So, Ballpit, what did we learn today?

[Dr. Buttplug]

I learned that some birds like Cranes and Storks fly with their necks straight out, while other long neck birds, like Herons and Egrets, fly with them twisted up and it looks weird.

[xX_sp00ks_Xx]

I learned that the fairly famous German TV series about a crime solving K9, "Inspector Rex", had a made-for-TV movie which chronicled the dog's origin story, called "Baby Rex - Der kleine Kommissar". The only critic review cited on IMDB comes from a blogspot site, which has this paragraph:

[Great Joe]

I learned that there's a geothermal power plant right by Þingvallavatn, and it's somehow very well hidden from the rest of its neighbouring national park.

[Blandest]

I learned that the fairly famous German TV series about a crime solving K9, "Inspector Rex", had a made-for-TV movie which chronicled the dog's origin story, called "Baby Rex - Der kleine Kommissar". The only critic review cited on IMDB comes from a blogspot site, which has this paragraph:

Not to be not picky but I figured I'd stick to the title of the thread and learn you something new. It's actually an Austrian and Italian co production which is why a few seasons in Rex moves to Italy and I guess learns Italian?

[Frank West]

I learned that the intro to a news story is spelled lede and not lead, because a part of the linotype machine they used to print newspapers was already called the lead, so they misspelled "lead" to not confuse people. Then I found out that lede only started to be used at the very end of the linotype's lifespan so that's probably not true.

I didn't learn anything.

[jim and the mammograms]

I learned that fake fact you just posted, and I'm probably going to absorb it and forget it's not true, so I guess I learned negative things.

[Cheapskate]

That song they play at hockey games is lifted wholesale from a Commodore 64 game.

[A Meat]

I learned about the Criminal Tribes Act from the 1870's, where the British effectively made a list of ethnic, social and other groups that are automatically considered criminals and had to report to authorities constantly to make sure they didn't leave the areas they were allowed in and that they weren't committing crimes. Once India gained independence they changed the name of the law to the Habitual Offenders Act, and it essentially kept carrying the same stigma and meaning. From what I can gather in 2008 they finally started affirmative action for some of these groups, but I don't know how much effect it's had in the past decade

[xX_sp00ks_Xx]

TeX is a typesetting system for math formulae. I've learned this about it today:

Since version 3, TeX has used an idiosyncratic version numbering system, where updates have been indicated by adding an extra digit at the end of the decimal, so that the version number asymptotically approaches π. This is a reflection of the fact that TeX is now very stable, and only minor updates are anticipated. The current version of TeX is 3.141592653; it was last updated in 2021.^[11] The design was frozen after version 3.0, and no new feature or fundamental change will be added, so all newer versions will contain only bug fixes.^[12] Even though Donald Knuth himself has suggested a few areas in which TeX could have been improved, he indicated that he firmly believes that having an unchanged system that will produce the same output now and in the future is more important than introducing new features. For this reason, he has stated that the "absolutely final change (to be made after my death)" will be to change the version number to π, at which point all remaining bugs will become features.^[13] Likewise, versions of Metafont after 2.0 asymptotically approach e (currently at 2.7182818), and a similar change will be applied after Knuth's death.^[12]

[A Meat]

Paul Sorvino's son, Michael, voiced the main character of the video games Mafia and Mafia II

[A Meat]

Also learned that gringo might be a distortion of griego, which is greek, as in "it's all greek to me"

[Great Joe]

The term "avuncular", which means "uncle-like, in the manner of an uncle, pertaining to an uncle".

[Dr. Buttplug]

There are physical mechanisms built on rivers that count the total number of fish that pass through that river.

[A Meat]

Ashoka, emperor of India around 250 BC had at least one edict in Greek and Aramaic in addition to all the ones people know of in Prakrit (in Brahmi script)

[Sauce]

Callipygian
adj. Having shapely buttocks