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Posted
20 hours ago, Tex Long said:

TIL

 

monkeyballs.jpg

Maybe. But also probably not.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/b/brass-monkey.html

Quote

It has often been claimed that the "brass monkey" was a holder or storage rack in which cannon balls (or shot) were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon ball became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off of the "monkey." This explanation appears to be a legend of the sea without historical justification. In actuality, ready service shot was kept on the gun or spar decks in shot racks (also known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy) which consisted of longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, into which round shot (cannon balls) were inserted for ready use by the gun crew. These shot racks or garlands are discussed in: Longridge, C. Nepean. The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships. (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981): 64. A top view of shot garlands on the upper deck of a ship-of-the-line is depicted in The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1991): 17.

 

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Posted
34 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

As someone that has sailed a traditional sailing warship, for a time, has stood at the spot (on the deck of the Victory) where Lord Nelson fell, and fired cannons in Greenwich, Portsmouth, Newport and Lisbon (almost Cadiz), I offer these observations:

1.  Those mf’ers are heavy.  If they started rolling around once, I bet changes were made such that it didn’t happen again.  Victory had 32 pounders (cannons that fired 32 pound cannon balls).

2.  They were at sea.  Oftentimes the Atlantic, which can be nasty.  The ships rolled around a lot.  The notion that these cannon balls we’re sitting around watching the thermometer drop and then, “voila!” sorta defies common sense.  Imagine the ship bouncing and rolling around a bunch.

3.  Most of these sailors were uneducated.  The saying about the British Navy was it was run by rum, sodomy and the lash.  I doubt they spent much time thinking about metal thermodynamics.

I think people like the story because it blends a little history with a little salty talk.  There is more interesting and better history about naval warfare.  Some of it salty too. 

 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Litig8r said:

are you a member of the John Prine page?  Saw this on their

Nope, but I'ma take a look at it. Damn, I miss the "Random" button.

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Posted
26 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

TIL that the words Arctic and Antarctica mean "bears" and "no bears". 

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You mean to tell me that Coke has been lying to us all these years?!

 

Posted
On 1/28/2025 at 12:41 PM, Tex Long said:

Now do "... colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra."

 

FIFY.  Even more appropriate considering the brass monkey comparison.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, SurlyGator said:

colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra."

 

FIFY.  Even more appropriate considering the brass monkey comparison.

Someone got it!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

didnt know the sports score overlay on tv was called a Scorebug.  Thought they were Chyrons, which is equally unintuitive, but atleast is a much cooler word.

  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

Today I learned....

The guys who created p2p file share piracy software some of you may remember called Kazaa (post-Napster, pre-Limewire) shut Kazaa down and their next product was a little something called Skype which Microsoft would later acquire for $8.5bn (and is being shut down now as of last week).

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 1/28/2025 at 12:33 PM, gofuckyourself said:

That was is probably not right.  But there are a ton of common phrases that have nautical origins that don't immediately seem to be nautical.  For example, "the 'bitter end' is the final part of an anchor chain or rope that secures the anchor to the ship. To reach the bitter end was to have the chain or rope extended as far as it can go. Similarly, if you say you've reached the 'bitter end' today, it means you've gone as far as you can, often in a difficult situation."

One that's not on that website is "scuttlebutt."  The "scuttlebutt" aboard a ship is the water barrel--kind of equivalent to saying "standing around the water cooler."  The "butt" was a cask or barrel that was "scuttled"--i.e., had a hole drilled in it--to take water out for drinking.

Posted
On 1/29/2025 at 4:15 PM, SurlyGator said:

FIFY.  Even more appropriate considering the brass monkey comparison.

Coal miner’s ass hole. 

  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...
Posted

Our first mascot was dog named Pig.  There is a small blue link for some pictures within the link.

OPA News Release, 04/2001 "Pig's Dead … Dog gone": UT Austin students lead effort to pay tribute to first varsity mascotUT Austin students lead effort to pay tribute to first varsity mascot

Thank goodness clearer heads had the foresight to make a longhorn the symbol of the university.

Bevo (mascot) - Wikipedia

 

Posted
3 minutes ago, Bevo&Pevo said:

Our first mascot was dog named Pig.  There is a small blue link for some pictures within the link.

OPA News Release, 04/2001 "Pig's Dead … Dog gone": UT Austin students lead effort to pay tribute to first varsity mascotUT Austin students lead effort to pay tribute to first varsity mascot

Thank goodness clearer heads had the foresight to make a longhorn the symbol of the university.

Bevo (mascot) - Wikipedia

 

I’m at a loss. I’ve typed this reply out multiple times, and deleted it multiple times. 

Did you attend Texas? 

This topic was covered during orientation when I went through that around the year 2000. 

It’s pretty common knowledge to anyone that has even half a mind to the history of the University.

I find it hard to believe that this isn’t common knowledge to someone that spent anytime on the 40 acres.

(perhaps I’m wrong, I still have an office on campus 20 years after my undergrad days, so perhaps I am the exception, but even my wife knew about Pig, and she is the last person I’d expect to know that factoid).

 

 

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Posted

Yes, no I wasn't there long.  Believe me there is a lot I don't recall from last week, much less the late 80's.  I was recently sent some security questions about where I've previously lived.  2 of which were very similar, I did get it right, but I was sweating the results.  I spent a lot of time working with ethylene oxide, so there's that also.  Ya'll carry on and have a kick ass day.

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Posted

That after the battle of the Santa Cruz islands in late October 1942... from then until late January 1943, the USS Enterprise, was the only operational American Fleet Aircraft carrier left in the entire Pacific war- and she was heavily damaged, but repair crews kept her in the South Pacific fight.

The only other Pacific carrier, USS Saratoga  was in dry dock from Aug 42 until Jan 43 being repaired from torpedo strikes.

And from late January1943 until May of 1943- those 2 were the only American carriers left in the Pacific war. 

America  started the war with 8 carriers. Langley, Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp, Hornet, Saratoga, Enterprise, and Ranger,   Ranger was based in the Atlantic.  the other 5 were all sunk in the first 10 months of the war.

 

I knew we had lost a lot of carriers, but didn’t know that for basically 10 months from Oct 42 until Aug 1943  the US only had 1 occasionally 2 fleet carriers to defend the entire Pacific (we also had the HMS Victorious on loan from Britain from March 43 to July 43).

It wasn’t until Essex and new Yorktown entered the fight in Aug 1943 that first Enterprise and then Saratoga got relief from being the only American carrier in the Pacific.

 

Yet- just 2 years from then, we ended the war in Aug of 1945 with more than 25 fleet carriers in the Pacific

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