Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 5]

[Pit Pony]

Halmyre said:

StevieBee said:

audi321 said:

Ok I’ll bite. Who on earth pays to get their wheelie bins cleaned!

We used to until we started having a separate food waste collection. Nothing goes in the other bins that causes a stink and just give the food waste bin a swirl with a bit of bleach after collection day.

Our food waste is bagged and goes in the garden waste bin. Never had any issues, the inside of the bin sometimes gets lined with dried grass clippings but eventually it all flakes off. The day I see a grizzly bear rooting through the bins, I might change my mind.

We used to have a small food waste bin, but after the bin man smashed our third one, I gave up.

Rotten apples, found in the garden go in the garden waste, along with any thing wood (branches or old pine furniture). It will rot eventually. And dead flowers and weeds and grass cuttings.

On the subject of food waste bins, my daughter reminds me that 20 years ago. I never gave her guinea pigs a proper burial, and that the food waste bin was probably not the appropriate send off. Ah well shame.

[Pit Pony]

RizzoTheRat said:

And of course you can't turn it off, which is why diesel electric are stealthier than nuclear subs.

Sorry? You can't turn off a nuclear sub ? Well I'm not sure I'm allowed to explain as I've signed the official secrets act. But I imagine that there's some sort of really rare unobtainuim metal rod that drops into position and absorbs the "rays"

[RizzoTheRat]

I'm pretty sure there's a few people on here who know plenty about them, but my understanding is it takes a long time to make one cold enough that you don't need to circulate coolant, so in reality there is always some machinery running and making a bit of noise. Whereas a diesel electric can shut everything off and therefore be a lot quieter.

As an aside, nobody signs the official secrets act, they actually sign a declaration to say they're aware of it.

[Fastchas]

AstonZagato said:

CivicDuties said:

loquacious said:

Multi-lingual people, what language do they 'think' in? Do they transpose into their 'mother' tongue mentally before they speak or...

I speak 5 languages, to differing standards, only one of which is a mother tongue - I am not bi-lingual through upbringing. I learnt the other 4 throughout my education. I find that the answer is "it depends". If I'm spending time in a country where I speak the language I start out mainly "thinking in English", but without really noticing it begin to think in the foreign language after a fairly short time, particularly the languages I'm more fluent in.

I do sometimes dream in foreign, but not often.

My father read Modern Languages at university and lived for a year in France. He thought he was truly fluent once he began dreaming in French.

I lived for a couple of years in Germany, learning the language from scratch. At first, I translated everything back into English in my head (or formulated what I wanted to say in English before translating it into German). After a while I began to skip that process and I would register and understand the German without any translation. Sometimes a colleague would ask me how to say something in English and I'd struggle. Strange.

The oddest moment was in Paris. I'd done A level French and was reasonably proficient. A chap came up to me and asked (in French) for directions. I understood perfectly and carefully explained how to get there in my best French. He looked at me oddly. My colleague asked why I'd answered in German. I genuinely thought I was speaking French. Obviously my brain had a "speak foreign" setting that now defaulted to German without me knowing.

The saying 'Give me a child and I'll give you the man' is perfectly true with learning foreign languages at school. They become ingrained somewhat.
I learnt German 'O' Level up to 1986. Never spoke another word after leaving school.
Then in 2004 I moved to Spain for 6 months. Whilst I was there, I immersed myself in the culture and learnt a fair bit of the language. But when I struggled for a word, my brain seemed to hunt through the files in my head, searching for the correct term. It would sometimes drop the german word as a suggestion into my thoughts.
I knew it was no good and I would think 'No, no, I don't want german, go away!'

[Johnspex]

I have 3 things I've wondered about for a long time. Just to qualify under the thread police rules.

First, why is the Mona Lisa so highly regarded? There are are surely hundreds of paintings at least as good or even better of people.
Second, why , if for instance you lean something against the wall quite safely, does it fall over at some later point? What has happened in the meantime?
Third, why does everything have to have a smell/aroma/fragrance?
Clothes conditioner, hair conditioner ( have you smelled that Aussie stuff?) floor wash, polish, windscreen wash,everything has to have a perfume to it. What's wrong with just plain newly washed fresh?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Johnspex said:

Just to qualify under the thread police rules.

Who are these thread police that you keep going on about, and can you show me on this doll where they hurt you so bad?

[captain_cynic]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Johnspex said:

Just to qualify under the thread police rules.

Who are these thread police that you keep going on about, and can you show me on this doll where they hurt you so bad?

They're the elite unit of the Fashion Police, formed on the 1970s to deal with the most egregious violators.

