wikipedia

The drinking of distilled water as a replacement for drinking water has been both advocated and discouraged for health reasons. Distilled water lacks minerals and ions, such as calcium, that play key roles in biological functions, such as in nervous system homeostasis, and are normally found in potable water. The lack of naturally occurring minerals in distilled water has raised some concerns. The Journal of General Internal Medicine published a study on the mineral contents of different waters available in the US. The study found that "drinking water sources available to North Americans may contain high levels of calcium, magnesium, and sodium and may provide clinically important portions of the recommended dietary intake of these minerals". It encouraged people to "check the mineral content of their drinking water, whether tap or bottled, and choose water most appropriate for their needs". Since distilled water is devoid of minerals, mineral intake through diet is needed to maintain good health.

A black fax is a prank fax transmission consisting of one or more pages entirely filled with a uniform black tone.

this is confusing

First adopted in the mid 19th century by the Hawaiian Kingdom, it became the official state flag when Hawaii was admitted as the 50th state of the United States in 1959. It is also the only U.S state flag to contain the flag of a foreign country.

The Tank Man (also known as the Unknown Protester or Unknown Rebel) is the nickname given to an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks leaving Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989.

Some believe that clock faces were used to keep score on court, with a quarter move of the minute hand to indicate a score of 15, 30, and 45. When the hand moved to 60, the game was over. However, in order to ensure that the game could not be won by a one-point difference in players' scores, the idea of "deuce" was introduced. To make the score stay within the 60 ticks on the clock face, the 45 was changed to 40. Therefore, if both players had 40, the first player to score would receive ten, and that would move the clock to 50. If that player scored a second time in a row, they would be awarded another ten and the clock would move to 60, signifying the end of the game. However, if the player failed to score twice in a row, then the clock would move back to 40 to establish another "deuce".

The term beta movement is used for the optical illusion of apparent motion in which the very short projection of one figure and a subsequent very short projection of a more or less similar figure in a different location are experienced as one figure moving.

The first description of the origin of the Granny Smith apple was not published until 1924. In that year, Farmer and Settler published the account of a local historian who had interviewed two men who had known Smith. One of those interviewed recalled that, in 1868, he (then twelve years old) and his father had been invited to Smith's farm to inspect a chance seedling that had sprung near a creek. Smith had dumped there, among the ferns, the remains of French crab-apples that had been grown in Tasmania. Another story recounted that Smith had been testing French crab-apples for cooking, and, throwing the apple cores out her window as she worked, had found that the new cultivar had sprung up underneath her kitchen windowsill. Whatever the case, Smith took it upon herself to propagate the new cultivar on her property, finding the apples good for cooking and for general consumption. Having "all the appearances of a cooking apple," they were not tart but instead were "sweet and crisp to eat." She took a stall at Sydney's George Street market, where the apples stored "exceptionally well and became popular" and "once a week sold her produce there."

Smith died only a couple of years after her discovery (in 1870), but her work had been noticed by other local planters. Edward Gallard was one such planter, who extensively planted Granny Smith trees on his property and bought the Smith farm when Thomas died in 1876. Gallard was successful in marketing the apple locally, but it did not receive widespread attention until 1890. In that year, it was exhibited as "Smith's Seedling" at the Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show, and the following year it won the prize for cooking apples under the name "Granny Smith's Seedling."

The Murdaugh family is an American family from the Lowcountry region of South Carolina.

A lot of rabbit holes here, the biggest is of course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Alex_Murdaugh

But there's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mallory_Beach

Trampling studies have consistently documented that impacts on soil and vegetation occur rapidly with initial use of desire paths. As few as 15 passages over a site can be enough to create a distinct trail, the existence of which then attracts further use. This finding contributed to the creation of the Leave No Trace education program, which instructs travelers in nature areas to either stay on designated trails or, when off trail, distribute their travel lines so as to not inadvertently create new trails in unsustainable locations.

Images of desire paths have been employed as a metaphor for anarchism, intuitive design, individual creativity, and the wisdom of crowds.

