Mildly interesting
-
wrote on 18 Aug 2023, 15:10 last edited by bachophile
Normally yellow is the most visible colour: it grabs our attention and we can see it from far away.
Hence warning signs, high-vis jackets, road markings, police tape, school buses, and taxis are almost always yellow.
But yellow isn't always the most visible colour. See, orange is more visible in one specific context: when it is contrasted with blue.
That's because orange and blue are complementary colours. This means that, when mixed, they cancel each other out. But, when placed alongside one another, they create a powerful, luminous, highly visible contrast.
And this fact is important because... lots of the world is blue: the sky and the ocean.
Hence lifeboats and lifebuoys and liferafts all around the world are orange — rather than yellow, the usual colour of safety equipment. If you pay attention, you'll notice that most objects relating to safety and caution around the ocean are, indeed, orange.
It's why the Golden Gate Bridge was painted orange — a particular shade which has come to be known as "International Orange" — so that it would stand out more clearly against the water and in heavy fog.
And it's also why astronauts wear orange suits during lift-off and ascent, and when they return to Earth; this makes them much easier to spot if they land in the ocean.
The "black box" recording device in aeroplanes is not actually black; they are legally required to be painted bright orange because that makes them much easier to find when planes go down over water.
The fact that orange and blue are complementary colours was also exploited by the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists of the late 19th century.
Think of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night or Café Terrace at Night, in which he contrasted oranges and blues to create his famously vivid swirls of colour and light.
Claude Monet, too, in his paintings of Haystacks and of Venice, frequently used the complementary contrast between orange and blue because of the clarity and luminosity they produced.
Many things in the world are a coincidence, but the fact that lifeboats, space suits, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, and the Golden Gate Bridge are all orange is not one of them.
-
Normally yellow is the most visible colour: it grabs our attention and we can see it from far away.
Hence warning signs, high-vis jackets, road markings, police tape, school buses, and taxis are almost always yellow.
But yellow isn't always the most visible colour. See, orange is more visible in one specific context: when it is contrasted with blue.
That's because orange and blue are complementary colours. This means that, when mixed, they cancel each other out. But, when placed alongside one another, they create a powerful, luminous, highly visible contrast.
And this fact is important because... lots of the world is blue: the sky and the ocean.
Hence lifeboats and lifebuoys and liferafts all around the world are orange — rather than yellow, the usual colour of safety equipment. If you pay attention, you'll notice that most objects relating to safety and caution around the ocean are, indeed, orange.
It's why the Golden Gate Bridge was painted orange — a particular shade which has come to be known as "International Orange" — so that it would stand out more clearly against the water and in heavy fog.
And it's also why astronauts wear orange suits during lift-off and ascent, and when they return to Earth; this makes them much easier to spot if they land in the ocean.
The "black box" recording device in aeroplanes is not actually black; they are legally required to be painted bright orange because that makes them much easier to find when planes go down over water.
The fact that orange and blue are complementary colours was also exploited by the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists of the late 19th century.
Think of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night or Café Terrace at Night, in which he contrasted oranges and blues to create his famously vivid swirls of colour and light.
Claude Monet, too, in his paintings of Haystacks and of Venice, frequently used the complementary contrast between orange and blue because of the clarity and luminosity they produced.
Many things in the world are a coincidence, but the fact that lifeboats, space suits, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, and the Golden Gate Bridge are all orange is not one of them.
wrote on 18 Aug 2023, 15:18 last edited by@bachophile said in Mildly interesting:
Many things in the world are a coincidence, but the fact that lifeboats, space suits, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, and the Golden Gate Bridge are all orange is not one of them.
I once had to work in a weedkiller plant. The stuff was so no nasty that ICI didn't want any of the workers inadvertently wandering into one of their other hideous chemical plants. They made us wear orange jumpsuits so that we'd stand out.
Also, it made finding the dead bodies easier.
-
wrote on 19 Aug 2023, 02:10 last edited by
-
wrote on 19 Aug 2023, 04:50 last edited by
-
wrote on 19 Aug 2023, 06:32 last edited by
-
wrote on 19 Aug 2023, 14:29 last edited by
Some beaches in Japan have star-shaped sand found nowhere else in the world.
More: https://hasanjasim.online/discover-the-unique-star-sand-beach-in-okinawa-japan/
-
wrote on 24 Aug 2023, 00:14 last edited by
Marilyn Monroe did visit the troops. She found a way to visit with a soldier with a broken neck.
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 03:05 last edited by
Chichén Itzá when it was discovered in 1892 vs. present day
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 04:02 last edited by
Interesting
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 04:57 last edited by
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 12:00 last edited by
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 13:33 last edited by
The last execution by guillotine was Sept 10, 1977. The Atari 2600 video game was introduced on Sept 11, 1977. The age of the guillotine and the age of video games is only separated by 24 hours.
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 16:01 last edited by
A Frenchman's first reaction to trying Coca-Cola in 1950.
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 18:39 last edited by
Coca-cola? Merde alors.
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 18:49 last edited by
They should use that photo in their advertising. They could be the next Anheuser Busch.
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 22:38 last edited by
-
wrote on 25 Aug 2023, 23:06 last edited by Horace
Yeah but the timeless themes can be fit into any number of symbolic narratives. It’s not like Hemingway can forbid that or call it wrong.
-
wrote on 29 Aug 2023, 00:56 last edited by
-
wrote on 29 Aug 2023, 01:00 last edited by
@jon-nyc said in Mildly interesting:
This is a language I don't understand. I'll take your word that it's "mildly interesting."
-
wrote on 29 Aug 2023, 01:09 last edited by
I find this fascinating. My favourite one is Euler's identity -
