useless facts

[Platapus]

There were seven B-29 aircraft involved in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and six involved in the bombing of Nagasaki.



Full House
Enola Gay
The Great Artiste


Were the only three that flew on both missions

[Jimbuna]

The world record for most T-shirts worn at once is 260.

[Jimbuna]

Movie trailers were originally shown at the end of movies, hence the name trailer. They were moved to the beginning because most of the audience left after the feature film.

[Platapus]

A quarter of the world's population speaks at least a little English.


It about the same ratio for population in the US also. :D

[Jimbuna]

It about the same ratio for population in the US also. :D

:haha:

[Jimbuna]

Most adults spend more time on the toilet than they do exercising.

[Jimbuna]

Humans produce about six pounds of stool per week.

[Rockstar]

It was only 7 years after the U.S. retired the last P-51 Mustang. That the world’s fastest airplane, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird took flight.

[Rockstar]

Humans produce about six pounds of stool per week.

Good too know I have above average scores in something.

[Jimbuna]

Good too know I have above average scores in something.

I hear you're already passed olympic standard :)

[Jimbuna]

About 35 percent of people who use personal ads or online apps for dating are already married.

[Rockstar]

Return of the Jedi artwork by Christopher Evans. Until now I never realized it was matte painting.

https://i.postimg.cc/cJgWKMbQ/IMG-2336.jpg

[Jimbuna]

The only part of the human body that can't repair itself is the teeth.

[Aktungbby]

^....not after a Brit milah visit to the local moyle either BBY!:timeout::oops::wah:https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/religion-moses-hebrews-jew-circumcision-religious_practice-rman13248_low.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/G%C3%B6ttingen-Beschneidungswerkzeuge.02.JPG/800px-G%C3%B6ttingen-Beschneidungswerkzeuge.02.JPG

[Jimbuna]

The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson to himself in 1971.

[Platapus]

If you happen to have a Bright, Filbert, Mop, Dagger, and an Egbert.......




you might just be a painter.

[Jimbuna]

Since they're such social creatures and require interaction to be happy, it's illegal in Switzerland to own just one guinea pig!

[Aktungbby]

If you happen to have a Bright, Filbert, Mop, Dagger, and an Egbert.......




you might just be a painter. https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Header-1.jpg:yeah:

[Jeff-Groves]

Lewis and Clark, during their journey, consumed their companion Dogs.
Not because they were desperate but because they were tired of Salmon.

[Jimbuna]

The Milky Way is about 100 thousand to 120 thousand light-years in diameter. (A light year is about six trillion miles!)

[Platapus]

Parkour trace its origins to the physical education and training methods developed beginning in the years before World War I by Georges Hébert and known as “la méthode naturelle.”

[Jimbuna]

Our galaxy is almost as old as the Universe. The age of the Universe is about 13.7 billion years old, and our galaxy is 13.6 billion years old.

[Platapus]

The cosmetic firm of Max Factor was formed in 1909 by Maksymilian Faktorowicz

[Jimbuna]

About 24 thousand people are killed by lightning strikes each year, and about 240 thousand more are injured.

[Jimbuna]

A lightning bolt is 54 thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hotter than the surface of the sun!

[Jimbuna]

If lightning hits sand or rocks, it can be petrified and will create lightning fossils.

[Ostfriese]

A lightning bolt has enough energy to make nitrogen react with water in the air (from humidity). The product of this reaction, ammonium nitrite NH4NO2, very likely was the compound that -in the very early stages of the development of life on Earth- created the basis for amino acids (which contain the amino group NH2), which in turn are the basis for proteins and ultimatively DNA.

[Jimbuna]

The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 12 thousand.

[Ostfriese]

The third nation to have a dreadnought-type battleship under construction (after the United Kingdom and the United States) was Brazil.


HMS Dreadnought, which entered service in 1906, was already obsolete when WW1 broke out just eight years later and was decomissioned in early 1919, after just a little over 12 years of service.
She was the only battleship to ever sink an enemy submarine, Imperial German SM U-29 (sunk by ramming in May 1915).

[Catfish]

If lightning hits sand or rocks, it can be petrified and will create lightning fossils.
Huh? :hmmm:
:06: Please elaborate.
Afaik certain fossils of e.g. sea lilies were thought to have been created by lightning, which is why they were called "Hexenpfennige" (witch pennies) by the people of the time.
Truth is that the lime sediments containing those fossils are harder than the surrounding sand stone and withstood erosion better, and stood out of the landscape. Which is why they were more often hit by lightning.

[Jeff-Groves]

Hold my beer was first talked about on line in the 1990's.

[Platapus]

Lightening fossils are called Fulgurites.


They are not actually fossils

[Jimbuna]

If you drilled a tunnel straight through the Earth, it would take 42 seconds for an average person to fall to the other side.

