I thought the other Fun Facts threads have been interesting, so let’s try that again.
Plus, I am hoping this will tempt the gods into give us a long-awaited Friday afternoon news dump that dumps on Trump or any of his minions.
From last week:
I was thinking about all the interesting things I learned on the podcast Jack yesterday, and I thought it might be fun to have a thread where we could all share interesting stuff we have learned in the past few days from reading, or videos, conversations, or podcasts.
Here are 4 fun* facts from google to start us off:
- “Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
- Most people fall asleep in five minutes.
- Wearing headphones for just an hour could increase the bacteria in your ear by 7,000 times.
- Some lipsticks contain fish poop.
*actually, one of these is correct as is, and the other three are nearly true, with just one word or number changed.
Just in case this double-dare you post to the universe encourages the indictment gods to sprinkle us with indictment news today, there’s this. No announcements yet, but maybe today will be the first one.
I just followed @indictmentsonly with notifications on. Can't wait until they start flowing in. https://t.co/v70phlXCHo
— 💙Rob in ❤️SD🐀🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@dakbio) February 23, 2023
Open thread.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m lucky if I fall asleep in 5 hours. Ok ok, I exaggerate, but not by much.
sdhays
5 minutes to fall asleep sure seems pretty quick.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: @sdhays:
Google says 7 minutes, which still seems crazy.
Baud
Assholes.
Math Guy
My problem is not falling asleep – it is staying asleep.
FridayNext
The 8-Track was invented by William Lear so pilots on his jets could listen to music continuously without taking their hands off the steering wheel.
Liquid paper (white out) was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, the mother of Michael Nesmith of The Monkees.
The first winner of a Primetime Emmy for Actress was won by Gertrude Berg for The Goldbergs in 1951. (The first and still best comedy by that name) Ms. Berg beat out Imogene Coca, Helen Hayes, Judith Anderson, and Betty White.
Soprano2
Thanks everyone for your responses to my post on the last thread. Posting it here because that thread is dead.
Geoduck
Some types of spider silk have roughly the same tensile strength as steel.
Lacuna Synecdoche
WaterGirl:
For me, it’s usually 15 – 30 minutes.
That said, I suspect we all might be likely to overestimate the amount of time it takes us to fall asleep, because it’s the times that take longer to fall asleep that we remember.
In other words, if you fall asleep quickly, how often are you likely to think about it? For better or worse, evolution has molded us into creatures that remember the bad more frequently, more relentlessly, and with greater detail, than we remember the good.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: Most of the time I fall asleep that fast, but I think it’s because I’m sleep-deprived. What I hate is when I fall asleep on the couch, but then can’t get to sleep when I go to bed. How does that work anyway?
trollhattan
@Math Guy: Exactly!
Ken
Philo, Ohio is the longest US town + state name that can be typed with the right hand only.
The left-hand record holder is in Texas, but I don’t remember the town.
Frankensteinbeck
Jesus fuck, I envy them. 2 hours is not rare, although there is ‘drowsing’ time in there, and I have learned that that does provide some sleep value.
@Math Guy:
And that’s even more of a kicker. I have pretty bad sleep apnea, and can’t use the machines for health reasons. When just as you’re starting to doze you’re shaken awake by stopping breathing, anything can keep you awake if you fully awake in the middle of the night.
Frankensteinbeck
@Geoduck:
Orb webs have evolved independently in spiders that are far apart on the spider family tree.
Spanky
Fun Napoleon fact carried over from the last thread:
The British made great sport of the fact that Napoleon was 5′ 3″, as reported by the French themselves.
BUT, no one was eager to point out that in those days before standardization, French inches (“pouces”) were actually bigger than English inches. After Napoleon’s death, the English measured his height (er, I suppose “length” at that point) as being 5′ 7″ in English measure. The English had also made Wellington out to be some towering figure, but later writers who met him put him at between 5′ 8″ and 5′ 10″. Not a very notable difference.