A desire path, also known as desire line in transportation planning, is an unplanned small trail formed by erosion caused by human or animal traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or the most easily navigated route between an origin and destination, and the width and severity of its surface erosion are often indicators of the traffic level it receives.

see also [email protected]

Context collapse or "the flattening of multiple audiences into a single context" is a term arising out of the study of human interaction on the internet, especially within social media. Context collapse "generally occurs when a surfeit of different audiences occupy the same space, and a piece of information intended for one audience finds its way to another" with that new audience's reaction being uncharitable and highly negative for failing to understand the original context.

after https://lemmy.zip/comment/19104831

Kevin Eastman got the idea for the Shredder's armor from large trapezoidal cheese graters which he envisioned on a villainous character's arms. He then said, "Could you imagine a character with weapons on his arms like this?" Peter Laird suggested the name The Shredder.

In the original comic books from Mirage Comics, Oroku Saki had an elder brother by the name of Oroku Nagi, who had been killed by fellow ninja Hamato Yoshi (the owner of Splinter, the Turtles' mentor) in a feud over a woman named Tang Shen, resulting in Yoshi fleeing with Shen to the United States.

Angered by the death of his elder brother, Saki joined the Foot Clan and trained to be a ninja. He quickly became one of their deadliest warriors and rose up the ranks and was chosen to lead the Foot's American branch. Operating in New York under the name of The Shredder, Saki used the opportunity to avenge his brother by killing Yoshi and Shen.

Adolf Ehinger's paper shredder, based on a hand-crank pasta maker, was the first to be manufactured in 1935 in Germany. Supposedly he created a shredding machine to shred his anti-Nazi leaflets to avoid the inquiries of the authorities.

Anti-burning laws also resulted in increased demand for paper shredding.

More recently, concerns about identity theft have driven increased personal use of paper shredders, with the US Federal Trade Commission recommending that individuals shred financial documents before disposal.

The difficulty of reconstruction can depend on the size and legibility of the text, whether the document is single- or double-sided, the size and shape of the shredded pieces, the orientation of the material when fed, how effectively the shredded material is further randomized afterwards, and whether other processes such as pulping and chemical decomposition are used.

If you have never read this before, it is quite an interesting read about a manuscript that still has not been deciphered.

The following Tok Pisin "names" for the piano were recorded by early 20th-century writers:

• big fellow box spose whiteman fight him he cry too much (1902)
• box belong cry ("screaming box") (1902) big fellow bokkes, suppose missis he fight him, he cry too much (1911)
• bigfela bokis yu fait-im i krai (1921)
• bikpela bokis bilong krai taim yu paitim na kikim em (1969)

Linguists observe that these circumlocutions are unstable ad hoc descriptions of an object, rather than set "words" or names. The situation is comparable to a Tok Pisin-English dictionary's definition of a Tok Pisin word with no English equivalent, such as milis being defined as "coconut milk made from shedding coconut meat in the water of a ripe nut"; nobody would suggest that this lengthy expression is the "English name" for this drink.

The origins of the village's unusual name are uncertain; however, theories include a shortening of "North Place", "Near Place" or "Nigh Place", or that the original houses of the village stood on a boundary between two parishes, neither of which would accept the village. It could also be a literary play on the word "Utopia", which comes from the Greek: οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place") and translates as "no-place".

The Dole Air Race, also known as the Dole Derby, was an air race across the Pacific Ocean from Oakland, California, to Honolulu in the Territory of Hawaii held in August 1927 that resulted in several deaths.

Married couple who were unintentionally abandoned in the Coral Sea on a diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef

Left school at 15 to fight the Austrians, shipwrecked off Spain, tried to assassinate Napoleon III, imprisoned on Devil's Island, escaped, fought in the American Civil War, survived the Battle of Little BigHorn

I knew about this previously, but I read the article after reading about the Voynich Manuscript . The source of the ink is Oak apples are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae

after a post on Historical Artefacts

The Romans had eaten porridge and baked bread for around six hundred years after the founding of Rome. In 171 BC, during the Third Macedonian War, the arrival of Greek bakers established the first professional bakers, known as the pistores, in Rome. It was in ancient Rome where bread and pastries first began to be mass produced.