy 

 

Because Sheriff John Brown always hated him. For what, I dont know.

[rudi must stay]

Is the earth flat or round 

[Lone Striker]

28 minutes ago, Seaside jambo said:

Why did he shoot the sheriff and not the deputy 

Ahh - Meatloaf solved that one.    Shooting the sheriff was one of several things he'd do  for love.......  but when it came to the deputy, he wouldn't do that.  😉

[Dick Dastardly]

32 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

I reckon shininess is has an inverse relationship to power genetated,  it'd reflect the light away. You'd want it to be dark, really dark, like Back To The Future Part 2!

But the light wouldn't be able to get out of the enclosed space, so it would be totally absorbed by the solar panel. I think I'm on to something. I better not say too much more incase someone steals my idea and uses it for Nefarious Purposes. 

[Dick Dastardly]

37 minutes ago, Seaside jambo said:

Why did he shoot the sheriff and not the deputy 

Well he swore it was in self defence so i can only presume the deputy didn't represent an imminent danger. 

[Dick Dastardly]

47 minutes ago, JudyJudyJudy said:

Why do fools fall in love ? 
 

and 

 

What becomes of the broken hearted ? 
 

 

They become bitter and twisted. Straight men become misogynists and everyone else become radical feminists. 

[JudyJudyJudy]

3 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:

They become bitter and twisted. Straight men become misogynists and everyone else become radical feminists. 

Thanks . That seems about right . 

[Lone Striker]

2 hours ago, JudyJudyJudy said:

 

  No need for a   when James is  on the thread   😃

 

  

[JudyJudyJudy]

21 minutes ago, Lone Striker said:

  No need for a   when James is  on the thread   😃

 

  

 

[Maple Leaf]

Can robins really hear worms and insects moving underground?

I have a robin's nest under my eaves and I've watched the adult robins feeding their chicks.  They fly down onto the lawn, hop around once or twice, then thrust their beak into the ground and pull up some unlucky creature.

Can they hear it moving over the sound of the wind in the trees, other birds chirping, distant traffic noise?  It seems so improbable.

[obua]

4 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

Can robins really hear worms and insects moving underground?

I have a robin's nest under my eaves and I've watched the adult robins feeding their chicks.  They fly down onto the lawn, hop around once or twice, then thrust their beak into the ground and pull up some unlucky creature.

Can they hear it moving over the sound of the wind in the trees, other birds chirping, distant traffic noise?  It seems so improbable.

Could be if they do it often enough they get lucky, I’m sure they hop around to imitate rainfall to attract worms. 

[Boof]

9 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

I better not say too much more incase someone steals my idea and uses it for Nefarious Purposes. 

 

You're Dick Dastardly and accusing other people of Nefarious Purposes? 

 

Sheesh!

[A Boy Named Crow]

9 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

But the light wouldn't be able to get out of the enclosed space, so it would be totally absorbed by the solar panel. I think I'm on to something. I better not say too much more incase someone steals my idea and uses it for Nefarious Purposes. 

The relected photons would effectively need to travel further,  losing every all the time. I think the surface needs to be sticky, to trap the light.  Any further discussion should be by PM though... who knows who's reading this

[JudyJudyJudy]

If Yoda is so wide and intelligent why can’t he form a sentence in the correct grammatical way ? 

[A Boy Named Crow]

28 minutes ago, JudyJudyJudy said:

If Yoda is so wide and intelligent why can’t he form a sentence in the correct grammatical way ? 

He does, everybody else is too beneath him to realise...

 

I'm not into Star Wars at all,  but the wife is.  She was watching one of the films last night,  and it occurred to me, Yoda is just a snide wee dick!

 

Which leads to my question, has there ever been a less likable character who was so loved by fans of a film / TV series?

Edited June 11, 2022 by A Boy Named Crow

[milky_26]

14 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

He does, everybody else is too beneath him to realise...

 

I'm not into Star Wars at all,  but the wife is.  She was watching one of the films last night,  and it occurred to me, Yoda is just a snide wee dick!

 

Which leads to my question, has there ever been a less likable character who was so loved by fans of a film / TV series?

during the 90s/early 2000s any of the 6 main characters of friends

[A Boy Named Crow]

4 minutes ago, milky_26 said:

during the 90s/early 2000s any of the 6 main characters of friends

Good call, Friends did cross my mind,  but the individual characters weren't universally loved by fans of the show. Folk would would have favourites and not be keen on others. Everyone who likes Star Wars seems to worship this Yoda prick!

[JudyJudyJudy]

26 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

He does, everybody else is too beneath him to realise...

 

I'm not into Star Wars at all,  but the wife is.  She was watching one of the films last night,  and it occurred to me, Yoda is just a snide wee dick!

 

Which leads to my question, has there ever been a less likable character who was so loved by fans of a film / TV series?

Like Yoda I do 👍come to think about it my writing style is like his verbal communication 😂

[A Boy Named Crow]

Again,  not something I have always wondered about,  it just came to me now.

 

As I mentioned before,  the wife loves Star Wars, she is currently watching Rise of the Clones. I remember the original films as a kid, they were pretty boring, then 7, 8 & 9 I saw with the wife. They just seemed like remakes of the originals, but with better CGI.

 

What I don't get is how they got sign off to make 7, 8 &9 at all. Rise of the Clones is just eye bleedingly bad, how did films like this not kill off the franchise completely? I'm guessing some manipulation of 'The Force' was involved!

[A Boy Named Crow]

Attack* of the...

[Angel eyes]

to boldly go where no man has gone before.…..Star Trek quote yet when they get there, someone already is?

