• DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works
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    18 hours ago

    Fun fact: this is where the “banana connector” came from. Before copper was discovered, early humans used bananas for all their audio connections. The name stuck, even though wires are made of metal today.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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      16 hours ago

      Additional trivia: The term “banana republic” originates from countries best known for exporting high-end audio equipment back in the day.

      • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
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        16 hours ago

        “banana split” stems from a failed experiment where scientists tried to split audio frequencies by sticking the connectors into ice cream and running the audio through it

        • BanMe@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          And Bananarama was so named for their high-fidelity recordings which were performed, mixed, and recorded entirely on bananas.

          • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Banana boats were named for the ancient egyptian practice of drying and lashing together bundles of banana skins in what was, at the time, a highpoint in marine engineering. It did, indeed, play a role in the stealth technology used today, due to the naturally radio absorbent nature of the material. Dont believe the people who tell you they sealed the hulls with the pulp - itd just wash off once underway.

        • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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          16 hours ago

          Yup. Failed spectacularly, which is why they went for mixing boards as a backup solution instead.

      • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        They are often also used as a unit of measurement of relative scale, especially amongst practitioners of internet science.

        • ThisLucidLens@lemmy.world
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          17 minutes ago

          Banana physicist here.

          This is actually due to a really interesting phenomenon called banana dilation. Although they may appear different sizes to the eye, bananas distort local spacetime such that they are all physically identical dimensions. This makes them a perfect and consistent measure of size.