What have you always wanted to know?

[PurleaseSqueeze]

I was wondering today whether GPs see other GPs if they are ill? Can anyone tell me? I'm assuming yes as they wouldn't be allowed to prescribe medications for themselves?

What other random things have you always wondered/wanted to know?

So the non-picky eating cave toddlers probably died off after eating something unfortunate before getting old enough to pass on their non-picky genes.
But there are lots of non-picky eaters around still.

"Schools discourage people teaching their own dc - it's avoided where possible. "

It's very often not possible to avoid!

@wombatspoopcubes

I don't understand how memory works. How can I suddenly remember something that happened 30 odd years ago that I haven't thought about since? How can I know something, forget it, know that I have forgotten it but come up woth again some other time?

Basically imagine a memory is a destination, but if you don't experience the thing that the memory is around often, or it wasn't a particularly stand-outish memory, then you forget the path to take to get to that memory.

The pathways are strengthened through repetition.

"The gases released in the burning process would be passed naturally through breathing or farting or as liquid."

Yes, and mainly through your breath I think.

@What2Offer

What was named first the orange colour or the orange fruit? And do other languages use the same word for both?

Fun fact, in Old English, Orange is Crog.

In German it is Apfelsine = apple from china and the colour today is called orange but was apfelsinenfarben when I was little.

@FlyingBurrito

My Japanese colleagues were aghast I would even imagine a tomato a fruit. They were also disgusted I wasn't taught astronomy or calligraphy at school, or that I didn't know my blood type

I wasn't wondering this before I started reading the thread but I am now, I'm at a total loss to come up with any reason that the Japanese could possibly find disgust in those things not being taught.

Can any Japanese posters explain what appears a very strange view

Well, the school subjects thing is quite easy to understand. People think other countries teach similar subjects to those that they teach. Calligraphy might be more popular in countries with certain writing systems? Astronomy is just a branch of science. We do get a little bit of it in school. I always shock people not from England and Wales when I tell them I dropped a subject as normal as geography at the age of 14 and that I could have dropped history. In some countries they're also surprised that we learn Drama and Music at school, but no ancient Greek or Latin (generally).

@MyOtherProfile

An ex of mine from years ago was at the same school his mum taught at. I can't remember now whether I ever asked him but I wonder now in that situation, would the child have to call them Miss X or could they say Mum?

I've taught colleagues children more than once. They had to call their parents Mr or Mrs in school.

This happened in our family. Lady Gawain taught our daughter. In school she always addressed her mum as Lady Gawain. Not all of the children realised the relationship despite the similarity of names.

@MammaSchwifty

how do computers know how to read code? I mean how do they interpret all those lines of text and execute them? How do they know whether they are reading Java or C++ or Python or whatever? Wouldn't they need some code to know how to do that? And so on ad infinitum? What is the most fundamental code that the computer uses to read everything else and HOW DOES IT WORK?!

Magic!

@HeyDemonsItsYaGirl

How the internet works.

Again, magic.

[quote MammaSchwifty]@DynamoKev
wow, thanks, that sort of helps me understand.... so, like, everything is in binary code? Someone has had to codify the colour puce, the number 8, the letter k, the square root operation, the note B flat, the ampersand?? That's nuts and awesome.

so... when someone records a sheep bleating, and that gets put into binary code, there's a binary code for that bleating noise?![/quote]
Yes there is. Digital audio recording and playback is the technology used in CDs and DVDs and in solid-state devices like phones and iPods.
The binary code for sounds is actually rather simple compared to computer programs as it's just a binary representation of the amplitude of each sampled frequency at each sample point. Sounds are sampled at a high frequency, so like the TV pictures which are changing multiple times a second, the sound appears continuous.
Digital sound technology has made sampling and manipulation of sounds much easier and also enabled effects like autotune.

What women did to prevent pregnancy pre-1960s. I'll watch a film set in WW2, say, and there's a passionate clinch, the couple are lounging around smoking afterwards in their undies...she nips to the bathroom afterwards and ....what? Is there some kind of special vinegar rinse or something? It honestly bothers me!

"Well, there was a story that cows have regional variations in their moos some years ago: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5277090.stm"

I guess I've been proved wrong...

"Fun fact, in Old English, Orange is Crog."

Which contradicts Stephen Fry on QI who said that the word orange wasn't invented until recently, which is why the hair colour is called red (in quite a few languages I suppose).

@Gwenhwyfar

"Well, there was a story that cows have regional variations in their moos some years ago: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5277090.stm"

I guess I've been proved wrong...

Actually, after your comment, I googled for whether dogs have "accents" and couldn't find much to suggest they do. I seem to recall there is some scepticism around the cow story too, so I don't think you've been proved wrong yet...

@BitOfFun latex condoms have been around since the 1920s and there was rubber ones in the 19th century. Other types ( animal intestines etc) for 100s of years.

what did people used to do about their fingernails and toenails before blades?

Just bite them I imagine. That's what I do 🤷‍♀️

"Effect is a noun and affect is a verb. You are affected by something if it has an effect. grin"

Effect can also be a verb.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Effect is a noun and affect is a verb. You are affected by something if it has an effect. grin"

Effect can also be a verb.

and affect can be a noun.

@UnitedRoad

Why don’t we call countries/places by their name? People in Italy (Italia?) call Rome Roma. It’s their city, and they call it Roma so therefore that’s it’s name. I think all countries and places should be called what the place calls itself. It’s very arrogant for other countries to alter names to please themselves.

What if there is more than one language in a given place? Which do you choose? Also, somewhere like Rome has been interconnected with other parts of Europe for hundreds or thousands of years so it's normal that the place would have a name in those languages. Sometimes a place's name in a foreign language may be closely related to an old name so not exactly a foreign imposition.

[quote FruityPolos]@Buslanelady I always think this, I was a child in the 80s and always think the 70s had some weird yellow /washed out look. I think it's down to the look of films and TV from that era but I do wonder if things looked more dull in real life as well 😁[/quote]
Wasn't there a lot of yellow/orange wall paper? And 70s photos also look a bit yellow.

@Advic3Pl3as3

1. How do women with really long fingernails put in/take out their tampons? Don’t the long nails make it really awkward?

1. If you’re injured/unwell and unconscious and you wear contact lenses do the A&E check whether you’ve got lenses in and take them out?

Mine is a combination of yours, I always wondered what would happen if you were in an accident & in hospital...let's say in coma and had a tampon in 🤔 do they check or would it go unnoticed??

[quote RedMarauder]@SunshineCake where you born before the early 1970s?[/quote]
Not before.

@giftswap2020

If a woman is taken ill/unconscious and is rushed to hospital, and they are on their period and have a tampon in, does someone check if they are on your period/tampon in, so they could change it for them?

Just asked this same question without seeing yours!! Glad I'm not the only one to wonder!