Totally useless information/trivia

[AVFC_Hitz]

31 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

hiding beneath the mid grey plastic wheel trims on my car, is a set of gloss black minilite style alloys

that's how it came as standard, plastic trims concealing alloy wheels

[Mark Albrighton]

The word “electrocute” is a portmanteau of electric and execute and was coined in the late 19th century for when referring to death by the electric chair as opposed to receiving an accidental electric shock.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Shropshire Lad

[Nigel]

More people die from drowning in deserts than by anything to do with the heat!

[HanoiVillan]

On 22/03/2019 at 19:23, Xela said:

Fantastic graphic, but there are always varying definitions on how to measure a city size. How far do the city limits go. 

A quick google gives Chongqing the title of the largest city as well. 

 

On 23/03/2019 at 01:33, The_Rev said:

Absolutely. There's no internationally agreed standard definition. There's not even really an agreed definition here, just look at how Manchester is carved up, but the definition of "Tokyo" is very loose. The city proper is enormous, about 10m people according to the UN but the 38m region is just a region like "the south east" might be here. 

The same thing is happening with Chongqing; the actual metro area has a (still large) population of just over 8 million. The 30 million people cover an area the size of Austria, which is considered a 'city' for largely administrative reasons. 

[Stevo985]

37 minutes ago, Nigel said:

More people die from drowning in deserts than by anything to do with the heat!

I need more information!

I'm not doubting you, but how is this possible?

[colhint]

no lifeguards at the Lido

[Stevo985]

Sergio "Kun" Aguero's goal vs Burnley was only over the line by 2.951cm

2.951cm, before the year 565, was the estimated value of a chinese inch.

Commonly known as a Cun.

[mjmooney]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Sergio "Kun" Aguero's goal vs Burnley was only over the line by 2.951cm

2.951cm, before the year 565, was the estimated value of a chinese inch.

Commonly known as a Cun.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were actually written by the Everly Brothers. 

Condensation on windows is caused by too many fish in the atmosphere. 

[Stevo985]

Just now, mjmooney said:

Many of Shakespeare's plays were actually written by the Everly Brothers. 

Condensation on windows is caused by too many fish in the atmosphere. 

Is this a way of telling me that stat is bollocks?

 

It was on the BBC! It must be true

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

I need more information!

I'm not doubting you, but how is this possible?

Flash flooding during rare rainstorms is the short answer

Edit: and I think the correct fact is die of thirst not "anything to do with heat"

[BOF]

47 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Sergio "Kun" Aguero's goal vs Burnley was only over the line by 2.951cm

2.951cm, before the year 565, was the estimated value of a chinese inch.

Commonly known as a Cun.

Niice.

[Chindie]

Japan, the home of strange shit (and cuddly shit), has a slightly odd type of celebrity, the tarento.

Tarento is derived from the English word 'talent', but has kinda come to mean 'famous for being famous'. Tarento appear on shows as guests, much like how chat shows and other variety shows will have talking heads or celebrity contributors in the West, except in the West a guest will appear because they are famous for something (actor, musician, sport etc) and are possibly doing promotional work. A tarento will almost always appear because they're a tarento. A famous guest on a show because they're a famous guest on shows where they guest, famously.

Better, there's actually types of tarento. Many are in the line of work literally because they're pretty. Some because they're funny. A lot have a gimmick, a catchphrase or persona they trade on, which have a specific name, 'ippatsuya', meaning one trick pony. Some are just relatives of actually famous people trading on their name. And brilliantly, some are just foreigners who can just about speak Japanese, which is apparently hilarious.

Unsurprisingly, it's a fairly shit form of celebrity. You get in by being hired by agencies that basically put you on the circuit of these variety shows, take an enormous chunk of your pay, and effectively hope you're liked enough by viewers to keep going. The ippatsuya tend to have the most turnover, as unsurprisingly running a gimmick into the ground quickly kills your bankability. Weirdly, however, it seems to be a common way of becoming a public figure in many fields, with successful tarento going on to become actors, presenters and so on, as you might expect, but also things like political office.

