this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy

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[–] baconeater@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lighters were invented before matches! 1823 vs 1826

[–] SakaiSama@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So why did anyone use matches then? Was it just more economically viable?

[–] niucllos@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you've ever played around with an old-style lighter (think classic Zippo) you'd get it! They're fairly expensive, and aren't airtight so they need to be refilled every few days/weeks. If you fill them too much they need to be kept upright or they'll spill lighter fluid on you. Super cool and can hold flames for a while but not nearly as conventient as a matchbook for quick fire lighting

[–] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

It just occurred to me that zippos are basically the same type of oil lanterns that we've been using for thousands of years

[–] Huffkin@feddit.uk 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire.

Oxford University founded in 1326, Aztec empire ~1428-1521

[–] tristophe@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Don’t mean to pick, but Oxford was founded in 1096 and Cambridge in 1209.

I worked for cambridge in 2009 and got a nice little 800 year badge

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[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 years ago

Cleopatra lived closer in time to us than the construction on the great pyramids.

[–] sunbeam60@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

My local pub is older than the USA.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago

And some of the colleges of Oxford University are older than the university. Merton College was founded in 1264.

[–] swnt@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Oh, I have two good ones:

  1. Nuclear power causes less deaths (per energy unit produced) than wind (source)

  2. You get less radiation when living near a nuclear power plant, than if that nuclear plant hadn't been there.

To explain the second: A major misconception is, that nuclear power plants are dangerous due to their radiation. No they aren't. The effect of radiation from the rocks in the ground and the surroundings is on average 50x more than what you get from the nuclear power plant and it's fuel cells. (source). Our body is very well capable of dealing with the constant background radiation all the time (e.g. DNA repairs). Near a power plant, the massive amounts of isolation and concrete will inhibit any background radiation coming from rocks from that direction to you. This means, that you'll actually get slightly less radiation, because the nuclear plant is there.

Regarding the dangers of nuclear disasters. To this day, it's been very hard to find out, if at all any people have even died to Fukushima radiation (ans not other sources such as tsunami/earthquake/etc.) Nuclear radiation causes much more problems by being an emotionally triggering viral meme spreading between people and hindering it's productive use and by distracting from the ironic fact, that the coal burned in coal power plants spew much more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants themselves. (source)

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Nuclear power is actually the cleanest way to produce energy. The waste from replacing solar panels and windmills (which have a service life only three to five years) is actually more of a problem than the waste from spent fuel rods. Plus environmental impacts from fuel rod production are less than solar panel and windmill production. The problem with nuclear energy happens when things go wrong. It would have to be absolutely accident free. It never has been and never will be.

Though they're on the right track with nuclear power. Fusion would be ideal, runs on seawater (fuses deuterium/tritium) and if there's a problem you simply shut off the fuel. Problem is insurmountable engineering issues, we just don't have tech for it yet (need anti-gravity). They've been working on it for many decades and progress has been painfully slow.

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[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

you are loved and deserve happiness

Fuck Lemmy is unexpectedly wholesome

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[–] julianh@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

Your car keys have better range if you press them to your head, since your skull will act as an antenna. It sounds like some made up pseudoscience that would never work in practice or have a negligible effect, but it actually works.

Edit: idk if it's actually because your skull acts as an antenna, although that's what I've heard. I looked it up and it seems like it's your head acting as a reasonance chamber. Since your body is conductive, your head can bounce and amplify the radio signal.

[–] Zebov@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

On one side you have people that think 5g causes cancer. On the other, you have people directly beaming shit into their skulls to open their cars from a couple extra feet away.

Wild

[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

i dont believe it causes cancer necessarily, but i think 5g is worrying for the sake of big increase in location tracking precision

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[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The country claiming to have the most β€œfreedom” of any country has the highest incarceration rate of any country.

[–] Asafum@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Not so fun fact: the constitution allows for slavery as long as it's a punishment for a crime.

Hmmm... Nah, those dots don't connect at all.

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[–] zkikiz@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, and Phillips Petroleum were convicted of an actual conspiracy related to the monopolization of transit systems, which replaced beloved streetcar (rail) systems with rubber-tired oil-burning buses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

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[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The closest planet to Earth is Mercury.

On average that is. Mercury is actually the closest planet to every other planet in average. Because when it’s on the other side of the Sun, it’s still pretty close.

[–] domage@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Wow, you're absolutely correct!

The average distance from Earth to Mercury is about 1.04 astronomical units (au), which is the average distance between Earth and the Sun.

In comparison, the average distance between Earth and Venus is approximately 1.14 au, while the average distance between Earth and Mars is around 1.7 au.

You can check that in Wolfram Alpha.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

A broken clock is right twice a day, but a clock running backwards is right four times a day.

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

A broken clock is right twice a day, but a running clock is probably never right.

[–] psud@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My grandfather clock is correct* about once a week when I wind and correct it

*It must be correct as it's very slightly fast (less so than can be fixed with a quarter turn off the pendulum screw) and I set it slightly in the past

[–] lazyslacker@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

At this point you get into a philosophical discussion about what "right" really means

[–] MBM@lemmings.world 1 points 2 years ago

If you're lucky, a clock that's slightly too fast or too slow will be right once

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[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

The world is running out of sand.

It's one of the most used materials in the world for construction but islands are disappearing because of its limited supply.

[–] Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Russia is actually pretty small and it almost fits inside Africa. Try it out: https://www.thetruesize.com/

EDIT: Ok I expressed myself in the wrong way. What I meant was, Russia is not as big as I thought it was. Of course, it's still really huge.

[–] datendefekt@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I think that says more about how unbelievably massive Africa is.

[–] PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The can opener was invented 30 years after the can.

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[–] teft@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Maine is the closest US state to Africa.

[–] Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The USA is not a true democracy in the academic sense of the word.

[–] yhnavein@feddit.nl 1 points 2 years ago

It's not very democratic in common sense as well.

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[–] SpooneyOdin@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Cleopatra was born closer to the invention of cellphones than the building of the pyramids

[–] calhoon2005@aussie.zone 1 points 2 years ago

I've always thought this was amazing

[–] supersane@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)
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[–] Interesting_Test_814@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Texas is larger than any country in Europe except Russia.

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[–] DJDarren@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Gary Numan is two weeks older than Gary Oldman.

[–] freundTech@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Every Rubik's Cube, no matter how scrambled, can be solved in at most 20 rotations.

[–] tieme@midwest.social 2 points 2 years ago

I don't think this is true for all of them. My cube takes at least a couple hundred rotations and then you have to take the stickers off and move them around to solve it.

[–] Flannels9658@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

All the planets in the solar system can fit in the space between the Earth and the Moon

[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

this is actually a misconception! the gravity of the planets combined would cause them all to crash into each other!

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