[Platapus]

If you drilled a tunnel straight through the Earth, it would take 42 seconds for an average person to fall to the other side.


Why would they fall though all the way to the other side?

[Platapus]

To be very technical, in order to find a fossil, you have to dig for it.



Fossil comes from the Latin fossilis which means "obtained by digging"

[Jeff-Groves]

Why would they fall though all the way to the other side?

For the same reason the chicken crossed the road?
:hmmm:

[Catfish]

If you drilled a tunnel straight through the Earth, it would take 42 seconds for an average person to fall to the other side.
Why would they fall though all the way to the other side?
They wouldn't. They would fall through the earth's center and then being held back by the gravitation of the hemisphere they just came from, so they would bounce back and forth until an equlibrium would be reached, at the center of the earth (where all forces pull at them from all sides) :hmmm:

[Platapus]

:up:

[Jimbuna]

The legal owner of one-sixth of the Earth is the King of the United Kingdom.

[Ostfriese]

Ytterby, a small village on Resarö Island in the Stockholm Archipelago (Sweden) holds the distinction of being the place with the most chemical elements being discovered there. Eight of the 90 naturally occuring elements (the other 28 can only be produced artificially) have been discovered first in the Ytterby feldspar mine. Four of these elements are named after Ytterby directly:

Yttrium (Y)
Terbium (Tb)
Erbium (Er)
Ytterbium (Yb)

The four other elements are

Scandium (named after Scandinavia)
Holmium (named after nearby Stockholm)
Thulium (named after Thule,the place from scandinavian mythology)
Gadolinium (named after Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin, who discovered Yttrium in the minerals found in Ytterby in 1794. The main mineral is named after him as well: Gadolinite.)

[Jimbuna]

There are more living things in a teaspoon of soil than there are people on Earth.

[Platapus]

Sea creature fossils have even been found on the top of Mount Everest.


That's gotta make one think

[Jimbuna]

There weren’t always a lot of trees on the Earth. The Earth used to be covered in giant mushrooms.

[Jimbuna]

The Earth used to have a twin planet named Theia, which was about the size of Mars. Theia crashed into the earth. Much of the planet was absorbed

[Jimbuna]

Since at least 500 B.C. no properly educated person has believed the Earth is flat.

[Jeff-Groves]

Since at least 500 B.C. no properly educated person has believed the Earth is flat.

I'd have to argue that!
https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/

:har:

[Platapus]

In 2019, swimmer named Benoît Lecomte swam across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; a distance of 389 miles.

[Jimbuna]

Earth is actually the only place in the solar system where water exists in all three states (solid, liquid, gas).

[Jimbuna]

Thunder is extremely hard to hear if you’re more than twelve miles away from the storm.

[Platapus]

Unlike the better known tugboat, the towboat does not actually tow anything but can only push.



Tomorrow we may learn why they are called towboats when they don't actually tow anything. :03:

[Catfish]

Since at least 500 B.C. no properly educated person has believed the Earth is flat.
I'd have to argue that!
https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/
:har:
Why?
" .. no properly educated person .."
:03:

[Jimbuna]

Philosophers used to believe that thunder was the sound of clouds colliding.

[Rockstar]

1916 propaganda map created by the Allies during World War 1, showing what would happen to the United States if the Central Powers won.

https://i.postimg.cc/cLqJCrxb/IMG-2510.jpg


Bismarck North Dakota still stands!

[Jeff-Groves]

Looks like 'Merica today aside from the Names.
:hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

Looks like 'Merica today aside from the Names.
:hmmm:

Beat me to it :)

[Platapus]

A towboat is not called that because it tows anything, but pushes a set of barges. A set of barges lashed together is called a Tow.

[Jimbuna]

The Andromeda Galaxy is coming towards the Milky Way at a speed of 100 to 140 kilometers a second.

[Platapus]

Maize is not really corn.


Originally, the new crop discovered in the New World became known to European explorers as maize, based on the word ‘mahiz’ which indigenous people used to refer to the big green stalks they were cultivating.



So Maize is the plant, not the fruit.

[Jimbuna]

Jupiter has 67 moons organized into three groups: inner moons, Galilean moons, and outer moons.

[Platapus]

When raw, Lima Beans are toxic to humans, but not to dogs

[Jeff-Groves]

ingesting over 20 apple cores is known to cause instant death.


I'd suppose that is over 20 at a sitting. Not over a life time.
:hmmm:

[Ostfriese]

The Elbe Lateral Canal (German: Elbe-Seitenkanal), which connects the Mittelland Canal (to be precise: near Wolfsburg) and the Elbe River (near Lüneburg southeast of Hamburg), was planned from 1965 and built from 1968 to 1976.

It runs in a north-south direction along the former inner German border, and from the onset was not only planned as a waterway, but also as a tank obstacle. Most of the ports are on the western bank, which also has some access roads and is relatively easily accessible, while the eastern bank has been deliberately built to be difficult to access with heavy vehicles.

