Useless Facts

Okay. I'm game, though the least weasel's status is pretty well accepted among wildlife biologists. What little aquatic carnivores are you referring to?

 

Most spiders are smaller than weasels.

 

Betas, tetras, (not a fish) that little shrimp that snaps its claws so hard it creates light. Frogs (also not fish, but smaller than weasels). Like I said, there's got to be some weird classification of "carnivore" that excludes things that don't eat mammals or birds.

 

Aha, the weasel is the smallest member of the order Carnivora - which only includes placental mammals. So in that specialist sense, it is the smallest carnivore.

 

Mystery solved! Thanks

 

More carnivore and other diet-related trivia: black-footed ferret diet consists 90% of prairie dogs, with the addition of a few other ground-dwelling species. That's a serious carnivore. Species that depend on insects with the random addition of a minnow or small mouse are primarily insectivores. Omnivores routinely subsist on a wide range of animal and plant matter; grizzly bears, for example, eat everything from moths to berries to people who think they can groove with the grizzly bears because they have nothing in their human hearts but love for all God's creatures. Herbivores: plant eaters. Algivore: algae eaters.

Of course, to completely confuse matters, there is Dionaea Muscipula which eats little bugs and tiny frogs and isn't itself in the animal kingdom at all.

 

While googling about the dietary habits of spiders today (wondering if they really eat flesh or just drink fluids) I discovered a fun factoid—collectively they eat more meat than all the people on the planet do every year.

 

Well, heaven knows they have a smorgasbord around here every summer, between millers, mosquitoes, and biting flies. Up the spiders!

 

There's a difference between shrapnel and shell fragments:

https://history.army.mil/faq/shrapnel.htm

That said, anyone who would make a big deal out of it at this point is pretty much on the same level of pettiness as anyone who would insist that "decimate" can only mean "kill a tenth of."

 

*GASP!* You mean there are people who use decimate to mean something other than "kill a tenth of?"

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you.

 

Anybody know the word for 'Drink a fifth of"?
(It might also be Decimate.)

 

My thoughts exactly.

Petty? Me? Yes.



Another one:
Blatant and flagrant can be two subtly different things. And that subtle difference remains no matter which of two definitions you choose to use.

(So does that actually come out to four total differences?)

Simply put:
Something blatant is audibly obvious, like a blaring alarm. Something flagrant is visually obvious, like a flaming fire.

Nonsimply put:
Even if you ignore the sensory-based origins of the words, the difference is that blatant actions are conspicuously-offensive and flagrant actions are offensively-conspicuous.

I ain't entirely sold on that last one, tbh. Near as I can tell, it's a convoluted way to say that "flagrant" actions are a bit worse than merely "blatant" ones. Blatant lies and flagrant abuses.



And if any of you empty-headed animal food trough wipers use this opportunity to make "fragrant" jokes at my expense, I swear to God I'll fart in your general direction.

 

You will have heard the term "flotsam and jetsam".

These two words have specific meanings in maritime law. Flotsam is floating cargo that has come from a shipwreck. It can legally be claimed by the original owner of the vessel, whereas jetsam is (floating) cargo that has been jettisoned from a vessel, which can be claimed by anyone who finds it.

Not really useless information if you happen to come across some while you're out sailing!

 

Hence the term "in flagrante delicto". I wonder if there's an equivalent term if you only hear them in the act, rather than see them doing it.

 

And lagan is jetsam that is heavy enough to sink, but which has a buoy attached to it identifying the ship from which it came. It remains the property of the original owner.

Derelict refers to goods which have sunk to the ocean floor with no hope of recovery. The Titanic would have been considered derelict until the advent of modern deep-diving technology. Moby Dick also has a chapter on "fast fish" and "loose fish" (whales being the fish in question) and who has rightful possession of them and the hardware embedded in them, depending on how much is attached to said hardware.

 

In blagrante delicto?

 

In English, the mnemonic acronym FANBOYS stand for the seven most common coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.

 

Adults asking kids what they want to be when they grow up aren’t really interested. More often than not they’re looking for ideas.

 

My husband says it isn't a matter of what one wants to be when one grows up, but what one wants to be next.

 

Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis is a gram-negative, rod-shaped species of myxobacteria found in soil. It is a predator on other bacteria.

 

"Kill a tenth of those people, only a tenth of them, we need them to be 80% alive"

(this sounds weird)

 

One kid wants to be a ninja when they grow up. The parent had to ruin the fun by telling him that ninjas isn't a job.

 

Are you sure?

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/a-small-japanese-city-is-facing-a-ninja-shortage-even-though-the-salary-is-85000

http://www.ninjaencyclopedia.com/entertainment/joboffer.html#:~:text=Though it is true that,ninjutsu all over the world.