NationStates Jolt Archive

I thought it would be a nice break from religion and politics if i started a trivia thread. So:

In 1982 a man commited suicide by using a power drill on his head. It took 8 holes.

In 1982 a man commited suicide by using a power drill on his head. It took 8 holes.

That's what I call dedicated.

Fairbanks, Alaska, is the home fo the World Ice Art Championships.

You can electrocute yourself by pissing on the electrified rail of the NYC subway. The charge will travel up the stream and bingo.

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet became heated to the point of firing and the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)

your skin weighs twice as much as your brain

You can electrocute yourself by pissing on the electrified rail of the NYC subway. The charge will travel up the stream and bingo.

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet becoming heated to the point of firing earlier the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)

firstly u would almost have to be kneeling for your urine stream to remain intack logn enough for a current to pass up it.

the 2nd one was also proven to wrong, ow how i love those myth busters.

hmmm usless fact

Pluto takes 247.7 earth years to revolve around the sun

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet became heated to the point of firing and the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)

Lewis Black does a great bit about that guy in one of his acts.

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet became heated to the point of firing and the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)
You mean fuse, and that was partly disproven in mythbusters. Firstly, it was a .22. Secondly, you must create a short in the system that would blow a normal fuse in order to trigger the bullet. Thirdly, it is unlikely the bullet would have enough force to blow through the steering column, let alone seriously injure the person given that there is barely any acceleration time due to the lack of a gun barrel.

You mean fuse, and that was partly disproven in mythbusters. Firstly, it was a .22. Secondly, you must create a short in the system that would blow a normal fuse in order to trigger the bullet. Thirdly, it is unlikely the bullet would have enough force to blow through the steering column, let alone seriously injure the person given that there is barely any acceleration time due to the lack of a gun barrel.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/fuse.asp

False.

firstly u would almost have to be kneeling for your urine stream to remain intack logn enough for a current to pass up it.
No you wouldn't. It depends on a couple of factors. The amperage on those rails is damned high. Depending on how high the voltage is, and how badly you have to pee it's quite possible.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/fuse.asp

False.
The story's false, but if you short the system badly enough you can cause the bullet to go off. They played with it on mythbusters and that's what happened.

firstly u would almost have to be kneeling for your urine stream to remain intack logn enough for a current to pass up it.

But mythbusters said you could zap yourself by peeing on the 'third rail' (what ever that is). I know it can't happen in Australia as the train's power is conducted via overhead wires.

Pluto takes 247.7 earth years to revolve around the sun

More astronomy fun: a Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year.

Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman are friends.

China executes the most people in the world annually, about 1000. The US executes about 85.

In the game of scrabble, a 'F' is worth four points.

Oak trees grow about 20 years before they drop acorns.

There exists a country song entitled "If love were oil, I'd be a quart low."

The precursor to the snowboard was the snurfer.

Winston Churchill was half american.

Strawberries and Blackberries are not actually berries, they're aggregate fruits.

Donald Duck was banned in Finland, because he didn't wear pants.
The Hawaiian alphabet is 12 letters long.
Mrs. Bates's dress in Psycho is cornflower blue.
When he died, Franz Kafka ordered a friend to burn his remaining unpublished work. He didn't, and instead published the lot (and probably made a mint in the process).

Turtles can breathe through their butts

The average person eats 8 spiders in their lifetime ... while asleep.

the average person farts 200 times per day

The average person eats 8 spiders in their lifetime ... while asleep.

Bah. I eat that a day. Whilst awake. I win.

A dolphin, when sleeping, rests half its brain at a time (otherwise they'd drown).

A cockroach can survive for a week without a head - it eventually dies of starvation.

And for a really random one - despite what Cyberlife (the company that made the virtual life series 'Creatures') would have you believe, sodium thiosulphate cures hydrocyanide poisoning, not cyanide poisoning. (well, relieves symptoms which can otherwise be fatal... not quite the same as 'cures', but meh).

The average person eats 8 spiders in their lifetime ... while asleep.


OMG :eek: ......I did NOT need to know that. Splendid....now I will be plugging all orafaces before I go to sleep except for a tiny breathing hole too small for a spider to crawl in. Sigh....



The Greek word "gymnasium" means "to exercise naked". In Ancient Greece, gymnasts wore no clothes.

A lot of this is actually helpful to many people.

China has more English speakers than the United States.

Though kiwi birds lay eggs that equal 15-20% of their body mass, this is not the largest egg in proportion to body size. Some small sea birds have to deal with eggs up to 30% of their weight.

The duckbill platypus can store as many as six hundred worms in the pouches of its cheeks.

Birds semen is longer than their body

Al Gore invented the internet

[QUOTE=I V Stalin]Donald Duck was banned in Finland, because he didn't wear pants.


What about Winnie the Pooh? He snuck in under the radar?

The average person eats 8 spiders in their lifetime ... while asleep.

Yeah- the spiders are thirsty and go to drink your saliva.

D. Duck was not banned in Finland, ever. http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.htm

Stalin is trying to smear us again. :D

No matter how far an ant falls it wont die
The Sphinx overlooks a KFC
Mozart composed a song called lick my ass.
Europe is the only continent without a desert.
111111111 X 111111111 = 12345678987654321
One day crabs will rule the world
God and Jesus are not the same entity or a part of the same entity.
I'm a pervert, as if you already didn't know that.

The longest ever pizza delivery was from an Eagle Boys (since taken over by pizza hutt) in Christchurch in the south island of New Zealand, to Scott Base in Antarctica.

But mythbusters said you could zap yourself by peeing on the 'third rail' (what ever that is). I know it can't happen in Australia as the train's power is conducted via overhead wires.

3rd rail, is the rail carrying the electricity. 2 rails for the wheels.

You would have to be pretty close because the surface tension on water condenses the urine into droplets, and not a steady stream. For the electricity to arc between droplets, it would have to be so powerful that it would arc from the ground to you, without any urine present.

A goldfish will turn silver if left in a dark room for longer than three days.

Coke will help loosen a rusty nut and bolt if a soaked rag is draped over the assembly for 1 day.

Sideshow Bobs middlename is Underdunk.