All bridges used to have a "Sprengschacht", a manhole/tunnel which allowed easy access to a point where explosives could be placed to destroy the bridges. Many bridges still have these tunnels. All underpasses were equipped with tank obstacles, which also haven't been completely deinstalled yet.

[Platapus]

During WWI, in Europe, there were 2,490 kilometers of trenches dug by both sides.

[Jimbuna]

Jupiter doesn’t have seasons because its axis is only tilted 3.13 degrees.

[Jimbuna]

It takes an hour or less to form a cloud.

[Jeff-Groves]

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is the largest aircraft to ever land on an aircraft carrier.

[Jimbuna]

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is the largest aircraft to ever land on an aircraft carrier.

https://www.google.com/search?q=larg...id:EERe7XEPeuM

[Jimbuna]

People that belong to the religions Hinduism or Buddhism believe that the common Cumulus cloud is the spiritual cousin of elephants.

[Platapus]

People don't normally eat mustard.


Mustard is the plant.


Prepared mustard is the food/condiment.

[Rockstar]

The Most Common Ethnicity of White Americans in Every County

https://i.postimg.cc/WbcCtXGd/IMG-2587.jpg

[Jimbuna]

The crust of Mars is thicker than Earth’s and it only has one piece. (Earth has multiple pieces called tectonic plates.)

[Platapus]

What makes Dijon mustard was invented in 1856. Instead of vinegar, verjuice (the acidic juice of unripe grapes) is used.

[Jimbuna]

The average temperature on Mars is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists believe that the Earth may have had two moons at one point in time.

[Jeff-Groves]

Our Solar system rotates around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy about once every 225-250 million years.

[Jimbuna]

The ashes of Eugene Shoemaker, a famous astronomer and geologist, are sprinkled on the moon’s surface.

[Jeff-Groves]

The concept of the railgun was first introduced by French inventor André Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplée, who created a small working model in 1917.

[Rockstar]

Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction? Medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up.

Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process. The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.

The stairs were also intentionally poorly lit and built to be uneven, making it even more difficult for the attackers to gain any sort of balance or momentum during their fight up to capture the castle.

https://i.postimg.cc/XNHFYs8M/IMG-2603.jpg

[Platapus]

There are so many wildly different German mustards that the phrase “German mustard” is essentially meaningless.

[Jimbuna]

The moon has “earthquakes” called moon-quakes that can change the tides of the ocean.

[Platapus]

Peppercorns are the most used spice in the United States;

[Jimbuna]

The shadows on the moon are a lot darker than the ones on Earth.

[Platapus]

Yellow Mustard is a lie!!!!!


Mustard is naturally a dark yellow/brown.


It is the turmeric added to the mustard product that makes it bright yellow

[Platapus]

On the cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road, Paul McCartney was bare foot because............


https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2Fabbey-road-primary-ced5134ce6b4a1b1fe81e6176377b299.jpg

According to Paul, because it was hot and his feet were uncomfortable in the sandals he was wearing that day, August 8, 1969.


No conspiracy, no hidden meaning.

[Platapus]

The RMS Titanic was big...really big


When it was constructed, it was not only the largest ocean liner it was the largest moving man-made object in the history of mankind.

[mapuc]

In 1917, a woman in New York sued her husband after he had put her over his knee and spanked her.
He defended himself by saying that it was because she smoked four packs of cigarettes a day.
The judge acquitted the man as he believed that "spanking is the best cure for smoking".

Markus

[Platapus]

The RMS Titanic was big...really big


When she was launched, over 20 tons of lubricant were applied to the slipway to ease the ship’s transition into the water.

[Platapus]

The RMS Titanic was big...really big


Just the rivets used in her construction weighed 2,400,000 pounds!

[Platapus]

The RMS Titanic was big...really big


The boilers were 15 feet 9 inches in diameter and varied in length from 11 feet 9 inches and 20 feet long, each weighing 91.5 tons and capable of holding 48.5 tons of water.


Oh, and there were 29 of them.



It took 159 separate furnaces to fire them all.

[Platapus]

The first US warship to enter Tokyo Bay for the surrender was the USS Cogswell DD-651



On board was Lt Jg Alan Shepard.... future astronaut.

[Platapus]

The RMS Titanic was big...really big


At standard cruising power, almost 250,000 pounds of ash from the 159 furnaces was dumped overboard per day!

[Platapus]

Using computer simulations, from the time the lookout on the RMS Titanic first saw the iceberg to the moment of impact was 37 seconds


It has been determined that 15 seconds could have saved the Titanic


Sighting the iceberg 15 seconds earlier would have allowed the Titanic to avoid the iceberg


Sighting the iceberg 15 seconds later would have caused the Titanic to hit the iceberg head on damaging the bow compartments but would have stayed afloat.

