Little known facts

[Kulindahr]

The U.S. murder by knife rate is higher than just about all its allies' total murder rates.

 

[pornoboy]

A Bear on Mars ?

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[gsdx]

Chewbaca was inspired by George Lucas' Alaskan Malamute Which George had named 'Indiana'. Hence Sean Connery's line in 'The Last Crusade': "We named the dog Indiana!"

 

[Kulindahr]

Sociologists have concluded that in late first century Rome there were 131 men for every 100 women.
At one year of age, the number was already 120 men per 100 women because so many female infants were just killed at birth or put out where wild animals could eat them. By twelve years of age it was 128 men per 100 women because when children were sick, boys were treated and helped through to health while girls were left to fend for themselves. It reach 131 to 100 by age twenty because many husbands forced their wives to get abortions if they didn't want a child at the time, and abortion often resulted in death of the mother.

 

[pigface]

"Spiro Agnew" is an anagram of "Grow a penis".

 

[Araucaria]

"Spiro Agnew" is an anagram of "Grow a penis".

That never occurred to me, but he was a real boner!

 

[pornoboy]

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[frankfrank]

"the semiconductor industry churns out more objects in a year than have ever been produced in all the other factories in all the other industries in the history of the world." - wired.com, March 21, 2023

 

[pornoboy]

Well known little facts...

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[gsdx]

The painted lines in the middle of roads were invented in Canada.

Incidentally, so were paint rollers.

 

[gsdx]

The band Van Halen used to add a condition to the riders of their contracts demanding a bowl of M&Ms backstage but forbidding brown-shelled ones. The absence of brown M&Ms meant that someone had read the contract from the first line to the last.

 

[Alistair]

 

[pornoboy]

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[pornoboy]

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[gsdx]

Jazz musician Louis Armstrong's nickname 'Satchmo' was a contraction of his other nickname 'Satchel Mouth'.

 

[Kulindahr]

The painted lines in the middle of roads were invented in Canada.

That's disputed by the U.K., the state of Michigan, the state of California, the state of Ohio, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Though there's a claim that predates all of them: Pope Boniface the 8th had lines painted down the middle of streets clear back in 1300, though his were meant not to control direction of traffic but to keep horses and horse-drawn conveyances on one side of the streets and foot traffic on the other. It served to keep people from walking in horse droppings and make travelling on foot easier but resulted in bad traffic flow by coach and wagon.

The Michigan claim dates to 1911, as does the Ohio claim (specifically Cincinatti) the California claim to 1917 (though it wasn't officially implemented until 1927; before that it was local people using their own paint!), the U.K. claim to 1918 (though there was no law requiring paying attention to them till 1926); Canada's claim only goes back to 1930.

Why Canadians did not invent the painted highway divider - constructconnect.com - Daily Commercial News

Canadians are responsible for a number of cool inventions, among them Standard Time, Pablum, five-pin bowling, the Canadarm, insulin and the Robertson screwdriver. This article was supposed to be an account of another great Canadian invention — the painted longitudinal road line — but it isn’t.

canada.constructconnect.com

On a side note, Canada was in fact the first to use numbers to designate highways -- a decision that brought scorn from people who thought roads should have "proper names".

 

[Kulindahr]

Last year, U.S. taxpayers spent roughly 13 hours and $250 filing their taxes.

Figures of course aren't in for this year but it's not expected to improve.

I took about fourteen hours but that includes fifteen-minute breaks every time I got frustrated (to play Master of Orion) plus had seven different financial forms to include that required eighteen pages of IRS paperwork!
Along the way I learned that there are at least nineteen different kinds of reportable retirement income.

And I just learned that JUB's spelling software doesn't think that "reportable" is a word!

 

[Peloso]

View attachment 1986231​

Obviously he didn't have a cat.

 

[LoveMyPeppermill]

The "Canary" in "Canary Islands" actually refers to dogs: when the Romans got there, the named what's now Gran Canaria "Insula Canaria" -- basically, "Dog Island" -- because (the story goes) they were greeted by large dogs there.

 

[pornoboy]

India has overtaken China to become the world's most populous nation, according to estimates. As reported, India's population stands at 1.425.775.850 today.​

Despite its many massive problems, this is a country that is bursting forth with dynamism, ideas, diversity, and change.​

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