# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 63
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1241 "2024-12-31T12:22:29Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Now it’s spelled with two N’s and a Y, but [not where you think](https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Madisynn_King). Way to screw up a perfectly nice name Madisynn. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1242 "2024-12-31T14:04:13Z")
Oh, and when \tau is used as a mathematical constant, it’s usually meant as a synonym for 2\pi (6.283…). Some mathematicians have argued that, since the most fundamental measurement of a circle is its radius, the constant we care about ought to be the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius, not the ratio of its circumference to its diameter, and in fact, in most places in math where \pi shows up, it’s actually 2\pi . ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1243 "2024-12-31T20:04:51Z")
I was a couple of miles away from this when it happened. It smelled awful; I’m reminded of the smell whenever some melting cheese drips onto a red-hot heating element in my toaster oven. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1244 "2025-01-02T06:31:43Z")
Every morning during the Tour de France, before each day’s leg starts, _effaceurs_ (eradicators) disguise obscene/racist/political graffiti on the road so that the originals are not seen on TV overhead shots. Two designs are “owls” and “butterflies”. (via [Lateral with Tom Scott](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0i3rtafXyA)) [video 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBJWqhgQrVc) [video 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7kkUXDVF10) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1245 "2025-01-02T15:45:07Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > obscene/racist/political graffiti Out of curiosity, who are the French racist against? Immigrants; colonials? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1246 "2025-01-02T15:47:24Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Out of curiosity, who are the French racist against? Immigrants; colonials? Black people, Muslims, immigrants - the usual. Occasionally the Jews, just for old time’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1247 "2025-01-02T15:50:40Z")
The impression is sometimes put forward that Americans are uniquely racist and bigoted due to the legacy of slavery; but apparently not so. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1248 "2025-01-02T15:53:08Z")
The French can be extremely racist (this is of course a gross generalization; there are many who acknowledge the problem and work against it, just like in the US), but it manifests as a pretty different kind of racism than the type Americans are used to. Don’t assume that because you understand American racism, you understood or can make predictions about French racism. I mean, fundamentally, “X people are better than Y people” is pretty universal. But the language and behaviors of racists in France do not correspond to the same in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1249 "2025-01-02T15:53:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The impression is sometimes put forward that Americans are uniquely racist and bigoted due to the legacy of slavery; but apparently not so. The legacy of slavery in the US has resulted in a somewhat unique cultural base for the ongoing evolution of racism in America, but racism and bigotry are universal wherever there are humans. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1250 "2025-01-02T20:21:46Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > The legacy of slavery in the US has resulted in a somewhat unique cultural base for the ongoing evolution of racism in America, Careful there. You are dangerously close to espousing CRT is a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1251 "2025-01-02T22:06:46Z")
…and? ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1252 "2025-01-03T01:02:18Z")
Another fan! I’ve been binging on this show ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1253 "2025-01-03T02:00:02Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > The French can be extremely racist (this is of course a gross generalization; there are many who acknowledge the problem and work against it, just like in the US), but it manifests as a pretty different kind of racism than the type Americans are used to. In what sense? ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1254 "2025-01-03T05:24:49Z")
This one is for the Monty Python fans (otherwise it’s fairly uninteresting): It turns out that rabbits killing people is a very common marginalia in illuminated Medieval manuscripts. [https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2021/06/killer-rabbits.html](https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2021/06/killer-rabbits.html) ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1255 "2025-01-03T06:15:26Z")
Huh. I wonder if the Monty Python writers were aware of this when they wrote the Beast of Caerbannog scene, or if it was just a coincidence that the medieval illuminators and the Pythons both thought killer rabbits were funny. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1256 "2025-01-03T06:25:04Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > In what sense? I don’t want to take over this thread, so here’s a brief spoiler-hidden overview. Follow-up, if desired, should be taken elsewhere, I think. > **Summary** > > The short version is this: Americans racially discriminate, but claim they don’t. The French also racially discriminate, but claim they have good reasons. > > Americans like to pretend racism isn’t a problem. Either it doesn’t exist at all, or it’s not that bad. Either way, everyone has pretty much equal opportunity. Obviously that isn’t true in reality, but that’s part of American mythology. Accusations of racism trigger defensive anger because it violates this key central belief in equal treatment in the land of opportunity; there’s no framework under which racism can be rationalized, justified, or explained away. It’s just bad. > > The French, by contrast, freely acknowledge that there is unequal opportunity and unequal treatment, but they claim it’s cultural. If, when you move to France, you make an effort to assimilate — speaking French, dressing and eating consistent with French preferences, you will be accepted regardless of the color of your skin, says their mythology. The French are perfectly happy to look down on brown people and openly discriminate against them in a way Americans don’t, but the French claim it’s because those individuals haven’t properly assimilated yet. Accusations of racism don’t really trigger defensive anger; rather, they prompt a smug “tut-tut” head shake, as if the accuser doesn’t “really understand” French culture, followed by the preceding explanation. > > This is all, obviously, very gross generalization. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2025, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1257 "2025-01-04T21:18:03Z")
Shifting from racism to sexism (not in favor, obviously), I think I had heard of Wife Selling (possibly _en passant_ from The Mayor Of Casterbridge) but I hadn’t realized that it was an actual thing. Today in Horsham we walked past this sidewalk plaque: > **[Stone plaque № 30381](https://openplaques.org/plaques/30381)** > > Instead of divorce, wife selling was common. In 1844 the last wife sale in Britain occurred in Horsham for 30 shillings. Is there a wiki? Of course there is. > **[Wife selling (English custom)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_selling_(English_custom))** > > Wife selling in England was a way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Wife selling provides the backdrop for Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, in which the central character sells his wife at the beginning of the story, an act ... TLDR: The practice was carried on, from ~1692 - 1913, was quasi-legal (tending more to illegal towards the,end of that period), and was possible because (at least initially) the wife was, in law, the property of her husband. It tended to be public (eg at the market) in order for it to be witnessed, in the same way that a marriage was/is also witnessed. It was frequently a way of legitimizing the fact that the wife had walked out and was living with the purchaser. And no, it doesn’t appear that the Horsham sale was the last. Some instances were recorded in the US too. j ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1258 "2025-01-05T00:29:58Z")
I remember how early color television sets, when playing old black and white movies, would display iridescent moiré unless you turned off the color. Also, back when there were only three networks, you could tell which just by the video quality. NBC was more mutes and slightly fuzzy; ABC bright and a little washed out, CBS had overall the best picture. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1259 "2025-01-05T01:13:01Z")
That likely depended on precisely where you were relative to each of the stations’ transmitters, rather than being a universal trait of those stations. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1260 "2025-01-05T02:20:14Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > I remember how early color television sets, when playing old black and white movies, would display iridescent moiré unless you turned off the color. So would football referee’s shirts and plenty of other black white patterns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=62) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=64)