• sploder@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The dog that played specks girlfriend in Pee Wees big adventure is also the same dog that played precious in silence of the lambs.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      This feels like one of those fun facts that theatres would have on screen with cheesy background music if you showed up to a movie too early

  • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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    1 day ago

    The definition of a second is the time it takes for a caesium-133 atom to fluctuate between its two hyperfine ground state 9,192,631,770 times (I did not look the number up).

    • 7uWqKj@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Congrats 😃👍 btw in that time light in vacuum will travel 299,792,458 metres (didn’t look that up either)

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Fun fact 1: Polish people are honoraribly black after they fought alongside the Haitians against the French (they switched sides as the only reason they were there was because France sent them there)

    Fun fact 2: Alaska was almost purchased by Lichtenstein

    Fun fact 3: Singapore was given independence against their own wishes

    Fun fact 4: Abraham Lincoln read some of the works of Karl Marx as he wrote for his favorite newspaper

  • Deestan@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If presented with an old 1970-2000 era landline phone, I can call someone by rapidly hanging up in the pattern of their phone number.

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.

      Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.

    • Lucy :3@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      You’re welcome to dial into my Modem on which Doom is listening for a connection at 40c3 :3

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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      2 days ago

      Used to do this in payphones as a kid. The numpads were disabled when no coins were inserted, effectively disabling tone dialing. But pulse dialing still worked.

    • Deestan@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I am pretty sure I could do it sans phone and only the handle, by rapidly pulling the plug out of the socket and putting it back in.

      Never thought to try it when I had the chance.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Often the rj-12 handset cabling would not plug directly into the rj-11 jacks. If they did, I’d be surprised to learn they’d work on the wire as-is.

  • Espitemophiliac@piefed.ca
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    2 days ago

    Grostesques are mythical or fantastical creatures carved into the sides of building. If they have been designed to drain water away from the building, they are called gargoyles .

  • Ftumch@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    The “brat” in “bratwurst” doesn’t come from “braten”, which means to fry. It actually comes from the old German word “brät”, which means finely chopped meat.

      • ascend@lemmy.radio
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        1 day ago

        Oh thats interesting, i wonder what causes it, the thinking of doing it or actually doing it

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I’m convinced people that “can’t” just don’t know how.

      It’s the same movement as closing your throat off so you can open your mouth underwater, and you just push “up” past that till it puts pressure on the eustachian tubes, and the rumble is your muscle fibers contracting against that which resonates on your eardrums.

      Anyone can do it, it’s just hard to explain

      • untorquer@quokk.au
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        2 days ago

        That’s a minor sound when I do it if I understand correctly. Audible but light. I can flex the muscles in my jaw/tongue as one would to attempt to pop ears, but pushing out from the back of the mouth and pulling my jaw backwards. I think it slightly restricts blood flow and makes it turbulent past the ear. Sounds like pulsar tinnitus (probably not relatable) but constant as long as I hold it.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, that’s it.

          I think some people just do the “water lock” thing to close their jaw off naturally to try and stop a yawn, and that’s how they “discover” they can do it.

      • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Ooh, I can make a little rumble thunder happen if I do that! But why would anyone want to? And weirdly, just yawning doesn’t really do it, but squeezing the eyes while yawning does. Huh.

  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    when the great pyramids were being built, there were still mammoths and sabertooth tigers walking the earth.

    • Machinist@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I knew about the relict popularion of mammoths that was still around. Wasn’t aware of the tigers. Can you please tell me more?

      • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I can’t 100% give you facts. I just go off of the rough estimate of fossil records for both mammoth and sabertooth tigers roughly and this is just a random thing I like to tell people when I was younger to kind of blow their mind.

          • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Another really good random “did you know” When the battle of Little Bighorn, a.k.a. custard‘s last stand happened the Brooklyn Bridge was just being completed in New York, and there were Native Americans who fought in the battle who were still alive to see Neil Armstrong step on the Moon so in the span of one lifetime we went from custard‘s last stand to one giant leap for all mankind.