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Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise.

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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 13:31 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

Ebay own Gumtree. I would have thought they would regard Gumtree as a competitor?

People are REALLY stupid. I put a Marine gearbox on ebay for £100 start, £200 BIN. It's now £265 with a few days still to go.

The DPF filter is in the exhaust pipe. For some reason I presumed it was part of the engine. Embarassed

Wasn't that interesting Cool

Feel free to add random facts I need to know!
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King29
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PostPosted: 13:36 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, put an advert on Gumtree and it auto fires your number to a third world call centre where you will get inundated with "Hello Mr Polarbear I am calling today from accident solicitors, this is in regards to the accident you had". You tell them no or to fuck off and you'll get at least 6 more calls as each company sells your details on to the next.
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Ste
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PostPosted: 13:36 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Re: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
Feel free to add random facts I need to know!

Unlike 97 percent of birds, ducks have penises — super-long ones. They are among the best endowed (in terms of ratio of body to member) of all vertebrates. For example, the 1-pound, foot-long Argentinian lake duck has the longest of all with a member that is 4 inches longer than its body.

Duck penises regrow every mating season. Once the season ends, the penis begins to shrink and regress until it’s 10 percent of its full-grown size. They are stored inside the duck’s body, waiting to emerge only during copulation. “The process generally resembles a cross between using your arm to evert a sweater sleeve that is inside out and unfurling the soft, motorized roof of a convertible sports car with a hydraulic drive,” writes Prum.

And it only gets weirder.

The duck penis is not straight, but spirals counterclockwise (!) from its base to its tip. The Muscovy duck penis completes six to 10 full twists over its 20-centimeter (7.8-inch) length.

“Like a selection of sex toys from a vending machine in a strange alien bar,” writes Prum, “duck penises come in ribbed, ridged and even toothy varieties” to hook into a female’s reproductive tract, which is as long and convoluted as the penis.

Female reproductive tracts are full of twists and turns or, as Prum puts it, “dead-end side pockets or cul-de-sacs,” and some spiral clockwise in the “opposite direction of the counter-clockwise spiraling duck penis.”

Here’s where evolutionary biology and mate selection comes in — and where the story gets dark. Many duck species skew male, meaning females can be pickier in their choice of mate. For a male duck to land a female, he must boast colorful plumage plus have an elaborate dance mating ritual and beautiful mating calls. In other words, he needs to be a beauty, plus a great singer and dancer.

Most males don’t measure up. So what’s a mediocre guy to do?

Forced copulations are “pervasively common in many species of ducks,” writes Prum. These are socially organized “gang rapes” that are “violent, ugly, dangerous and even deadly” and even sometimes end in the death of the female.

This represents a “selfish male evolutionary strategy that is at odds with the evolutionary interests of its female victims and possibly with the evolutionary interests of the entire species,” Prum writes. To spread their seed, these ducks are upsetting the natural order of selection.

But the females have mounted their own defense with an increasingly elaborate anatomy — including, in some cases, sharp turns in her reproductive canal that act almost as teeth, making it harder for ducks to inseminate during forced copulations.

“Male ducks had evolved penises that would enable them to force their way into an unwilling female’s vagina, and the females in turn had evolved a new way — an anatomical mechanism — to counter the action of the explosive corkscrew erections of male ducks and prevent the males from fertilizing their eggs by force,” writes Plum.

This helps explain why duck vaginas are so elaborate and why duck penises have evolved to keep up — a kind of sexual evolution arms race called antagonistic coevolution.

https://nypost.com/2017/05/06/dont-be-fooled-ducks-are-sadistic-raping-monsters/
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M.C
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PostPosted: 13:38 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Re: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
Ebay own Gumtree. I would have thought they would regard Gumtree as a competitor?

That's why they bought them Smile A bit like how retailers buy up rivals, so they can control them.
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King29
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PostPosted: 13:46 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Re: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

Ste wrote:
Unlike 97 percent of birds, ducks have penises — super-long ones. They are among the best endowed (in terms of ratio of body to member) of all vertebrates. For example, the 1-pound, foot-long Argentinian lake duck has the longest of all with a member that is 4 inches longer than its body.



We Found 53 Clips With "Duck Penis"
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Ste
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PostPosted: 13:55 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

We Found 14 Clips With "Counter-Clockwise" Thumbs Up

We Found 0 Clips With "Explosive Corkscrew Erections" Thumbs Down
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King29
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PostPosted: 13:59 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ste wrote:

We Found 0 Clips With "Explosive Corkscrew Erections" Thumbs Down



BUT


We Found 88 Studios With "Explosive Corkscrew Erections" Thumbs Up
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 14:02 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for that Ste, I am enlightened.

