The TILT Thread (Today I Learned That…)

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

This thread is exactly what it says it is! Have you learned something interesting, shocking, or even just mundane today? A fun fact, or just something from your everyday life? Something good, something not-so-good, or just meh? Whatever it is, feel free to share it here!

(That said, I’d advise everyone to show particular discretion for potentially sensitive or triggering topics. For example, if it’s about something violent, then please provide a trigger warning for that, or perhaps refrain from posting it at all. Or if it’s, say, about something that people commonly have a phobia of, like spiders or something, then a warning would probably be a good idea for that, too. And of course, forum rules apply as always; remember to take a peek at the rules for any potentially prohibited topics, or ask a mod if you’re unsure.)

Today I learned… that Costco, a popular chain of wholesale warehouse clubs here in the US where I live, has a store in the UK! Liverpool, to be exact. And then I learned that there are way, way more Costcos than that both in the UK and elsewhere, and that the company is apparently the 5th largest retailer on the planet. As well as the planet’s largest seller of both rotisserie chicken (no surprise, haha) and wine (legit surprise!), among other things. Wow…

 

[Dubious Disc]

I've actually been keeping a TIL journal for several months now, every day I list a fact I learned (although usually it's just obscure words and video game trivia ) and now I've got a whole bunch of random facts up my sleeve lol
Not exactly today, but recently I learned about ambigrams, which are designs of words that can be read in multiple different ways. The most common ones are where a word looks either the same or like a different word when it's flipped or rotated. There's also some more interesting ones with negative space and even tessellations. (I explained this terribly, but the wikipedia article has some good examples.) As a graphic design student I'm always interested in seeing type used in unusual ways like this, so I thought it was pretty neat.

Also, the icon on a car's fuel gauge has an arrow showing which side the gas cap is on.

 

[Zexy]

Wow ambigrams is something that recently popped up in my social media feed too.

A very random almost embarssing thing I learned only yesterday is that "Thunder" is also an Imagine Dragons song. I knew of the band since "Believer" showed up everywhere.

Oh also that human babies are born less developed than most other mammals (some can walk within 10 minutes after birth) specifically because of the evolutionary conundrum of big brain and walking upright.

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

Saturn has 125 moons now

 

[toastghost]

"the" is the most commonly used word in the english language, and it makes up 5% of every 100 words

 

[Herbizarre]

Saturn has 125 moons now

No wonder he became the leader of Team Galactic after Cyrus disappeared in the Distortion World

It was yesterday that I learned I'm actually one centimeter taller than what I originally thought. I even bought a measuring tape to make sure I was correct in that assumption.

 

[Zexy]

I did know of pyramid schemes, but only today have I found out about the concept of "trickle down economics". When I first saw it they looked too similar, but after reading up on it a little, there are major differences.

 

[JollyYoshi]

Today I learned about Kochi, Japan from my Grandma. When she lived there, there was no highway that connected the island to the mainland so they had to go by ferry. She also told me about the castle and how wars occurred in Japan.

Going a little bit off-topic here but it made me realize how interesting it would be to see another Pokémon Game off of Japan. It’d be especially interesting to see a Pokémon game based off a totally new place in Japan as GameFreak has definitely changed the way they interpret real world places.

 

[Zexy]

TIL a robot was made that can "eat" some organic matter for fuel

 

[Dubious Disc]

TIL that "frisbee" is actually a registered trademark, which is why ultimate frisbee is formally just called "ultimate". (At first I thought they only left out the "frisbee" part because it made it sound less cool lol)

 

[Zexy]

TIL that there exists a substance called luminol that is used by foresnics to detect trace amounts of old blood, it fluoresces blue light in the dark when reacting with hemoglobulin iron

I have been watching lots of police investigations series over the years, never before have I come across this one

 

[Kung Fu Ferret]

TIL about the Victorian feast that was held inside a then-accurate sculpture of an Iguanodon.

 

[Dubious Disc]

TIL that Masahiro Sakurai was only 19 when he joined HAL Laboratory and pitched the game that would become Kirby's Dream Land.

 

[Zexy]

TIL an artificial substance called Bitrex is added in some toxic products that otherwise do not have a strong flavor/odor, to make them unbearably bitter, for extra safety.

 

[Herbizarre]

TIL that Masahiro Sakurai was only 19 when he joined HAL Laboratory and pitched the game that would become Kirby's Dream Land.

He did also voice King Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I don't know about the latter Smash games though.

TIL a few new legal words in Scrabble thanks to the app "Scrabble Go". Not much to write home about, but it's still something good for vocabulary !

 

[Dubious Disc]

He did also voice King Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I don't know about the latter Smash games though.

Yep, he's voiced Dedede in every Smash game he appears in, although as far as I know it's just the Brawl clips reused. He also voiced Dedede in Kirby 64.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Well, I learned something interesting today. I learned that cockatiels can eat eggs. Considering I've had a cockatiel for over 14 years and never knew that is rather surprising. Granted, they can only have one to two eggs a week but now I can experiment with some new food for my kooky cockatiel, Zeru.

 

[Zexy]

There exists a crazy math axiom in (infinite) set theory that can "copy" spheres out of "nowhere". A sphere is cut into 5 super weird infinite scatterings of points, rotated around, and assembled into two of the original shape.

 

[Waitress Tia]

today, I learnt that it's more effective to yell "Fire!" instead of "Help!" when you need it, which is unfortunate

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Not today, actually, but a few days ago. Nonetheless, I put some effort into this post, haha, so…

“Today”… I learned about the full context of Burger King’s infamous “Whopper Bus” that toured London a while back, and by extension, the even more legendary “Brexit Bus” from even earlier.

You see, I first heard about the “Brexit Bus” in the context of the “Whopper Bus”, which — along with the image of a Burger King Whopper — had this zinger of a statement boldly printed on its side:

“Another Whopper on the side of a bus. Must be an election.”

That was, again, quite a while ago. Now, on one of the many wiki walks I took that night, I returned to the Whopper Bus and decided to probe further with a search of “Brexit Bus”. Said Brexit Bus turned out to be, well… a bus, yes. Specifically one driving around London in 2016 with a political ad stamped on the side of it, which claimed that £350 million was being wasted per week as a result of the UK remaining in the European Union, and that exiting the European Union — or in order words: supporting Brexit — would allow that money to be funneled to the NHS (the national health service agency for England) instead.

Said claim was made by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a fervent supporter of Brexit. You might have heard of him, haha, and let’s just keep it at that.

Said claim was also demonstrably false, according to pretty much all reputable sources. Hence, Burger King’s “Whopper Bus”. Cheeky, huh?

Not that any of that was a surprise, though. (Politicians, amirite? Again, let’s just keep it at that.) What I actually learned from all of that was that none of the supposed £350 million saved per week from Brexit ever made it to the NHS — because, of course, said £350 million never actually existed in the first place — and that, most critically of all given that fact, said NHS is in fact critically underfunded and understaffed at the moment. How is this relevant to me, you might ask? Because the UK just happens to be on my shortlist of places where I might be moving in the very near future.

Oof…