I used to work with this old guy. He was one of those dudes that was insufferable, but at work he was a semi-interesting story teller. But really it was because his desk was next to the back door exit. If you wanted to sneak out, you had to do it past his desk. And you had to be on his good side to avoid any leaky mouths…

Anyway, this one time I was sneaking out, it was summer. And he had the door open to let some fresh air in. In its place he had mounted a makeshift screen to keep the flies out. But this screen wasn’t quite tall enough and left the top foot of the door wide open. I had already seen a fly as I came down the hall, so when I saw his construction job, I’d found the reason…

So I said, “hey nice screen.” He says oh yeah, blah blah. Blah blah. Then I sort of point out the missing gap above the screen… he gets real serious and says:

“Flies can’t fly more than 6 feet off the ground.”

I had so many questions. What about flies on a mountain? What about flies inside a skyscraper? My head was salivating for more chunks of juicy knowledge from this guy… but alas I had my sneaky schedule to keep, and I said wow, cool. And left.

But the confidence from this guy could not be matched.

I was told two hours ago that Antarctica is bigger than all other continents combined, when I said that’s not possible I was told to google it.

I’m a sword guy. I spent over a decade training in historical swordsmanship (mostly European longsword - a mix of Fiore and Lichtenaur; but also a little kenjutsu).

There are so many bad takes about swords out there, but I think my personal “favorites” are about the folded steel technique used to forge katana.

See, to make a good sword, you need good steel which is iron + carbon. More carbon = harder steel. Harder steel is better for holding an edge, but also less flexible and more likely to shatter. All swords, European, Japanese or otherwise had to balance those concerns.

Anyway, in Japan, their katana forging technique used steel with slightly differing carbon amounts wrapped in layers in the blade. This layering had a couple of important metallurgical effects:

1. It gave the core steel a more consistent quality. Since the method they had of producing steel contained varying levels of carbon, the repeated layering, folding, heating and hammering evened it out.

2. The layering also increased the strength of the steel. By adding layers of high and low carbon steel, the sword smiths could control the flexibility vs strength of the core.

Ok, so without getting too deep in the weeds, that’s (basically speaking) why katana were made of folded steel.

But I have been “informed” by so many people that folded steel:

• Creates an edge like a thousand razor blades!
• Makes katana stronger than modern steel!
• Makes katana stronger than European swords! (steel-wise, it’s a wash, though later blade geometry techniques like fullers arguably give European swords the - ha - edge in durability.)

In summary: katana are great - but not magic! The folded steel technique enabled forging swords of high-quality, consistent steel at a time when that was really hard to do. But that’s it.

/self looks at rant

Uh… Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

That butterflies technically can’t fly. But that they do proves there’s a god, creating miracles.

Modern aeronautics can explain exactly how a butterfly can float in the sir.

Oh, the one random person from my childhood who said that black men looked like gorillas, which means they’re stupid and violent. Mexican men looked like coyotes, which meant they’re sneaky and conniving. And white men probably had a similar flaw, but since she was white, she didn’t know what it was.

I’ll add another bee one to the pile; I had a lady very confidently tell me that you don’t see bees during the winter because they migrate. I wanted to correct her, but all I could think of was Monty Python. “Are you suggesting bees migrate‽” it’s also hard to explain that they also don’t hibernate, but create a sort of space heater around the queen.

“Fat is carbohydrates and people who don’t eat fat get carbohydrate deficiency which causes obesity. You need lots of carbohydrates to stay healthy, so eat fat!” - old man in my office block

Perkele is a name of Ukko… Tired of hearing this one 😴 It’s simply loaned from Perkunas as a swear word in the first place.

Belgium is a city and shit