Beware people at the Marina when I catch you feeding the ducks, you are going to learn something new. Whistle
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bhinso
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PostPosted: 15:18 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Re: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

Ste wrote:
Forced copulations are “pervasively common in many species of ducks,” writes Prum. These are socially organized “gang rapes” that are “violent, ugly, dangerous and even deadly” and even sometimes end in the death of the female


Presumably occur near Halifax?
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grr666
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PostPosted: 15:45 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really dislike the taste and texture of mushrooms. However I really enjoy the effects of eating certain varieties.
To counteract the awful flavour, I eat a square of chocolate with each piece of mushroom. This is the only way I can
get them down the hatch. Some people suggest that consumption of chocolate with psychoactive mushrooms only
lengthens and intensifies their effects. I wouldn't know as it's the only way I've ever taken them. I would also add that
I always feel really really "good" on the day immediately following a mushroom trip.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 15:52 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some random physics facts off the top of my head:

- The first person to attempt to measure the height of Mount Everest had to lie about his result because the number looked too perfect. His calculations gave 29,000 feet. He published it as 29,002 feet to make sure he wasn't accused of making up such a perfect result.

- Mount Everest is the highest land point that can physically be achieved on earth. If plate tectonics push the mountain range any higher, the weight of the mountain causes the base to be pulverised, hence the mountain cannot and will not ever greatly exceed the height that it is. This interesting fact is further demonstrated on Mars, which has 1/3rd the gravitational strength of earth, and as such its highest peak, Olympus Mons, is three times higher than Everest. It too will never exceed any greater height.

- Almost all ocean circulation is caused by wind blowing on the surface of the water. A lot of people incorrectly assume that hot/cold convection currents drive ocean flows between the equator and the poles. This is wrong. Wind friction is the primary cause. Since wind is a result of the Coriolis force, the planet would have no ocean circulation at all if it were not rotating.

- Due to the Coriolis force, an east-west wind on the surface of the ocean will result in a north-south movement of the water. This results in a problem at the equator, where water in the northern hemisphere is driven southwards, and water in the southern hemisphere is driven northwards. The two bodies of water meet at the equator and have nowhere to go. To relieve this, the water jets up the side of the ocean basin in what's known as a boundary current, the most well-known example being the Gulf Stream.

- Another result of the Coriolis effect is a fascinating phenomenon called a Taylor column. In a body of air or water, an obstruction at the base of the body will manifest as a full 'column' phantomly obstructing the entire space from bottom to top. This can happen in air and in water.

https://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/spintank/taylor_schem.jpg

- The type of waves that exist on the surface of water can also manifest in the sky. At any point where two fluid bodies of different density meet, the interface between the two bodies can carry waves. In the sky, the pressure variation can result in cloud formations like the one shown below. The effect is exactly the same as waves on water. These are known as internal gravity waves (because they're inside the medium of fluid, and because they're the result of gravity acting on a disturbance). Water waves on the ocean surface are known as gravity waves (not internal).

https://sites.ualberta.ca/~bsuther/imagelinks/graphics/earth/am_igw.jpg
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chickenstrip
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PostPosted: 16:33 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lord Percy wrote:


- Mount Everest is the highest land point that can physically be achieved on earth. If plate tectonics push the mountain range any higher, the weight of the mountain causes the base to be pulverised, hence the mountain cannot and will not ever greatly exceed the height that it is.


Bearing in mind that the Indian plate is pushing up into the Asian plate, this is, of course what is pushing the Himalaya up. But it is also pushing even more rock downwards into the mantle.
The Tibetan plateau was thought to be higher than it should be, despite the fact that mountains actually flow away under the force of gravity over geological time, like a liquid. It is theorised that what happened was that as rock got pushed down deep into the mantle, it was heated and a large mass then actually dropped off into the interior, causing the plateau to suddenly spring up, having lost a large proportion of the weight that was limiting the upper layers from rising further than they had. And now the plateau will be flowing away again, even as the Indian plate continues to push north. Or something like that.
Nothing's ever simple where geology is concerned Smile
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thx1138
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PostPosted: 16:37 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

grr666 wrote:
I really dislike the taste and texture of mushrooms. However I really enjoy the effects of eating certain varieties.
To counteract the awful flavour, I eat a square of chocolate with each piece of mushroom. This is the only way I can
get them down the hatch. Some people suggest that consumption of chocolate with psychoactive mushrooms only
lengthens and intensifies their effects. I wouldn't know as it's the only way I've ever taken them. I would also add that
I always feel really really "good" on the day immediately following a mushroom trip.


