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I can't tell if it's a reference to this but thought I'd mention as it's a fun story!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_Cit...


The traditional bridge sale involved the Brooklyn Bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker


And here's Steve Jobs thanking someone for an amazing "proyect":

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285775420457

(same seller.)

P.S. The seller is located in Spain. :)


> 80% losing one of the earbuds

Given that Fairbuds would sell you a single earbud, that's already an improvement over buying a new set, right?


I'm neither of the earlier posters but can relate since I have both aphantasia and SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory). In the current literature these are thought of as distinct things that often co-occur.

> Is losing autobiographical memory immediate, or could you remember a few seconds of what you see?

It's hard to describe this precisely. The visual memory is not lost; it is never formed in the first place. For example, immediately after talking to a person I wouldn't be able to tell the colour of their eyes unless I specifically noted and remembered it as a fact (articulated in my head using language).

> Can you think in other languages?

Yes, I speak multiple languages and do think and dream[1] in most of them. I love learning languages and have been told on many occasions that I'm pretty good at it. It's hard to say to what exent it's due to intrinsic motivation (to me, learning a language is like solving a good puzzle, and I love puzzles) and to what extent it's about aptitude (e.g. the ability to spot patterns, both within a language and across languages).

[1] Based on the literature, it seems that some people with aphantasia have visual dreams and some do not. I do, and very occasionally have fleeing visual imagery when I'm sort-of awake but am either falling asleep or waking up.

> Can you learn patterns like chess moves?

Yes, easily. My brain is very good at spotting and remembering patterns (it just can't visualise them, in the sense that I'm guessing you mean when you talk about chess).

> What is your oldest memory?

I remember a handful of disjoint bits from my childhood, though as facts rather than as images.

> Can you suppose future events, like an accident about to happen?

Yeah, sure. In fact, I have a natural tendency to calculate everything a few steps ahead, probably more than is healthy. At the same time, I have had more than my fair share of personal accidents, but that probably has mostly to do with the fact that I do lots of sports and really like to push my physical boundaries.

> Do you have olfactory memory?

Not really. I can't even describe tastes or smells, except when they strongly remind me of something specific, e.g. some other thing that has a very distinctive smell. I can't even imagine what remembering tastes or smells would be like. After all, it took me more than 40 years to figure out that, when people spoke of visualising stuff, it wasn't just some figure of speech. :)

> Do you like any kind of puzzles?

LOVE puzzles. All sorts. Bring 'em on! :)

> Can you follow or find thing with a map?

Yes, easily. I use topo maps in the mountains all the time, have done a bit of orienteering etc. Correlating the two things that are in front of me -- the map and the terrain -- doesn't seem to require me to visualise anything.

If you're curious to learn more about SDAM, here are some links that I found interesting. The first author's account reasonates a great deal with my experience (though some aspects do differ a fair bit).

https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/90427/1/Watkins_%28A%29phantasia%2...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiFaw5RrKNQ


I'm guessing you mean the bison. (At least that's what Belovezhskaya Pushcha is known for, other than being the largest area of primeval forest in Europe.)


Calling bison ‘buffalo’ is a North American thing, generally. It’s part of a huge pattern of naming confusions between British and American English for ungulates. An elk in Eurasia traditionally means what is a called a moose in North America, but in North America what they call an elk is more similar to a European red deer. America also calls its pronghorn (which is not an antelope) an antelope, and its reindeer caribou, unless they’re pulling Santa’s sleigh. Muskoxen also aren’t oxen.

But the bighorn sheep is really a sheep and it does have big horns, so they have that going for them.


Not just English.

The Dutch word for Alces alces (the animal called a moose in North America and an elk in Europe) is "eland".

Dutch settlers in South Africa decided to use that word for the large antelope of the genus Taurotragus, which is still called an eland in English.

Modern Dutch distinguishes the two by calling the antelope an "eland antelope", while Afrikaans calls the moose/elk an "American/European eland".


Yeah, but I'm an ex-Brit, so that's not really a good excuse :)

My wife's Belarusian though, and I have been to Belovezhskaya Pushcha and seen these buffalo/bison beasties, so I've got that going for me!


Buffalo and Bison are often interchangeable in American English.

I know in Polish, "żubr", which is the European Bison, is often translated as buffalo and the American Bison is known as "bizon" which is understandably translated as bison. I would not be surprised if Belarusian was similar.


In Belarusian it's indeed "амерыканскі бізон" and "еўрапейскі зубр" (American bison and European zubr). In everyday speech these are shortened to "bison" and "zubr".

And buffalo (like African and water) is "буйвал".

I had no idea American English used "buffalo" and "bison" interchangeably.

Learn something every day. :)


Correct. Buffalo and wisent are both bison.


> Buffalo and wisent are both bison.

There are also buffalo that are not bison, like the domestic water buffalo.

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




Wait, you're saying that 25-30% of the US population have a criminal conviction? That seems extremely high, no?


Yeah, I think that was a general estimate I found some supporting research for a few years back when I looked into it a bit, and I've seen similar quoted elsewhere.

It's not easy to come up with an accurate number at all due to all the different state systems not being perfectly comparable, treating different things in different ways, and duplicating individuals who have convictions in more than one state. Even attempts to link them together have been incomplete and inaccurate.

I'm not particularly surprised at that level, though... it's going to include _lots_ of low-level things that are technically classified criminal even though they're often just a ticket: kids caught with beer at a party, speeding in areas that have a "20 over the limit" rule that automatically upgrades to a higher offense, failure to pay tickets that gets escalated to a court, etc...


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00490...) suggest that in 2017, 8% of the US adult population had a felony conviction, 24% of Black adults, and 33% of Black males. But for TSA Pre/Global entry, the relevant number is the number of fliers, where I suspect the felony rates are lower.


It's by no means the whole story, but Google's very significant aversion to brand risk is definitely part of why they move slowly.

(Speaking as someone who's worked on launching several somewhat risky technologies at Google.)


There are downsides to that. For example, this is how me, my parents and my siblings ended up with different surnames on our passports. They all started as the same surname, but then got mangled independently during translation...


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