[Dick Dastardly]

9 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

The relected photons would effectively need to travel further,  losing every all the time. I think the surface needs to be sticky, to trap the light.  Any further discussion should be by PM though... who knows who's reading this

Who ever is watching is surely losing brain cells with every sentence they read 

[Dick Dastardly]

9 hours ago, Boof said:

 

You're Dick Dastardly and accusing other people of Nefarious Purposes? 

 

Sheesh!

 

[Pap]

4 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Again,  not something I have always wondered about,  it just came to me now.

 

As I mentioned before,  the wife loves Star Wars, she is currently watching Rise of the Clones. I remember the original films as a kid, they were pretty boring, then 7, 8 & 9 I saw with the wife. They just seemed like remakes of the originals, but with better CGI.

 

What I don't get is how they got sign off to make 7, 8 &9 at all. Rise of the Clones is just eye bleedingly bad, how did films like this not kill off the franchise completely? I'm guessing some manipulation of 'The Force' was involved!

 

You've got to understand. The original 3 were made for children and young teens. 

 

But they were so good that they stayed with us until we are adults. Then the first 3 new ones came out and "they destroyed our childhood" and there was this uproar from adults. The are kids absolutely loved them. And were huge commercial successes.

 

Us as adults felt entitled to think that they should have been made to suit them.

 

Sonething like that anyway.

[A Boy Named Crow]

3 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Who ever is watching is surely losing brain cells with every sentence they read 

It certainly can't be good for them...

[skinnybob72]

On 08/06/2022 at 03:56, Maple Leaf said:

 

It was a strange world in those days.  Most people never left the village they were born in their entire lives.  I read that if you picked up a person and dropped them off ten miles away, they wouldn't be able to find their way home. In many cases the village didn't even have a name, or the residents didn't know the name, so the lost person wouldn't know how to ask for directions.

If fuel prices keep going the way they are we may get back to this!

[FWJ]

On 12/06/2022 at 00:20, A Boy Named Crow said:

He does, everybody else is too beneath him to realise...

 

I'm not into Star Wars at all,  but the wife is.  She was watching one of the films last night,  and it occurred to me, Yoda is just a snide wee dick!

 

Which leads to my question, has there ever been a less likable character who was so loved by fans of a film / TV series?

Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory was a shrill, manipulative bully.

[hughesie27]

16 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Again,  not something I have always wondered about,  it just came to me now.

 

As I mentioned before,  the wife loves Star Wars, she is currently watching Rise of the Clones. I remember the original films as a kid, they were pretty boring, then 7, 8 & 9 I saw with the wife. They just seemed like remakes of the originals, but with better CGI.

 

What I don't get is how they got sign off to make 7, 8 &9 at all. Rise of the Clones is just eye bleedingly bad, how did films like this not kill off the franchise completely? I'm guessing some manipulation of 'The Force' was involved!

Disney bought Star Wars and produced it themselves. No need to get anything signed off.

[A Boy Named Crow]

13 minutes ago, hughesie27 said:

Disney bought Star Wars and produced it themselves. No need to get anything signed off.

Aye, that'd make sense.  I was just stunned at how awful the prequels were.  Taking what you and @Papare saying,  you can see how Disney would look at it, two fan bases, young and old,  ready to be milked...it also explains the series after series of tangential story lines they have been able to churn out  

Edited June 13, 2022 by A Boy Named Crow

[John Gentleman]

On 16/10/2013 at 09:36, BoJack Horseman said:

How can we tell what substance a planet is made of just by looking at it?

Laser spectroscopy of its light.

 

How do radio signals travel through solid walls?

Because electromagnetic particles (photons) are massless.

 

Who decided, and how did they decide, on the original borders for all the countries?

The winners of the fight got to decide.

 

How did folk draw maps pre-20th century?

Laborious triangulation.

 

How do we know what the flesh of extinct animals looked like?

We don't, but we can make a reasonable extrapolation from studying bone minerals.

 

[Unknown user]

On 08/06/2022 at 08:47, Dirk McClaymore said:

 

'Hoose Jock' is a quasi-racist term coined by fervent nationalists to describe Scottish born unionists.

Although not directly racist in itself, the context in which it is employed and term from which it is derived most certainly is.

See also 'Uncle Tam'.

 

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=house ******

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom

 

It isn't at all racist.

Racism is using negative racial stereotypes, it isn't Scottish people calling other Scottish people names based on their political ideology.

 

On 11/06/2022 at 12:02, JudyJudyJudy said:

If a person has to argue that a phrase isn’t racist it usually means it’s racist 

 

Although in this instance it's because it's an accusation made in poor faith and simply untrue.

[Taffin]

11 minutes ago, jonesy said:

It’s a term with a loaded racist history. It shows up those who use it to be deaf to the crassness of their cheap jibes. 
 

Let’s see folk who use it online do so within earshot of black Americans descended from slaves.

 

It shouldn't need explaining. Also, the inference is of course that there are non-"hoose" jocks (as your recent play on the  usage has alluded to). Imo, to equate Scots to slaves is incredibly offensive to those who actually suffered that hardship.

[Unknown user]

34 minutes ago, jonesy said:

It’s a term with a loaded racist history. It shows up those who use it to be deaf to the crassness of their cheap jibes. 
 

Let’s see folk who use it online do so within earshot of black Americans descended from slaves.

 

So it isn't racist then

[il Duce McTarkin]

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

[Unknown user]

18 minutes ago, Dirk McClaymore said:

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

 

Those that see racism where there is none are probably on a par to be fair.