Useless Trivia you know.
Sometimes you just remember the oddest little facts. What's some useless knowledge you know, that would probably never come in handy to know?

*Note - They have to be facts, and something others would probably say to you "Why do you know this?"





- Botox is made from a purified jellyfish toxin.

- Dropping color pencils (not sure about pencils) on the floor will soften the lead inside causing it to break more often.

- The origins of the Mad Hatter (from Alice in wonderland) is from a time in the 1800's when hat makers had used mercury to make the hats (I believe mostly from dying them), and the fumes they breathed in. In other words hat makers got mercury poisoning, and the systems they cased were called Mad Hatter syndrome. (This used today, and I probably butchered this fact a bit, sue me I have I headache )

- Not sure if this fact is to be considered ... mature

Most useless trivia I know are related to animals. Til next time I guess...

- The movies Jaws was actually inspired/based off bull shark attacks, not the great white.
Jaws also is the cause for people ( I believe mostly in the US) to be aware of sharks in the beaches.
The great white shark doesn't like the taste of humans, but and have a test bite to see what we are. (Which sadly this test bite can be fatal).

- The name Bloody Mary originates from Queen Elizabeth's cousin. Mary (of Scotland I believe) and how Queen Elizabeth had her killed. (There's probably more to this story, but that's the most I can remember).

-Sidenote: My thread feels so naked without some green in it O.o I may end up editing this later to add some sort of color somewhere.
I caved, and added some green ...

Last edited by Kitty18dnsz at 6:17 am, Dec 21 2013

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I should proof read my comments more, but I won't...
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Hmm how about the term a 'bug' in your code came from an incident from the first computer where an error was actually caused by an insect inside the computer.

Dropping normal pencils can also break the lead. Woe to the artist who drop their $1+ a piece pencils on the floor. (As if artists weren't poor enough already, materials are freaking expensive)

Speaking of pencils:
The reason that we refer to graphite in pencils as 'lead' is because graphite was thought to be made of lead. Lead was never actually used in pencils. Little did they know it was actually the diamond's little brother.

The more clay added to the graphite, the harder the it becomes. This is how you get from 9B to 9H

We know more about the universe than the deep see, and we know more about the deep see than about the human brain

Glass is in between liquid and solid, called amorph, you can see that in old windows, where the part below is thicker

Lobsters never age and are constantly growing; they are biologically immortal and only die when killed, by disease though I'm not sure if there immune systems also improve.

The fastest possible motion by a land animal (I'm not sure if this is faster or slower than the pistol shrimp) is a fire ant closing its jaws.

Cats are not color blind but see two primary colors; one of the three that we see and one that we don't. They also have nearly twice the neurons of dogs and THAT MAKES THEM AWESOME.

Certain butterflies are pentochromats, seeing in 5 primary colors including ultraviolet. However, certain human women (but not men because color vision DNA is in the X chromosome) have mutations that let them see in 4 (tetrachromats) or 5 colors.

Caecilians are like the snakes of the amphibian world and in general it sucks that almost nobody has heard of them.

A Kinkajou is the only mammal that pollinates flowers.

Humans actually have more hairs on their bodies than chimpanzees. Also, human females developed soft and cushy breasts because they lost the soft chest hair that female chimpanzees have to comfort their babies.

Mules are stubborn because they have a high self-preservation instinct.

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump as defined by separating themselves from the ground. They also have more than triple the muscles in their trunk than you have in your whole body.

Most moles die by starvation because they lose their teeth and they don't grow back.

80% of the Sahara Desert is rocky terrain.

In antiquity people never said "ye," it was pronounced exactly like "the" despite the spelling.

There's not many replies to this topic so I thought I'll do a nice deed in honour of the coming christmas or something and write a nice little reply for you.


I'm fairly sure mat makers have always made mats, hat makers hats, no matter which the century was.


Pencils, colour or not, have a hardened pigment core that breaks from impact. If you drop it, it will receive a shock that will crack the "lead" inside the wooden or synthetic cover. When you sharpen the pen and come to a cracked part it will fall off, or it will come off when you're writing when the cracked part gets close enough to the tip.

The fact is though that it was already broken. They don't soften up (or at least the materials I'm familiar with). As a side note, actual lead haven't been used in pencils in ages.

Now, aren't you glad? You're a little bit less misinformed than before. Good for you.

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Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

If I remember correctly it's when they first started dying hats colors (instead of the normal black or something).

Yes, Yes I am glad that I am less misinformed. ^__^ thank you. Like I've said somewhere else I admire your bluntness. (This also includes correcting misinformed people like myself )

________________
Yes yes, I know I make longwinded comments, but that's just me >.<
I should proof read my comments more, but I won't...
So keep in mind I'm filled with typos

Check out FAQ and Forum Rules if you haven't yet.
For errors linking in threads

All clown fish are born male, but the dominate male will turn female if the current female dies.

