Useless Facts

I'm just a deckhand now. Or cargo.

 

The German word for bat is Flittermaus.

 

I believe it's Fledermaus.

 

And my spelling in English ain't that great either.

 

I have spotted errors in Jeopardy clues three times in the last three weeks.

Last night, "This swings back and forth to help grandfather clocks keep time, and makes the tick tock sound."
The accepted answer was "What is a pendulum?"
The error is that the tick tock sound it made by a mechanism called an escapement.

 

The domain name 'bullish.com' recently sold for $900,000.

 

Due to his cameos in almost all of the MCU movies, comic book author Stan Lee is technically the highest grossing actor of all time.

 

George Lucas says that Mace Windu defeated Darth Sidious in battle, fair and square. But for some reason some fans refuse to believe it.

It annoys me ️️

 

The word 'Checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat' meaning - the king is dead.

 

Makes sense, checkmate only happens when your "king is dead"

 

Watching TV burns more calories than sleeping.

 

Over a million people die in car accidents every year worldwide. I mean, I knew it was a lot but that's actually insane.

 

a turtle (or the turtle shell) is an imperfect Gömböc

 

The Antelope Jackrabbit of southern Arizona and northern Sonora is the worlds largest species of hare, about the size of a medium terrier dog. There is fossil evidence of an ancestor the size of a Great Dane.

 

The earth is not round. It's an oblate spheroid.

 

Israel has successfully launched seven reconaissance satellites into retrograde orbits. They were launched that direction to prevent them from falling into the territory of any of the neighboring countries if things went wrong.

 

In college we had to do a report on our ancestors, and I had already done a presentation on my Indigenous American roots so that time I did the report on my Sudanese side. showing images of black pharoahs and stuff...

And I was constantly bombarded with interrogative questions about where I got my proof. I spent the whole presentation giving out names and dates. This wasnt done to anyone else and for some reason the teacher allowed it to happen. I never use the word triggered, but I honestly believe some of my classmates were triggered.

 

I was in college in 1979 and was sent to interview for a part time job. The interviewer was curious and asked about the origin of my surname. (Vince Higgins is a pen name.) I told him it was Spanish, and that my grandparents were all from Mexico. He then told me that even though I spoke English well for one of "my people," he couldn't use me.

I speak English well for one of that pendejo's people too.

EDIT. the job was driving a van to deliver office supplies.

 

Not everything you see that looks like a crab actually is one.

Carcinisation is the phenomenon where different, disparate groups of crustaceans have evolved toward a distinctly crab-like shape from a non-crab-like shape.

Carcinisation is believed to have occurred independently in at least five groups of decapod crustaceans:

• King crabs, which most scientists believe evolved from hermit crab ancestors
• Porcelain crabs, which are closely related to squat lobsters
• The hairy stone crab (Lomis hirta)
• The coconut crab (Birgus latro)
• True crabs (Brachyura)

 

If you open your eyes in a pitch-black room, the color you’ll see is called “eigengrau.”

 

Snake venom has two basic types. Hemotoxic causes local tissue damage. Neurotoxic is more dangerous because the damage in more systemic, and can affect vital organs. Elapid snakes like cobras and coral snakes have highly neurotoxic venom. Vipers, like most rattlesnakes are hemotoxic.

One species of rattlesnake has an underserved bad reputation of being aggressive, due largely to the fact that it is the only one with neurotoxic venom. The Mojave rattler, who's range is the junction of the states of California, Nevada, and Arizona, is just as timid of humans as the rest. It is closely related to the western diamondback.

 

I was the only black person in my Childhood Developmental Psychology class in college. The teacher was black too (my only black professor in my whole 4 years of undergrad). He wanted to go around the room during roll call and have us give a random fact. at this time, my maternal first cousin had done a genealogy test and the results came back that we have a very HIGH percentage of Sudanese in our line. So i gave that as my random fact.

come exams, I was the only one who got an A and my classmates said "oh its because you said you are Sudanese. Now he's showing favoritism" and "He's probably Sudanese too, thats why he likes you" and (my favorite) "he's so mean to everyone but gives you an A? Thats racist!"

 

Star Trek Discovery in short form is STD.
I wonder if there is a correlation of two things
that are considered bad, going on here.
(I've seen a few episodes, and sure didn't care for it.) IMO

 

Among the items specifically banned from carry-on luggage by the TSA are Bowie knives and bowling pins.

 

TIL London actually has slightly low rainfall relatively, it is the west of England that is the rainiest part, (westerly winds of the Atlantic are the largest cause of rain in Western Europe). Sydney is actually rainier than London by a little, although London's very rainy days can be a little more extreme.