Today I Learned

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We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by _MoveSwiftly to c/til
 
 

To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the moderators or comment on our pinned post.

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accountant
airline pilot
articled clerk of a limited company
assurance agent of a recognised company
bank or building society official
barrister
chairman or director of a limited company
chiropodist
commissioner for oaths
councillor - local or county
civil servant - permanent
dentist
director, manager or personnel officer of a VAT-registered company
engineer with professional qualifications
financial services intermediary, for example a stockbroker or insurance broker
fire service official
funeral director
insurance agent of a recognised company - full time
journalist
Justice of the Peace
legal secretary - fellow or associate member of the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs
licensee of a public house
local government officer
manager or personnel officer of a limited company
member, associate or fellow of a professional body
Member of Parliament
Merchant Navy Officer
minister of a recognised religion including Christian Science
nurse - registered
officer of the armed services
optician
paralegal - certified, qualified or associate member of the Institute of Paralegals
person with honours - OBE or MBE
pharmacist
photographer - professional
police officer
Post Office official
president or secretary of a recognised organisation
Salvation Army Officer
social worker
solicitor
surveyor
teacher or lecturer
trade union officer
travel agent - qualified
valuer or auctioneer - fellow or associate member of the incorporated society
Warrant Officer or Chief Petty Officer
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More here: https://www.centralcalclay.com/mimbres.html

Also a huge database here: https://core.tdar.org/collection/22070/mimbres-pottery-images-digital-database-with-search

As a former comedian who is super into archaeology, learning this made me very happy.

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There's a flying squid? (www.discoverwildlife.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by kamenlady to c/til
 
 

I knew there's a flying squid that likes to post memes though

If a squid swimming near the surface is spooked by a predator or a boat, it streamlines into a torpedo shape and fires itself out of the water. At the same time, it splays its eight tentacles into a flat, fan-like pattern in front of its face – some breeds even exude mucus to fill in the spaces, creating a unified, kite-like surface. It also flares a pair of fins near its rear end and – voilà – the squid becomes a living, breathing jet.

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The nonprofit's scientist co-founder was one of the organizers of a conference I attended, so that's how I learned! From their website:

Darwin’s Ark was founded by two passionate pet lovers—a geneticist and an engineer—who noticed a glaring gap in scientific research. Many people had pets, but surprisingly little research focused on their health and wellbeing.

This sparked the creation of Darwin’s Ark, a nonprofit organization that combines the perspectives of pet parents with the expertise of professional scientists to expand the scale and scope of pet research.

Since then, Darwin’s Ark has helped thousands of pet owners contribute to the scientific understanding of their furry companions. We value pet owners’ insights—you know your animals best—and we believe in the transformative power of community science to drive discovery.

They just launched a new project, Darwin's Cats. And they are seeking out cat owners to submit data on their cats. I believe they also do genetic testing too and the data goes to researchers, instead of some shady startup company

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In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin's theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/evolution-periodic-table-to-stay-part-of-class-9-10-syllabus/articleshow/101058188.cms

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That's 34 years' worth of days!

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For MST3K fans: this has three connections to the show- not only is it the same name as Gamera vs. Jiger, the vehicle itself was seen in the movies The Girl in Gold Boots and Blood Waters of Dr. Z.

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Very handy for posting videos to Lemmy, when you need to specify the Thumbnail URL. Found here: https://gist.github.com/huphtur/5557258

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TIL what a fatberg is (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/til
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TIL that Orcas sometimes eat moose (www.americanoceans.org)
submitted 1 week ago by gedaliyah to c/til
 
 

It may come as a surprise to many, but orcas have been known to eat moose. While this may seem like an unlikely interaction between two very different creatures, it is not unheard of in the wild.

Orcas are versatile predators, and their diet includes a wide variety of prey, from fish to seals to whales.

In Alaska and Canada, orcas have been observed hunting moose that swim across rivers. These moose are often weakened by the cold water and swift currents, making them easy targets for the orcas.

So... wtf?

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So far, the best ever image of a star other than our sun.

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This is in response to someone else's post from half an hour ago, which contained phone numbers controlled by a politically aligned organization. It doesn't matter which one.

Reports of election interference should go directly to the authorities:

https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud

How to report voter fraud, intimidation, or suppression

If you suspect voter fraud, report it to your state or territorial election office. You can also report it to:

If you witness or suspect voter intimidation or suppression, there are three ways you can report it:

LAST UPDATED: September 18, 2024

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Something tells me they don't enjoy them, but...

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Reading about how swing states are important for the election, I was wondering how safe the "safe states" actually are. So I plugged some numbers into a spreadsheet, and came to some interesting (?) results.

So first, the data. I used the 2020 election results, starting with Turnout_2020G_v1.2.csv (from https://election.lab.ufl.edu/voter-turnout/2020-general-election-turnout/) for number of people eligible to vote (columns D and E). Added the results from https://www.fec.gov/documents/4228/federalelections2020.xlsx (H, I, J, and K calculated from that), and the number of registered voters from https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters#2021 (F and G). Non-voters L is eligible voters minus total votes (E - L). Democrats M and Republicans N is the bigger of registered and voters (F or H; G or I), to see if that makes a difference in swinginess. Columns P and Q are the results calculated from the table to make sure it works (Maine and Nebraska cancel each other out), row 54 is the sum of the column above.

The results: Columns R are the states where non-voters alone are the biggest group, S adds third party voters to that, resulting in 148 or 156 electors that could vote for anyone. Columns T and U are each of Democrats and Republicans plus non-voters, and here the non-voters could help each party win everywhere, except DC which is safe for Democrats. For funsies I added the last column V that calculates non-voters from the voting-age, not voting-eligible population, resulting in 287 electors for anyone.

Conclusion? Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia could be "rainbow states" that could send electors for any candidate. The rest except for DC could vote for either Democrats or Republicans, making all of them swing states. And maybe the fear of non-citizen voters (which I think is the majority of the difference between voting-age and voting-eligible people) determining the election results is valid. Or maybe that means that a significant amount of people living in the US and thus being affected by its government are not represented by said government.

The End: Of course that completely disregards non-voter demographics, even if they would vote they're not likely to all vote the same. Still, enough motivated ex-non-voters could turn basically any state into a swing state. One vote of someone who thinks their vote doesn't matter won't change much, but the votes of all who think that way certainly can.

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Here is his instrumental track The Edge, the one Dre sampled. You'll probably recognize what he sampled almost immediately even if you're only barely aware of his work (like me).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05mMRJrUnE

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For some reason, their website doesn't have an image of the stone, so here is one.

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