Today I learned...

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I noticed that that there are two Germany's on the the list East and West, I thought the division between them had come down some many years ago and now there is only one Germany:confused:
 

Urmas

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I noticed that that there are two Germany's on the the list East and West, I thought the division between them had come down some many years ago and now there is only one Germany:confused:

There's the Soviet Union too. And Czechoslovakia. It is not about "division"... it is about borders.
 

Urmas

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Today I learned:

History is being made in Helsinki’s Hernesaari district, as automatic buses take to the streets. Commuters and motorists will have to get used to seeing a pair of driverless mini-buses negotiating traffic in the area as the city tests the robot vehicles through mid-September.

The pilots are among the first in the world, since Finnish laws don’t require vehicles on the road to have a driver. This has made it easier for officials to get the required green light from the transport safety authority Trafi.

"This is actually a really big deal right now. There’s no more than a handful of these kinds of street traffic trials taking place, if that," said test project lead and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences project manager Harri Santamala.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/helsinki_rolls_out_driverless_bus_pilot/9099541
 

floppybootstomp

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Call me old school if you will but I'd feel uneasy about driverless vehicles.

There again, on my doorstep is the Docklands Light Railway which has now run for many years using driverless trains and to my knowledge has never suffered a mishap because of that.

And today I learned that Finland also done quite well in the 1988 Canada Calgary Winter Olympics in the downhill ski-ing category. Must be all that snow over there.

How do I know this? Last night I watched Eddie The Eagle which, much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed, a very well made film albeit a tad overdone with the Hollywood sugary coating.
 

Taffycat

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Today I learned...

That every tiger in the world is unique - no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes. They are as individual as fingerprints are for humans. The skin of the tiger is also striped beneath their patterned fur.
 

EvanDavis

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Today I learned how to make a bootable USB on my Windows PC to restore El Capitan on my Macbook Pro using CMD and TransMac.

Windows to the rescue again
 

Urmas

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And today I learned that Finland also done quite well in the 1988 Canada Calgary Winter Olympics in the downhill ski-ing category. Must be all that snow over there.

How do I know this? Last night I watched Eddie The Eagle which, much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed, a very well made film albeit a tad overdone with the Hollywood sugary coating.

I take it that you mean ski jumping, not downhill. Downhill is... this:


Dunno if anyone is interested in winter sports, but here is a list of "skiing related" olympic disciples:

Alpine skiing: men's and women's downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom, and combined.

Biathlon:
sprint (men: 10 km; women: 7.5 km), the individual (men: 20 km; women: 15 km),
pursuit (men: 12.5 km; women: 10 km), relay (men: 4x7.5 km; women: 4x6 km; mixed: 2x7.5 km+2x6 km),
and the mass start (men: 15 km; women: 12.5 km).

Biathlon

Nordic combined: men's 10 km individual normal hill, 10 km individual large hill and team.

Nordic combined

Cross-country skiing:
men's sprint, team sprint, 30 km pursuit, 15 km, 50 km and 4x10 km relay;
women's sprint, team sprint, 15 km pursuit, 10 km, 30 km and 4x5 km relay.

Freestyle skiing: men's and women's moguls, aerials, ski cross, superpipe, and slopestyle.

Ski jumping: men's individual large hill, team large hill, men's and women's individual normal hill.
 

Urmas

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Oh, and I saw Eddie "jump" once in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Scary stuff... good thing he did not hurt himself. Nice guy, obviously — but he really was "world's worst ski jumper".

Here's how (and what) juniors train:



 
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It is to short a life to bear grudges or to be angry at someone.
We all make mistakes and forgiving is as important as one of them.
Is it wrong to be wrong or right to be right as not everything is black and white.
 

Taffycat

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Today I learned some interesting stuff about eyes...

1. The average blink lasts for about 1/10th of a second.
2. You blink about 12 times every minute.
3. Seeing is such a big part of everyday life that it requires about half of the brain to get involved.
4. Some people are born with two differently colored eyes. This condition is heterochromia.
5. Eyes heal quickly. With proper care, it only takes about 48 hours for the eye to repair a corneal scratch.
6. 80% of vision problems worldwide are avoidable or even curable.
7. Out of all the muscles in your body, the muscles that control your eyes are the most active.
8. Newborns don’t produce tears. They make crying sounds, but the tears don’t start flowing until they are about 4-13 weeks old.
9. Your eyes start to develop two weeks after you are conceived.
10. An eye is composed of more than 2 million working parts.
11. Humans and dogs are the only species known to seek visual cues from another individual’s eyes, and dogs only do this when interacting with humans.
12. A fingerprint has 40 unique characteristics, but an iris has 256, a reason retina scans are increasingly being used for security purposes.
 

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