[Platapus]

The first movie about the sinking of the Titanic was made and shown 29 days after the sinking


Saved from the Titanic starred Dorothy Gibson, an actress who was on board the actual Titanic and lived to—well, act about it.

[Jeff-Groves]

Cats can be right pawed or left pawed.
Male cats are more likely to be left pawed and female cats are more likely to be right clawed.

[Platapus]

Charles Richter, of the Richter scale was an avid nudist.

[Platapus]

The average cumulus cloud weighs roughly 1.1 million pounds.

[Platapus]

King Edward II of England declared in 1324 that the inch was the length of three grains of barley arranged end to end.

[Platapus]

The original Batman was not a superhero but a unit of mass that originated in the ancient city of Babylon that is equivalent to 7.7 kilograms or 16.7 pounds. The batman was used for trade well into the Middle Ages.

[Ostfriese]

The English word "dollar", among others the name of the US American currency, is derived from the low German "daler" (also spelled "dahler"), which itself is a variant of the high German "Taler" (alternative spellings "Thaler", "Thaller", "Toler"), which was a common silver coin in the states of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE).
"Daler" was adopted into English in the middle of the 16th century, and by the end of the century had changed to "dollar".

[Jimbuna]

Earthquakes cause about 8 thousands deaths a year.

[Platapus]

How big is a Slug?


About 15 Kilograms





slug, a unit of mass in the U.S. customary and British Imperial systems of units. The term originally referred to a slab of metal.

[Jimbuna]

There are more earthquakes in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth than the Southern Hemisphere.

[Ostfriese]

68% of Earth's landmass are in the northern hemisphere.

[Jimbuna]

There are four types of faults in the Earth: normal, thrust, reverse, and strike-up.

[Platapus]

Can you drink a Buttload of beer?


Are you sure?


A Butt is a measure of alcoholic liquids equal to 126 Gallons.

[Jimbuna]

The longest earthquake recorded in Earth’s history was in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake was in 2004 and it lasted nearly ten minutes.

[Platapus]

How bitter do you like your beer?


The bitterness of beer is due to the amount of an acid in hops known as isohumulone.


Isohumulone is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBU).


One IBU is equal to one part per million of Isohumulone.





So check your IPAs for IBUs

[Ostfriese]

Despite being the third most common element in earth's crust (after oxygen and silicon), Aluminium was only discovered in 1825.

[Jimbuna]

The largest earthquake recorded in the United States was in Alaska in 1964. The earthquake was a 9.2 on the Richter Scale.

[Jimbuna]

An earthquake has the potential to release hundreds times more energy than the atom bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

[Platapus]

Do you know watt sucks?


The Air Watt, developed by the ASTM International, measuresa vacuum’s suction power in terms of its airflow rate and suction pressure.

[Jimbuna]

There are three parts to an atom: protons, neutrons, and electrons. They each balance each other out so the atom doesn’t break apart.

[Jimbuna]

The word “atom” comes from the Greek words for “uncuttable” or “undivided”.

[Platapus]

We know what a byte is and what a bit is, but what comes in between?


A Nibble is 4 bits or 1/2 byte


A Crumb is 2 bits or 1/2 a Nibble..

[Jeff-Groves]

We know what a byte is and what a bit is, but what comes in between?


A Nibble is 4 bits or 1/2 byte


A Crumb is 2 bits or 1/2 a Nibble..
Answering the question?
Sometimes the Wife, sometimes me.
:har:

[Jimbuna]

The human body is made up of an average of seven billion atoms.

[Platapus]

A puff is an informal name for a picofarad (pF), which describes an object’s ability to hold electrical charge.

[Jimbuna]

The average diameter of an atom is one tenth of a billionth of a meter.

[Platapus]

"The speed of light is one foot per nanosecond.

[Sean C]

The average diameter of an atom is one tenth of a billionth of a meter.

I once signed up for a Wikipedia account just to tell the author(s) of a particular article that they had specified the location of a city in degrees with fifteen decimal places - a precision of 0.1 nano-meters, or the average width of a single atom.

[Ostfriese]

"The speed of light is one foot per nanosecond.

That‘s a very rough approximation

[Jimbuna]

Atoms are composed of even smaller particles called quarks and leptons.

[Platapus]

That‘s a very rough approximation


Since the speed of light is seldom constant, I would agree

[Ostfriese]

Since the speed of light is seldom constant, I would agree

Even for light speed in a vacuum it‘s a rather rough approximation :)

[Platapus]

Even for light speed in a vacuum it‘s a rather rough approximation :)


I would agree with that also

[Jimbuna]

If the sun was filled up with Earths, you could fit about one million Earths inside the sun.

[Platapus]

It is common to announce that a horse won a race by a number of lengths. But what exactly is a length?


A horse length is 8 feet.

