Factoids - useless but interesting snippets

[Bill W]

On 10/10/2021 at 8:06 AM, Zombie said:

“ “Many years ago, Norris Church, the sixth (and last) wife of the novelist Norman Mailer, wrote me from their Provincetown home to complain about my misuse of the word “factoid.”

She pointed out that her husband had coined the word in his 1973 book about Marilyn Monroe, “Marilyn,” and that it meant not “an odd little fact,” but “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.””

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/23/opinion/just-factoids-please/

Well tough titty, Norris - or should I say Barbara? (her husband Norman Mailer told her she should change her name from Barbara Jean Davis - Factoid #1 ) - because no-one controls language (despite pitiful efforts by the Académie Française - Factoid #2 )

Anyway, that’s all by the by - here’s the factoid I wanted to post (#3 ), as officially written on the State of Virginia roadside historical marker / commemorative plaque. So it must be true!

 

I wonder if Zona appeared to her mother and told her this on Halloween.  

[Zombie]

Neither August Ferdinand Möbius (1790-1868) nor Johann Benedict Listing (1808-1882) invented the Möbius Strip - this Roman mosaic from about 200AD (at a Roman villa in Sentinum, now called Sassoferrato) proves it was known in the ancient world (I guess we’ll never know whether the Ancient Greeks, or Indian or Islamic mathematicians, ever figured out the mathematics).

 

 

 

Edited January 21 by Zombie

[Page Scrawler]

F. Scott Fitzgerald is most famously known for his novel, The Great Gatsby. What is lesser-known about Fitzgerald: his full name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was named in honor of his ancestor, Francis Scott Key, who penned "The Star-Spangled Banner".

[Bill W]

2 hours ago, Page Scrawler said:

F. Scott Fitzgerald is most famously known for his novel, The Great Gatsby. What is lesser-known about Fitzgerald: his full name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was named in honor of his ancestor, Francis Scott Key, who penned "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Was he also related to the Boston Fitzgeralds, primarily Homey Fitz whose grandchildren formed Joe Kennedy's clan? 

[Zombie]

Monocular stereopsis

WTF???

Yes, strange but true, you can see in 3D with just one eye 👀 …even when viewing a two-dimensional image, like the screen you’re looking at now

 

Don’t believe it?

Watch this YouTube on “full screen” setting from this link https://youtu.be/fljp-Q784r4?t=161, cover one eye with your hand (don’t think it matters which) and just look at the flowery shrub thing on the right (mute the sound, it’ll distract)

 

How/why does it happen? Because human vision works by receiving data from the eyes which do not function as cameras - it’s the processing by the brain of the eye data that creates the images we see

 

Quite a lot on the web if you search the term but this weird phenomenon does not seem to be generally accepted, known or understood

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-method-for-inducing-monocular-stereopsis-A-single-pictorial-image-is-viewed-with-one_fig2_253334388

 

Edited March 6 by Zombie

[Ron]

Jamaica is raising its minimum wage by 44% later this year to $85.00 for a 40 hour work week. Whoo hoo, let the celebrating begin.