All of these are types of apple except for 2 of them:
Arkansas Black, Bonza, Braeburn, Cameo, Cortland, Cripps Pink, Crispin (aka Mutsu), Dayton, Empire, Estar, Fuji, Gala, Gates, Ginger Gold, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Grimes Golden, Gravenstein, Haralson, Honeycrisp, Idared, Jobs, Jonathan, Jonafree, Jonagold, MacIntosh, Macoun, McShay, Newtown, Pacific Rose, Paulared, Pink Lady, Prima, Priscilla, Priam, Red Delicious, Redfree, Red Rome, Russet, Sir Prize, Spartan, Starr, Stayman, Washington Red, William's Pride, Winesap/Stayman, York Imperial,

Which ones aren't really apples?

Two is the only number that is both even and prime.

Which ones aren't really apples?

Dayton, and Jonafree.

Dayton, and Jonafree.

'fraid not, keep trying... :)

There is a small town in Norway named Hell.

There is another town by the name of Dombås (if you're not Scandinavian, try saying it aloud.)

A supernova can reach a temperature of over 3 billion degrees celsius.

Koalas have 2 penises.

Robots have recently been invented at the UCLA that are less than one mm long and walk using human muscle tissue.

A supernova can reach a temperature of over 3 billion degrees celsius.

Koalas have 2 penises.

Robots have recently been invented at the UCLA that are less than one mm long and walk using human muscle tissue.


do you have a link about the koala bear? I'm not disputing you-Id just like to read that. I googled it and came back empty handed.

'Screeched' is the longest word you can pronounce with one syllable (depending on accent?)

Only the top row of a qwerty alphabet layout is needed to type the word "typewriter".

Secretary is the longest word typed with only the left hand (if you've been taught how to type 'correctly' that is)

A dolphin, when sleeping, rests half its brain at a time (otherwise they'd drown).

A cockroach can survive for a week without a head - it eventually dies of starvation.

And for a really random one - despite what Cyberlife (the company that made the virtual life series 'Creatures') would have you believe, sodium thiosulphate cures hydrocyanide poisoning, not cyanide poisoning. (well, relieves symptoms which can otherwise be fatal... not quite the same as 'cures', but meh).

Actually, a cockroach can survive up to 9 days without a head.

The longest word with one hand is stewardesses

The longest word with one hand is stewardesses
:confused:

Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman are friends.

China executes the most people in the world annually, about 1000. The US executes about 85.

In the game of scrabble, a 'F' is worth four points.

Oak trees grow about 20 years before they drop acorns.

There exists a country song entitled "If love were oil, I'd be a quart low."

The precursor to the snowboard was the snurfer.

Winston Churchill was half american.

Strawberries and Blackberries are not actually berries, they're aggregate fruits.


of those 85 people, over half of them are executed in Harris County, Texas

there is a town in pennsylvania called intercourse, pennsylvania. if you take a wrong turn on the way to intercourse, pennsylvania, you end up in blue balls, pennsylvania.


twenty percent of all people in the US believe that they are in the top one percent of incomes.


france recovered from their losses sustained from the world wars no more than 2 years ago.


in england there were no men between the ages of 20 and 30 between the world wars.

Theaters only make about a penny per dollar from ticket prices

US citizens use a firearm to stop a crime 2.5 million times a year without firing a shot.

theres a town (village?) in Donegal called Muff

theres a town (village?) in Donegal called Muff

Do they have a diving team?

Humans and elephants are the only twp animals capable of standing on their heads.

theres a town (village?) in Donegal called Muff
There is one in Colorado named Beaver.

Argh shit i was going to dedicate my 2000 post to Tink but i used it on Beaver Colerado. :(

No you wouldn't. It depends on a couple of factors. The amperage on those rails is damned high. Depending on how high the voltage is, and how badly you have to pee it's quite possible.

Most third rails are DC, so they won't jump at all, but can still hurt a lot if you manage to create a circuit with them.
Overhead wires, on the other hand, are usually AC, as I've been told, so you really, really, really don't want to get close to them at all, otherwise you will end up very badly injured.

in england there were no men between the ages of 20 and 30 between the world wars.[/QUOTE]

not true i'm afraid

Humans and elephants are the only twp animals capable of standing on their heads.
Primates maybe...

:confused:
I think he/she meant longest word that can be typed with one hand.

I visit the toilet twice in a morning - IS a fact

'Screeched' is the longest word you can pronounce with one syllable (depending on accent?)strengths

theres a town (village?) in Donegal called MuffThere's a town in California called Big Pine

in england there were no men between the ages of 20 and 30 between the world wars.

That beggars belief somewhat, Especially considering there were more then twenty years between the wars.

I hate these threads. They just perpetuate stupid myths and urban legends.
(I'm just waiting for the "duck's echo", "hanging munchkin", and "WoO/DSotM" nyths to show up. They always do. :rolleyes:

MythBusters: Third Rail

This was an old one, but it had one interesting segment: peeing on the third rail. Adam cast a mannequin out of the ballistics gel they always break out and gave it a bladder full of urine. He also measured the rate of his own urination in order to choose an appropriate tube to create the urine stream.

They then charged up a third rail and set the urine stream loose with the dramatic result of... *drum beat* ... absolutely nothing. Turns out that the urine stream breaks up too much by the time it reaches the rail that the charge cannot follow the urine upstream. They tried increasing the stream size, and still nothing. In the end, they showed that you can get electricity to travel up the urine, but only if you were really close to the rail.

So kids, when you pee on the third rail, make sure you don't kneel down next to the rail.

http://kwc.org/blog/archives/2004/2004-01-21.mythbusters_third_rail.html


Unca Cece (http://www.straightdope.com/) and the good folks at Snopes (http://snopes.com/) are your friends.

Coke will help loosen a rusty nut and bolt if a soaked rag is draped over the assembly for 1 day.

Mythbusters also disproved that one. All coke is good for is shinning up copper pennies (and it doesn't do that to well either).

On average, 13 people get killed every year by vending machines.

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Boneparte had only one testicle.

in 1996 (or 1999 i cant remember which), there were more abortions in atlantic city than there were live births.


the University of South Carolina and the University of Southern California share the same abbreviation (USC). their mascots are the Cocks and Trojans respectively.

