Weirdest Thing You've Researched?

[HordHolm]

I'm still working on it but on a later part my MC starts a verbal fight with a British guy. That exchange was sparked by a British colleague of mine who stated something costing a pony.
I had to find out what a pony is.
...
It's a twenty pound bill.
The rest of British currency is easier to understand.
A pound sterling is the same as a sovereign, the former being based on the silver standard, the latter on the gold standard. A pound consists of four crowns, or eight half crowns, but a crown is also two and a half florins. Accordingly, one florin has the value of two shillings, or 20 shillings is again one pound. One shilling in turn is three groats, or twelve pennies. To represent small values, there is also the farthing. Three of these are a penny.
So while twenty shillings is a pound, twenty-one shillings is a guinea. This is really important if you want to buy clothes in the UK. This is because they are often advertised in guineas.
I will now give the audience the homework of dividing them up accordingly.

Sorry, but a pony is 25 pounds, not 20.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

Oh, sorry, my bad.

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

Where the NYC Diamond District was in the 1930s.

Now, the Diamond District is 47th St between 5th and Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave).

In the 1930s, it was about 3 blocks from Wall Street, over 4 miles, a little under 8 km away.

And Yiddish. So much Yiddish for that (unpublished) story. It's meshugas.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

If you take so much trouble for your readers you're a real Mensch.

 

[HordHolm]

Oh, sorry, my bad.

That's ok. In cockney (east London) slang, and in slang more generally adopted in the UK, money is referred to as follows:

1 pound = a quid. Multiples are then referred to as 'quid': thus a market trader might tell you that the bag of oranges you want to buy is, "seven quid, love." Thus, seven pounds.
Five pounds = a fiver, particularly when referring to the bank note itself.
Ten pounds = a tenner, particularly when referring to the bank note itself
Twenty pounds = a score. This will not refer to the actual bank note itself - if I find a score lying on the ground, it could be twenty pound note, but equally it could be two tenners.
A pony = 25 pounds (note: there is no 25 pound note, and if someone offers you one it's 'dodgy' i.e. not genuine, a fake, not to be trusted)
Fifty pounds = a bullseye - from the centre of a dartboard, which is worth 50 points. Though it's a long time since I heard someon euse this, and more generally I've heard people talk about "fifty quid" instead.
100 pounds = a ton
500 pounds = a monkey
1,000 pounds = a grand, or it can be referred to as 'large', thus someone might pay "five large" for something costing 5,000 pounds.

 

[drobert44]

I'm still working on it but on a later part my MC starts a verbal fight with a British guy. That exchange was sparked by a British colleague of mine who stated something costing a pony.
I had to find out what a pony is.
...
It's a twenty pound bill.
The rest of British currency is easier to understand.
A pound sterling is the same as a sovereign, the former being based on the silver standard, the latter on the gold standard. A pound consists of four crowns, or eight half crowns, but a crown is also two and a half florins. Accordingly, one florin has the value of two shillings, or 20 shillings is again one pound. One shilling in turn is three groats, or twelve pennies. To represent small values, there is also the farthing. Three of these are a penny.
So while twenty shillings is a pound, twenty-one shillings is a guinea. This is really important if you want to buy clothes in the UK. This is because they are often advertised in guineas.
I will now give the audience the homework of dividing them up accordingly.

Love hearing this !

 

[Meekly_Anna]

That's ok. In cockney (east London) slang, and in slang more generally adopted in the UK, money is referred to as follows:

1 pound = a quid. Multiples are then referred to as 'quid': thus a market trader might tell you that the bag of oranges you want to buy is, "seven quid, love." Thus, seven pounds.
Five pounds = a fiver, particularly when referring to the bank note itself.
Ten pounds = a tenner, particularly when referring to the bank note itself
Twenty pounds = a score. This will not refer to the actual bank note itself - if I find a score lying on the ground, it could be twenty pound note, but equally it could be two tenners.
A pony = 25 pounds (note: there is no 25 pound note, and if someone offers you one it's 'dodgy' i.e. not genuine, a fake, not to be trusted)
Fifty pounds = a bullseye - from the centre of a dartboard, which is worth 50 points. Though it's a long time since I heard someon euse this, and more generally I've heard people talk about "fifty quid" instead.
100 pounds = a ton
500 pounds = a monkey
1,000 pounds = a grand, or it can be referred to as 'large', thus someone might pay "five large" for something costing 5,000 pounds.