NotMax
Random trivia:
~3.5 million: population of Queens county, NY.
>5 million: population in cemeteries in Queens county, NY
.
Longest officially designated NYC subway station name: Claremont Parkway Between 171st St. & 172nd St. In the Bronx along the old Third Avenue El.
Delk
@Frankensteinbeck: I have the Inspire implant for my apnea. I just had a sleep study done and I went from 88 disturbances an hour to 17 disturbances. With some additional fine tuning it will be lower.
different-church-lady
I’m hoping it’s not the headphone thing, because it’s literally my job to wear them for hours at a time.
scav
From my book on A. Bronson Alcott (aside: annoying man!!!) “When Bronson was still a baby, one of the church deacons solemnly foretold that, if that dangerous infidel Thomas Jefferson were elected President, ‘the meeting houses would be burned to the ground, and Christians would be burned at the stake.’”
fun? Well, My third day of giggles.
Also, Ambisinister
realbtl
In the early 50s Porsche wanted a 4 door car so they partnered with . . . . Studebaker.
WaterGirl
@Geoduck: Wow, that’s interesting!
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh, that sucks.
I wonder if the google knows how long most people stay asleep.
Alison Rose
Five minutes. I fucking wish.
The winningest Best in Show breed at the Westminster Kennel Club is the Wire Fox Terrier, with 15 BIS wins, nearly twice as many as the second-most. Which is why I do not ever want to see another Wire Fox Terrier win BIS. YES I know it’s about how the dog matches the standard and YES I know each year is individual and YES I know it’s not a popularity contest. I don’t care. No more. I have a spreadsheet of all the winners by year as well as the totals for each breed, and I don’t wanna add another for that one. I am sure they’re all very good boys and girls, but still. 48 different breeds have won BIS, 25 of which have won twice or more. In 2022, there were 211 total breeds competing.
Yes, I am very impatient for this year’s show. I was hoping they’d be able to move it back to February like it had always been before the pandemic. Alas, it’s in May
(If you wanna know if a particular breed has ever won, ask away.)
Nancy
I am being treated for Restless Leg Syndrome. Crazy issue. Apparently fidgeting and moving all day disguises any problems until evening when I want to be still and sleep. I call it twitch syndrome.
Sometimes my meds help and I can relax and sleep but not in five minutes.
The only times I fall asleep quickly and completely seem to be when I sit in the couch to watch something I’d like to see. Then I’m out within minutes of the show starting.
different-church-lady
@Spanky:
“I’m six foot five and I eat punks like you for breakfast!”
WaterGirl
@Delk: Congratulations!
DesertFriar
Strange facts about States…
New Mexico is neither “New” nor “Mexico”.
Rhode Island is not an island.
In directional state names, East feels left out.
kalakal
Bastards.
This is why I’m a misanthrope
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: The real number for the headphones is 700, not 7,000. Still a lot, though!
UncleEbeneezer
I only wish Allison Gill would’ve added “And if you are one of those people who constantly say “wake me up when there are indictments” or “yawn,” please take that shit elsewhere because it adds absolutely NOTHING to the conversation, and only serves to derail them with cynicism. You don’t care until indictments happen? Cool. We get it. Now go away and come back when they happen.”
sdhays
@WaterGirl: According to HealthLine, most people fall asleep in 10-20 minutes, which seems more reasonable.
WaterGirl
@Nancy: Yeah, if I was watching TV on the couch with a friend (pre-Covid) the minute I got up to get my blankie, he knew I would be asleep in a very small number of minutes.
sdhays
@UncleEbeneezer: Or don’t come back. That’s ok too.
kalakal
Coyotes run faster than Roadrunners.
The Acme Corporation does not exist
My childhood was based on a lie
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Life would be boring if we were all the same.
My dad used to say “that’s what makes the world go ’round.”
