by frogulis on 12/15/23, 1:15 PM with 18 comments
I recently read the article about Catatumbo lightning [2], which gave me the desired feelings of cool, surprising, and scientifically interesting. I'd love to be aware of more such topics. I suppose it doesn't even have to be Wikipedia; it's just a good medium for this sort of thing.
1. https://xkcd.com/1053/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning
by mtmail on 12/15/23, 1:25 PM
I recently found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations
by h2odragon on 12/15/23, 1:31 PM
"it doesn't have to work for very long" design doesn't get much shorter time scale than that. (Barring fusion / fission but you shouldn't do that in the garage)
In a way it's the inverse of: https://www.capturedlightning.com/frames/shrinker.html
by speedgoose on 12/15/23, 3:46 PM
by codingdave on 12/15/23, 5:40 PM
by neversaydie on 12/16/23, 4:19 PM
by Quinzel on 12/19/23, 7:15 AM
Keith Sapsford (14yrs old) died from falling out of a landing wheel compartment of a plane shortly after take off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel-well_stowaway
by spr3zi on 12/16/23, 2:51 PM
by idontwantthis on 12/17/23, 4:02 PM
It was basically that episode of South Park where Butters becomes a pimp and it almost cost FDR his career.
by max_ on 12/15/23, 5:21 PM
by bjourne on 12/15/23, 4:39 PM
by thorin on 12/15/23, 10:18 PM
by wruza on 12/18/23, 10:28 AM
For example, the tiny big number like 3^^^^3 has ~around 3^^^^3 digits in basically any reasonable base: base-10, base-16, base-64k, base-1m. You can’t express its length in a regular form. For contrast, the “trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions” has only 21 digits in base-1m.
Another example is Moser:
N in a triangle is N^N. So e.g. N in two triangles would be (N^N)^(N^N).
N in a square is N in N triangles.
N in a pentagon is N in N squares.
Mega is 2 in a pentagon, i.e. 2 in two squares, or 2 in two triangles and a square, or 256 in a square, or 256 in 256 triangles. Pretty big, huh?
Moser is 2 in a Mega-gon.
by keiferski on 12/15/23, 3:57 PM
by rfarley04 on 12/15/23, 7:07 PM
I mean, sure, Helen Keller accomplished a lot. But crazy to me that no one talks about the deafbling woman who validated tactile signing almost 50 years before her.
by kirubakaran on 12/17/23, 3:52 PM