dromni

dromni t1_jeboehn wrote

Reply to comment by KGhaleon in TIL in the 1920s, Coco Chanel accidentally got a tan, and helped inspire the trend of sunbathing. Soon "sunlight therapy" was prescribed for almost every ailment from fatigue to tuberculosis. Before this, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes who work outside, and fair skin was revered. by Pfeffer_Prinz

Even in many countries were almost everyone is black or brown lighter skin tends to be preferred.

I once saw some theory that because women in average tend to have lighter skin than men of the same race that was associated with femininity by many civilizations. Richer men would then marry women with lighter skin. Give it a few generations, and there would always be an elite / aristocracy with lighter skin than the plebeians, regardless of the main race of the population.

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dromni t1_jeawkw8 wrote

Reply to comment by archfapper in TIL that after Leon Czolgosz was executed for assassinating US Pres. William McKinley, the prison warden poured sulfuric acid on the corpse, burned his belongings, and refused to turn over the body to Leon's brother. This was to prevent exhibitions of his life by archfapper

Jesus, as a non-American I thought that the only assassinated American presidents were Lincoln and Kennedy.

I wonder why McKinley and Garfield are not that famous.

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dromni t1_je19u8j wrote

Reply to TIL the majority of ancient Greeks and Romans that were literate read out loud. Reasons for this include a lack of space between letters and no formalized system of punctuation that helped with pauses in reading. by Ask_Me_If_Im_A_Horse

I could not read it because paywall (or rather register wall), but that doesn't sound completely correct. Even before (gasp!) spaces were invented, Latin had the "interpunct" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct

Scriptio continua though was a thing used for a long time but apparently more for style and theatrics than anything else. It looks like reading was seen as an oratory performance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua

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dromni t1_j9qvksb wrote

Reply to Space Ripples????? by KeyahnDP9

Someone already posted the multiverse taxonomy and there are lots of alternative Big Bang models floating around trying to explain weird observations that have accumulated over the years (possible asymmetries of the cosmic microwave background, vast cosmological voids, old objects in the early universe, "Dark Flow", etc), and some of them postulate that what we call "the universe" is a sort of sprout from an older, larger universe. Conversely, our own universe may be sprouting. In those models the weird observations are explained either by the "history" of the universe as a sprout or by new sprouts in our own universe.

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dromni t1_j5vi3dt wrote

Reply to Mycotecture — the use of mushrooms and other fungal substances for architectural purposes — could be key to building affordable, fire-resistant, insulated habitats on the Moon and Mars. NASA aims to experiment with the technique on the Moon in 2025. by clayt6

Bad idea. The Last of Us told me that eventually the shroom buildings will mutate and assimilate the human dwellers, converting them into monstrosities connected by a hive mind.

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dromni t1_j2fpquy wrote

Reply to TIL a "bum gun" is a type of bidet that resembles a garden hose with a hand-spray nozzle. They're so commonly found in Thailand (both Western-style and squat toilets) that politicians were outraged upon learning their parliamentary building didn't have what some refer to as "ass blasters". by Torley_

I guess it’s common in all countries that use bidets. It’s cheaper and it requires no extra space in the bathroom. Here in Brazil almost any toilet built / retrofitted in the last 20 years will have them. Usually it’s called simply “duchinha” (“little douche”, and the nh is pronounced like the ñ from Spanish, ch pronounced like sh from English).

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dromni t1_j298wrx wrote

Reply to comment by MissionViejo92692 in TIL In the 1980s, an obscene image was snuck into one of the ice cubes in a Coca-Cola ad in South Australia. The company recalled and destroyed all of the posters, and the artist responsible for the image was fired and sued. by 54_actual

Wasn't it? Maybe the problem was that this subliminal message in particular was uncovered, and then the company had to make a theatrical act in public of clutching their pearls. =)

I mean, it's not as if many adds weren't heavily sexualized back then. The Coca-Cola sign in question even says "feel the curves", which is another obvious sexual innuendo...

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dromni t1_it9e94s wrote

Reply to comment by dbeards in TIL that in 2005 burglars stole $71.6 million from a bank in Fortaleza, Brazil by setting up a fake landscaping company near the bank and digging a 256ft tunnel beneath two city blocks to the bank over 3 months. Neighbors noticed vanloads of soil removed daily but assumed it was business-related. by Lagavulin16_neat

As you can see in the Netflix documentary (see my other comment) the tunnel was pretty narrow and excavated by hand. It wasn't like in that Top Secret scene.

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dromni t1_it9duk4 wrote

Reply to TIL that in 2005 burglars stole $71.6 million from a bank in Fortaleza, Brazil by setting up a fake landscaping company near the bank and digging a 256ft tunnel beneath two city blocks to the bank over 3 months. Neighbors noticed vanloads of soil removed daily but assumed it was business-related. by Lagavulin16_neat

There's a documentary about that in Netflix.

The title in English is a bit misleading, as it makes it sound that there's one building of the Central Bank of Brazil but in fact it has many branches in many cities; that one was in Fortaleza. It's kind of like the US Federal Reserve.

By the way the original title is "3 Tonelada$" ("3 Tonne$"), in reference to how much the money weighted.

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dromni t1_iqx4cog wrote

Reply to comment by An8thOfFeanor in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo­-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog

Errrrr... meteors were also considered to be superstition and delirious popular imagination. Even when a meteor crater was shown scientists of the time would say that "clearly" that was caused by some atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning.

I wonder which phenomena are considered kooky today that will be proven beyond doubt in decades and centuries to come.

P.S.: oh, I think you were talking about plate tectonics. "Flying landmasses" got me confused, big asteroids are island-sized. :)

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