#neat stuff

A video of "human calculator" Shakuntala Devi solving complex mathematical equations within seconds.

In 1982, she was awarded the Guinness World Record for fastest human computation. She was assigned a multiplication problem with two random numbers of 13 digits each (7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779) and gave the correct answer (18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730) in 28 seconds.

She travelled to several countries for the purpose of having her talents studied. In 1988, her abilities were tested by Arthur Jenson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Problems given to her included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Jensen reported that Devi came up with the solutions (395 and 15) before he could write them down in his notebook.

Before all that, in 1977, at Southern Methodist University, she gave the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds. Her answer (546,372,891) was confirmed by calculations done by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation. The computer took longer to solve the problem than Devi did.

Oh, also, in 1979, she wrote the earliest book about homosexuality in India.

aka names that mean any of the following and more: camels, sheep, goats, deer, bison, giraffes, pigs, antelopes, hippos, and whales...but not horses, actually, which is good because the number of names meaning horse deserves its own list. these are the even-toed ungulates, and the variety of names we have that directly related to them just really show how significant human-ungulate interaction and domestication has been!

but anyway, enough of that...onto the names! source is behind the name, not user-submitted.

[format: name - meaning, origin language]

~ feminine ~

aegina - of goats, greek

ahu - deer/gazelle, turkish

alana - possibly deer, old breton/old welsh

aqbota - young white camel, kazakh

aqmaral - white deer, kazakh

arwa - ibex/mountain goat, arabic

awinita - fawn, cherokee

ayala - doe, hebrew

ayalet - doe/gazelle, hebrew

burçin - hind/doe, turkish

capri - wild boar, greek or etruscan, or goats, latin

caprina - see above

ceren - gazelle, turkish from mongolian

ceylan - gazelle, turkish from persian

delphia - dolphin, greek

delphine - see above

delphinia - see above

dorcas - gazelle, greek

dymphna - fawn or calf, old irish

eilonwy - either deer/stag or song/melody, welsh

erva - ibex/mountain goat, turkish from arabic

euboia - good ox, greek

everly - boar clearing, old english

fawn - young deer, english

hazal - possibly gazelle, turkish from kurdish

hind - possibly group of camels, arabic

jorunn - boar + to love, old norse

maha - oryx, arabic

maral - caspian red deer, persian

meral - see above

nyala - nyala antelope, bantu

oanez - lamb, breton from latin

ofra - fawn, hebrew

ovidia - possibly sheep, latin or sabellic

periboia - around/exceedingly + ox/cow, greek

porcia - pig, latin

portia - see above

rachel - ewe, hebrew

rahela - see above

rasha - young gazelle, arabic

reem - white antelope, arabic

tabitha - gazelle, aramaic

tzvia - gazelle/roebuck, hebrew

úna - probably lamb, old irish

~ masculine ~

aegeus - probably goat, greek

alan - possibly deer, old breton/old welsh

aniello - lamb, Italian from latin

aries - ram, latin

ayal - stag, hebrew

bakr - young camel, arabic

buck - male deer

buğra - baby camel

damhán - fawn or calf, old irish

delphin - dolphin, greek

delphinius - see above

delphīnus - see above

dren - deer, albanian

eberwin - boar + friend, old high german

everald - boar + power, old high german

garnik - little lamb, old armenian

gautama - best ox, sanskrit

giles - young goat, greek

hirsh - deer, yiddish from old high german

hjörtur - deer, icelandic

howard - possibly ewe herder, middle english

irwin - boar + friend, old english

jaala - wild goat, hebrew

luay - little wild ox, arabic

ofer - fawn, hebrew

oisín - little deer, old irish

ophrah - fawn, hebrew

oscar - possibly deer friend, old irish, or god + spear, old english

ovid - possibly sheep, latin or sabellic

ovidio - see above

porcius - pig, latin

roscoe - roebuck forest, english from old norse

skenandoah - possibly deer, oneida

tatanka - bison, sioux (dakota/lakota)

