Yesterday I learned that there is a traditional figurine in the Catalonian nativity scene called the “pooper” (“caganer”). He’s a little man pulling his pants down and taking a dump … next to baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the rest.
Yes, that is true. That is part of Catalonia’s eschatological* vein. It is our most popular Nativity figurine.
*The word eschatological means in English “concerning the final events of the world and of humankind”. In Spanish, Catalan and German it also means “related to poop”. Which is a final event of sorts 
In English the word meaning “related to poop” is “scatalogical” but in a prurient sense, I think.
That’s funny! You write the two words differently? We write them the same! TIL… 
“We” (I’m not a native English speaker, technically) might have gotten the two words from two different languages!
You made my day!
Life’s a piece of shit 
when you look at it… 
I always assumed that Philip Seymour Hoffman offed himself on Sunday morning so that he would not have to stay up and watch the Seahawks murder the Broncos in that evening’s Superbowl (not that I knew him to have an interest in either team or any particular fondness for the game).
This is why the hottest parts of a supersonic vehicle are the nose and the leading edges of the wings, where the oncoming air has slammed into those surfaces and been compressed/heated the most.
I was fascinated when I learned that glass behaves like a liquid, accounting for the apparent gravity flow-induced thickness of the bottoms of panes of glass in centuries-old houses.
But, I was more fascinated to later learn that this is incorrect. Glass does not perceptibly flow like a liquid after it cools. It’s now understood that the window pane thickness difference seen in old houses is due to the poor glass-making techniques used centuries ago. Ancient builders usually (but not always) installed window panes thick-side down. Some panes are found thick-side up.
This is good news. It means I don’t have to worry about my bong melting—at least until the heat-death of the universe.
We had a chemistry teacher in high school who made a huge deal about this, devoting a whole class to “molding our young minds with the power of his knowledge”.
As he was winding down his screed, there was a startling CRAAASH! behind us and we all jumped.
The senior chemistry teacher had snuck in the back door and thrown a piece of glass at the wall. “Huh, doesn’t sound like a liquid!”
When I was in high school I ground and polished a glass telescope mirror, but didn’t have time to build a telescope for it before I moved away to go to college. At that time I believed the “glass flows like a liquid” myth and was worried that the mirror sitting in my closet would deform and be useless when I finally got around to using it. I did finally build a telescope to put it into, some 40 years after I originally made the mirror, and it functions just great. If it had deformed by a micrometer it would be obvious.
Glass is descibed as a liquid because it is amorphous (the molecules are arranged randomly). Solids which are not amorphous have a regular structure to their molecules/atoms: a “crystal” structure. Silicates which are formed a certain way look very much like glass but have structure, so they are called crystal.
Not long ago, I read that some of the earliest corrective lenses (glasses) were made of goshenite, which is a species of beryl (of which emerald may be the more familiar species). And yes, it appears that geology and biology share some terminolgy.
Today I discovered that you can track aircraft in real time.
You haven’t been following the battle between Elon Musk and the guy who publicizes the location of his jet?
I’ve been using Flightaware for years. Usually I know the flight information better than my family who’s flying.
Cannon Lane, in the London (UK) suburb of Hampstead, is partly lined by cannon barrels from the 1700s and 1800s. (scroll down in the link).
The History Of Hampstead's Old Parish Lock-Up - Living London History
I have a question for you folks who use FlightAware and other similar apps. I use it, too, but I’m not clear on what is meant by arrival time: is it wheels on the ground or arrival at the gate? This can vary by as much as 5-10 minutes.
I only just realized a few months ago that by setting FlightAware to an airport, you can track the flights going in and out. We live a few miles from BOS, and when we’re sitting out on the deck I can check the app and say, That’s a Delta flight to Dublin, or that one is coming in from Frankfurt.
I’m pretty sure (take that with many grains of salt) that the times are leaving the gate for departure and arriving at the gate for arrival. That’s been my experience when tracking flights of loved ones.
^ This. If you scroll down a tad you’ll see pushback, takeoff, landing and gate arrival (with estimated taxi times).
I do the same (I live almost directly under one of the downwind approach lanes to Seattle-Tacoma International). It runs about 5-10 minutes behind, so the flight passing over shows up just west of the air force runway south of here.
(ETA disclaimer: the above comments apply to the website, not necessarily to the app.)
Dandelion wine (and jelly) is made from the petals of the dandelion. It can be made with oranges and raisins as well which results in a sweet very fruity wine, or just dandelion petals alone which is dryer and simpler drink.