[Jimbuna]

It takes an average of eight minutes and twenty seconds for light from the sun to reach the Earth.

[Ostfriese]

All imperial units received a definition based on SI-units, usually decades ago. This means that even the Americans are using the metric system (and have been doing so since at least the 1960s), it has only been cloaked behind a thin veil of imperialism :D

[Ostfriese]

It's usually pointless to call the fire brigade when a cat sits in a tree - wherever cats climb up to they can climb down from as well.


Fire stations answer these call only because they'll suffer bad press if they don't.

[Jimbuna]

The sun is 4.5 billion years old, but it’s only at about middle age for stars.

[Platapus]

Technically, if two horses are racing neck to neck, one can be as much as 2 feet in front of the other.

[Jeff-Groves]

Most LEO's will turn a blind eye to Informants commiting crimes and actually help protect them.

[Platapus]

However, in boat racing, winning by a length means that the boat was 62 feet in front of the other boat

[Ostfriese]

At its boiling point (100°C) pure water has a pH of 6.14, but is still neutral.

[Jimbuna]

Volcanoes are actually holes in the surface of the Earth. These punctures in the crust let magma from the core of the Earth bubble to the surface.

[Jeff-Groves]

If you shrunk Earth down to the size of a golf ball, it would be smoother then any golf ball ever made.

[Jimbuna]

The biggest known volcano in the solar system is on Mars. It’s about 373 miles (600 kilometers) wide and 13 miles (21 kilometers) high.

[Platapus]

An American Football field is actually 120 yards long. Each end zone is 10 yards deep

[Jimbuna]

There is a unique volcanic rock called pumice that can float in water.

[Platapus]

In most US cities, a city block is between 1⁄16 and 1⁄8 mile. But in Manhattan, a block running North South is 1/20th of a mile.

[Ostfriese]

The fire brigade of Paris, France, is the largest fire service in Europe, and it's actually a military unit, belonging to the French Army's engineering arm, and it's commander is a brigadier general.

[Jimbuna]

In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

[Platapus]

Hey, Siri, How big is a Siriometer?


A Siriometer is equal to 1,000,000 AUs and represents twice the distance between the Earth and the star Sirius. It is about 15.8 light-years

[Ostfriese]

More than 95% of all firefighters in Germany and Austria are volunteers.

[Jimbuna]

There are waterfalls under the ocean’s surface.

[Platapus]

A cubit was an imprecise measurement of about .5 meters. It was subdivided into 6-7 palms which was the width a man's hand not including the thumb.

[Jimbuna]

You can find more remains and artifacts under the ocean than in all of the world’s museums combined.

[Platapus]

In North America, a Square is a measurement equal to 100 square feet. It is most often used in industries such as roofing and roofing material

[Jimbuna]

There are around 500 species of sharks living in the ocean today, even though about 80 percent grow to be less than 1.6 meters long and are unable to hurt people.

[Jeff-Groves]

GPS satellites clocks tick faster then here on Earth.
Thus the need to modify the signals time stamps.
It's an Einstein thing.

[Ostfriese]

GPS satellites clocks tick faster then here on Earth.
Thus the need to modify the signals time stamps.
It's an Einstein thing.


Relativistic effects due to high speeds (slows clock down, the closer to light speed the slower it becomes) and weak gravity (increases clock speed). The clocks run about 38 microseconds faster per day.

[Ostfriese]

The word "Whisk(e)y" is derived from the Gaelic word "uisce" - water.

[Jeff-Groves]

Relativistic effects due to high speeds (slows clock down, the closer to light speed the slower it becomes) and weak gravity (increases clock speed). The clocks run about 38 microseconds faster per day.
Someone else who pays attention!
:salute:

[Platapus]

The Chirality of dice indicates whether it is a counterclockwise or clockwise die


Clockwise dice are more common in the west and counterclockwise dice are more common in China

[Jimbuna]

Around 50 to 60 percent of life on Earth is found underneath the ocean’s surface.

[Platapus]

In Ireland, before the 19th century, a "cow's grass" was a measurement used by farmers to indicate the size of their fields. A cow's grass was equal to the amount of land that could produce enough grass to support a cow.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists have named and classified around 1.5 million species of sea creatures, and there is as much as 50 million species we have yet to discover.

[Platapus]

In the animated TV show The Flintstones, Wilma's maiden name was Pebbles

[Jimbuna]

The average depth of the ocean is 3,795 meters.

[Jimbuna]

There are tons of asteroids in our solar system. One of them, Asteroid 243 Ida, even has it’s own moon.

[Platapus]

The cartoon The Flintstones was the first TV show to address infertility.

[Jimbuna]

One of the moons of Saturn, called Mimas, is heavily cratered. This creates an odd appearance similar to the Death Star in Star Wars!

[Platapus]

A morgen ("morning" in Dutch and German) was approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in the morning hours of a day. This was = 0.856532 hectares.

