Mine is this little tidbit about Khaki's from https://www.heddels.com/2019/05/history-khaki-anything-drab/

"Tried and tested by all the major powers, khaki-dyed, lightweight cotton twills became the de facto uniform for any colonizing power. If you were going to ship your boys abroad to pillage and conquer someplace in the Southern Hemisphere, khaki was your go-to color."

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[–] 92 points 1 year ago (17 children)

The chainsaw was first used to saw bone, not trees. This was before anesthesia.

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  • [–] 79 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    The chainsaw was first used to saw bone, not trees

    That makes it sound like it was used for amputation...

    It was invented to aid with childbirth

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  • [–] 64 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The baby comes out much easier in two pieces.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    It used to be hand-cranked too.

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  • [–] [S] 25 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Hadn't heard the hank crank part before. That's extra brutal

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  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 64 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Chewing gum is a petroleum product.

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  • [–] 62 points 1 year ago* (23 children)

    The first microwave ovens created were being used to gently re-warm frozen live hamsters, because when they tried to reheat the hamsters with conventional cooking methods, they heated unevenly and burned at the edges, which isn't good for the hamsters.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    I have to assume the microwave didn't work either, because they cook far more unevenly than an oven.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    Modern ones do have hotspots and cold spots because of resonance and design tradeoffs, but I don't think that was a problem for the hamster application. IDK, maybe they were structured a little more small and special-purpose, but regardless it was just penetrating radiation basically all throughout the hamster which is better than heating it from the outside in and having the heat having to conduct its way through the frozen tissue.

    Basically the same reason you can defrost meat in the microwave, but you can't throw it in the oven to defrost more quickly without also cooking the edges.

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  • [+] 3 points 1 year ago* (10 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    Microwaves penetrate a certain distance into the material and then turn into heat. Heat conduction from the outside doesn't. I don't know exactly what the average of that distance is and how it compares to the size of a hamster, but I would bet that it's pretty competitive with the thickness of the hamster.

    Your whole argument here makes no sense at all. Having the ambient temperature set to the perfect defrosting value would work better than heating the skin of the frozen meat in cycles of full on / full off, if the microwaves were getting stopped right at the skin and then the heat had to conduct in from there.

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  • [+] -3 points 1 year ago (8 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    But you're incorrect. Microwaves penetrate through many substances fairly well, mostly passing through them. The microwave ovens we use to cook are tuned to resonate with water molecules, and as a result the waves interact more frequently with those molecules. But in general, the waves just bounce around until they do interact with something, and it could be any particle within your hot pocket that it interacts with, not just the surface.

    All that is to say, microwaves do heat all throughout whatever you put in. Now, these waves can also excite particles and moisture in the air within the oven, and there is convection between the air and your hot pocket... But air is less dense than food, so convection will be secondary heating at best, and cooling at worst.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah. They don't penetrate an unlimited distance into the food, the center of some stuff won't get heated. But they penetrate a lot further than the 0 distance that ambient heat from the outside does, conducting heat straight to the skin of the food and then letting it work its way in from there.

    No idea what this person's issue is, I sort of suspect that it's just Lemmy in action, doing its thing.

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  • [+] -1 points 1 year ago* (4 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You will find it is entirely dependent on the size, thickness, and density of the food you're heating.

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  • [+] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ok what the fuck. Is there a source beyond the youtube video I don't want to watch right now. That's pretty wild claim. The few sites I visit seem to reference the YouTube video as the source

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  • [–] 45 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hugo Boss (the clothing line) started out making uniforms for the Nazi Party.

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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Hiram Maxim (1840 - 1916) invented the modern mousetrap and the first automatic machine gun.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    "Blue lights on train platforms in Japan have been shown to reduce the chance someone will jump in front of a speeding train. In fact, one study in the Journal of Affective Disorders found blue lighting reduced suicide attempts by 84%. It’s believed blue registers as a calming color, associated with the sky and sea, which may be soothing to people in distress, according to Psychology Today."

    I guess people who keep using blue-light filter glasses at end of work will miss this.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Those fake astroturf fields and yards people are installing are actually quite toxic. In addition to heating plastic to high temperatures and baking it under powerful UV light each summer, the plastics and rubbers used for them are usually from sources like car tires which are full of PFAS to resist fires, wear, UV, etc. Those leach into surrounding areas whenever it rains.