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Boneparte had only one testicle.
Did they share it? Or did Hitler simply take Napoleon's?

Napoleons penis was also sold to an American urolygist for over 6000 british pounds.

All babies are born knowing instinctively how to swim (dogpaddle). They usually forget this ability a few months later.

Most boys by the age of 6 (and girls by the age of 5) reach 2/3 of their adult height.

You can donate up to 40% of your liver, and expect it to grow back moderately well.

A man in Poland ingested 3 times the lethal dose of alcohol...and survived.

Most boys by the age of 6 (and girls by the age of 5) reach 2/3 of their adult height.

You can donate up to 40% of your liver, and expect it to grow back moderately well.

A man in Poland ingested 3 times the lethal dose of alcohol...and survived.
That liver thing is wrong, when you donate it you donate the bigger half, which means at least 50%.

The longest recorded flight by a chicken was 13 seconds.

US citizens use a firearm to stop a crime 2.5 million times a year without firing a shot.During the years 2000-2004, my mother used The Voice™ & The Look™ to stop an average of 20 crimes a day.

If the salt in the sea could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth's land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet thick, about the height of a 40 story office building. (http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/salty_ocean.htm)

Man has landed on the moon six times and spent almost 300 hours on the moons surface (not all EVA). Yet man has visited the deepest part of the worlds oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana's Trench, just once. In 1960. For 20 minutes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Trieste)

(these are from a trivia contest I compete in)

Question:in the book " the magic school bus inside the earth" miss frisals class comes up with a rather extsesive rock collection what is the first names and the rocks they are paired with.

answer:
shirley-limestone, amanda Jane- marble, phoebe-shale, wanda-granite, john-slate, micheal-sandstone, molly-basalt, rachel-obsidian. Florrie- pumice, phil-quartite

(started it off with an easy one)

My Mother-In-Law is the Anti-Christ

Fact #2: I need to post more often

dont know if this is the kinda fact we are meant to post but
New Zealand is getting its arse smashed in the cricket vs Australia :(

dont know if this is the kinda fact we are meant to post but
New Zealand is getting its arse smashed in the cricket vs Australia :(

:(

A man was recently charged with shooting the New Zealand flag. Despite having been caught by television news crews in the act, he pleaded 'not guilty' saying that the flag was Australian. The Warehouse had apparently ran out of NZ ones...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10009967

To thank actor Harrison Ford for narrating a documentary, the London Museum of Natural History named a spider after him : Calponia Harrisonfordi

The youngest pope was 11 years old...don't ask me who it was

More people play the bagpipes today than at any time in history

'Freelance' comes from the knights whose lances were free for hire and who were not pledged to one master

And lastly...Scotland exports sand to Saudi Arabia

You can electrocute yourself by pissing on the electrified rail of the NYC subway. The charge will travel up the stream and bingo.

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet became heated to the point of firing and the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)
The first adressed, the second absurd.

A 9mm round could in no way replace a sparkplug. First, it would not fufill the function of a sparkplug (intermitant creation of a spark across the gap between the electrodes of the sparkplug). Unless one also massiveely changed the timing of the engine, the lack of combustion in one cylinder would be most noticable in any engine - no power, engine tops out at about 30 KPH if it doesn't stall, and that for an 8 cylinder engine, not someting one could help but notice. Further NO comercial automibile engine uses a sparkplug which is similar in size to a 9mm round, there would be no point in using a 9mm round to plug the cylinder since it isn't large enough, there are some smaller sparkplugs used in lawnmower engines which might be blocked off with a swadded 9mm round, but not an automobile. A third point is that pretty much every automonile manufactured forthe past 70 years has a firewall betweeen the engine compartment and the passenger compartment, this firewall is strong enough to most certainly stop a 9mm round. Far more likely is that a cartrige, probably a .22 rimfire round, was used to replace a fuse in an automobile (before the blade fuses bacame popular car fuses were usually round glass fuses about the size of a .22 round), most cars having a fuse box inside the passenger compartment which resulted in the accident.

An actually faily absurd useless fact is that the platypus is the only venomous mamal, and only the male at that, and further only during the mating season. It is suspected that venom evolved for use against other platypuses (platypi?) in mating contests. There are poisonous shrews (mamals) which exist, but since the poison is only introdued incidentally tyhrough the dsaliva they are not venomous.

edit I hadn't considered the possibility of 9mm heavy cartriges (9mm x 75 or 9mm AMG), this might be able to penetrate an automobile firewall, but is a far from common round.

There are no words in the English language that rhyme with orange, silver, purple, or month.

In the early days of the United Nations, a pro-Western delegation wanted to send the UN into Korea to aid the South Koreans. Knowing the Soviets would never agree to it and that they held a veto power, the American delegate did everything in his power to infuriate the Soviet delegate, who then stormed out of the room. The Security Council immediately went into voting procedure, which prevented the USSR from vetoing this resolution.

California was named after a land in a Spanish fairy tale.

A snail can sleep for 3 years.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the scissors.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat 1 cup of coffee.
All polar bears are left handed.
Elephants are the only animals who cant jump.
A pigs orgasm lasts for 30 mins.
A Schoinopentaxophile is a person who collects hanging ropes.

A snail can sleep for 3 years.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the scissors.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat 1 cup of coffee.
All polar bears are left handed.
Elephants are the only animals who cant jump.
A pigs orgasm lasts for 30 mins.
A Schoinopentaxophile is a person who collects hanging ropes.

Lucky pig. ;)

Since 1976, Texas has executed 339 prisoners. This is more than 3 times the number of the next closest state, which doesn't even make the triple digits.

China executed more than 650 people total in December 2004 and January 2005.

Mythbusters also disproved that one. All coke is good for is shinning up copper pennies (and it doesn't do that to well either).

On average, 13 people get killed every year by vending machines.

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Boneparte had only one testicle.
Coke is good for cleaning blood off the roads.