So, if you fancy being famous, learn Japanese to a barely competent level and go and try to be funny on a chat show. You might have a few months of fun on completely weird variety shows, or you might be the Japanese equivalent of Ronald Reagan.

[KenjiOgiwara]

You have all heard of allotropes of carbon. Most typically graphite. Graphene however is another synthesized allotrope of carbon, yet by tweaking the molecular structure you and up with a material several hundred times stronger than steel and several times the spesific surface of biochar. Essentially the brother to the soft shite in your pencil. Kinda neat.  

Edited May 7, 2019 by KenjiOgiwara

[The_Rev]

@Chindie that's not really different to being a reality TV 'star' over here is it? 

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, The_Rev said:

@Chindie that's not really different to being a reality TV 'star' over here is it? 

It's similar but slightly different.

The reality TV star is someone who becomes famous by taking part in a show that specifically looks to hire nobodies to maintain authenticity or whatever. The tarento is a nobody with an agent that gets hired to appear on primetime shows with actual celebrities and so on. It would be like, I dunno, the Graham Norton show hiring me to appear on the show because I just sit there and occasionally shout 'BREXIT!'.

[The_Rev]

How do you explain Jedward then? 

[Chindie]

2 hours ago, The_Rev said:

How do you explain Jedward then? 

They were on a talent show and managed to catch the eye and got a career because of it. They didn't just get shoved on the talkshow circuit because someone liked the idea of annoying twins

 

[Stevo985]

On 07/05/2019 at 10:03, Chindie said:

It's similar but slightly different.

The reality TV star is someone who becomes famous by taking part in a show that specifically looks to hire nobodies to maintain authenticity or whatever. The tarento is a nobody with an agent that gets hired to appear on primetime shows with actual celebrities and so on. It would be like, I dunno, the Graham Norton show hiring me to appear on the show because I just sit there and occasionally shout 'BREXIT!'.

Yeah from your description the main difference I took was the "tarento" are more explicitly nobodies.

So over here the reality TV star gains their "fame" from a particular show. Big Brother or Love Island or whatever.

Whereas in Japan they don't even bother with that part. They just explicitly hire a nobody and stick them on a panel show.

So over here they've at least done SOMETHING to gain their fame (even if that something is ridiculously shit like big brother)

 

Am I close?

Edited May 8, 2019 by Stevo985

[Chindie]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah from your description the main difference I took was the "tarento" are more explicitly nobodies.

So over here the reality TV star gains their "fame" from a particular show. Big Brother or Love Island or whatever.

Whereas in Japan they don't even bother with that part. They just explicitly hire a nobody and stick them on a panel show.

 

Am I close?

Basically, yes. Some bloke with something he thinks is interesting about himself walks of the street in Tokyo into an agent's office, convinces the agent he's got something people might watch, signs an awful contract and goes on the panel/chat show circuit hoping he becomes popular enough to get actually famous and have a career as a presenter, comedian, whatever, or just a recurring panelist career.

Japan basically just skips the bit where a nobody applies to Big Brother or whatever and gets famous for it and has a career. They chuck people straight into the career bit and see what happens. And sometimes the thing that gets them on TV in the first place is literally as dumb as 'he's foreign' or 'he acts weird'.

[il_serpente]

I knew a guy in the '90s who was basically trying to be a tarento ahead of his time.  He called himself "The Pie Man" and maintained that he had a fetish for being hit in the face with pies by women.  But I suspect there was no real fetish there.  He had a press packet that he sent out and he got himself on The Jenny Jones Show, which was a daytime talk show that was known for lowbrow stunts like on-air paternity reveals and the like.  He got gigs doing it essentially as performance art, including one where I believe he was suspended upside down and someone "pied" him with a kids wading pool full of shaving cream.   He worked as a gardener and lived in a house his parents owned.  I suspect there was enough family money that he could afford to try to make the pie thing his main gig.  A bit of a strange guy, but a tasteful, if a bit quirky, jazz drummer.  I played with him in a combo that was an evening class in a local art and music school and he would always bring some kind of really good alcohol to share on the last evening of each session.  I think i tasted my first Grand Cru red Burgundy and vintage port courtesy of him.