[Jimbuna]

If the planet Saturn was placed in water, it would float.

[Platapus]

If you have an acre-foot, you don't need to see your podiatrist.



An acre-foot is a unit of volume. It is defined by the volume of one acre of surface area to a depth of one foot. it is 325,851 US gal.

[Jimbuna]

The dwarf planet Ceres (located in the asteroid belt) contains more fresh water than all of Earth’s fresh water combined.

[Platapus]

So a Short Ton is exactly 2000 pounds
A metric Ton (tonne) is exactly 1000kg


So what is a long ton?


Well a long ton is equal to 2,240 pounds. Why?


Well, it's a British thing


A long ton is equal to exactly 20 Long Hundredweight (cwt)
Each CWT is equal to exactly 8 Stone
A stone is equal to 14 pounds... even if it is no longer supposed to be used.



:doh:

[Jimbuna]

There are more life forms living on the surface of your skin than there are people inhabiting the Earth.

[Jimbuna]

The skin of an average human replaces itself 900 times during one lifetime.

[Platapus]

The original Wright Flyer was asymmetrical.


The right wing was 4 inches longer than the left wing.


This was to compensate for the motor weighing 30 pounds more than the single human pilot

[Rockstar]

The film MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (2003) changed the Royal Navy's adversaries from Americans in the War of 1812 to French in the Napoleonic Wars because producers feared alienating U.S. audiences.


It would have still been an excellent movie no matter what flags were flying, I’d still pay full price to watch it.

[Jimbuna]

The average person produces about 25 thousand quarts of saliva in a lifetime. That about enough to fill two swimming pools.

[Platapus]

Wilbur Wright holds an unfortunate aviation record.


He was the first one to crash.


On 14 Dec 03, Wilbur won a coin toss to be the first to fly the Wright Flyer. Due to the limitations of the design, he quickly stalled and crashed after a flight of 3.5 seconds.


After repairs, it was Orville's turn on on 17 Dec 03 was able to make the first non crash flight.


But was it truly a controlled flight?????

[Jimbuna]

Within three days after you die, the enzymes that help you digest food will start to eat you.

[Jimbuna]

In all of human history, about 100 billion people have died.

[Platapus]

There is some disagreement on who actually made the first powered flight, but official records list the Wright Flyer made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier than air powered and controlled aircraft on December 17, 1903.

But was it really a controlled flight?

The first four flight durations were not controlled by the desires of the pilot but the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft.

The first three flights of 12, 12, and 15 seconds all ended when the plane impacted the earth -- not when the pilot decided to end the flight. On the fourth flight of 59 seconds, the flight ended up by impacting the earth and damaging some of the flight surfaces.

Additionally, on all four flights no attempts were made to turn the aircraft due to aerodynamic instability.

It was not until 20 Sep 04, almost a year after their first flights when a different aircraft was capable of executing turns without crashing.

By that time Richard Pearse from New Zealand had made several flights in front of different witnesses.

But then when discussing a technological "first" determining who truly was first of often a matter of viewpoint and who is doing the recording.

[Jimbuna]

The tallest snowman was built in 2008 in Bethel, Maine. The snowman, nicknamed “Olympia”, was 37.2 meters (122 feet) tall.

[Platapus]

"I will be there in a shake"


Well if you tell that to a nuclear engineer or an astrophysicist then you would be there in about 10 nano seconds

[Jimbuna]

The first artificial snow was created in March of 1949, by Wayne Pierce, Art Hunt, and Dave Richey. The first snow maker was patented in 1961 by Alden Hanson.

[Platapus]

Hang on a moment here




A moment was a medieval unit of time. The movement of a shadow on a sundial covered 40 moments in a solar hour. A moment is about 90 seconds.

[Jimbuna]

It also snows on Mars and Venus, even though the snow on Venus is actually flakes of metal.

[Jimbuna]

The average snowflake is made up of 180 billion molecules of water, has six sides, and falls at a speed of 3.1 miles (5 kilometers) per hour.

[Platapus]

Wait a second


The term "second" comes from the "second minute division of an hour" meaning 1/60th of 1/60th of a hour. To measure smaller divisions in either time or degrees there are "thirds" (1/60th of 1/60th of 1/60 of a degree) and yes even "fourths" (1/60th of 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/60 of a degree)




These units are occasionally used in astronomy to denote angles

[Jimbuna]

Human hands have actually evolved to be able to do more damage with strike on our fists. Also, our faces have evolved to take a punch.

[Jimbuna]

The human brain is gradually shrinking. We may be getting smarter, but are brains are becoming more compact.

[Platapus]

Why is it called a World Series?


The real reason behind the name is thanks to Barney Dreyfuss who was the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1903, he wrote to the owner of the Boston Red Sox challenging them to a ‘World’s Championship Series’. The Pirates were the best team in the National League and the Red Sox were the best in the American League.