Id rather not believe Mythbusters. ;)

Since 1976, Texas has executed 339 prisoners. This is more than 3 times the number of the next closest state, which doesn't even make the triple digits.
China executed more people last year than the rest of the world. ;)

Elephants are the only animals who cant jump.

Mammals man mammals. ;)

Here's the kind of ignorant crap I was talking about abopve:

Leonardo da Vinci invented the scissors.

Wrong. (Unless he lived in 3rd Century BC Egypt)
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blscissors.htm


In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Guinea Pig: circa 2000 BCE
Cat: Debatable - best guess is Egypt 3500 years ago
Ferret: first domesticated in Roman times (and even that's debated).
Rabbit: first domesticated by French Catholic monks.
Rats: 19th century
Hamsters: 19th century
Mice: 20th century

All bust your BS.

The rest are equally BS. I'm just not going to bother it. Prove it if you can.
:mp5: :mp5: :mp5:

The .300 Winchester Magnum is the most successful and popular of the Big .30's, and the only one among the 10 best selling rifle cartridges

Daistallia 2104 lays down the law.

one man who tried out as a pitcher for the new york yankees:


fidel castro.


i think we all know what happened after that

There are, in fact, five (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_251.html) English words ending in gry. Hungry & Angry are just the only two useful ones.

My Mother-In-Law is the Anti-ChristHey Sis. They finally hook up your DSL? ;)

a daddy long legs has the most powerful poison known to man, but it has no teeth to administer it:(

Adolph Hitler has a really kickass looking Walthers PPK. Did anyone mention he was a pretty hard drug user?

a daddy long legs has the most powerful poison known to man, but it has no teeth to administer it:(

More GDBS!
http://spiders.ucr.edu/daddylonglegs.html


Think, people, think!

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

There are, in fact, five (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_251.html) English words ending in gry. Hungry & Angry are just the only two useful ones.
:D
5 points for kicking ingnorance in the hind end. :)

(And just to show off.)

The modern Japanese word for "bad" (dame) comes from the game igo. It means an unteniable position.

It take 200,000 frowns to form a single line on a persons forehead

Only the top row of a qwerty alphabet layout is needed to type the word "typewriter".
I disagree! it's "qwertyuiop"!

Jesus was a communist
there are monkey nuts in dynamite

I disagree! it's "qwertyuiop"!

Jesus was a communist
there are monkey nuts in dynamite

I'm not sure about monkey nuts but there are peanuts in dynamite. And a peanut, contrary to what the name suggests, is neither a pea nor a nut.

I thought it would be a nice break from religion and politics if i started a trivia thread. So:

In 1982 a man commited suicide by using a power drill on his head. It took 8 holes.
unlikely... it is theorized that due too a failing in our system corinors are not required to be medically trained. Since the corriner decides if any death shoudl be investigated further this has caused many homicides to be declared suicides.

unlikely... it is theorized that due too a failing in our system corinors are not required to be medically trained. Since the corriner decides if any death shoudl be investigated further this has caused many homicides to be declared suicides.Coroner.

I hate to play the spelling nazi but if it wasn't for the context I would have had no idea what you were trying to say.

I mean Jeez, at least misspell it consistantly, at least then we'd know you meant the same unintelligible thing.

one man who tried out as a pitcher for the new york yankees:


fidel castro.


i think we all know what happened after that

err, he started for them?

The ability for a cat to get high off of catnip is influenced by a gene that only about 1/3 of cats have.

err, he started for them?



hahaha! not quite.

The american national anthem is about the time that the canadians set fire to the presidents mansion (now the white house, they had to white-wash it to hide the damage) durring the war of 1812 and is set to the tune of an old british drinking song. THat makes me laugh whenever I hear it. :D

the dady long legs does have the most deadly poison in the world but its teeth are too small to pinch a humans skin ( or peirce it )

Only the top row of a qwerty alphabet layout is needed to type the word "typewriter".

As an aside, the original typewriters jammed so often that they divised the QWERTY set-up to be deliberatly inefficient, to allow the keys time to go back into place.

the dady long legs does have the most deadly poison in the world but its teeth are too small to pinch a humans skin ( or peirce it )
Post #106, meet post #94 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8269002&postcount=94). Since you're sharing a thread, you might as well get to know eachother.

More trivia:

Did you know that the daddylonglegs-tini is the most lethal mixed drink known to man?

did u know that im wayyyy cooler that all of u combined? :p

The american national anthem is about the time that the canadians set fire to the presidents mansion (now the white house, they had to white-wash it to hide the damage) durring the war of 1812 and is set to the tune of an old british drinking song. THat makes me laugh whenever I hear it. :DThe American national anthem is about the time the British navy destroyed an American fort called Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The guy who wrote it felt patriotic because even though the Americans lost the battle, some parts of the flag were still hanging from the pole.

Greenland is part of Denmark

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/fuse.asp

False.

You also know about snopes? I hate you *starts crying

The American national anthem is about the time the British navy destroyed an American fort called Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The guy who wrote it felt patriotic because even though the Americans lost the battle, some parts of the flag were still hanging from the pole.

Actually the Americans didn't lose, nor was the fort distroyed. The British ships actually turned an left after unsuccesfully taking the fort. The poem was written by Francis Scott Key, a lawyer who was trying to free an American prisoner on one of the British ships. But was forced to stay onboard during the length of the battle and thus wrote the poem about it.


-Washington DC was saved becuase of a tornado that touched down cuasing winds and rains to put out the fires and scare the British off.

-Washington DC was saved becuase of a tornado that touched down cuasing winds and rains to put out the fires and scare the British off.

somehow i get teh idea you attribute this as an act of god which shows that the United States ahd some divine favor at the time. Could be wrong though

the dady long legs does have the most deadly poison in the world but its teeth are too small to pinch a humans skin ( or peirce it )
Actually daddy long-legs fangs are just long enough to pierce human skin where it's thin. Myth-busters addressed this, they actually had a spider expert milk some venom from some.


It's weak, a fraction of the strength of say a black widow. They then actually succeded in having someone bitten by one.

He said the slight pain wore off almost in the time it took him to say he'd been bitten.

You can electrocute yourself by pissing on the electrified rail of the NYC subway. The charge will travel up the stream and bingo.