The rhyme "Jack and Jill" is about Marie Antoinette and her husband King Louis XVI.

Many butterflies drink blood.

"The Three Blind Mice" is about Queen Mary (aka Bloody Mary)

Due to the Earth's atmosphere, each time you breath in you are breathing the same molecules you released during your first breath as a baby.

Men that are kissed before they leave for work make double the money

Dairy cows that are given names will produce twice the amount of milk

The communication between your brain and your stomach takes 30 minutes

Women feel more pain in their lifetime than men because they have 10x the amount of nerve endings

You lost me. Mat makers dyed hat colours on mats or hats? Or the hat makers did?


I'd like to see some proof on these. Statistics is very shady when applied on research on subject like these anyway.

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Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

on venus a year is shorter than a day, since the rotation around it`s own rotational axis is slower than the circulation around the sun

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You said that people have made hats before the 1800's. I was agreeing with you saying that's probably true, but the mercury poisoning I believe happened in the 1800's. I believe this is when they started using dyes to color hats, and soften fur (and their process involved mercury).



It would have been nice if all the info was added
Venus takes 224.65 days to complete each orbit. This is a little less than a year on Earth. But instead of a similar rotational period to Earth?s 24 hours, Venus takes 243 days to rotate once.

On Venus
One year = 225 days (One orbit around the sun)
One day = 243 days (Time taken to do one rotational. Spinning, not around the sun)

But thanks for the new info ^_^


________________
Yes yes, I know I make longwinded comments, but that's just me >.<
I should proof read my comments more, but I won't...
So keep in mind I'm filled with typos

Check out FAQ and Forum Rules if you haven't yet.
For errors linking in threads

I did not, look again. You said "mat makers had used mercury to make the hats". I corrected you, saying that 19th century or otherwise, mat makers are, by definition, makers of mats, therefore making not hats but mats. The ones who make hats are called "hat makers", "hatters", or possibly "milliners" (which, unless I'm misinformed, refers to designers and makers of hats specifically for women).

In conclusion: no matter which the century I doubt mat makers have ever used mercury to dye hats, that is, in general—as in dis-including the odd mat maker who also happened to dye hats.

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Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

Ha I had a typo and put mat instead of hat. (How does that happen when h and m aren't that close ... idk)

If you want to correct me why not look up Mad Hatter syndrome or Mad Hatter disease, and provide the correct info.


The whole point of that useless trivia is that the Mad Hatter was either based, or inspired by something that happened in the past when hat makers where getting mercury poisoning. (Which that term Mad Hatter syndrome is still used today when talking about heavy mercury poisoning.)


-Sidenote you could add some useless trivia you know along with trying to correct mine.

I'll edit this later to add more trivia.

________________
Yes yes, I know I make longwinded comments, but that's just me >.<
I should proof read my comments more, but I won't...
So keep in mind I'm filled with typos

Check out FAQ and Forum Rules if you haven't yet.
For errors linking in threads

I've already added trivia. On the first post about the lead in pencils, or lack thereof. On the previous post there was the part about milliner meaning hat-maker, which I'd like to clarify now that I'm more well informed: milliner only recently has started to refer to women's hat maker, but before it always meant hatter in general. The term coming from the fact that many hatters (or at least their hats) came from Milan, Italy.

I got your point from the start, but you didn't realise your typo even when I corrected you. In other words, you brought this upon yourself. Secondly, I have finally managed to diminish some of that good humour of yours which is also fun. See, if we sat down and went thorough the problems one by one, don't you think we could solve all the problems in the world? (the reference is obscure even to myself, but I'll let you know if it comes to mind?no wait, I won't...)

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Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

Since you brought up Alice in Wonderland:

Alice in Wonderland was originally made by Charles Dodgson to make fun of the then new field of abstract algebra (and related new mathematics) as complete nonsense (hence the ridiculousness of the book).

Yes and no.

Yes:
Amorphous solids are solids without a clear structure (the molecules are in a disorder), and among them you can distinct glasses (such as window glass SiO2 or olivines). So amorphous would be glass, polymers or nanoclusters.

No
The definition of a solid is here based on viscosity, materials with viscosity smaller than specified would be liquids, and higher - solids. Glasses are considered amorphous solids.

Yes:
The glass does expose such effect.

So it sums up to.. well..definitions.. It exposed both the traits of liquids and solids, but is considered a solid.

I'm sorry, I just had to reply to that


Last edited by chrum at 11:36 am, Dec 27 2013