USELESS FACTS THREAD!

[adarw]

Share and discus fun facts!

 

[tikker]

Post-it notes are yellow because that's the scrap paper they had on hand when they accidentally created it.

 

Related to that: they were actually trying to make a super strong aircraft glue.

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

American flag on the moon will get bleached white by the sun

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

I would suggest

 

1.After collecting a solid ammount of info give it to austin mcconel who makes videos about solid x minutes of useless info

 

2.Also change the title to useless info thread

[Sauron]

Actors in "The Empire Strikes Back" weren't told about the Vader twist and found out during the first screening. Since Vader's lines are all dubbed by James Earl Jones, they had the actor say something else during the shooting.

[Wictorian]

American flag was originally going to have 6 cornered stars but then they changed it to 5 because they were easier to cut off from fabric

[Wictorian]

20 hours ago, Edmond Dantes said:

Hitler's book Mein Kampf has 4.5 stars on amazon

 

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

Actors in "The Empire Strikes Back" weren't told about the Vader twist and found out during the first screening. Since Vader's lines are all dubbed by James Earl Jones, they had the actor say something else during the shooting.

David Prowse said something to the effect of "Obi-Wan killed your father". Mark played off those lines, but Mark knew the secret. He was one of I think 3 people that knew. George, Irvin Kershner (director) and Mark himself. He had to keep that secret for like a year.

[nich99]

Meme is a pretty old word

[nich99]

Kakapo parrot that banged bbc reporter will probably outlive him

[WhitetailAni]

The Kirby character we all know today was originally a placeholder character.

[nich99]

8 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

The Kirby character we all know today was originally a placeholder character.

Walugi was meant to be a side character

[Bramimond]

Keyboards are staggered because they were copied from typewriters, where it was necessary, so that the keys won't entangle. No one ever updated the standard design, until the numpad got added, which is ortholinear. For a reason, too. That's how our fingers work. 

 

There's an entire word dedicated to this concept: skeuomorphism. 

Which means a derivative object retaining design that was once necessary, but isn't anymore. Like christmas lights that look like real candles. 

[ToboRobot]

1 minute ago, Bramimond said:

Keyboards are staggered because they were copied from typewriters, where it was necessary, so that the keys won't entangle. No one ever updated the standard design, until the numpad got added, which is ortholinear. For a reason, too. That's how our fingers work. 

 

There's an entire word dedicated to this concept: skeuomorphism. 

Which means a derivative object retaining design that was once necessary, but isn't anymore. Like christmas lights that look like real candles. 

not just staggered, but the QWERTY keyset was intentionally designed to slow down typing speed because mechanical typewriters were not capable of the speeds of proficient typists.

But skeuomorphism is a neat word!  Thanks for sharing.

[Bramimond]

QWERTY wasn't actually designed to slow down typing speed. There was no predecessor that was problematic enough for QWERTY to become a solution. Or at least I never heard of such a thing. QWERTY was just designed with typewriters in mind, too. So that letters that are often appearing in succession would be spread out, to remove chances of having the keys entangled. But yes, the pursuit of the design wasn't speed, but reliability. 

 

Come to think of it, I never had a need to type faster. So QWERTY alternatives promising faster speeds are quite baffling to me. Are there people being slowed down by their typing speed?

[dalekphalm]

18 hours ago, Bramimond said:

QWERTY wasn't actually designed to slow down typing speed. There was no predecessor that was problematic enough for QWERTY to become a solution. Or at least I never heard of such a thing. QWERTY was just designed with typewriters in mind, too. So that letters that are often appearing in succession would be spread out, to remove chances of having the keys entangled. But yes, the pursuit of the design wasn't speed, but reliability. 

 

Come to think of it, I never had a need to type faster. So QWERTY alternatives promising faster speeds are quite baffling to me. Are there people being slowed down by their typing speed?

Some people might claim that the keyboard is "holding them back", but a good typist can easily reach or exceed 100 wpm anyway, and that's pretty fast typing.

[FakeATF]

Despite the frigid temperatures of interstellar space, you will not instantly freeze to death, as the only way to lose heat is through thermal radiation. You would die of lack of oxygen and eubilism far faster than freezing.

[tkitch]

On 9/8/2021 at 4:34 AM, Wictorian said:

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

On 9/8/2021 at 1:24 AM, linux fanboy said:

American flag on the moon will get bleached white by the sun

All of the flags are already.

Except for the first one that wiil probably never be bleached, as the flag was knocked over and most likley covered by lunar sand

[adarw]

2 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

likley covered by lunar sand

how? theres no air in space...

[FakeATF]

4 minutes ago, adarw said:

how? theres no air in space...

 

6 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

All of the flags are already.

Except for the first one that wiil probably never be bleached, as the flag was knocked over and most likley covered by lunar sand

Pretty sure that the regalith is statically charged, and thus very sticky.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

56 minutes ago, adarw said:

how? theres no air in space...

Yes, but regolith got blown al over the place when the Apallo 11 lander lifted off, as well as the flag being blown over 

[Radium_Angel]

Fiat used "8V" on their early 8 cylinder models, under the mistaken belief that Ford had registered "V8" as a trademark.

[airborne spoon]

Peanuts used to be part of making dynamite. well the oil at least, was processed to glycerin which was part of the process to make Nitroglycerin.

 

 An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

 

mister Rodgers was an ordained Minister.

 

A jiffy is 1 trillionth of a second or 33.4 picoseconds

 

A giraffe has a 21-inch tongue and can clean its own ears with it.

 

I got a crapload more but that's enough for now. Back when I had a 56k modem the local radio station posted useless facts out for a contest, and I save them all on a notepad document that is saved on some random spot on my HDD I'll have to look for it now.

[adarw]

22 minutes ago, airborne spoon said:

Peanuts used to be part of making dynamite. well the oil at least, was processed to glycerin which was part of the process to make Nitroglycerin.

 

i heard that they used to use bat pee for dynamite.