Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

josetemprano t1_j9h9qvx wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in TIL black holes also regurgitate matter such as stars that they suck in by Desolecontra

LOL - literally nothing escapes a black hole.

Hawking radiation does not escape a black hole. It exists only because nothing can escape a black hole. The particle is created on the outside of the event horizon while the antiparticle is created on the inside of the event horizon and can't escape to destroy the matching particle

Stellar masses that are ejected don't pass the event horizon either. It doesn't escape, it gets whirl-pooled around it and thrown out before it gets sucked in.

So, yes, nothing can escape a black hole. But your statement is incomplete.

Instead, say "nothing can escape a black hole once it has passed the event horizon."

2

coffeepizzacake t1_j9h5vwj wrote

Reply to comment by adamcoe in TIL that Milton Bradley originally had been in the business of selling pictures of celebrities. After his biggest seller Abraham Lincoln grew his iconic beard and rendered his entire stock of lithographs worthless and had customers demanding their money back, MB switched to selling board games by Loki-L

I’m not too sure at a general level what the most common way would be to find out something like that back then, but I believe in this particular case there’s actually a bit of interesting history on him deciding to grow the beard and the public learning about it:

>For that bit of history, we turn to Susannah Koerber, chief curator at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, which holds The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, one of the country’s most important collections relating to Lincoln and his times. She said the story starts with an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell from Westfield, New York.

>Grace wrote to Lincoln on Oct. 15, 1860, and said, in part: “I have got four brothers, and a part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you will let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers, and they would tease their husbands to vote for you, and then you would be president.”

>Lincoln wrote back on Oct. 19, musing to young Grace about whiskers, “Having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?”

>Silly affection or not, later that fall and winter, Lincoln grew a beard. By January 13, 1861, the newly elected president had bearded up. Lincoln showed off his new face to the public when he left Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., on his famous train trip prior to his inauguration.

>In February 1861, his train stopped in New York, where Lincoln met young Grace Bedell. He told her, “You see, I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.”

>Grace’s letter to Lincoln is part of the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library; Lincoln’s response is in the Benjamin Shapell Family Manuscript Foundation collection. Both provide an interesting and unusual footnote to history, though one thing history is silent on is why Lincoln decided to grow a beard.

>“He may have been tired of shaving,” Koerber said. “He may have been considering it already. But he knew good political theater when he saw it.”

>As for those who keep track of presidential facial hair, it’s rare. Prior to Lincoln, John Quincy Adams had big, puffy sideburns. Martin Van Buren and Zachary Taylor had sideburns but not full beards.

full story

so it sounds like it was actually the first presidential beard, suggested and implemented potentially for political theatre, right around the inauguration, right as he was touring the country and one of the biggest faces in politics. And it’s still being talked about today, so I assume it was being talked about quite a bit back then, the exciting 1860s gossip that it was

I can imagine why people felt ripped off when he had this new epic beard and they had the crappy old version sold to them not weeks earlier

1

Alternative-Flan2869 t1_j9h53e7 wrote

Reply to TIL that Milton Bradley originally had been in the business of selling pictures of celebrities. After his biggest seller Abraham Lincoln grew his iconic beard and rendered his entire stock of lithographs worthless and had customers demanding their money back, MB switched to selling board games by Loki-L

So draw a beard and print over top. Or offer a discount on the second with a beard if you buy or bought the one without. Funny that a guy who sucked at this print game would go into a game business.

1

bothunter t1_j9h3zkg wrote

Reply to comment by milkysway1 in TIL that at its peak, AOL / America Online was responsible for 50% of CDs manufactured worldwide by eskihomer

Except those disks were absolute trash. You could only write to them a few times before they started flaking out. But as long as you didn't need reliability, they were a nice cheap alternative to the store bought disks. Just needed a piece of scotch tape to cover the write protect tab.

3