[StevieBee]

Johnspex said:

why is the Mona Lisa so highly regarded? There are are surely hundreds of paintings at least as good or even better of people.

It's regarded as the perfection of a style of paining called 'sfumato' that had been tried previously but never attaining the same degree of effect. Added to which is that DaVinci applied his engineering eye to create a portrait that replicated natural bone structure rather than interpretations of this that had preceded it.

But art is often defined by its context so couple all that with his repertoire across art, invention and engineering, over time, the Mona Lisa gained a level of recognition that transcended its primary aim of simply being something nice to hang on a wall.

Johnspex said:

why does everything have to have a smell/aroma/fragrance?
Clothes conditioner, hair conditioner ( have you smelled that Aussie stuff?) floor wash, polish, windscreen wash,everything has to have a perfume to it. What's wrong with just plain newly washed fresh?

Marketing; specifically a differentiator. The base material does the same thing in the same way regardless of brand so adding a perfume enables a company present the appearance of a unique product and use this to either charge a premium (selling less but making a margin) or a discount (selling more, but still making a margin) which helps to protect market share.

[jet_noise]

Fastchas said:

The saying 'Give me a child and I'll give you the man' is perfectly true with learning foreign languages at school. They become ingrained somewhat.
I learnt German 'O' Level up to 1986. Never spoke another word after leaving school.
Then in 2004 I moved to Spain for 6 months. Whilst I was there, I immersed myself in the culture and learnt a fair bit of the language. But when I struggled for a word, my brain seemed to hunt through the files in my head, searching for the correct term. It would sometimes drop the german word as a suggestion into my thoughts.
I knew it was no good and I would think 'No, no, I don't want german, go away!'

Interesting discussion.

Is there a technical term for (non-native) language blindness, as there is dyslexia and dyscalculia?

Something I really struggled with at school. Failed Latin twice (despite enjoying it, an engaging master, and seeing some roots of modern English) and German once although I did get Spanish at the 2nd attempt, just, O-level grade 5. Yes it was a while ago!

I've a poor memory but good at reasoning, somewhat on the scale as they say.

I'm not at all well travelled but I did find a brief Spanish holiday stir memories from that O-level.

[popeyewhite]

StevieBee said:

Johnspex said:

why is the Mona Lisa so highly regarded? There are are surely hundreds of paintings at least as good or even better of people.

It's regarded as the perfection of a style of paining called 'sfumato' that had been tried previously but never attaining the same degree of effect. Added to which is that DaVinci applied his engineering eye to create a portrait that replicated natural bone structure rather than interpretations of this that had preceded it.

But art is often defined by its context so couple all that with his repertoire across art, invention and engineering, over time, the Mona Lisa gained a level of recognition that transcended its primary aim of simply being something nice to hang on a wall.

That's a very good answer to something I often wondered, thanks.

However you left one factor out - fashion. By today's standards she is an ugly bag...perhaps hundreds of years ago she was considered a bit of a catch?

[FiF]

jet_noise said:

Fastchas said:

The saying 'Give me a child and I'll give you the man' is perfectly true with learning foreign languages at school. They become ingrained somewhat.
I learnt German 'O' Level up to 1986. Never spoke another word after leaving school.
Then in 2004 I moved to Spain for 6 months. Whilst I was there, I immersed myself in the culture and learnt a fair bit of the language. But when I struggled for a word, my brain seemed to hunt through the files in my head, searching for the correct term. It would sometimes drop the german word as a suggestion into my thoughts.
I knew it was no good and I would think 'No, no, I don't want german, go away!'

Interesting discussion.

Is there a technical term for (non-native) language blindness, as there is dyslexia and dyscalculia?

Something I really struggled with at school. Failed Latin twice (despite enjoying it, an engaging master, and seeing some roots of modern English) and German once although I did get Spanish at the 2nd attempt, just, O-level grade 5. Yes it was a while ago!

I've a poor memory but good at reasoning, somewhat on the scale as they say.

I'm not at all well travelled but I did find a brief Spanish holiday stir memories from that O-level.

This use it ir lose it discussion is interesting.

French and German I used to be reasonably proficient, not fluent by a long way but could navigate around normal life and some straightforward technical discussions . German mostly gone, at least the spoken version as opposed to written. French very similar.

Swedish though, sometimes still dream in it, occasionally think in it.

American English though is a mystery. (Not entirely serious)

[Gladers01]

Here's another question: Would the human race be able to survive if there was no longer any daylight (for whatever reason) and we were plunged into a state of perpetual darkness solely reliant on artificial light?

