Sidewalk chalk isn't made of chalk anymore?
TIL: It's made of calcium sulfate, i.e. gypsum, the same stuff that goes into drywall, as opposed to calcium carbonate, i.e. rock chalk.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Congratulations you are one of the lucky Ten Thousand! https://xkcd.com/1053/
I guess count me in that 10,000 as well
Wow, so 20,000 people read this?
Lemmy's more popular than I thought.
I would say it's probably a lot less than ten thousand - I doubt this is something "everybody knows"
Yeah... that's really not in the 1 in 10k catagory. Not even the 1 in 10 catagory.
i pretty sure those numbers are in reverse, at least if i understand you correctly. Its 1 in 10(lots of ppl know) then 1 in 10(less ppl know) and so on.
Nope. Not reversed. The guy I responded to thinks that almost everyone (9,999 out of 10,000) knows sidewalk chalk isn't made out of chalk. I'm saying it's not even as common as 9 out of 10 know that sidewalk chalk isn't made out of chalk.
In fact, I'd say the odds are more like 1 out of 2, at best. Possibly even that more people would give the wrong answer than the right one.
In that case, i think its the opposite
Well, it certainly isn't made of sidewalk.
Unless your sidewalks are made of gypsum.
If there are, they won't be for very long.
No wonder it doesn't taste good anymore.
It's not made of sidewalk anymore either
I thought it said "arachnonym" and was looking forward to seeing some spider names.
Here are some words that rhyme with spider: glider, rider, fighter, miter, waterstrider...
Apple Cider, Cheeky Blighter, Cum Inside'er...
As far as people likely to say that middle one go, most of Britain would disagree that it rhymes with spider. You might get a crisp T or, more likely, a glottal stop, but not a D sound.
That said, Aussies are even more likely to use it and they do have some t-d merger going on in some of their accents.
Aragog, Shelob, Mae Tika, Charlotte...
Ah, you can get actual glass glasses, but typically only for unusual prescriptions.
And you can absolutely buy linen linens. They aren't even hard to find, just more expensive.
Same with silverware, only way more expensive.
you can get actual glass glasses, but typically only for unusual prescriptions.
It might vary by vendor, but you can definitely get real glass glasses for a normal prescription, if you pay for them. I think it's sold as kind of a premium option.
At the place I got my last pair from, if you got half-frames (ie the ones that only have a solid frame around the top of the lenses) they made you get glass lenses, because the wire that goes along the bottom of the lense causes the plastic ones to split over time.
Odd, I have split frames with polycarbonate lenses; the little strap around the bottom is plastic.
I couldn't tell ya 🤷🏾♂️ it's entirely possible that the risk of the lenses splitting was exaggerated to justify their requirement of buying the more expensive lenses with the half frames.
Unrelated, but when I was buying my glasses, I'd fallen in love with these half frames, but disappointedly told the tech I'd have to pick a different pair when she told me about the increased expense. (It wasn't that much more, relatively speaking, but I already couldn't afford the glasses, and had explained earlier that I was trying to do things as cheaply as possible). When she saw how upset I was over not being able to get the frames I really liked over an ultimately negligible amount of money, she gave me the glass lenses for the plastic lense price.
Had the same 10-years ago. They would also paint the exposed bottom half to match the frame, make the frosty bit camouflaged. Tried to get that again a few years later, same optometrist had no idea what I was on about.
Dumb foreigner here, so what’s the deal with silverware? I mean, if you really want silverware, you get forks and knives that are actually made of silver and come in a fancy wood box. Do people use that word for common steel forks too?
Yeah, it's kind of a generic term for not just tableware, but damn near any utensil that isn't for cooking, like serving spoons, ladles and the like.
Actual silver silverware is just expensive is all. So you aren't going to run to a big box store find it, so a lot of people don't even realize it's out there. Tbh, the way brick and mortar places have been priced out or otherwise failed, you often have to go to a decent sized city to find real silver cutlery and tableware, but when I was growing up some of the department stores still carried it.
Hell, at the lower end of the income scale, steel utensils can be pricey to afford. You end up with some pretty crappy alloy parts with plastic handles. It might technically be steel, but it's such a low grade it falls apart under use.
Yeah, that’s t true. Even steel utensils come in a variety of prices. The nicer ones look cool, have interesting shapes are heavy etc. Moderately priced ones are just stamped steel, but still good and durable. The cheap ones, are stamped out of the thinnest low grade trash you can find. Those will bend if you just look at them wrong. Also, some cheap fruit knives have a plastic handle and aluminum rivets. Stick that into a washing machine and you’ll find out how soluble aluminum is at high pH.
I've had glass glasses in middle school. Because my vision differs heavily on both eyes (left lens wasn't even a lens, just a piece of flat glass), it was constantly skewed under the weight of the thicker lens.
There was a time when rubber ducks were made from ducks?
I assume they were originally made from natural rubber, but nowadays are primarily made of vinyl and the like.
3 wood...
Golf announcers have been calling 'fairway woods' 'fairway metals' for a while. But since most of them are largely made of carbon fiber these days, even that is misleading.
Isn't wood a sort of carbon fiber composite? Can we go back to calling them woods again?
Wood is sort of a composite material, made of cellulose fibers bound with a polymer called lignin.
The 9 iron and 3 wood made me think he was going to craft something in a 3x3 grid. I failed to associate it with golf.
Alt text:
I have to pay with paper money.
yes, I think I wrote that in the OP? Are you using an app where you're not seeing that?
You did, I missed it.
I still prefer to buy sponge sponges. They work better than most of the non sponges.
TIL that the word "line" originated from the use of linen cords by builders to make a straight line https://www.etymonline.com/word/line
And the words "lingerie" and "lint" are related to linen as well
Rubber duck? 😬
Why the grimace? Rubber ducks definitely aren't made of rubber these days. They're plastic.
I prefer my ducks to be made out of water fowl rather than plastic to be honest
I feel like a mirrorless camera would fit fairly well on this list. Not quite the same thing, but it's named after what it isn't, rather than what it is.
Half of them don't translate to europe/german language.
What do you mean by europe/german language?
Europe (area) or german language.