Timill
100 years ago today, Doncaster Works released A1 Pacific 1472 to traffic. She became famous as LNER 4472 Flying Scotsman and is still running in preservation today.
WaterGirl
@sdhays: The Google was wrong? I am shocked! :-)
RaflW
@Lacuna Synecdoche: My self-perception is that I am challenged to fall asleep quickly or deeply. Then my partner and I travel. He always goes to bed a little after me, but at home it’s so routine I don’t notice or think about it.
But how many times have we had a quick convo like this:
BF – Sorry I tripped on the suitcase (crashed into the furniture/etc, pratfalls of an unfamiliar room) and made that noise last night!
Me – I didn’t notice.
BF – Oh, good. You looked zonked.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: I bet you told all your friends there was no santa claus! :-)
kalakal
I can fall asleep within 3 seconds of the start of a Powerpoint presentation
Baud
@kalakal:
That’s too bad. I was really hoping Bugs Bunny would saw off Florida one of these days.
oatler
The style hack of the moment? Just add another necklace.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: What!!!!! Oh no!!! Another illusion shattered!
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Andrew McCabe’s voice puts me to sleep faster than anyone else’s. (in a good way!) That just means that when I wake up in the night, I still have the Jack podcast to put me back asleep.
OzarkHillbilly
On the rare occasions it happens, I go, “Wow… I got some sleep.” On the even rarer occasions when it is uninterrupted, I go, “Wow… I got some good sleep.”
Insomnia is not for the weak of heart.
trollhattan
@realbtl: That’s fun. They did make one pretty cool car in the ’50s, the Hawk.
The Avanti of the ’60s was their last shot at saving the brand.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: rut roh. My older sister, who can’t keep a secret, told me when i was 5.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Now I suppose anvils are a cartoonist’s invention and trains cannot emerge from painted cave openings?
sdhays
@DesertFriar: That’s why Iowa should be renamed as “East Dakota”. That’s where they’ve decided to go politically anyway.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Looks like a car you’d see on the old Perry Mason episodes.
Speaking of which, Season 2 of Perry Mason starts in early March.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I blame Pete Buttigieg.
Alison Rose
@DesertFriar: Maybe we can rename Iowa “East Nebraska”.
different-church-lady
@kalakal: Proust will have me sound asleep before I turn a page.
Ken
@Ken: Found it! Sweetwater, Texas is the longest city-state combo that can be typed only with the left hand.
There is also a “census-designated place” called Edgewater Estates, Texas, but it’s not an official town or city.
Baud
@DesertFriar:
Wait, East Bumfuck is not a state?
Jeffro
Fun fact #1: I have run out of Chiefs highlight reels to watch on YouTube and now it’s a long six months until the preseason.
Fun fact #2: While most everyone knows that the oldest city in the U.S. is St. Augustine, FL, few know that Virginia has three of the top five oldest cities: Jamestown, Hampton, and Newport News (which in fairness should be considered one city at this point)
RaflW
@DesertFriar: To your last point, can anyone speculate as to why only one state is known to fit the appendage “by God” in the middle of the state name?
I doubt it is because our blogfather lives there.
Ken
In colonial times there was an “East Jersey“, which I only know about because it was in one of Asimov’s “Black Widowers” stories.
Paul in KY
All iron found on Earth predates the Earth by millions of years. That is because iron is only formed as the last element in the heart of a giant star. When it completes fusing the element (silicon, I think) that becomes iron, it implodes in a supernova.
It is thought that the iron on Earth comes from whatever huge star that imploded and created the huge dust clouds that our solar system and probably the other close by ones formed out of.
Alison Rose
@Baud: It’s a state of mind.
kalakal
Whither Canada?, The Nose Show, Ow! It’s Colin Plint!, A Horse, a Spoon and a Basin, The Toad Elevating Moment and Owl Stretching Time
were all names rejected by the BBC before they settled on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They used a few of them as episode titles
different-church-lady
@Baud: State of mind, certainly.
