Stuff you didn't know and probably don't care about

[Skunk-Works]

There's Murphy's Law and then there's Skunk-work's law. Murphy's Law states that if you use a hammer, chances are you'll smack your thumb. Where's Skunk-work's law states hold the hammer with both hands.

Now you know and knowing is half the battle.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

ABBA's famously outrageous costumes worn in concerts were selected for tax purposes. According to Swedish tax laws clothes were deductible only if so wild that they could only reasonably be worn on stage and not for any other purpose.

 

[Charmonium]

We all know you shouldn't shop for food when you're hungry. But what about shopping generally? Also not a good idea.

It’s never a good idea to shop for groceries when you’re hungry. Studies have shown that such an approach can lead to overspending and even buying items that you don’t really need or want. And now, new research from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management suggests that even shopping for non-food items on an empty stomach can lead to the same sort of results. The reason, the researchers say, may be connected to a hormone called ghrelin, which is released by the stomach when you’re hungry. This hormone is known to affect the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that is involved in reward and motivation.

The hormones made me buy it:

• Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of marketing at the Carlson School of Management, says that ghrelin has been shown to make hungry people want to seek out and consume calories.
  
• Xu suggests that the release of ghrelin can cause you to want to acquire more of everything when you are hungry. Shoppers, she says, should "feed themselves before they go out.”
  
• The researchers conducted a number of experiments to test their theories. In one survey, they found that hungry shoppers spent 64 percent more money than those who were less hungry.

http://www.wisegeek.com/is-it-a-bad-idea-to-go-shopping-when-youre-hungry.htm

 

[KMFJD]

 

[Skunk-Works]

Okay, I have several thousand keys of coke to transport.

 

[Thebobo]

Nothing is new.
Kaduna, Nigeria 1959

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=420623458390784

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Jackie Robinson's older brother Mack was quite an athlete too. In 1936 Mack broke the world record for the 200 meter race in the Olympic finals. Mack had the misfortune of breaking the world record in the very same race that Jesse Owens broke it by a little bit more. Owens won the gold and Mack Robinson took the silver.

 

[Charmonium]

Which foreign countries/cities use the most illicit drugs.

Barcelona in Spain is the cocaine capital of Europe, according to the findings, with Zurich in Switzerland and Antwerp in Belgium closely creeping up behind. In particular, cocaine use is highest in western and southern European cities, particularly in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

When it comes to MDMA, Amsterdam tops the charts. The highest MDMA loads were consistently found in the wastewater of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands. However, the majority of cities across Europe have seen a sharp rise in the use of MDMA.

Germany is the kingdom of amphetamine, with German cities making up half of the top 10 highest users of the drug. More generally, the traces of amphetamine detected in wastewater varied considerably from city to city with no discernable pattern.

Methamphetamine use remains pretty low across the board, limited to mainly the Czech Republic and Slovakia, although it's now becoming increasingly popular throughout cities in Cyprus, Finland, Norway, and the east of Germany.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-an...s-which-cities-in-europe-take-the-most-drugs/

 

[William Gaatjes]

Nothing is new.
Kaduna, Nigeria 1959

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=420623458390784

I never seen such a time counter on a 1959 recording.
Perhaps it is an projector image recorded with a more modern videocamera set.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Canadians likes to make fun of Americans because of our beer. No real Canadian would be caught dead drinking weak American crap, right? Wrong.

The top selling beer in Canada is Busweiser. #2 is Coors Light. Hell, Canada barely has a beer industry. Molson is the #1 brand in Canada and that's owned by Coors. LaBatts is 2nd and that's a Belgian company. Moosehead is the largest Canadian brewer and they control a whopping 3.8% of the market.

 

[snoopy7548]

Canadians likes to make fun of Americans because of our beer. No real Canadian would be caught dead drinking weak American crap, right? Wrong.

The top selling beer in Canada is Busweiser. #2 is Coors Light. Hell, Canada barely has a beer industry. Molson is the #1 brand in Canada and that's owned by Coors. LaBatts is 2nd and that's a Belgian company. Moosehead is the largest Canadian brewer and they control a whopping 3.8% of the market.

Canadians really make fun of American beer? Don't they know we have a multitude of incredibly good craft breweries?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Canadians really make fun of American beer? Don't they know we have a multitude of incredibly good craft breweries?

They're Canadians, they don't know very much other than good recipes for moose gonads.

 

[NoCreativity]

Much smaller version of a soviet creation during the cold war

 

[IronWing]

^ I find the ekranoplans mesmerizing. I've spent hours watching videos of those things.

Apparently, the Russians are working on a new version called the Orion 20. I have to wait until I'm on a computer with better protection to read about it as the sites carrying the story are sketchy (RT, sputnik).

 

[sdifox]

Ringo Starr was the voice of the original Thomas and Friends.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German. "Dutch" is a bastardization of the word "Deustch."