A man for lack of a spark plug replaced it with a 9mm round. Forgetting about the replacement the man drove to work. The bullet became heated to the point of firing and the round went through the steering wheel column and hit the man in the crotch.(from a book of Stupid Accidents.)
Both were dealt with on the show "Mythbusters" (current)
The first, pissing on the line, proved highly improbable, you'd have to be basically f*cking the line to maintain stream integrity/continuity to carry charge. It does go out in little spittles over space.
The second had to do with the fuse and not the spark plug, shot the guy in the leg (dummy).
N'joy *bump*

Both were dealt with on the show "Mythbusters" (current)
The first, pissing on the line, proved highly improbable, you'd have to be basically f*cking the line to maintain stream integrity/continuity to carry charge. It does go out in little spittles over space.
The second had to do with the fuse and not the spark plug, shot the guy in the leg (dummy).
N'joy *bump*And it was a .22 round, not a 9mm.

9mm is way too big to fit in a fuse rack.

theres a town (village?) in Donegal called Muff

theres a town/village in Cork called "Hospital", and another one somewhere called Durras, which translated back into english from irish, phonetically speaking, means "door"...

In the county of Yorkshire, Britain, there are villages by the name of Lowerthong, Upperthong and Netherthong, just down the road from them is Thongsbridge.

Before you get the idea that Yorkshire folk are just obsessed with small bits of underwear, take into account that just a few miles away is the village of Lepton, so maybe it's just that they like things which are really small.

the worlds oldest liscensed distillery is in Bushmills, Northern Ireland
the worlds oldest still running newspaper is in Belfast, Northern Ireland
the worlds biggest land dry dock is in Belfast, Northern Ireland

truly useless facts

"in england there were no men between the ages of 20 and 30 between the world wars"

This is so obviously wrong!!! Trust me, i'm English.

"A cockroach can survive for a week without a head - it eventually dies of starvation."

I think you will find that it actually dies of thirst.

The oldest continuous parliament in history is Tynwald on the Isle of Man, running for over 1000 years now.

I thought it would be a nice break from religion and politics if i started a trivia thread. So:

In 1982 a man commited suicide by using a power drill on his head. It took 8 holes.
I made a trivia thread once...apparently a mod considered it "spam"

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=394329

:(

If you took all the smokers in the world and put them in a line around the earth some 70% of them would drown.

a shimp's heart is in it's head....

a shimp's heart is in it's head....
I saw that on a Penguin last night...(the choccie biscuit that is, not a live animal)

If you took all the smokers in the world and put them in a line around the earth some 70% of them would drown.

hee hee thats funny... but if you took that many people of any group and put them in a line around the world, a good few of them would drown too...not everyone can swim or is a strong swimmer!!

The animal that has the largest penis in relation to its body size is the barnacle.

a daddy long legs has the most powerful poison known to man, but it has no teeth to administer it

More GDBS!
http://spiders.ucr.edu/daddylonglegs.html

Think, people, think!

the dady long legs does have the most deadly poison in the world but its teeth are too small to pinch a humans skin ( or peirce it )

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/images/smilies/shocked/speechless-smiley-039.gif

Todays SSDD award for making my brain hurt goes to JRRmiddle earth. http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/images/smilies/cheeky/cheeky-smiley-024.gif

Some random facts:

My room takes about 1 and a half days to get unbelievably messy agin after I tidy it.
I have far too many books.
My body clock has been knocked out of kilter.
I need a haircut.
Some people will believe anything.
Eutrusca has a Scouser doppelganger.

Useless Facts and Trivia?

In my country we have 30 different words over the one word - Snow!

Useless Facts and Trivia?

In my country we have 30 different words over the one word - Snow!

In my country we have nearly the same amount to describe word - Rain ;)

(not sure how many, never bothered to count)

My body clock has been knocked out of kilter.
Well, is it all that hard to put it back in the kilt? I mean, it's just a clock...
Some people will believe anything.
I don't believe that!

my brain dosnt work right...hows that for a fact ;)

I hate these threads. They just perpetuate stupid myths and urban legends.
(I'm just waiting for the "duck's echo", "hanging munchkin", and "WoO/DSotM" nyths to show up. They always do. :rolleyes:



http://kwc.org/blog/archives/2004/2004-01-21.mythbusters_third_rail.html


Unca Cece (http://www.straightdope.com/) and the good folks at Snopes (http://snopes.com/) are your friends.

Dear Cecil:

Are there any known instances of winos, derelicts and others possessing unreliable bladders meeting their Maker while peeing on the third ("hot") rail from a subway or elevated train platform? --Impatient on the Howard line, Chicago

Dear Impatient:

Not in Chicago. But I did turn up one instance in New York City, ever the pacesetter in this regard.

Marshall Houta's Where Death Delights contains the sad story of one Joseph Patrick O'Malley, a man with two unfortunate habits: heavy drinking and wandering through subway tunnels.

One morning, O'Malley's mangled body was found in a tunnel 50 yards from the nearest station. He had apparently been struck and killed by a train.

But an autopsy turned up another cause: "The burns on the head of the penis and on the thumb and forefinger were obviously electrical burns....The stream of urine had come into contact with the 600 volts of the third rail. The current had coursed up the stream to cause the burns on his body as the electricity entered it.

"In all probability, he was dead from electrocution before the train ever hit his body."

Others have their doubts, however.

The combination of water and electricity is notoriously volatile--so much so that there might be a built-in safety factor, i.e., the shock would be great enough to knock you down. This would spoil your aim and cut off the current before the electricity could do its lethal work on your heart muscles.

In any case the experience would not be pleasant. So take a tip from your Uncle Cecil: play it cool, stay in school, and watch were you're spreading those vital fluids.

--CECIL ADAMS

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_222b.html

Useless Facts and Trivia?

In my country we have 30 different words over the one word - Snow!

http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html
Good try. English has quite a few as well. (Sounds suspiciously like the the great Eskimo vocabulary hoax.)