Baud
Reddit is having a geography fun fact thread right now.
CaseyL
An old factoid I heard very long ago, and for some reason it stuck with me: “98% of groundhogs in Argentina have brown noses.”
This always raised a lot of questions, the first two being: Does that matter? Do groundhogs shun their pink-nosed brethren/sistren?
Now that it’s multiple decades since I first read the factoid, the follow up question is, “Is this still true?”
Sister Golden Bear
Fun fact: Murdercorp (PG&E) finally deemed to restore power after it went out Tuesday afternoon.
Not so fun fact: They’re warning there probably will be more outages when the next storm hits tomorrow.
Oh and there’s snow on the mountains just west of the SF Peninsula. First time I’ve seen that in the 20 years I’ve lived here.
Alison Rose
Absolutely fun: There’s an organ parked outside the russian embassy in The Hague, blasting the National Anthem of Ukraine. Chaotic good.
Paul in KY
@kalakal: Acme went out of business due to the bad publicity from all those crap gizmos they sold that gullible coyote.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: We got some snow on the hilltops here in Santa Rosa. None on the ground where I am, but even getting it on the hills is very rare.
different-church-lady
@kalakal:
But the Beeb did let “At Last, the 1948 Show!” through, pre-Python.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nancy: My wife has RLS. It drives her nuts but actually helps me fall asleep. Damned if I know why.
piratedan
@RaflW: I believe it was a point of “emphasis” to distinctly separate themselves from Secessionist Virginia
Sister Golden Bear
@kalakal: The coyote’s brand loyalty to ACME is a triumph of hope over experience.
trucmat
@UncleEbeneezer:
I just crankily down rated a page of posts cynically being bored about an article detailing that Google had been reprimanded in court. Yawn! So boring they had to write a comment saying how boring it was I guess.
different-church-lady
Still have that eagle-cam thing that was shared yesterday up in a browser tab. Thinking about just having it run 24/7 on a screen in my living room.
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose:
Has the domestic American trash hound (Canis detritus), of which the late beloved Lily was a fine example, ever won?
brendancalling
OT, but where can I find the Baloon Juice glossary/lexicon? I’m trying to remember what a few tags mean. Green Balloons? C.R.E.A.M.?
different-church-lady
@Sister Golden Bear:
I always imagined it had to do with monopoly more than loyalty. It’s a really really vertical market.
OzarkHillbilly
@UncleEbeneezer: Yaaaaawwwwnnnn….
Hey, you asked for it.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: LOL, sadly I don’t think that one is a recognized AKC breed :P
Alison Rose
@brendancalling: On desktop, it’s in the upper right, to the left of the navigation arrows. On mobile, tap the three lines in the upper right, it’s near the bottom of the list.
Green balloons I’m not sure of, but CREAM is Cash Rules Everything Around Me.
Dopey-o
why is the iron core of earth so hot?
trollhattan
Nicely played, Germany.
Has Vlad mentioned wanting the Soviet zone of Berlin back?
trollhattan
@Dopey-o:
Somebody left a burner on?
Ken
I have certainly not been able to find giant horseshoe-shaped electromagnets, dehydrated boulders, flying explosive darts, and earthquake pills anywhere else.
kalakal
Edward the 1st is probably the only English king to carry out a bank raid.
He robbed the Knights Templar to fund merceneries so he could bust his dad out of the Tower of London.
Lapassionara
@Baud: that is a fun read. Thanks
Math Guy
@Dopey-o: I recall reading that there are radioactive elements in the core as well. Maybe some of it is residual heat from the formation of the planet.
scav
@trollhattan: Nah. It’s because while not being overly tall, it acts confident. Also, not as dense as it appears and is kind to puppies.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: That’s an excellent question!
smith
Not yet, but apparently they are proposing that the way to peace is to move Poland’s borders back.
zeecube
Santa Claus, in fact, does not drink Coca-Cola.
p.a.
