Useless Facts

New York City Pigeons have more balls than some people. No lie. I think if someone pulled a gun out on one it'd just bob his head and step back a little.

 

Did you know?

During the cold war; Americans paradropped boxes of oversized condoms labeled as 'Medium' to strike fear to the soviets?

 

An informal study has identified pointing blame as the quickest human reflex action.

 

They have little fear of us because we move in ultra slow motion to them, our vehicles also move in slow motion to them. The clap sound heard when they take off scares predators & gives them a huge boost in speed.

The same family of birds are the 'cattle' or 'deer' of birds. Many are produced to feed others, and a big advantage they have over most other birds is the ability to drink fluids without relying on gravity. Yep, they can drink with their heads down.

Technically what we have here in the states are Doves, New World variations on the Old World Pigeons.

A squirrel has the reaction speed of approximately 1/20th of a second.

 

I will just share a cluster of facts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-madsen/12-crazy-amazing-facts-about-the-clitoris_b_7501188.html

 

A quarter of the world's wool is produced in Australia.
The concept of a government cabinet derives from meetings conducted in a room called a cabinet in the early modern period. In the UK come monarchs picked select members from their Privy Council, chief advisors and officers, and met with them seperately as a sort of inner circle of the inner circle. This sort of behaviour was despised by many authors as too private and associated with foreign government but during Georgian times it was neccessary because they were of the German part of the royal line and did not speak English well. This select portion of closest advisors, which became more parlimentary in makeup and less of nobility and clergy, was referred to as "ministering" to the king. This culminated in the modern western system of a cabinet of ministers.

 

Flight attendants hate Diet Coke. It's much fizzier than other sodas, especially at altitude, and takes three times as long to pour.

 

Flight attendants have good taste.

 

A gathering of snails is called an escargatoire.

 

The national sport of China is table tennis.

 

And now I'm desperately trying to find a way to get this word into my WIP. I do have a character living near a beach in a post-apoc setting, who eats snails which he finds in the sea...

 

If you judge by the bars on his uniform, Captain Crunch is actually only a Commander.

 

A man in Britain had his name legally changed to Tim Ppppppppppprice, just to screw with telemarketers.

 

That pointy thing on a sundial that casts a shadow is called a gnomon

 

But I don't want a gnome on my sundial...

 

My OED tells me it comes from a Greek word meaning “indicator”. It isn’t stated, but I assume this shares a root with “gnosis”, which refers to knowledge (I.e. knowledge of the position of the sun).

 

On the box I've got, he's got three gold rings, (commander), but I googled it and in some pictures he's got two gold rings (lieutenant) and in some vintage pictures he's only got one gold bar (ensign). Maybe his first name is Captain and he's just been slowly working his way up the ranks over the years. I'm also pretty sure that army captains wear two silver bars on their collar, but most of what I learned about the army is from what I learned watching Band Of Brothers, so that may be spotty.

Also, depending on it's quality, the melting point of steel is between 2500°F and 2750°F. Avgas burns at just under 3700°F. So, technically, jet fuel can melt steel beams.

 

Oh no it can't!!!

As in,

Jet fuel is similar to kerosene and is used in turbine engines; it is not avgas.

On the other hand (this is a response to a statement about 9/11)...

The actual maximum burning temperature of a Jet-A fuel (standard jet fuel type in U.S.) is 980 deg. Celsius. If you refer to the Iron-Iron Carbide phase diagram, the temperature at which steel changes from cementite and pearlite (strong phases of steel) to austenite (significantly less strong) is 702.5 deg. Celsius. Also, if a steel structure is exposed to a temperature just below or at the eutectic (702.5 deg.) for a period of time, martinsite is formed (very weak). All it would take is a few I-beams to lose their structural integrity before the "chain reaction" would start. I don't have a strong opinion on the conspiracy theory, but when people say that the heat from burning jet fuel cannot melt steel it bothers me. It doesn't have to "melt" for it to become ineffective. Also, "very strong type of steel" is the most relative statement ever. The steel used in sky scrapers is a standard carbon steel, not heavily alloyed. In any case, the iron-iron carbide phase diagram describes all carbon steels very accurately. Also, when the buildings actually collapsed, all that potential energy was released into heat and sound, which is true for all destructive reactions. So it is quite possible that after the buildings fell, the temperature of the rubble reached levels higher than any fire could produce. Sorry, I’m done ranting.

...are you talking about melting steel beams, or heating the steel beams to the point where they change into something with properties different from steel?

 

The typical combustion temperature for Avgas in air is 2030°C or 3686°F, the typical combustion temperature of kerosine in air is 2090°C or 3794°F, actually higher than Avgas. Incidentally, the typical combustion temperature of charcoal in air is 1390°C or 2534°F, substantially lower than either of the previous fuels and it's been used to smelt steel for, like, ever.

 

I agree. The concrete making up most of the structure would actually probably be the bigger issue when it comes to heat. It generally starts to degrade at around 600°C and completely loses it's integrity at around 1000°C. I wasn't trying to come down on any side of the conspiracy, I was just dropping facts.

 

Avgas is closer to gasoline in most respects, except price. Back in my racing days I used to run an 800HP Camaro on 'JetBlu' Avgas. 106 octane at 6$/ gallon. Avgas is also available in a low lead configuration called Avgas 100 or Avgas LL.
(These days I'd just run 93 octane with a methenol/water injection system- much cheaper.)

 

Construction rivits dont have threads. They look like threadless bolts and get heated to a glowing red, placed through a hole in two pieces of iron and smashed from the backside and allowed to cool. Pop rivits dont have thread either. They rely on deformation of the leeward end to hold it in place too.