 

[Charmonium]

Back in 1916, businessman W.H. Coltharp wanted his new bank in Vernal, Utah, to have a beautiful brick exterior, and he was particularly fond of the durable fired bricks made in Salt Lake City. Shipping the bricks by rail was too costly, so Coltharp decided to take advantage of the US Postal Service’s new Parcel Post rates. The 15,000 bricks (some sources say it was 80,000 bricks) were individually wrapped in paper and packed 10 to a wooden crate to meet the 50-pound (22.7-kg) weight limit. It cost just 54 cents to mail each of the crates.

Shipping bricks by mail:

• As the crow flies, Vernal is only about 125 miles (201 km) from Salt Lake City, which put it in the second delivery zone for Parcel Post, but the actual route was nearly 400 miles (644 km) long. The USPS lost 21 cents on each package.
  
• About 37 tons of bricks were shipped to Vernal, and the bank was completed in November 1916. Nicknamed the "parcel post bank," the Bank of Vernal is now a branch of Zions Bank.
  
• The Bank of Vernal's brick exterior notwithstanding, Parcel Post was an instant success for the United States Postal Service, with 300 million packages mailed in the first six months of 1913.

http://www.wisegeek.com/is-usps-parcel-post-an-effective-way-to-transport-building-supplies.htm

 

[Mai72]

In Thailand, ladyboys are thought to be reincarnated and are being punished because in their past life they were bad. It's why Thai people are considerate and respectful towards the ladyboys.

They are going thru enough pain, so it's why they are left alone.

 

[Charmonium]

Tats stay inked because the dye is transferred from one macrophage cell to another.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/inked-mice-hint-how-tattoos-persist-people

In the experiment, described March 6 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, macrophages gobbled up the ink as expected, but did not digest and remove it. Instead, the cells held onto the ink until the researchers killed the cells. About 90 days later, new macrophages moved in and reabsorbed the ink. This capture-release-recapture cycle was key to preserving the tattoos, the researchers say.

But a mouse study doesn’t settle the science of tattoos in humans, says Desmond Tobin, a dermatology expert at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study. Macrophages may live longer in humans than in mice, and the persistence of those cells might be responsible for preserving tattoos in human skin, he says.

TAIL TATS When researchers tattooed mouse tails, the only cells found with ink inside were macrophages. The tattoo appeared the same before (left) and after (right) ink-holding macrophages were killed, because it was recaptured by new macrophages.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Hall-of-Fame pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm racked up some impressive numbers in his career. He won 124 games as a reliever which is still a MLB record, he was the first to record 200 saves and the first to appear in 1000 games. But his oddity was with a bat. Hoyt hit a home run in his very first at-bat in the big leagues and never hit another one in 500 plate appearances over 21 years. He amassed a career average of .088, terrible even for pitchers.

Speaking of baseball oddities, Phillies hall-of-famer Richie Ashburn and spectator Alice Roth crossed paths twice on August 17, 1957. During an at-bat in a game against New York Giants Ashburn fouled off a pitch and the ball hit Roth in the face, breaking her nose. It was bad enough that the game paused for Alice to get medical attention and she was taken out of the stadium on a stretcher. Play resumed as the medics were wheeling her out and Ashburn was still at bat. He fouled off the very first pitch and hit poor Alice again. They became friends afterward and Richie got Roth's son a job as a Phillies bat boy.

 

[Charmonium]

Want to know why we don't use metric? One word . . . pirates.

The United States is one of only a handful of countries that have not officially adopted the metric system, formally known as the International System of Units. There have been attempts over the years to bring America into the global norm -- beginning in 1793, when the fledgling nation sought trade uniformity among the 13 original states. Thomas Jefferson, who was Secretary of State at the time, thought that a new French system would solve their problems. France agreed to share, and sent scientist Joseph Dombey across the Atlantic to explain the new base-ten system of weights and measures. Unfortunately, storms pushed Dombey's ship south to the Caribbean, where pirates took the scientist prisoner.

Uniformity lost at sea:

• Dombey set sail from Paris with two standards for the new metric system -- a rod that was exactly a meter long, and a copper cylinder called a “grave” that weighed one kilogram.
  
• The pirates took Dombey prisoner on the island of Montserrat, hoping to get a ransom for his release. No money was paid, and the French botanist and aristocrat died in captivity there.
  
• According to the CIA World Factbook, the other countries that have not officially adopted the metric system are Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia.

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-did-pir...of-the-metric-system-in-the-united-states.htm

 

[sdifox]

Want to know why we don't use metric? One word . . . pirates.

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-did-pir...of-the-metric-system-in-the-united-states.htm

Shake angry fist at Jack Sparrow

 

[Fritzo]

We all know you shouldn't shop for food when you're hungry. But what about shopping generally? Also not a good idea.


http://www.wisegeek.com/is-it-a-bad-idea-to-go-shopping-when-youre-hungry.htm

I tried to avoid food shopping when hungry, but after the 3rd day it got so bad I had to buy something.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Want to know why we don't use metric? One word . . . pirates.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the other countries that have not officially adopted the metric system are Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia.

 

[Charmonium]

The correct term is "sh** tonne"