Things that I don't know but I should know

[Anonymous]

Also I don't care what anyone says. Pluto is still a planet. You can't just decide that a thing's behavior is odd and change the rules so that the quirky kids can't take part in the Reindeer Games this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Count me in on not knowing a thing about Vietnam. No clue. We never got that far in American History class when I was in school....

OMG Us too! Every year it's *We're going to get up to the modern era*. Which really meant *We'll be lucky if we make it to WWI. You all'd probably learn more about the 20th Century just watching the History Channel*.

Mind you this was back when there was actual history on the History Channel and not Nazi Occult Conspiracies, Repent Because The World is Ending in 2012, Nostradamus' Lost Bathroom Reader, and How the Knights Templars Became the Illuminati. That channel's like reading the Weekly World News now.

Hahaha! So true about the history chanel! Isn't Pawn Stars on the history chanel? I suppose I learn a tad about history when I learn how much shipwrecked coins are worth or how the detail on the handle of a dueling rifle increases it's value... But I still love that show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. What the Vietnam was was about.
2. What a "settlement" really is. (as in the settlements in Israel)
3. How many Jewish people died in the Holocaust.
4. How many planets there are
5. The basic premise of Islam
6. The basic premise of Hinduism
7. How Bangladesh became its own country
8. What a co-op preschool is
9. What exactly a "stock" is. (as in the stock market)
10. What art period are we in now?

I think this is a troll joke because no one can be this ignorant.

Oh shut up. I don't know how the stock market works. I don't know WTF a black hole is. How the hell do radar waves work? Nobody knows everything. The folks who recognize the fact that they have much to learn will go forward. The jerks who think they know everything and no one can tell them anything will die alone and unloved. At least I know that much.

YAY! A question I know the answer to! A black hole is something that happens in space when stars go supernova and explode. Light can't be emitted from a black hole. It's pretty much an absence of anything in that particular spot in space.

Some of the other questions are too hard for me, lol! I have no clue about the stock question or the Bangledesh question. I'm not too sure of the art period one either. The basic presmise to Hinduism is the belief in reincarnation and karma and dharma. I'd have to look up the Islam question because I'm not 100% on that one. There are 8 planets currently, but who knows how many other planets could be out there. Not sure what a co-op preschool is either. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. I'm not sure if that number includes all of the other groups that were attacked as well. The Vietnam question is tough because it's a matter of perspective. There is the view that the war was fought in an attempt to help the Vietnamese people who were being treated inhumanel, but there is also the school of thought that believes that the war was fought out of a fear of impending Communism. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

I love that this thread came up because it's an interesting change of pace. I hope that there are more thread like this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can help with planets:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune.

FWIW, growing up I never understood why people laughed at the name "Uranus." Took me years to get the joke.

I don't know if I can get used to the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet.

I still refuse to take Plute out of my "planet line-up" even though I know it's not a planet! LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've lived in DC most of my life and I have no clue how the US gov't works. I don't get the difference between Congress and the Senate, how bills get passed...

I'm so embarassed. This thread has inspired me to read US Gov't for Dummies, or the like.

I have no idea how I made it through private high school, a top university, and law school without this basic knowledge.

There. I said it.

The government doesn't work - that's the problem.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if Benson and Stabler ever hooked up on L&O SVU. I feel like I should know, because I watched like 18 seasons. I got tired of it, but I would have liked to see if they ever did anything with that relationship.

[Anonymous]

I don't know who my two Senators and Congressional representative are. (I live in VA should anyone care to enlighten me.)

How many people can't name all 9 current Supreme Court justices? I read a poll a few years ago that amazingly concluded that less than half of Americans could name even one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if Benson and Stabler ever hooked up on L&O SVU. I feel like I should know, because I watched like 18 seasons. I got tired of it, but I would have liked to see if they ever did anything with that relationship.

