• @breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    3942 years ago

    The country claiming to have the most “freedom” of any country has the highest incarceration rate of any country.

  • @Huffkin@feddit.uk
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    2282 years ago

    Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire.

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

      • @niucllos@lemm.ee
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        642 years ago

        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
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          152 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

        • Although, if you use them a lot (like, a couple packs a day “a lot”), you get good at filling them the right amount, and it’s just something you do.

          Zippos are pretty fantastic for cigarette smokers. They’re horrible for someone who just want to carry fire around in their pocket “just in case.”

          • datendefekt
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            22 years ago

            Back when I was smoking I got a Zippo because it was cool. Refilling fuel and replacing flints got old, but the taste of gas in your mouth was just the worst.

            • @clearleaf@lemmy.ca
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              42 years ago

              Every weed smoker had a zippo they didn’t use because it tasted so bad. They’re fidget toys more than anything. And the “windproof” feature doesn’t work all that well compared to a bic lighter. Who cares if it keeps a tiny flame alive if it’s not going to ignite anything else. You have to shelter it anyway.

  • darcy
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    1982 years ago

    you are loved and deserve happiness

  • @swnt@feddit.de
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    1582 years ago

    Oh, I have two good ones:

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

    2. You have slightly less radiation when living near a nuclear power plant, than living on an average place.

    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.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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    1532 years ago

    There are people still alive who remember a world before “splinter-free” toilet paper.

    The manufacturing of this product had a long period of refinement, considering that as late as the 1930s, a selling point of the Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was “splinter free”.

    -Wikipedia

  • Julian
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    128
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    2 years ago

    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.

      • Jee
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        762 years ago

        I swear these comments look more and more like a ploy to make me look stupid in public

    • @Zebov@lemmy.world
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      322 years ago

      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

      • Julian
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        182 years ago

        To be fair, radio waves have been everywhere for over a hundred years now. Plus, it’s just low-frequency light. It’s no different (probably safer even) than shining a flashlight at your head.

        • @sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          72 years ago

          Supposing we could somehow bring the light into the body?! Or maybe we could inject them with disinfectant! We better look into that.

      • darcy
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        42 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

      • @buycurious@lemmy.world
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        162 years ago

        I’ve read two takes on this before:

        1. The cavity of your head helps project the signal to your car

        2. The water molecules in your head amplify the radio waves to reach your car

      • @Wander@yiffit.net
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        42 years ago

        The way I do it is holding the bottom of the key under the soft part of the lower jaw while holding the mouth open as a resonance chamber.

      • @buycurious@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        I’ve read two takes on this before:

        1. The cavity of your head helps project the signal to your car

        2. The water molecules in your head amplify the radio waves to reach your car

    • @Cybermass@lemmy.world
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      52 years ago

      There is absolutely no way this is true. I need to see some evidence to believe this. (I work as a wireless technician)

      • @Steve@compuverse.uk
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        172 years ago

        I’ve done it. It does work.

        Hold your fob a foot to the side of your head. Back away until it stops working. Take 2 more steps back to be sure. Then put the fob to your forehead. It’ll work again.

      • @hardypart@feddit.de
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        42 years ago

        It’s true, but not because your skull acts like an antenna. It’s because the signal is being reflected by the skull. You can actually just try it out, the range of your car keys will extend when you hold them to your chin.

        • @Cybermass@lemmy.world
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          12 years ago

          I doubt enough signal reflect of off your very radio wave observing skull to make much of a difference at all, it’s most likely a placebo effect and the real reason it extends the range is because you are holding the key fob higher, so it has a better LOS with less obstructions, and it has a better chance to bounce waves off of the very reflective concrete on the ground up to the sensor of your car.

          Organic materials are absolute crap at reflecting wireless signals, they are much better at absorbing and scattering them.

    • DJDarren
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      42 years ago

      It does work, and I always feel like a lunatic if I do it.

    • IninewCrow
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      12 years ago

      The first time I heard about this was in reference to garage door remotes.

      If your remote was too far away, you placed the remote under your chin pointing to your skull to amplify the signal using your head.

  • @ch00f@lemmy.world
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    1272 years ago

    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.

  • @LordOfLocksley@lemmy.world
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    1162 years ago

    A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.

    If you start to think about how these lengths of time are defined it becomes clearer.

    1 day = time to rotate on it’s axis once 1 year = time to complete a full rotation around the sun

    For Earth, it takes us ~24hrs to rotate on our axis and 365.25 days to orbit the sun.

    However, because Venus’ axial rotation is so slow (and another interesting fact, it rotates in the opposite direction to other planets) it actually completes a full orbit of the sun before 1 axial rotation.

    Hence, a year is shorter than a day

    For those interested:

    1 Venus day = 243 earth days 1 Venus year = 225 earth days

    • @Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca
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      132 years ago

      Colloquially, most people use “day” to mean how long it takes the sun to get to the same place in the sky. Solar day vs sidereal day, the difference is only about 4 minutes on Earth, but can be much greater elsewhere. Venus’ solar day is about 117 Earth days, so you would see a couple sunrises/sunsets each Venusian year.

    • @MartinXYZ@lemmy.ml
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      22 years ago

      Wow! That’s another thing I learned from QI recently. Great fact though, and nice to see it mentioned here 🙂

  • @Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    1142 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.

  • @1019throw@lemmy.world
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    972 years ago

    The northern most part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southern most part of Brazil.