Interesting Links for 21-08-2024

[andrewducker]

1. A story about a created being who wants more time.

(tags:life comic )

2. My brother's working on a new game that's just been announced

(tags:games video trailer viaMyBrotherMike )

3. Giant spiders the size of rats are coming to the UK - but not to your garden

(tags:spiders aieeee! UK )

4. Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks Since the Financial Crisis

(tags:twitter ElonMusk banking )

Comments

[simont]

#3 mentions that the webs are "the size of a 10-inch pizza".

What a very silly way to say "10 inches across"!

[andrewducker]

It really is.

One can only assume that the writer said "10 inches wide" and an editor said "You need to give them something to imagine", and this led to some malicious compliance.

[calimac]

Maybe they then wrote "the size of a pizza" and the editor said "pizzas come in different sizes." Or maybe a ten-inch pizza isn't actually ten inches in diameter. Some things are like that. (A two-by-four isn't two by four, I'm told.)

[simont]

Hmmm. If I stretch really hard, I suppose I could just about imagine that saying "a 10 inch pizza" might clarify that the diameter is 10 inches (rather than any other dimension you might imagine, like the radius or the circumference), without having to use a fancy geometric term that will put off people who failed GCSE maths?

[andrewducker]

I had no idea! Interesting explanation on Wikipedia. (look for "nominal")

[original_aj]

2X4 refers to the rough cut size, before it's planed smooth I believe.

Well!

[lsanderson]

I should google it, but when my house was built (1907), a 2X4 was 2" by 4". As there were less forests to cut down later, it just shrunk. I suspect there's lottsa arguments why it's all bestest now.

[rhythmaning]

I think their measurements are kind of awry.

"They are usually about 8cm wide, longer than many rats, which generally measure 6-9cm long."

Comparing the width of spiders to the length of rats is just bizarre. And 9cm seems small for a rat!

(The RSPCA agrees: "Found throughout Britain, the brown rat is commonly associated with homes and gardens and grows to around 15-27 cm (with a 10-24 cm tail).")

[original_aj]

And is that body size or including the legs? Probably the latter or they would be really huge, but that means they mass considerably less than a rat.

[andrewducker]

It's all a mess!

Clearly we should be checking water displacement volume.

[original_aj]

Maybe they got confused between mice and rats?

[fanf]

Is 10 inches supposed to be impressive? Our garden spiders have slung webs between the house and the fence across a gap of a couple of metres with an orb that’s maybe 50cm.

Weird to say a native species is “coming to the UK”.

Anyway, spiders are neat, and spider season is coming soon :-)

[calimac]

1) Other people's vacation pictures are, traditionally, very boring.

So, it turns out, are other people's dreams.

[nancylebov]

1. Was really impressive. I recommend it.

[andrewducker]

I'm glad you liked it!