Regarding the "Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax", StevenPinker of MIT says:

"Contrary to popular belief, the Eskimos do not have more words for snow than do speakers of English. They do not have four hundred words for snow, as it has been claimed in print, or two hundred, or one hundred, or forty-eight, or even nine. One dictionary puts the figure at two. Counting generously, experts can come up with about a dozen, but by such standards English would not be far behind, with snow, sleet, slush, blizzard, avalanche, hail, hardpack, powder, flurry, dusting ..."

"Where did the myth come from? Not from anyone who has actually studied the Yupik and Inuit-Inupiaq families of polysynthetic languages spoken from Siberia to Greenland. The anthropologist Laura Martin has documented how the story grew like an urban legend, exaggerated with each retelling. In 1911, Boas casually mentioned that Eskimos used four unrelated word roots for snow. Whorf embellished the count to seven and implied that there were more. His article was widely reprinted, then cited in textbooks and popular books on language, which led to successively inflated estimates in other textbooks, articles and newspaper columns of Amazing Facts."

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhorfianHypothesis

No dissing you though. You brought an interesting variant of this urban legend to light, and I always like catching up on the variations. :)

Mythbusters also disproved that one. All coke is good for is shinning up copper pennies (and it doesn't do that to well either).

On average, 13 people get killed every year by vending machines.

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Boneparte had only one testicle.

That's odd, because I've done it. It takes longer than a day, and you have to change the rag and the coke once a day.

Dear Cecil:

Are there any known instances of winos, derelicts and others possessing unreliable bladders meeting their Maker while peeing on the third ("hot") rail from a subway or elevated train platform? --Impatient on the Howard line, Chicago

Dear Impatient:

Not in Chicago. But I did turn up one instance in New York City, ever the pacesetter in this regard.

Marshall Houta's Where Death Delights contains the sad story of one Joseph Patrick O'Malley, a man with two unfortunate habits: heavy drinking and wandering through subway tunnels.

One morning, O'Malley's mangled body was found in a tunnel 50 yards from the nearest station. He had apparently been struck and killed by a train.

But an autopsy turned up another cause: "The burns on the head of the penis and on the thumb and forefinger were obviously electrical burns....The stream of urine had come into contact with the 600 volts of the third rail. The current had coursed up the stream to cause the burns on his body as the electricity entered it.

"In all probability, he was dead from electrocution before the train ever hit his body."

Others have their doubts, however.

The combination of water and electricity is notoriously volatile--so much so that there might be a built-in safety factor, i.e., the shock would be great enough to knock you down. This would spoil your aim and cut off the current before the electricity could do its lethal work on your heart muscles.

In any case the experience would not be pleasant. So take a tip from your Uncle Cecil: play it cool, stay in school, and watch were you're spreading those vital fluids.

--CECIL ADAMS

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_222b.html


Well done, I missed one. :D

You also know about snopes? I hate you *starts crying

I'll go him one better. I was a member of the SLC when it really was semi-secret, and have posted as Edith/Archy D Bunker on the new boards. Both of those probably have 0 meaning to anyone here, as they are trivial references to the snopes message boards - but if you know what I'm talking about... ;)

If you run behind a pig and make a lot of noise, it will die of a heart attack.

If you turn a sheep on its back and then roll it further back on its legs (like the kayak manoeuvre),it will die of hunger for his bowels are all mixed up.

Useless bit of trivia which amused me when I found it out recently.

Doctor Atkins, founder of the diet that bears his name, and also dedicated to following the diet, weighed 260lbs at the time of his death after an accidental fall in New York.

If you run behind a pig and make a lot of noise, it will die of a heart attack.


That sounds unlikely to say the least.

Even from my limited knowledge of pigs. It would seem far more likely they would turn around and go for you.

A pig can hold an orgasme the longest of all animals.

A French kiss is called an English kiss by the French.

Napoleon forced the Dutch to have last names. The protested at this by choosing ridiculous last names and now they have to deal with it.

Useless bit of trivia which amused me when I found it out recently.

Doctor Atkins, founder of the diet that bears his name, and also dedicated to following the diet, weighed 260lbs at the time of his death after an accidental fall in New York.

Further more, his widow announced she would sue anyone who claims he was obese when he died for libel.

A pig can hold an orgasme the longest of all animals.

A French kiss is called an English kiss by the French.

Napoleon forced the Dutch to have last names. The protested at this by choosing ridiculous last names and now they have to deal with it.

My surname isn't that stupid. (Unless it means something stupid in Dutch that is.)

Further more, his widow announced she would sue anyone who claims he was obese when he died for libel.
haha! Obviously the money she inherited from him just isn't enough for her retirement plans.

My surname isn't that stupid. (Unless it means something stupid in Dutch that is.)
Good for you. ;)

Good for you. ;)
Wait - Jacobs doesn't mean something silly does it :confused:

Wait - Jacobs doesn't mean something silly does it :confused:
Not that I know.

A French kiss is called an English kiss by the French.And the English call it "Snogging."

somehow i get teh idea you attribute this as an act of god which shows that the United States ahd some divine favor at the time. Could be wrong though

Where are you getting that from? I was putting that in as my interesting fact. Geeze, there's way too many people out there that have to make a big deal about religion even if no one said anything related.

If you bang your head against a wall you burn 160 calories an hour.

Stalin was training to be a priest.

Stalin was training to be a priest.
Was I?
Mrs Hitler was considering aborting lil baby Adolf, but her priest and doctor talked her out of it.

If you bang your head against a wall you burn 160 calories an hour.

I knew NS was good for something.

if it were possible to do so, a scream lasting for six years five months and three days would produce enough energy to sufficiently heat a cup of coffee............but it's not possible, is it? :P

if it were possible to do so, a scream lasting for six years five months and three days would produce enough energy to sufficiently heat a cup of coffee............but it's not possible, is it? :P
Try. Get back to us in six and a half years. See ya!

I lost my virginity in the seventh grade to a girl who was seven years older than I, and engaged to be married.

Byzantium fell to the Turks in 1453, finalizing the end of a thousand years of Greek and Roman rule over Asia Minor.

The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was ruled by a Leper King named Baldwin. I forget which number he was.

Burning yourself with cigarettes is a bad idea.(I could be wrong here, never tried...)

My girlfriend is related the the dude who played Spanky on the original Little Rascals. Our Gang? Some such shit...