@Paul in KY:
Paul in KY
FEBRUARY 24, 2023 AT 2:13 PM
After Chapt 11 successfully rebranded as Fox Corp
Paul in KY
@Dopey-o: It is under tremendous pressure and there is also radioactive stuff (like iridium) down there. Mostly the pressure though.
NotMax
@kalakal
Shopped at the nearby Acme supermarket regularly when living in northeastern Pennsylvania.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Those alternates were terrible.
Paul in KY
@kalakal: I think Henry VII had his own form of bank raiding. Morton’s fork and the like.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Are they copying us? :-)
Ken
Leftover heat of formation, plus contributions from radioisotopes and further differentiation.
Related fun fact: Most of the siderophile elements ended up with the iron in the core. The surface abundances of gold, platinum, iridium, etc. are in large part from later impacts.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: I tried to get my wife to watch the old Cosmos episodes but she had the same problem because Carl Sagan’s voice was just so damn cozy and relaxing. Five minutes in, she’d be out, lol.
Baud
@WaterGirl: If only everyone would, the world would be a better place.
WaterGirl
@Sister Golden Bear: Maybe use your heat + your propane heater to try to get your house back up to normal temps for a long enough period of time that it can retain some heat if you lose power again tomorrow?
OverTwistWillie
Cinema exhibition has blown past retrenchment and is headed for dead cat bounce.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: I love that so much. Good trouble.
NotMax
@Dopey-o
Hot iron takes out the wrinkles.
;)
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: LEXICON in the white menu bar up top.
Geminid
@Ken: The WASP Museum is just outside of Sweetwater, Texas. It honors the Women Airforce Service Pilots who ferried airplanes from the factories to air bases during the Second World War. It’s a nice stop, just four miles off of I-20 on the road to Lubbock.
Math Guy
@Paul in KY: But, the net gravitational force at the center of the Earth is 0.
Paul in KY
One sure way to tell if it is a leopard eating your face or a cougar (if in the dark) is that in all members of Pantera (which includes leopards) the hair on the top side of the nose comes all the way to the tip of the nose, with the nasal pad starting under that strip of hair. In Felidae (which includes cougars and housecats) the nasal pad goes all the way to the top of the front of the nose, with the hair starting behind that top strip of nasal pad.
scav
@Paul in KY: I think the critical issue is going to be the definition of “bank”. Henry VIII, both before and after the head of the church move, rather went after monasteries to fund founding universities, etc. (heavy on the etc later.)
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I love the public flipping off of Putin in all these public places. Absolute mockery.
If Putin is prone to ketchup throwing, it’s gonna get ugly. Humiliation would have to be the worst for someone with Putin’s fragile ego.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: For real?
Paul in KY
@Math Guy: OK. Not sure what that means.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Insomnia is not for the weak.
Takes a lot of stamina to work on 4-6 hrs of sleep a day.
Ask me how I know.
Sister Golden Bear
@WaterGirl: Power actually came back in the middle of the middle of the night and it was up to 65 when I checked this morning.
But I did get a propane space heater for future emergencies. Luckily last month I scored a basic camp stove at Target for $30. Didn’t need it now, since there were enough nearby areas with power that I could go out to eat. But if there’s widespread outages after a quake, it’ll come in handy.
Ken
@Paul in KY: Interesting, and reminiscent (in several ways) of those handy guidelines for telling alligators from crocodiles, by closely inspecting their teeth.
And don’t even get me started on coral and king snakes. I can never remember if it’s “black on red, you’re dead” or “black on yellow, kill a fellow”, so fall back on the simple mnemonic “It’s a snake, you moron, get away from it.”
Paul in KY
@scav: I’m talking about his father, the noted miser Henry VII. The ‘banks’ would be where the people he extorted kept their money.
glc
@Spanky: For some reason I was talking about that the other day with my quite short neighbor, who professes to be quite put out by that business. But then he went off on the subject of Milton Friedman and I wound up reading some bits of that Wikipedia page which were informative in a narrow sort of way.