The games went ahead and Boston won the series five games to three. Over time, the 'World’s Championship Series' name has been shortened to the World Series and has been played every year apart from 1904 and 1994.

[Jimbuna]

There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere right now than there has been in the last 800,000 years.

[Platapus]

A micromort is a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death.

[Jimbuna]

Since 1870, the sea levels around the globe have risen 8 inches due to ice melting at the polar caps.

[Platapus]

The space between your eyebrows is a glabella. That’s also the name of the bone underneath that space that connects your brow ridges.

[Jimbuna]

There were 150 glaciers in Montana Glacier National Park in the year 1910 when it was established. Now there are only 25.

[Platapus]

Asbestos used to be a common sight on film sets. The carcinogenic mineral was a common substitute for snowflakes in film making until shortly after World War II.

[Jimbuna]

The reason why gold shines so brightly, even after being buried under the earth, is because very few chemicals found in the earth can attack it.

[Aktungbby]

There were 150 glaciers in Montana Glacier National Park in the year 1910 when it was established. Now there are only 25....actually there were 26; but it was a hot day on my camping trip, so I picked up one nearby and put it in my CocaCola...:O:

[Ostfriese]

The reason why gold shines so brightly, even after being buried under the earth, is because very few chemicals found in the earth can attack it.


Well, actually that's not completely correct. Gold shines because it is a metal - all metals shine.

However, it stays shiny because it is a noble metal and doesn't react very much. To be more precise: Gold has a very high electrochemical potential, which means that the state of "atom" (neutrally charged) is by far more preferred compared to the ionic state.
Gold-based accumulators can easily achieve a voltage of 4 Volts and above (compared to the 3.7 lithium ion accumulators can achieve), a voltage they can maintain throughout the entire charge (unlike batteries, which cannot maintain their nominal 1.5V voltage), they are extremely reliable - but they are also extremely expensive.

Gold is so soft that just by mechanically rolling it a foil no more than a few hundred atoms thick can be created (thickness of ~1µm). In this state gold is transparent.

When gold is the product of an electrochemical reaction it often comes in very small particles (a colloidal suspension). Colloidal suspensions of gold are bright red ("Purple of Cassius").

[Jimbuna]

Gold is rarer than diamonds.

[Platapus]

Maine is the U.S. state closest to Africa.

[Jimbuna]

About 80 percent of the world’s fresh water originates in the mountains.

[Platapus]

Why is bubble gum mostly pink in color?


Bubble gum got its distinctive pink color because the original recipe produced a dingy gray colored gum, so red dye (diluted to pink) was added. Why red dye? That was the only dye the inventor had on hand at the time.

[Jimbuna]

The tallest mountain in the world is Mount Everest, which is 29,029 feet high. The tallest mountain in the known universe is 84,480 feet high.

[Exocet25fr]

^

Mars Olympus Mons :03:

[Platapus]

Those tiny "seeds" on the outside of a strawberry aren't seeds--those are actually little tiny fruits!

[Jimbuna]

The world’s highest unclimbed mountain is Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan. It is 24,982 feet tall, and it is the 40th tallest mountain in the world.

[Platapus]

Bedding was such a luxury in the Middle Ages that blankets and sheets were written into wills.

[Jimbuna]

If Mount Kea in Hawaii were measured from it’s base under the ocean, it would be four thousand feet taller than Mount Everest.

[Platapus]

Got change for a dollar? You probably do


There are 293 ways to make change for a US dollar.

[Jimbuna]

Because of the constant movement of the tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface, Mount Everest grows four millimeters taller every year.

[Platapus]

Scottish band The Bay City Rollers chose their name after sticking a pin in a map of America, which landed on the Michigan city.

[Jimbuna]

About one third of the Earth’s land surface is covered by deserts, or partial deserts.

[Aktungbby]

the Sphinx of Giza is a yardang!:yep::know::|\\

[Platapus]

The German version of the term “Average Joe” is Otto Normalverbraucher, which translates to “Otto normal consumer.”

[Ostfriese]

"Otto Normalverbraucher" is actually the name of the main character of "Berliner Ballade" ("The Berliner" in English), one of the earliest German post-war films. It's a satire about life in Berlin right after WWII as viewed through the eyes of Otto.


The expression Platapus has mentioned is derived from this character. Otto Normalverbraucher was played by Gert Fröbe, who would later gain international fame as an antagonist of James Bond: Auric Goldfinger.

[Jimbuna]

The largest desert in the world is found in Antarctica. (It doesn’t have to be hot to be considered a desert. It simply has to lose more moisture than it gains.)

[Platapus]

Want some berries on your cereal in the morning?


Eggplants are berries.

[Ostfriese]

Want some berries on your cereal in the morning?


Eggplants are berries.