A Perfect Circle covered Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On?'

If I had an opportunity to kill my little sister's gangbanger boyfriend, I would. Seriously.

Ozzy Osbourne's real name is John, like me.

Presidente Margarita's at Chille's in Amarillo, Texas cost $6.25 and are worth every penny. Hell yeah.

I have a Zippo lighter much like the guy on the old Hitchcock movie. I, however, am not confident enough to risk a finger.

Luchenbach, Texas isn't really that cool of a place.

Danney Carey, drummer of Tool, also plays in a band called Pigmy Love Circus.

The fall of the old Shogun's after the 'Onin War' in Japan in the late 1400's plunged the nation into the period known as 'Sengoku Jidai' - The Age of War. The samurai in this period were some of the most brilliant and honorable men in history, paired against some of the most treacherous and ruthless. Fascinating era.

Jack White, singer and guitarist for 'the White Stripes' played a part in the movie 'Cold Mountain'.

Quentin Tarantino had nothing to do with the production of 'Hero'. He merely promoted it.

My brother once was coerced into watching a girl on a webcam, only to be suprised when he saw someone brutally bludgeon a cow to death with a hammer.

I have actually been hit on by three female police officers in my town, which is suprising because I'm a known 'hooligan' and not that attractive...

People have killed themselves over EVERQUEST!

EVER-FUCKING-QUEST?!?!?!

People are the worst.



And I'm spent. Most were useless, I'm sure, but all were true to my knowledge, except with the burning and the cigarettes, and that' spersonal preference I guess. Waste of time, but, I guess they were better than 'd00d, dAdd-E l0nglygz are teh poizonus shyt!!2!! dey juz g0t no teef!'

-Pants

I have some input on the "third rail electrocution" question.

A few years back, I was sitting in the last car of an empty 7 train, smoking a cigarette as we rolled out toward Flushing at three a.m. All of a sudden the doors between the cars flies open and some dude comes running in. I though it was a cop, so I tried to get rid of the smoke, but bounced it off the window and back into my lap. But it was okay because the dude wasn't a cop. He was just some guy, who went running like hell toward the back door and threw it open. I was too busy with the fire on my lap to warn him that it was the last car, but he knew. He stopped, hung onto the door handle, whipped it out, and started pissing all over the tracks as we were rattling along.

He did not get blown through the roof.

Not conclusive, I know, but I should have more data after some experiments on Friday.

