[OFF TOPIC] General Chat

[Grassmarket 3,448]

If you have any random lumps of whale vomit lying about your house don’t throw them away!  Could be worth a fortune.  
 

I remember many years ago in Moscow one of the women in our tour group was buying all the Soviet perfume she could find (not much, obviously)  because it was made with ambergris, which was way illegal in the West by that time.

 

A dog found a rare lump of whale vomit on a beach which could land its owner a small fortune. 
 

Patrick Williamson, 37, was stunned when his pup dropped her ball and sprinted over to a mysterious rock on the shore.

 

Mr Williamson, who is a fisherman, knew it was ambergris, which is produced in the intestine of the sperm whale. 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12626777/Whale-vomit-ambergris-Irvine-Beach-Scotland.html

[heywoodu 15,174]

Massive coincidence. I was reading a CNN piece on the Hamas attacks, where they wrote about using SunCalc (a website) to geolocate/time certain videos. Right, I checked the website out, noticed that if you click on a place it shows the next solar eclipse (partial or full) and saw that here in the Netherlands in March 2025 there is a 24% eclipse happening. Cool. Clicked on Brazil out of curiousity and....turns out there is a large partial to almost full eclipse in large parts of the America's......today  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_October_14,_2023

 

Seriously, the coincidence. It's not like these things happen on a daily or even monthly basis. So if you're in the Americas, read up a bit and enjoy (with care for your eyes, obviously)!

Edited October 14, 2023 by heywoodu

[Olympian1010 7,989]

23 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Massive coincidence. I was reading a CNN piece on the Hamas attacks, where they wrote about using SunCalc (a website) to geolocate/time certain videos. Right, I checked the website out, noticed that if you click on a place it shows the next solar eclipse (partial or full) and saw that here in the Netherlands in March 2025 there is a 24% eclipse happening. Cool. Clicked on Brazil out of curiousity and....turns out there is a large partial to almost full eclipse in large parts of the America's......today  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_October_14,_2023

 

Seriously, the coincidence. It's not like these things happen on a daily or even monthly basis. So if you're in the Americas, read up a bit and enjoy (with care for your eyes, obviously)!

Yep, it’s come in causal conversations and on the news the few days. We had a similar solar a couple years ago, so there doesn’t seem to be as much hype at the moment.

[Olympian1010 7,989]

 

[Olympian1010 7,989]

Well, someone just dimmed the lights over California. We had the cool semi-circle shadows in the shade too.

[Grassmarket 3,448]

12 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Well, someone just dimmed the lights over California. We had the cool semi-circle shadows in the shade too.

The Gods are angry!  You must shave all your body hair so that the Sun God consents to appear again.

[Grassmarket 3,448]

AT LAST!  Scientists answering the questions people are actually asking.

 

They're two of the most ferocious creatures in the animal kingdom. 
 

But have you ever wondered what a fight between a hippopotamus and a great white shark might look like? 

 

Now, scientists have set the record straight, after using artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate battles between the most terrifying animals on Earth. 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12619627/Scientists-use-AI-simulate-EPIC-battles-ferocious-creatures-animal-kingdom-win-hippo-great-white-shark.html

[Olympian1010 7,989]

 

[heywoodu 15,174]

1 hour ago, Olympian1010 said:

 

Cool  

 

Although in a serious situation, I'd much prefer 1500m runners or so. Enough raw speed to catch basically any ordinary person and enough endurance to make up the time they lose by having to react to the situation when not expecting people to steal stuff 

 

But yeah, this gives a nice taste of how fast these runners really are  

[Federer91 2,810]

Just want to mention, that Google WILL NOT WIN the war they have started against Adblockers in youtube ! These piranha corporations never learn...