The Off Topic Topic

[grumbler]

Thinking about it logically, the rotation of the earth should actually work counter to gravity since we are on the outside. Negliable of course next to actual gravity but I wonder if its been measured at all

No doubt I had loads of these...
I remember I had a old book of 'facts' from the 70s or such. Stuff like the Bermuda Triangle I took at face value that it was this area of the sea where if you accidentally sail into it you're doomed- I wondered how that worked from the beach, like touch the water and death?
And there was a place called Spook Hill in the US where gravity worked backwards. Actually an optical illusion I know now but I just took it as a unknown mystery, as those definitely existed in the world.

It took me a long time as a kid to give up on the idea of "centrifugal force."

[HVC]

Brazilians actually sound like they're speaking a Romance language right?

I suppose it depends on what you think a Romance language sounds like

[crazy canuck]

Yesterday I was reading on gravity (I'm working on a sci-fi thing), and I was reminded how as a kid for a long time I thought gravity was caused by the Earth rotation - and that if it ever stopped we'd all float away. The reason was how in "serious" sci-fi movies you'd see rotation often used as a way to generate artificial gravity.

At school we didn't really do physics until like age 12-13 (before that it was all natural sciences), so this stuck with me for  long time.

Did you have similarly "wrong" science beliefs as a kid?

Yeah, when I was young, my dad told me that the tides were caused by the oceans going up one slope of land on one side of the ocean and then up the other side in a kind of perpetual seesaw motion.

I was greatly disappointed when I learned that the moon was the cause of it all.

[Josquius]

Brazilians actually sound like they're speaking a Romance language right?

I suppose it depends on what you think a Romance language sounds like

Not Portuguese :p

[DGuller]

Thinking about it logically, the rotation of the earth should actually work counter to gravity since we are on the outside. Negliable of course next to actual gravity but I wonder if its been measured at all

No doubt I had loads of these...
I remember I had a old book of 'facts' from the 70s or such. Stuff like the Bermuda Triangle I took at face value that it was this area of the sea where if you accidentally sail into it you're doomed- I wondered how that worked from the beach, like touch the water and death?
And there was a place called Spook Hill in the US where gravity worked backwards. Actually an optical illusion I know now but I just took it as a unknown mystery, as those definitely existed in the world.

It took me a long time as a kid to give up on the idea of "centrifugal force."

That one is funny in my experience, because I started off believing in "centrifugal force", then in physics class we were taught there is no such thing and that there is centripetal force, and then I read engineers discuss things and they use "centrifugal force" all over the place.  Turns out in certain contexts it's a useful way to think about things.

In my field the analogue would be "correlation is not causation".  When people start out not thinking about it, they probably implicitly believe that it is.  Then they get taught that "correlation is not causation", and suddenly they see anyone using correlation in any argument as a sign of ignorance.  Then you learn more and find out that while correlation is indeed not causation, in many contexts that truism is irrelevant, and that it's still very useful to establish correlation.

[Sheilbh]

Brazilians actually sound like they're speaking a Romance language right?

I suppose it depends on what you think a Romance language sounds like

As an Italian once put it to me on Portuguese: "I can understand the written language - then they speak and WTF is this Dothraki?!"

I have more than once mistaken it for Polish. But yeah the Brazilians sound like they're speaking a Romance language.

[HVC]

I'm biased since I speak it so I don't notice as much of a difference. Though I recognize the shh sounds can be mistaken for Russian


To me Romanian sounds the least romance.

*edit* also, azorean sounds the funkiest of European Portuguese dialects and I can see other romance people being confused. Many continental Portuguese can't understand it I grew up with them so understand them (but no duque, I don't speak like them )

[celedhring]

Portuguese sounds very not-weird to me. 

[Barrister]

Jeez, what happened in Paraguay

I feel bad now - it was fine. And it was my fault. I basically jabbed into Paraguay near the border at the Paraguayan equivalent of Calais where Brazilians and Argentines go for cheap goods and duty free. So it was just a bit crap and the food I had was dreadful - especially compared with Argentina and Uruguay and (as a feijoada fan) Brazil.

Bad food puts on on the shit list, good to know

If you like hearty food then lusophone is the way to go. Also diabetes

I wasn't exactly blown away by the food in Brazil.  No issues with it, didn't hate it, but nothing amazing.  It didn't help that food safety seemed pretty questionable (big meal at lunch, but just leave the food out but covered until served again later in the day).  Feijoada is okay - it's black bean stew.

There were some funky fruits I've never had before or after that were yummy.  Bananas were much better.

Only meal that was amazing as at a restaurant I had was moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew with heavy african influences, and local to Bahia (the state Salvador is in).  So good.

[HVC]

Portuguese sounds very not-weird to me. 

probably just a matter of distance. I can understand Spanish (different languages therein) fine, and I'm ok with French (school probably helped) but Italian is an alien language. And Romanians are Serbians with an Italian accent as far as I'm concerned.

@BB I'm not as familiar with Brazilian, admittedly . Feijoada really depends on the cook. Can be great or very meh. It's also a more souther cuisine so that might be a factor in Salvador. Coaxinhas as great. Brazilian BBQ is also good (if god awful salty)

[Jacob]

My least favourite food safety practice I ever saw was in Madagascar in 2000.

Walking down a side street and someone was displaying raw meat for sale on a wooden board. It was in the shade, but otherwise uncovered. There were a fair number of big fat flies buzzing around, congregating on the raw meat - so the proprietor pulled out a can of aerosol bug spray sprayed big clouds of it all over the meat. Then there were no flies on the meat.

[Valmy]

When I was in France it would drive me nuts how I had spent years learning French and weeks living there to become functionally fluent. Yet Italians would show up knowing nothing (we were right by the Italian border so there were lots of them) and in a few weeks be speaking French almost perfectly, granted with very thick Italian accents.

[celedhring]

I find I can understand Portuguese people just fine - they're probably the easiest to understand language to me outside of Italian (and that's because I have Italian family and I'm very used to hear it).

French I can read, but the accent gives me trouble.

[mongers]

When I was in France it would drive me nuts how I had spent years learning French and weeks living there to become functionally fluent. Yet Italians would show up knowing nothing (we were right by the Italian border so there were lots of them) and in a few weeks be speaking French almost perfectly, granted with very thick Italian accents.

 

It's from being invaded so many times by the French/Gauls. 

[Barrister]

@BB I'm not as familiar with Brazilian, admittedly . Feijoada really depends on the cook. Can be great or very meh. It's also a more souther cuisine so that might be a factor in Salvador. Coaxinhas as great. Brazilian BBQ is also good (if god awful salty)

I mean who can argue with endless meat!

But yeah - it's meat (and aggressively seasoned at that).  You can hardly screw that up.

Never heard of coaxinhas, but googling - fancy chicken nuggets. Yeah I bet those are good.  The one Brazilian thing we have adopted and made in Canada is related - pao de quijo - a little cheese puff thing made with yuca flour.  Sounds related to coaxinhas, just without chicken.