this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 days ago (3 children)

To be fair, knowing 10000 things is far from knowing everything.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So in Chinese traditions "10000" is just a stand in for "really big number". Kind of like how, at least here in the states, well say "there's a million of them". Not that there is literally 1,000,000 of the thing, but more there is just a lot of them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (2 children)

there's a myriad of phrases like that

[–] m0darn 8 points 4 days ago

Just to spell it out for people: myriad means 10,000 but has been used as a stand in for "huge variety" for so long that people don't know that anymore.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Yeah, a ton

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

Still pretty impressive for an owl.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If words count as things, then most people know way more than that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Even concepts can easily surpass that

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I know at least 8356 numbers alone

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Wow, I only know 8355 numbers. That's very impressive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I can do ya one better...

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well, this local mushroom is either the Taste Scrumptiouspuff, which is amazing is stews, roasts and stirfry..... or the murderkilldeathshroom. Would you say this fringe is curved with a swirl, or swirled with a curve?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can't tell if my back hurts because random millennial moment after mushroom foraging, or because my kidneys are failing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well it's a white mushroom with gills so that narrows the possibility space to 1 mildly tasty shroom and eight gorillion super deadly poisonous liver failure shrooms

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

So you're saying there's a chance...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

In my part of the world, there are at least a dozen+ culinary and/or medicinal mushrooms that are distinctive and easy to identify (even by casuals like me). These don't really have any dangerous look-a-likes that also grow in the same area. I stick to those and those alone. Granted, even at 12 or so species that I can ID, that's probably like a tiny fraction of the number of different species that exist in this area.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Some areas have mushrooms that are so similar the only reliable way to identify them is using a spore print.

Plants and animals tend to have more distinct identifying features like leaf patterns, bark texture or hair color.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

I'm the opposite, I can tell some really difficult mushrooms apart due to good ol' hyperfixation but I still know jack about plants and trees.