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself.
The Declaration of Independence (the very official copy in the Rotunda of the National Archives) is written on parchment, not paper.
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
A raisin dropped in a fresh glass of soda will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A 2x4 is actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" .
40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
Every person has a unique tongue print. (Say "aaah")
The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino.
315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.
On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. Irony.
Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
Chocolate kills dogs! Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog. (Debated)
Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.
Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If they were captured, the cards could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
Most lipstick contains fish scales. Yum.
Dr. Seuss actually pronounced Seuss such that it sounded like Sue-ice.
Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
During the California Gold Rush of 1849 miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the high costs in California during these years it was deemed more feasible to send the shirts to Hawaii for servicing.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower', because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters. The proper term for upper case letters is "majuscule" and for lower case it's "minuscule".
The printing industry gives us other popular phrases, such as "mind your 'p's and 'q's." The moveable block type had the letters in reverse so they would read correctly when imprinted on paper. Apprentices had to remove the type from the pages and return the blocks to their upper and lower cases. Each drawer in the case held a different size of letters, and each drawer was divided into compartments (called sorts) for each letter. The letters 'p' and 'q' could easily be mistaken, so the master printer would advise their apprentices to mind their 'p's and 'q's. (This is debated. Link.)
When the master printer was building a page and discovered that a particular sort was empty, he would get angry. Thus the term "out of sorts".
The question mark came from a monk habit of writing the Latin word for question, quo, at the end of sentences. Over time, the letters were written vertically to save space and morphed into the ? we write today. Similarly, the exclamation point came from the Latin word "Lo", meaning something important that should be heeded. (Lo and behold...)
Wellfleet, Massachusetts has the only town clock in the world that strikes ship's time. (Rings every half hour, to a maximum of 8 rings at the end of each four hour period.)
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with the words orange, purple, or silver, or month. (Debated, as I don't think that sliver is a rhyme for silver, or pimple a good rhyme with purple, etc.)
The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. (New or old? Not sure. Probably the old one.)
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
There are four cars and eleven lightposts on the back of a $10 dollar bill.
Scissors as we know them today (well, pretty much) were invented in Rome in about 100 AD (or CE, if you want to be politically correct).
If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and look like it is stinging itself to death. It spasms a lot. :)
Most scorpions will glow under black (ultraviolet) light. (?!)
Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springstein's 'Born in the USA.'
The mask used by Michael Myers in the original Halloween was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
The first product Motorola developed was a record player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
Roses MAY be red, but violets ARE, indeed, violet.
By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand. One should carry a stout pole while travelling in quicksand country...when placed under one's back, it helps one to float out of the quicksand.
Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo.
Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to digest a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. (Mmm, diet food.)
Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest.
In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than one hundred years before either moon was discovered.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, "Elementary, my dear Watson." For that matter, Sherlock Holmes never existed in the first place. But the address where he supposedly lived, 221B Baker Street, still gets a lot of fan mail. I am told that there is a desk there that has the sign "Secretary to Mr. Holmes".
An old law in Bellingham, Wash., made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing. (?!)
Birds have the right of way on all Utah highways.
Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokesmodel.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.
Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit will damage it.
The number one selling CD in history is the third Beatles anthology. It recently beat out the Eagles' "Their Greatest Hits."
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
If you drop a penny off of the Empire State Building, it will be going 106 miles per hour (terminal velocity) when it reaches the ground. Something moving this fast may actually cause head injuries if it lands on you. (OUCH)
The original Winnie the Pooh was a real live bear found outside of Winnipeg, Canada, hence the name Winnie.
Francis Bacon died in his attempt to find a better way to serve food. He caught a case of pneumonia while attempting to stuff a chicken with snow. Ironically, the chicken survived the ordeal.
Dachshunds were originally bred in 1600 to hunt dachs, which is German for badgers. (Historically speaking, 1600 was a slow year.)
Houdini's real name was Ehrich Weiss.
The first zoo in America was in Philadelphia.
Laser is actually an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation."
The world's first passenger train made its debut in England in 1825.
If you hate our "QWERTY" keyboard layout, blame Christopher Sholes. He changed it from the original in 1873 to lessen the chances of the keys jamming.
Napoleon III suffered from ailurophobia, which is a fear of cats.
Escalator is one of many words that were originally trademarks but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other words which were originally trademarks and have now passed into common use are aspirin, autoharp, band-aids, breathalyzer, cellophane, Coke (in some areas, at least), corn flakes, cube steak, ditto, dry ice, dumpster, formica, Frisbee, granola, gunk, jeep, kerosene, Kleenex, mace, nylon, ping-pong (also an onomatopoeia), popsicle, Q-tip, rollerblade, rolodex, Scotch tape, sheetrock, spandex, styrofoam, tabloid, thermos, trampoline, yo-yo, xerox, and zipper.
The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Also, the powder on the bark of a quaking aspen tree works as a mosquito repellent.
Wild plants that are edible: (this is about the only non-useless info on here...)
Burdock (very bitter)
Dogwood berries, but not the plant (the berries taste like burdock)
The inside bark of a cottonwood tree
The white inside part of a cattail (tastes good! Sort of like a really mild cucumber.)
Watercress (sold as a delicacy in restaurants, but I don't like it much, it tastes like a really spicy radish)
Poplar bark
Anise (Very good, if you like black licorice!)
Dandelions. The leaves make a great salad, and the roots can be roasted and ground into something kind of like coffee.
Any kind of mint, which is recognizable from the smell
Wild rose hips, but not the plant (the hips are high in Vitamin C and are an ingredient in many teas.)
Thistle (Scrape the thorns off, duh! Eat the leaf or the inside of the blossom.)
Quaking aspen leaves, but they aren't exactly for eating. Make a tea of them to kill minor headaches because they contain salicylic (sic?) acid, the active ingredient of aspirin.
Some berries, including strawberries, raspberries, chokecherries (too much pit to be worth it), currants (TART!), serviceberries, gooseberries (green and stripy and TART!), purple elderberries (red ones are poisonous), etc. Don't eat sumac berries, they are poisonous!
Prickly pear. If you scrape off the skin and boil the inside, it tastes good!
Clover. Not sure how that tastes.
Wild plants that are poisonous! (some more non-useless, a disgrace to the site)
Nightshade, recognizable by its purple and yellow flower
Dogwood
Houndstounge
The wild rose plant, not the hips
Most mushrooms. Don't eat any unless you know what you are doing.
RED elderberries. Purple ones are okay.
A whole lot of other things. If you don't know what it is, don't eat it.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half consecutively more than 7 times (doubling factor... you end up folding 27 == 128 sheets of paper).
1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. (I have!)
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts on playing cards is the only king without a moustache.
A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in waking you up in the morning. (Go figure.)
The little plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. (Why do you name them?)
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer. (Hmm, wonder why.)
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Betsy Ross, Jackie Onassis, JFK, and Daniel Boone have all appeared on Pez dispensers.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing their hands in jelly.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. (I'm not sure if that counts 50 cent pieces or not.)
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
"Dreamt" and "undreamt" are the only English words that end in the letters "mt."
47.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
26 (easily visible, there may be more) states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the old US $5 bill.
The almond is a member of the peach family.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
A mayfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (As noted by a reader: "The reason a goldfish swims back and forth and back and forth across the fish bowl all day long everyday is because by the time it gets to one side of the bowl it forgets what's on the other side of the bowl. Every trip is a new adventure! (Hey, I wonder what's over there!.... Hey! I wonder what's over THERE!)" :))
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (Updated: I've had one person say they can do it. But still.)
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Wonder what it did to his liver?) That researcher also invented microwave popcorn.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
The data track on a CD is a very long spiral. If it were unwound and laid out in a straight line, it would be over 3.5 miles long.
It is impossible to lick your elbow or stick your elbow in your ear. (Updated: I've recieved many e-mails from people who actually can lick their elbow. Most people can't do it, and I have yet to get an elbow-ear report.)
A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.
A shrimp's heart is in its head.
In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand (or attempted to do so).
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twerp.
More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
Rats and horses can't vomit.
"The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
A lot of photocopier faults world-wide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
Cat's urine glows under a black light.
The oldest standing building in Australia is Captain James Cook's house, brought over from England brick by brick. Why? :)
Paul McCartney's real first name is James - Paul is his middle name. Thus, all the Beatles (including Ringo, whose first name is Richard) were named after kings.
The hole inside a CD is exactly the same size as an old Dutch 10 cent coin, called the "dubbeltje". (?!) Of course, all the European countries (save a few) have gone Euro now.
Killer whales are not, technically, whales. They are orcas, a relative of the porpoise and the dolphin.
If you stroke a shark from nose to tail, it is smooth. If you stroke it the other way, it is rough, and on some species, can even give you hand lacerations.
Elephants are the only land mammals that can't jump.
More about elephants: If you add up the circumference of two feet, you get exactly the elephant's height. (?!)
Your foot is nearly the same length as your forearm as measured from the inside of the elbow to the wrist. (On me, it's nearly exact. :) )
In 10 minutes, a hurricane expends more energy than all of the nuclear weapons in the world combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
90% of all New York cabbies are recently arrived immigrants. (This reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote. If you can tell me which book, I'll give you... umm... nothing. Oh, wait *rummages* I have some undying respect I can throw in.)
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
A snail can sleep for three months.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
All polar bears, despite being near the North Pole, are southpaws. (ooh, bad pun)
"Go" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
Americans eat on average 18 acres worth of pizza every day.
Almost everyone who reads this site will end up trying to lick their elbow. :)

Big Ten teams have won 10 NCAA basketball championships since the NCAA tournament became the mode for determining the D1 champion.

Indiana - 5
Michigan State - 2
Michigan - 1
Ohio State - 1
Wisconsin - 1