Some other (unrelated things) on the general topic of the post.
(That first one risks being a duplication of something earlier I think, apologies if so.)
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
All jellyfish with blue eyes are blind.
(According to Robert Benchley, or maybe Dorothy Parker. May not be an actual science-y fact.)
Geoduck
My favorite Coyote/Roadrunner gag has Wile E dig a pit-trap following the instructions from a book titled How To Build A Burmese Tiger Trap. One guess what he catches in the pit instead of the Roadrunner. (Surprisibus! Surprisibus!)
Sister Golden Bear
@Ken: Also the intense pressure creates heat.
Danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
exactly – I should be so lucky
kalakal
@scav: Well in Eddie the 1sts case it involved storming into a guarded building with money in it with a bunch of hardcases all in full armour and waving swords. That was my definition of a bank raid for the post.
Morton’s Fork was a far nastier trick as was Henry VIIIs looting of monastries.
Simpler times the thirteenth century
Ruckus
@RaflW:
Have you ever been to West By God Virginia?
You’d know the answer to your question if you had.
And no, it actually is for the most part a beautiful state and I know other people besides the boss who live there. It’s just doesn’t have a lot of flat. Which is made up by a few other states that are damn close to straight line flat.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ruckus: Fortunately I’m retired now. I was getting 6 hrs or so a night when I was still working. Asleep at 9, up at 3 or 3:30.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: Milk snakes (a type of king snake) have black, white and red rings. Coral snakes have black, yellow and red rings. Forget the little ditty and just remember black, red and yellow are the bad ones.
Math Guy
@Paul in KY: It is a little known fact: since the distribution of Earth’s mass exhibits spherical symmetry, the net force of gravity at the center is 0.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
I grew up shopping at ACME Supermarkets.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: Yup. Quite the lad was the Lord Edward. He was known as longshanks ( long legs) as at 6 ft 2in in the late 13th century he towered over everybody else. He was smart, hard as nails, and scared the crap out of people
WaterGirl
@Geoduck: That was laugh out loud funny.
scav
@Paul in KY: Noted, as I had to look up Morton’s fork (knew H VII was a tightwad). But wouldn’t all similar taxes under different monarchs of the period possibly be drawn out of a bank then? In which case, we may need to define “raid” as well. Edward II was rather following Phillip the Fair in going after the Templars (and the Pope chimed in) so even the original example has nuances to be quibbled over.
WaterGirl
We apparently don’t have many lipstick wearers here.
Some lipsticks contain fish
poopscales.I’m not sure which is more disgusting. Okay, forget that. Poop is worse.
Citizen Alan
@kalakal: More importantly, road runners are kinda bad ass, and I imagine most coyotes would stick to easier prey than birds that kill rattlesnakes for food. And swallow them whole.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: Conversation/debate over what will happen with Trump’s legal exposure are great. I’ve been listening to several fascinating conversations this week about whether or not this annoying juror in Fulton’s revelations will effect the case. But they are interesting because the people having them (Harry Litman, Michael Popok, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Barb McQuade etc.) are all coming at it based on experience and evidence of things that have actually happened.
“I don’t think Trump will be charged because (x, y, z…current developments” followed by a well crafted argument, is interesting and makes for a good part of a debate.
“Trump won’t be charged because our Justice System never holds powerful people accountable” isn’t.
scav
@kalakal: So he did actually go in sword-waving!? Fun! I’m more familiar with the French end of things.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: I haven’t worn makeup since the pandemic started, but I always knew there were many icky ingredients in some cosmetics. I chose to compartmentalize that in favor of my lords and saviors Lancome, NARS, and MAC.
Anoniminous
@DesertFriar:
New Mexico was called “Mexico” before Mexico was called Mexico.