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  • [–] 51 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Any warning label you have ever seen exists because enough people did the thing being warned against that a lawyer said there needed to be a sign.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    My wife recently noticed a new sign by our building's pool saying that you are not allowed in if you have diarrhea or have had diarrhea in the last 14 days. 🤔🥴

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    [–] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    During the War on Terror, there was a much-publicized fact that your own household furnishings were much more likely to kill you than terrorist.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Not really a secret, but we don't often think about it.

    Cash is fucking dirty. Here is the official Fedral Reserve estimated lifespan for each note:

    Denomination Estimated Lifespan*
    $1 7.2 years
    $5 5.8 years
    $10 5.7 years
    $20 11.1 years
    $50 14.9 years
    $100 24.0 years

    You can assume that something like a $5 bill might change hands on a weekly basis.

    So if you a $5 bill that still looks nice, it might be only 2 years old, so it might have seen about 100 owners up until now. It is said that 1 out of 5 people don't wash hands after pooping.

    Your $5 bill is probably filled with poop, pee, sweat, food, cum, dirt, etc.

    https://sci-hub.st/10.1097/00007611-200295120-00011

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Some antique toasters gracefully lifted your toast, perfectly browned, rather than popping them up like it's trying to give you a heart attack.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    I have one from the 50s/60s(?) that will gradually let two slices of toast up, but if you have only one piece of toast and you put it in the wrong slot, it will literally fly out of the toaster.

    I had to move the fridge after losing several pieces of toast between it and the counter before I learned what was going on. Was very confused about missing bread and the cat was a prime suspect.

    Edit: typo

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    Artificial raspberry flavor is made from beaver anal glands.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    Which brings us to just one of those bizarre US things, "artificial flavor" versus "natural flavor" is totally arbitrary and random. It's based on which molecule, not what the source is, so you can have "natural flavors" that came from a massive stainless steel tank and will kill you if you touch them in pure form without the proper protective gear, or "artificial flavors" that come from squeezing beaver ass glands.

    Edit: Every word of this post is wrong. Literally every one. I think I read a book decades ago that told me this, maybe I remembered it wrong, but anyway according to the internet of today it's different and I'm a big dummy.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's based on which molecule, not what the source is

    Other way around. You can have identical molecules be classified as "artificial" or "natural" depending upon whether they were synthesized or extracted.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/svbl7/what_are_artificial_flavors_made_out_of/

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Which brings us to just one of those bizarre US things, "artificial flavor" versus "natural flavor" is totally arbitrary and random. It's based on which molecule, not what the source is,

    But, that's sensible. If it's the chemical you find in raspberry, then its natural raspberry flavor. If it's something we invented or discovered that's like raspberry, its artificial. Who cares if it came from a bioreactor?

    will kill you if you touch them in pure form without the proper protective gear,

    While I wouldn't recommend eating concentrated artificial flavours, touching them won't kill you. Unless you jump into the reactor, but jumping into one would kill you no matter what the substance inside is.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Seems unnecessary. Raspberries are plentiful and likely cheaper than beaver parts.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Yeah, it sounds like this might not actually be as common as suggested. Synthetic chemicals are usually going to be cheaper than hunting a beaver.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Makes me wonder why whale puke still gets used in cosmetics...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    The synthetics are usually inferior to natural products if you're going high-end. There's probably thousands of individual compounds in ambergris. Similarly, I'm guessing if you go for really bougie raspberry flavouring it's more likely to use castoreum.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I guess that I would have thought that you could isolate those individual compounds, and then reproduce them, rather than hoping that you can find a lucky ball of whale puke.

    I dunno, I'm pretty sure I'm not their target audience.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    In theory you could, although I'd guess it'd be an incredible amount of work, and might cost more in the end. Most attempts at replicating natural flavours and scents have historically been unconvincing, although some of the recent stuff has been incredible.

    I wonder if there's any food scientists on Lemmy.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, a little research online says it's likely only used in perfumes due to expense, but technically it could be used in food.

    Most foods though will just use raspberries in some form or another.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago*

    How pineapples grow amazes me. Ofc if you're from a place where pineapples grow, it probably sounds dumb, but I learnt that late in my life. Look:

    A pineapples plantation.

    Focus on a single pineapple, which grows on long leaves, on a long stem, alone, with other leaves on its head.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    That thing's been in a butt. Almost certainly. Possibly mine. I can neither confirm nor deny. Good luck.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Anything organic will burn.

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