It wasn't today, but TIL: Sally Ride was in a same sex relationship with the same woman for 27 years.
I learned that the other day as well! I saw a thing that said she was our first American woman in space AND the first LGBT person in space and was like, "She was?!"
Today I learned that the Electoral College is not set out very explicitly in the Constitution, so that's real helpful. The states can each use their own method for appointing the Electors. Helpfully, almost all of them use the "winner-take-all" method, except Maine and Nebraska, which is done based on congressional districts; thanks, guys.
It is so vague that "some scholars have described the Electoral College as being intended to nominate candidates from which the Congress would then select a president and vice president." To that I say, "WTF?!"
TIL that a stoat is a kind of short tailed weasel, and it's adorable until it bares its teeth.
Here's a pic for reference:TIL that a stoat is a kind of short tailed weasel, and it's adorable until it bares its teeth.
Oh my god! I love this thread idea. I'm one of those people who just lives on the internet, googling stuff and falling into wikipedia black holes for hours. I like to think that I'm a font of useless knowledge. So here's my "today I learned" for yesterday (it's only 7:00am here, so I haven't learned much yet):
), but both Toni Morrison and Betty Friedan lived there!
1. Contrary to expectations, a recent study found that people on the internet who were not anonymous were more confrontational and aggressive than anonymous persons during online s**tstorms. My guess is that this is a result of selection effects; the kind of people who are more willing to go by their real names online are somewhat likely to be less inhibited in general, and so more willing to act like jerks online.
2. Another recent study concluded that the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments, by contributing to distrust of medicine among African Americans, may be responsible for as much as 35% of the black/white life expectancy gap in the US. This is from a working paper, though, so it definitely shouldn't be taken as gospel just yet.
3. Here's a strange one: My girlfriend got me a copy of Siddharta Mukherjee's The Gene, and early on there's a section on the earliest theories of how parents pass traits to their offspring. One of them is amazingly named "Spermism," and the theory is even stranger: Basically, sperm courses throughout the man's body and somehow collects physiological information as it's doing this, and then the information gets passed to the child.
Of course, this theory struggled with the fact that children inherit traits from both their mothers and fathers, may have inherited traits that were present in their grandparents but neither of their parents, etc. But before Mendel, more plausible theories of heredity were in short supply; the alternatives were even weirder if you can believe that.
(thanks John Oliver for this one!)
I think you mean thanks Johnny O's Sad-tastical Circus of Misery and Math 
It really drove the point of many financial advisors being incompetent, when the one they hired was off by 11 million in his estimates.
A new word!
propinquity [proh-PING-kwi-tee]
noun
1. nearness in place; proximity.
2. nearness of relation; kinship.
3. affinity of nature; similarity.
4. nearness in time.
A new word!
propinquity [proh-PING-kwi-tee]
noun
1. nearness in place; proximity.
2. nearness of relation; kinship.
3. affinity of nature; similarity.
4. nearness in time.
Useless info dump time: This made me think of Jeremy Bentham's "felicific calculus," a procedure he believed we all need to follow whenever we are deciding on what the right course of action is. Bentham believed that all that matters, morally speaking, is pleasure and the avoidance of pain. So what you need to do when deciding on a given course of action is look at all the pleasures and pains that could result from your act and judge them in terms of their:
1. intensity
2. duration
3. certainty
4. propinquity or remoteness
5. fecundity (chance of a given pleasure being followed by further pleasures)
6. purity (chance of a given pleasure being followed by pains)
7. extent (repeat steps 1-6 for every person who stands to be affected by your action)
If this sounds a little complicated, well, it is. Bentham attempted to solve this problem by giving us a handy-dandy poem to help us remember all of this stuff; I'll let you be the judge of how successful his effort was:
TIL that the original scripted ending for the film cruel intentions was way better than the one they actually included. Imo, anyway.
http://www.dailyscri...intentions.html
Toxoplasma gondii, the notorious parasite found in cat feces, may encourage chimpanzees to irrationally waltz into the hungry and welcoming mouths of leopards.
Totally unrelated to this, former NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard of the San Antonio Spurs still drives a 1997 Chevy Tahoe despite having a $90 million contract.
Contrary to expectations about the impending apocalypse of overpopulation, worldwide fertility rates are falling everywhere.
I love these informational YouTube channels.
TIL how a grenade actually works, and also that you are more likely to survive on land than in the water due to the force of the concussion (in the water) wreaking havoc on your sensitive air-filled body cavities.
Think Lady Artifice might appreciate this: Guess where the highest per-capita consumption of wine anywhere in the world takes place: The Vatican, and it ain't because of Mass.
TIL: There is a type of ant called the Gamergate Ant. I thought Sasquatch was messing with me. Nope, it's real. This is the link to the ant, not the group. The name is actually gam-ergate. It's derived from Greek, meaning "married worker."
https://en.m.wikiped.../wiki/Gamergate
I've heard that the best way to deal with an infestation of gam-ergate ants is to blast 10 hours of Feminist Frequency videos. All of their tiny heads explode.
Speaking of inappropriately named things, here are a couple of real places around the world:
D i l d o, Newfoundland and Labrador
F--king, Australia
Anus, France
Who comes up with these names?
Plus German places that can be translated to Peeing, Lick, Vomit, Angry Butt, Moist, and Moist Cheeks. And places here called Evil Meat, Bears, GiveItToMeHere, and Fat Bridges.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, the land of stupid place names (thanks to my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors.....):
Intercourse, PA
Bird-in-Hand, PA
Blue Ball, PA
Koalas have two thumbs, weird (I had a dream where one appeared, so I looked them up just now).
I've heard that the best way to deal with an infestation of gam-ergate ants is to blast 10 hours of Feminist Frequency videos. All of their tiny heads explode.
They'll most likely fall asleep given how boring she is.
At the Chesterbrook Academy in Columbia SC, there is a portal that opens directly to the fiery depths of Hell.
Anyone ever hear the old myth about how we use only 10% of our brains? Apparently, there's a civil servant in France whose condition pushes that old idea in an unexpected direction. Due to a rare degenerative disorder, he's missing 90% of his brain, but he's married with two kids and is functioning at the level of an adult with an IQ of 75.
Also, a recent Swedish study (anyone ever notice how seemingly every study comes out of Sweden?) calls into question a vast array of fMRI research; there appear to be flaws with the software that's used with fMRI research that may lead to false positives as often as 70% of the time.
The moral of the story? We really don't know s**t about the brain.
That octopodes can use coconut shells to droideka around the ocean floor.
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