Paul in KY
@scav: Not a bank raid/robbery as Edward I pulled off, but just a mean trick to play (Morton’s Fork) to extort money. Henry VII is supposed to have stated that he wanted his subjects hungry and poor, as that generally made it harder for them to have the strength to do any mischief.
Eyeroller
@Math Guy: All elements other than hydrogen, helium, and a few other light elements were formed in stars and released mostly in gas ejections from red giants but some are from supernovae. The radioactive heavy elements in the Earth’s core do generate a lot of the heat that drives tectonic processes.
J R in WV
@RaflW:
Because West Virginians have gotten totally tired of telling someone they are from West Virginia, only to hear “My Aunt is from Richmond, do you know Rhona Miller?” West By God Virginia is NOT part of Virginia.
Suzanne
North of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun is never directly overhead.
kalakal
@scav: Yeah, he and his dad Henry III were not doing too well in the civil war, Henry was prisoner in the Tower, and Eddy desperately needed money to pay his troops. It’s said the guards didn’t put up any resistance, both because they were outnumbered, but also because even if they survived attacking the heir to the throne would be the worst career move in history
scav
@Paul in KY: Ah, well, many monarchs are creeps, no discussion there.
Also, too many Edwards involved: the I gleefully sword-waving, the II half-heartedly dissolving.
J R in WV
@Paul in KY:
Actually, I think the only radioactive isotopes of iridium are artificially created.
Natural iridium isn’t radioactive at all. Correction welcome if I’m confused.
Paul in KY
@scav: Edward II (son of Edward I) was a whackjob. Had no desire to be a medieval king. Made a nobody knight that he fancied the Earl of Cornwall! Loved to piss off anyone who was an aristocrat. Liked playing very juvenile practical jokes on a pretty pompous class of people. Allowed his favourites to run rampant and was the first English king to be deposed.
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: My bad. I thought natural iridium was very mildly radioactive. Thank you for the correction.
mrmoshpotato
Wait. So all lipsticks contain fish poop?
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Hmm, good point. Reversing the mad-libs,
____ lipsticks contain fish poop.
Some ____ contain fish poop.
Some lipsticks ____ fish poop.
Some lipsticks contain ____ poop.
Some lipsticks contain fish ____.
They’re all kind of horrible.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: According to the first few pages I managed to Google, the big sources of radioactivity in the Earth are the familiar uranium-235 and uranium-238, thorium-232, and potassium-40. But since these elements don’t alloy readily with iron, the prevailing theory is that there isn’t much of them in the core–they’re mostly in the crust and mantle.
BUT… this is a matter of controversy, especially with regard to potassium. Some geochemists think there actually could be a lot of potassium-40 in the core. Materials can behave in strange ways under extreme conditions.
The Lodger
@Ken: Waxahatchie?
Ken
@The Lodger: “H” and “I” in the right hand.
VOR
NFL place kicker Fred Cox invented the Nerf football.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Nope! :-)
Some lipstick contains fish scales. poop was the misdirect.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Ah.
mrmoshpotato
To any of our Canadian basketball fan here, Go Pistons!
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: But your observation was correct. Both of the other misdirects were based on quantity.
700 vs. 7,000
5 vs. 7
so…
some vs. all
does logically follow.
SteverinoCT
In the Aubrey-Maturin series, set in the Napoleonic Wars, Patrick O’Brien made a great point of Jack Aubrey being very tall, at six feet even.
jonas
I think I read somewhere that the original colony was called “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”. Rhode Island was indeed one of the main coastal islands and Providence Plantations the mainland, but after a while (forget why), the plantations stuff got dropped and everything — island and mainland — started to be referred to as “Rhode Island”. Someone from our smallest, but by no means least, state feel free to correct me if my memory is wrong….
PaulB
One of my favorite bits of trivia comes from one of my favorite movies: Singin’ in the Rain.