Oh, I WISH! So much sexual tension! But, no--sadly, they didn't. However, I belive that Stabler and Danni (Benson's replacement for a few episodes when she was undercover) had some sort of thing going on. But I don't think they actually hooked up either, they just wanted to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if Benson and Stabler ever hooked up on L&O SVU. I feel like I should know, because I watched like 18 seasons. I got tired of it, but I would have liked to see if they ever did anything with that relationship.

Oh, I WISH! So much sexual tension! But, no--sadly, they didn't. However, I belive that Stabler and Danni (Benson's replacement for a few episodes when she was undercover) had some sort of thing going on. But I don't think they actually hooked up either, they just wanted to.

I never really hoped to see Benson and Stabler hook it, so it's good to know that they didn't! I don't have cable so I have to wait for everything to come out on Netflix, so I have only watched the first 10 seasons. I HATED that Stabler hooked up with Danni. She was obnoxious and I was so glad when Benson came back!!!

[Anonymous]

I have the School House Rocks "I'm Just a Bill" song stuck in my head right now

[Anonymous]

No, Benson and Stabler can never hook up! That's what makes their relationship so awesome... they are partners and best friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Count me in on not knowing a thing about Vietnam. No clue. We never got that far in American History class when I was in school....

ditto this exactly. I can't begin to tell you anything about the Vietnam war. And I have graduate degrees in 2 fields (including a PhD).

[Anonymous]

OP here. No, I am not a troll. I just was thinking how much I do not know and I decided to start making a list of the top things I can think of. Of course, the list could go on and on but those are ones I thought important. I do intend to research answers by the way. And thank you for those that helped enlighten me. I put the list out there because I thought it would be interesting to see what other people feel the do or do not know in relation. By the way, I know from my list I come off as a very ignorant American. And maybe I am. But I am "educated" with a Masters degree in Computer Science. I suppose that only makes me educated in one small area and I see I need to start learning more around me, past and present.

[Anonymous]

In our solar system there are only 8 planets now but there are many hundreds on known planets in the nearby galaxy with that number only expected to grow. Regardless of what you think of Pluto being demoted, the number would not be 9 as we all learned in school because Xena or whatever they ended up calling Brown's Pluto-like find would have to be a planet if Pluto was. Fun fact, this is not the first time an object has been demoted from being a planet. 4 of the asteroids in the asteroid belt (there's an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) were initially labeled as planets until people realized there were hundreds on similar objects. It's actually much like the Pluto story except that there wasn't as long of a time between the first asteroid being discovered and the demotion as there was between Pluto and the discovery of all the Kuiper belt objects.

I'm going to have to disagree slightly with the black hole response. It's not the absence of everything, there is substantial mass there and therefore gravity. It just has a very small size. I can go extremely far into detail if anyone is interested but I don't want to sound like a show-off (I've just been with the kids all day and am slightly geeked to show off some hard earned knowledge that most people couldn't give a rat's ass about).

As for radar, it is just light waves, radio waves in fact. So they work just like other electromagnetic waves - visible light being the best known form. Think flashlight and mirror.

As you can probably tell, I have a degree in physics but I'm not sure how airplanes work. Something about lift I know. And when I see them in the air I am completely sure I don't understand how they work.

For the VA folks:
Gov -- Bob McDonnell
Senators -- Jim Webb & Mark Warner
Reps -- possibly one of Jim Moran, Frank Wolf, or Gerry Connelly (not sure of all the spellings). I live near the corner of all 3 districts so I see lots of different signs around elections.

As a science/engineering type there are large swathes of liberal arts type knowledge that I do not have.

[Anonymous]

When I went to college in the 1980s, we had no core curriculum, so there are wide areas of almost everything but my one or two favorite subjects about which I know nothing. I hope no colleges are dumb enough still to eliminate minimum requirements across disciplines. I'd give anything to have the time/money to go back and take all of those courses I couldn't be bothered with when I knew what was best for me at 18.