Thank you very much, some I knew already but most I didn't.
I would never dare using cockney to be honest. I would laugh all the time. And I can't do it anyway.
I nearly had a breakdown when I heard the term "raspberry tart" the first time.

 

[Writer61]

Recently:

• ECG machines
• the layout of my old university
• massage techniques
• when did email become common
• mid-90s business jets
• luxury yachts
• place names in Shetland
• where to find colonies of shags in the UK

 

[Wifetheif]

Phases of the moon on select days in 1913 and 1914.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I just researched the saying Death by a Thousand Cuts. Un, yes, I swear it's for a story.

 

[Writer61]

So while twenty shillings is a pound, twenty-one shillings is a guinea. This is really important if you want to buy clothes in the UK. This is because they are often advertised in guineas.

Irrelevant unless you are buying them before 15th Feb. 1971 when the UK switched to decimal currency, and guineas were no more.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

I know that.
But it's fun mocking British people about it. Especially when they complain about bad schools and such. Then one (that's me) will happily rub it in. They switched to decimals, so they lost their math skills.
,

I beg for excuse of I offended any British reader. Gents, I happily provide insults, but only on purpose. You were all friendly and inviting and I have no reason to insult you whatsoever.
If you feel offended I deeply regret being responsible for it.
And no, I'm not joking at the moment.

 

[Ms_Macabre]

How many pennies it would take to crush a human being.

 

[subdudeme13]

How many pennies it would take to crush a human being.

How many?

 

[Ms_Macabre]

How many?

It can vary greatly, but if we're talking about an average-sized adult, about $2000 in pennies could probably do the job.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

Depends.
Placed on someone's chest it should be something like thirty kilogrammes or more. Strength of the person doesn't matter, because all the muscle are only there to exhale. Inhale is resistance of the body.
Without that heart massage to keep someone alive wouldn't work.

It will be problematic to stack them. Pennies are slippery, they will just glide off.

 

[subdudeme13]

It can vary greatly, but if we're talking about an average-sized adult, about $2000 in pennies could probably do the job.

I have all these visions going thru my head, it is the engineer in me. How do you apply $2000 pennies to a body! There are many ways.

 

[subdudeme13]

Depends.
Placed on someone's chest it should be something like thirty kilogrammes or more. Strength of the person doesn't matter, because all the muscle are only there to exhale. Inhale is resistance of the body.
Without that heart massage to keep someone alive wouldn't work.

It will be problematic to stack them. Pennies are slippery, they will just glide off.

Just on the chest would stop the heart. But to crush them......... Interesting.

 

[Ms_Macabre]

I'm glad I could stir some macabre intellectual conversation. I also spent two hours researching counterfeit alcohol scams.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

Hi fellow engineer.
I would use a pipe placed on the chest.

 

[Meekly_Anna]

Yes, ask an engineer about your problems.
Like zombie apocalypse. Shooting them?
Newbies.
Ask an engineer!
I would use an extruder combined with a grinder. I would sit on top to attract the swarm. I would use a wiper to transport them into a funnel that leads into the extruder.
The pulp can then be pumped into a storage tank to be incinerated after drying.
With firearms?
Amateurs.

 

[UnquietDreams]

Various ways to make a Hand of Glory.

 

[BlazonG]

I asked the subreddit ‘ask reddit after dark’ if the water jet from a showerhead was enough physical contact for an orgasm, or if additional clitoral stimulation was usually required. Got into a reddit fight with some people that said it was a “moronic question” because everyone is different.

Gee thanks, I just wanted to know how plausible it was because my past girlfriends didn’t do it in front of me and my wife didn’t know because she doesn’t masturbate with the showerhead. Reddit is so useless.

 

[MillieDynamite]

You could have asked me if the hand-held kind works.

I asked the subreddit ‘ask reddit after dark’ if the water jet from a showerhead was enough physical contact for an orgasm, or if additional clitoral stimulation was usually required. Got into a reddit fight with some people that said it was a “moronic question” because everyone is different.

Gee thanks, I just wanted to know how plausible it was because my past girlfriends didn’t do it in front of me and my wife didn’t know because she doesn’t masturbate with the showerhead. Reddit is so useless.

Why, yes, yes, it does and does so quite well!

 

[Wifetheif]

The location of the brothels nd opium dens in 1913 Shanghai, China.