In the movie, Lina Lamont, played by the incomparable Jean Hagen, is a silent screen star (paired with Don Lockwood, played by Gene Kelly) who is trying to make the transition to talkies. Unfortunately for her, she has a voice and accent from hell, so the first preview of the pair’s latest film is a total disaster. To save Don’s career, his girlfriend, Kathy Selden, an ingenue actress played by Debbie Reynolds, agrees to dub Lina’s voice in the movie.
So, in the movie, Kathy Selden is dubbing Lina Lamont. In real life, the studio decided that Reynolds’ voice wasn’t mellifluous enough for what they needed, so they asked another actress to dub Debbie. That actress? The incomparable Jean Hagen. The shrill, nasal voice and accent that Jean adopted for her role as Lina Lamont was not her natural speaking voice. So you have Jean Hagen dubbing Debbie Reynolds dubbing Jean Hagen.
Another bit of trivia: while Debbie did much of her own singing in this movie, she was dubbed for the song, “Would You?” by Betty Noyes.
SteverinoCT
@DesertFriar: Rhode Island: (from Wikipedia)
”Despite its name, most of Rhode Island is on the mainland of the United States. Prior to 2020, its official name was State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, derived from the merger of Colonial settlements around Narragansett bay, and outside the jurisdiction of Plymouth colony. The settlements of Rhode Island (Newport and Portsmouth) were on what is commonly called Aquidneck Island today but was called Rhode Island in Colonial times.Providence Plantations referred to settlements on the mainland including Providence and what would become Warwick.”
The name was officially changed in 2020 to remove the obviously offensive ’P’ word.
Geminid
@PaulB: There was a lot of singing dubbed in the movie South Pacific. Mitzi Gaynor and Ray Walston were the only actors whose singing made it into the movie.
PaulB
@Geminid: And one of those doing the dubbing was Thurl Ravenscroft (who dubbed Ken Clark’s singing voice). Mr. Ravenscroft is better known as the voice of Tony the Tiger and the singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in the classic animated film, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
Chris T.
Hmmm…
$ grep ‘^[qwertasdfgzxcvb]*$’ /usr/share/dict/words | awk ‘{ print length($0), $0 }’ | sort -rn
tells me that there are 3 13-letter words:
vs a mere ten (“10 stewardess”) for the singular. If we’re to allow plurals, we can add an “s” to two of the above to get 14 letters.
The 12 letter list is four words long, 11 letters gets a good dozen or so words, and by the time we’re down to a mere 10 letters the list is quite large. Here are the 12-letter words:
and here are the 11s:
I know or suspect I know most of the above words, but “afterbreast” just seems weird…
bcw
@WaterGirl: The fish scales make lipstick shiny by acting like little reflectors, just like on the fish. I guess we could continue to “expensive perfumes contain whale puke (ambergris.)
Chris T.
@Ken:
I don’t have a list of such names to feed to the above but for what it’s worth, using right-hand-letters with grep turns up a single 13-letter word from the “words” file: “13 phyllophyllin”.
Chris T.
@Paul in KY:
Maybe so, but there’s an acme.com!
Chris T.
@glc:
A bunch, actually, but you’re probably thinking of “typewriter”. In case it comes up again, try to remember “pepperwort”, “proprietor”, and “repertoire” (these four make a repertoire of typewriter tritia, er, trivia).
Three 11-letter words turned up:
WaterGirl
@bcw: shudder
patrick II
@Anoniminous:
The obvious question: where is the original Mexico?
redoubtagain
@mrmoshpotato:
The Detroit Pistons are one of three factory-owned teams in the USA still in existence as major league pro sports franchises. The others? The Chicago Bears (formerly the A.E. Staley Corporation Staleys, of Decatur, Illinois) and the Green Bay Packers (sponsored by Acme Packing Company of Green Bay, Wisconsin)
Cathie from Canada
@CaseyL: And I wonder who counted them?