tauras - aurochs, lithuanian

taurus - bull, latin

tzvi - gazelle/roebuck, hebrew

vitellius - young calf, latin

wilbur - wild boar, middle english

zsombor - possibly bison, turkic

~ neutral/unisex ~

hartley - (male) deer clearing, old english

isi - deer, choctaw

jael - ibex/mountain goat

ofri - my fawn, hebrew

yael - ibex/mountain goat, modern hebrew

I'm quite happy with this list, so I hope you enjoy! as always, additions, corrections, and questions are welcome :)

for example, here are the parts of a dog if you were curious:

There's this section in the game toward the end that's a bit abstract (keeping it vague to avoid spoilers), but I liked this part. At first, I was a bit confused what it was showing. Took a hot minute, but I realized the circular thing in the center is the table in the Lighthouse library (the central room of the main building), around which Rook and their companions meet occasionally. And the floating clusters of objects represent each of the companions:

Which was actually really interesting!

Humans are actually really good at smell, even if it's our "weakest" sense (especially compaired with our mammal counterparts)

Points of interest: ( badly jotted, you should watch the episode itself )

✮ take a deep breath, smell the room you're in. What does it smell like? Probably nothing. Because you're used to it. But, if you left for a week and came back, you'd smell yourself - you'd smell what your guests do.

✮ despite being the weakest sense, we are extremely capable of linking smell to memory. Buying a candle, perfume, flower, or even food during an important moment and then smelling it again later will take you back to that time. (Also, if you're studying, smell something you don't use anywhere else, and then sniff it again when you take your test)

✮ humans can smell small changes, but we don't always continuously recognize them

✮ we have two kinds of breathing: breathing for air and breathing for scent. While animals do both at once, every inhale is looking for scent.

✮ we can't pinpoint scent.. the entire room smells like it. Unlike sound ("the workers on the roof are loud" "the fridge is noisy") or sight ("that corner is bright" "this area is dirty") . With smell it isn't "this area is stinky" it's "wow, this room stinks" UNLESS it's an overwhelming scent

✮ speaking of, humans need to be slapped in the face with scent for it really register as important information.

✮ we add scent to propane and natural grass because it's naturally orderless but important to detect : the same oder can be found in decaying animals ← there was a story about vultures flying overhead around gas leaks; helpful for finding and repairing.

✮ they trained dogs to smell money (the ink, the oil of our hands, ECT) to help combat smuggling. In the lab, all the dogs found the cash. In the field, they all failed. Why? Because the money in the lab was wrapped in cellophane. The dogs learned to detect cellophane. To us, cellophane is completely orderless.

✮ smelling coffee beans to "cleanse the pallet" is a hoax

✮ febreze, originally, literally neutralized scents. But it didn't get used because customers smelled no difference. They can't smell themselves or their home, so getting rid of the scent did nothing. After the company added scents/perfume associated with "clean", their sales skyrocketed.

✮ similarity, mint in toothpaste. It does nothing, but we link it to cleanliness

✮ it's incredibly easy to fool your brain. An experiment mentioned: cherry flavored liquid, but change the colour, and subjects would say it tasted like something else even though nothing else changed. (Colour it orange, and you'll taste oranges, because you rely on the colour to give you more information) .. we trust our eyes more than anything else

✮ another experiment: can we learn to smell like dogs? Subjects were blindfolded, wearing gloves, and were told to follow a trail of scent. A 10m string was dipped in chocolate essence and dragged through the grass. You ARE able to follow it! They even put in a 45° bend to see if you could tell when the path changed, and you could. I mean, obviously dogs would be better, but it's cool that we can follow scent trails if all other senses were useless. The more they practiced z the better they got at following it.

I think my favorite note was:

I saw this beautiful The Beatles yellow submarine wind spinner advertised online but I'm skeptical they'd be selling something this good looking for $38. For all I know it's bait and switch and the real one is crafted and sold on Etsy.. 🤔💜