[Frimley111R]

Gladers01 said:

Here's another question: Would the human race be able to survive if there was no longer any daylight (for whatever reason) and we were plunged into a state of perpetual darkness solely reliant on artificial light?

It's possible but no daylight would mean no plants and so the whole eco system collapses. Artificial light could replace it and provide plants but no daylight would mean no sun and in that case we'd all be very dead and the planet would be frozen mostly.

[stemll]

Gladers01 said:

Here's another question: Would the human race be able to survive if there was no longer any daylight (for whatever reason) and we were plunged into a state of perpetual darkness solely reliant on artificial light?

Not for long once all the plant life dies. No arable crops, no grass for farmed animals to eat. Probably last longer than the reptiles though as it would also get very cold quite quickly.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Frimley111R said:

It's possible but no daylight would mean no plants and so the whole eco system collapses. Artificial light could replace it and provide plants but no daylight would mean no sun and in that case we'd all be very dead and the planet would be frozen mostly.

I would say conceivably but only in the same sense as whether or not we could survive on a space ship or a deep sea habitat. Or underground.

I doubt it would be something you could do for thousands of years though, contrary to what the Sci-FI book SevenEves posits.

stemll said:

Not for long once all the plant life dies. No arable crops, no grass for farmed animals to eat.

There's hydroponics and also vertical farming. Things that are already being explored for space habitats and arcologies.

[Granadier]

21st Century Man said:

My late Aunt could never grasp the concept of foreign languages and why people spoke foreign? She actually thought that they thought in English and they converted it into foreign as they spoke it out, so she didn't really see the point of foreign, why not just speak it as they thought it in their head?

Reminds me of how Denis Norden on It'll Be Alright On The Night used to joke that speakers of other languages revert to English when some disaster happens.

[stemll]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Frimley111R said:

It's possible but no daylight would mean no plants and so the whole eco system collapses. Artificial light could replace it and provide plants but no daylight would mean no sun and in that case we'd all be very dead and the planet would be frozen mostly.

I would say conceivably but only in the same sense as whether or not we could survive on a space ship or a deep sea habitat. Or underground.

I doubt it would be something you could do for thousands of years though, contrary to what the Sci-FI book SevenEves posits.

stemll said:

Not for long once all the plant life dies. No arable crops, no grass for farmed animals to eat.

There's hydroponics and also vertical farming. Things that are already being explored for space habitats and arcologies.

Well yes but the OP said "plunged into a state of perpetual darkness". That (to me at least ) implies no time to build all that. Not sure you could run it at the scale needed, which you sort of touched on with your comment about how long we could do it for.

[Sway]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Frimley111R said:

It's possible but no daylight would mean no plants and so the whole eco system collapses. Artificial light could replace it and provide plants but no daylight would mean no sun and in that case we'd all be very dead and the planet would be frozen mostly.

I would say conceivably but only in the same sense as whether or not we could survive on a space ship or a deep sea habitat. Or underground.

I doubt it would be something you could do for thousands of years though, contrary to what the Sci-FI book SevenEves posits.

stemll said:

Not for long once all the plant life dies. No arable crops, no grass for farmed animals to eat.

There's hydroponics and also vertical farming. Things that are already being explored for space habitats and arcologies.

True, but no 'closed ecosystem' has ever been run successfully for any real period of time.

We simply don't know how to be sufficiently efficient in processing and recycling our outputs to create sufficient inputs.

That might be changed somewhat by being able to 'harvest' nutrients and inputs from outside the closed environment (all the soil/composting vegetation/etc.) - but that's going to be a time limited scenario until the weather turns everything into barren desert without and vegetation protecting and enriching the soil.

Then, I guess it'd mean harvesting the sediment in the oceans - but fk knows if that's feasible considering the salt additions.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Your points are valid, stemll and Sway

I did say "conceivably" though and, yes, I did miss the "plunged into" bit, stemll.

SevenEves is probably the only Sci-Fi book I know that attempts to explore this concept (inasmuch as humanity is forced underground / into the deep ocean / into space, all of which are devoid of normal growing conditions). However, despite it being praised for its science, I think it is a really poor read for reasons I have previously given in the Science Fiction thread.

[21st Century Man]

Reminds me of a sci-fi film I saw yonks ago about the Titanic or some similar liner that had gone down, with a huge number of the crew & passengers surviving in an air pocket and the ship setting onto a thermal vent. They were able to harvest the energy and through lash up engineering had survived for generations on the sea bed. It was brilliant rubbish, so crap it was good sort of thing