While strawberries are not. :D

[Catfish]

Want some berries on your cereal in the morning?
Eggplants are berries.
While strawberries are not. :D
Nuts! :wah:

[Platapus]

Wendy's founder Dave Thomas dropped out of high school but picked up his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most Likely to Succeed.

[Jimbuna]

In the Atacama Desert in Chile, there are parts where it has never rained (or at least not that has been recorded). Some scientists believe that some of these portions have been deserts for 40 million years.

[Platapus]

In 1953, it took 27 hours to create one PEEPS Marshmallow Chick. Today, that same process takes just six minutes.

[Jimbuna]

The most dangerous tree in the world is the manchineel tree found in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The tree’s trunk is covered with sap that causes skin to blister and can blind you if it gets in your eyes.

[Platapus]

China owns all of the pandas in the world. They rent them out for about $1 million a year.

[Jimbuna]

Da Vinci created a rule of trees that states if you put all the branches of a tree together it will equal the thickness of the trunk. This rule appears to be true.

[Platapus]

There's a basketball court above the Supreme Court. It's known as the Highest Court in the Land.

[Jimbuna]

The deforestation of our planet would actually reduce global warming, but there are more benefits to trees than just that, so we keep them.

[Rockstar]

The deforestation of our planet would actually reduce global warming, but there are more benefits to trees than just that, so we keep them.

Whoever said that it’s a stupid and very dangerous statement. Especially considering the consequences when the great multitude of brain dead stupids will now equate further destruction of the rain forests and other plant life to saving the planet. Now mining companies, energy drillers, farmers and land developers can tell them it’s for their own good and continue to destroy entire ecosystems with their blessings.

[Jimbuna]

There is a festival held every six years in Japan called the Onbashira festival. During this festival, men ride logs down the side of a mountain to prove their bravery.

[Platapus]

Ornithologists often use Cheetos to study behavior in crows. Along with being easy to spot because of their bright orange color, they’re also one of a crow’s favorite treats.

[Jimbuna]

The names of all the continents end with the same letter with which they start.

[Platapus]

The names of all the continents end with the same letter with which they start.




North America?

[Platapus]

During WWI, German measles were called "liberty measles" and dachshunds became "liberty hounds."


(facepalm)


But then we had Freedom Fries too.

[Aktungbby]

Ornithologists often use Cheetos to study behavior in crows. Along with being easy to spot because of their bright orange color, they’re also one of a crow’s favorite treats.Dieting ravens quothe: Nevermore! https://www.quora.com/Which-is-more-intelligent-a-raven-or-a-crow

[Ostfriese]

The names of all the continents end with the same letter with which they start.


Only in the English language.

[Ostfriese]

For a modern native speaker of English it's virtually impossible to understand Old English (spoken before 1066) without a considerable amount of studying.

[Eisenwurst]

Gauguin worked as a Tarpaulin salesman in Denmark. It wasn't a success....he couldn't speak Danish, and the Danes didn't want French tarpaulins.

So he said "Screw this ( in French ) I'm going to Tahiti and become a famous artist"......And he did. :)

[Jimbuna]

Australia is the largest island and the smallest continent of the world. It only contains one country.

[Platapus]

Ben Franklin’s formal education ended at 10 years old.

[Jimbuna]

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and least populated continent in the world. It also is the only continent that contains no countries.

[Platapus]

Sloths may be the only mammals that don’t fart.

[Jimbuna]

The largest seed in the world is the double coconut. It measures up to 1.6 feet (50 cm) around the middle.

[Platapus]

Bones found at Seymour Island indicate that, 37 to 40 million years ago, penguins stood at a formidable 6 feet tall and weighed 250 pounds.

[Jimbuna]

There were frozen seeds found in Canada, thought to be over ten thousand years old, and when they were defrosted and planted, they still grew.

[Jimbuna]

If a seed is planted upside down, it will still grow right side up because seeds can sense gravity.

[Platapus]

Astronauts, in orbit, can't burp

[Jimbuna]

Around the Hudson Bay in Quebec, Canada, there is less gravity than on most of the other parts of Earth.

[Platapus]

The sound of the roaring lion over the MGM logo is actually a tiger.

[Jimbuna]

In the movie Apollo 13, the zero-gravity scenes are real. The crew filmed about four hours of material in 612 parabola flights.

[Platapus]

Lake Hillier in Australia is nearly as salty as the Dead Sea. Scientists suspect that some salt-loving bacteria (chiefly Salinibacter ruber) and algae give the lake its pink hue.

[Jimbuna]

The reason why NASA hasn’t brought any birds to space is because birds need gravity to swallow.

[Platapus]

The reason why NASA hasn’t brought any birds to space is because birds need gravity to swallow.


No, but the Russians did in 1990 aboard the MIR space station


https://youtu.be/swBgv4_Ka2s