My friend used to make a decent home brew beer, he added mushrooms to the mix, and sold it, was very popular locally.
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 16:58 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

thx1138 wrote:
grr666 wrote:
I really dislike the taste and texture of mushrooms. However I really enjoy the effects of eating certain varieties.
To counteract the awful flavour, I eat a square of chocolate with each piece of mushroom. This is the only way I can
get them down the hatch. Some people suggest that consumption of chocolate with psychoactive mushrooms only
lengthens and intensifies their effects. I wouldn't know as it's the only way I've ever taken them. I would also add that
I always feel really really "good" on the day immediately following a mushroom trip.


My friend used to make a decent home brew beer, he added mushrooms to the mix, and sold it, was very popular locally.


What a surprise!! Laughing
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bhinso
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PostPosted: 17:05 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting stuff, whilst we're on the Physics. If you want to lose weight, move to the equator.
This is because the earth is not perfectly spherical, but is an oblate spheroid, meaning the poles are slightly closer to the centre of the earth. Additionally at the equator you have the maximum effect of centrifugal force (equal and opposite to centripetal acceleration).

For this reason, although mount Everest is the highest peak it is not the furthest point from the centre of the earth Twisted Evil
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G
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PostPosted: 17:48 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Re: Somewhat (un)interesting things I didn't realise. Reply with quote

M.C wrote:

That's why they bought them Smile A bit like how retailers buy up rivals, so they can control them.

This.
Note how gumtree has barely been developed since, apart from a little extra monetisation.
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Tracey Suntan-King
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PostPosted: 17:55 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

bhinso wrote:
Interesting stuff, whilst we're on the Physics. If you want to lose weight, move to the equator.
This is because the earth is not perfectly spherical, but is an oblate spheroid, meaning the poles are slightly closer to the centre of the earth. Additionally at the equator you have the maximum effect of centrifugal force (equal and opposite to centripetal acceleration).:



Could you be a sweetie and translate that into dress sizes for me?

As in, how many dress sizes will I shrink by if I move to the Himalayas.
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thx1138
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PostPosted: 18:07 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle club time trials the number one wears usually corresponds to the minute one sets off and the number 13 is traditionally worn upside down
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grr666
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PostPosted: 18:07 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
What a surprise!! Laughing

I'd happily consume mushrooms more regularly than I do despite their aw-foul taste. But it's very hard to get the
Hawaiian variants in the UK and those badboys are widely regarded as the strongest you can acquire. Well, if you're
gonna do a thing... Laughing I'm not even sure if these can still be bought legally in Holland anymore. I don't go there nearly
as often as I used to. I want to give Peyote a whirl next. I don't understand why there's all the fuss over hallucinogens.
In my experience (and that's the only one that counts) They're a right laugh. And you'll never, ever look at the world in quite
the same way again.
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bhinso
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PostPosted: 18:13 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tracey Suntan-King wrote:
Could you be a sweetie and translate that into dress sizes for me?

As in, how many dress sizes will I shrink by if I move to the Himalayas.


Not a lot sadly.
Acceleration due to gravity (g) is 9.82m/s/s at the poles and 9.79m/s/s at the equator.

Assuming that dress size is directly proportional to g, and assuming it is exactly 9.81m/s/s in the UK (gross assumption) you would go down from say a size 16 to 15.967.

I don't know if that is actually a dress size but I don't identify as a womxn
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Ribenapigeon
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PostPosted: 19:37 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

The soap Leland Palmer watches in the soap Twin Peaks is itself filmed in the Ennis House which in turn was the location for the movie House on Haunted Hill which stared Vincent Price. Price played the suitor to Gene Tierneys character Laura in the movie Laura. Laura is a film about a detective investigating the murder of a beautiful young woman with a sinister other side to her life.
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hedgehugger
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PostPosted: 19:58 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Your foot is the same size as that bit of the arm between elbow and hand.
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Ribenapigeon
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PostPosted: 20:57 - 07 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tracey Suntan-King wrote:



Could you be a sweetie and translate that into dress sizes for me?

As in, how many dress sizes will I shrink by if I move to the Himalayas.


This is impossible. Nobody understands womens dress sizes. I know this because i've heard my girlfriend complain about them so often and it seems that even clothes manufacturers don't understand them either.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 05:30 - 08 Feb 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

hedgehugger wrote:
Your foot is the same size as that bit of the arm between elbow and hand.


Another body fact - your armspan from fingertip to fingertip is the same as your height.
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