Real-Life Weirdness

[Anders]

Presumably this is all knowledge in the universe.

[Anders]

Catching lightning in a bottle.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

There is a temple in India where people worship a motorcycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Banna

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

There is a temple in India where people worship a motorcycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Banna

And that is the kind of thing that keeps me saying "The definition of a 'god' is 'a recipient of worship'"

[vicky_molokh]

City Council in Kassel, in the central Hesse region, wants to make a vegetarian event's organisers ditch its veggie theme and include popular regional sausages.

[Flyndaran]

Nooooo! We Americans are number 1 in senses of entitlement and weird hatred for vegetarians. It looks like we may have to step up our game if such a worthy challenger appears.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Nooooo! We Americans are number 1 in senses of entitlement and weird hatred for vegetarians. It looks like we may have to step up our game if such a worthy challenger appears.

Eh, we don't know the details of how this came up. I can easily imagine local sausage sellers complaining they were unfairly denied spots even when they asked because of what they were selling. Indeed the organizers are pretty strongly hinting at that with their stuff about inappropriate to the theme.

At that point the issue starts looking a little less one sided - if you are using a public space but selecting who to let in ideologically, you really should expect problems with being allowed to keep the space, or at least with getting it for your event next year.

[Flyndaran]

Reality is often more complicated that headlines. But I don't think it's inappropriate to ban the exact opposite vendors to what the event is about.
I honestly can't think of any equivalents that wouldn't come of as insanely offensive.

[ericthered]

The complicated part for me is that the event is on earth day. So is this a earth-day festival that decided to make this year's theme vegetarianism, or a vegetarian festival that happens to fall on earth day? That makes a lot of difference.

Its always fascinating how there are reason behind all of these bizarre findings.

[tshiggins]

Superconductivity in a chiral nanotube.

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/02...-nanotube.html

"Scientists have found that a superconducting current flows in only one direction through a chiral nanotube, marking the first observation of the effects of chirality on superconductivity. Until now, superconductivity has only been demonstrated in achiral materials, in which the current flows in both directions equally."

I'm not sure what the applications might be, but it certainly seems to have considerable potential.