Semi-Useless Information You Find

[Extreme Honey]

A great idea from ice nine. Just dump random pretty useless/ interesting-useless info here. Such as:

The war of 1812 is the only war in American history which congress debated the merits of.
There are 2.5 million new gonorrhoea cases a year among Americans
If you could magnify an apple to the size of the earth, the atoms in the original apple would each be about the size of an apple.
Every second, 10 billion neutrinos pass through every square centimetre of your body.
A rope woven from the hair of one person's head is strong enough to lift 10 cars.
In its 120 day life span, each of your red blood cells makes 75,000 round-trips to the lungs
According to relativity theory, a transatlantic concorde flight leaves you two millionths of a second younger than your earthbound pals (submitted by 'Green Arm')
"Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
For two years, during the 1970s, Mattel marketed a doll called "Growing Up Skipper." Her breasts grew when her arm was turned.
A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee
The soldiers of World War I were the first people to use the modern flushing toilet. The inventor: Thomas Crapper.
The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500's.
In 1898, Bayer was advertising cough medicine containing heroin.
Camel hair brushes are made from squirrel hair.
Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
Swans are the only birds with penises
Rats can't throw-up.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
Ants don't sleep.
A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people
The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3 inch nail, sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.
1/100 of a second is called a "jiffy".
Bone is stronger, inch for inch, than the steel in skyscrapers.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is taken from an old English law stating that a husband could not beat his wife with anything thicker than his thumb
Hollowed out lemon halves were used as a primitive diaphragm in the Middle Ages.
Ants do not sleep.
A can of SPAM is opened every 4 seconds.
In Brazil, Pinto, the same name as the Ford car, is a slang term meaning a small male appendage.
Fresca, the soft drink, had problems when it was sold in Mexico. Fresca is slang for lesbian.
In Germany, Sunbeam's Mist-Stick curling iron was translated into manure wand.
Spam was invented in 1937
95% of the worlds population regularly suffers from Bellybutton lint at any given time.
Dirty snow melts faster than clean snow
Lightening can strike the earth with a force as great as 100 million volts.
The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
Emus cannot walk backwards.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs have about ten.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
There are only three animals with blue tongues - the Black Bear, the Chow Chow Dog and the blue tongue lizard.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Hamsters love to eat crickets.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
Barbies measurements, if she were life size, are 39-22-33.
The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding.
Very small clouds that look like they have broken off of bigger clouds are called scuds.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
A dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
Race Car is a palindrome.
Avocado is derived from the Spanish word "aguacate" which is derived from "ahuacatl" meaning testicle

[verbal gymnastics]

Some of those are very interesting. Some of them I dare you to prove.

[bambooneedle]

Just saw this on another site. The origin of the word "shit" - Ship High In Transit. Because manure would release methane that could damage other goods.

[miss buenos aires]

bambi, that is obviously not true. The word "shit" was invented long before shipping was. And who ships manure? And words being created from acronyms really only gained currency in the twentieth century. I swear, sometimes the Internet is so silly...

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

Acronyms can be entertaining, e.g. "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", but mostly they're inventions after the fact.

A favourite modern 'word' is found on a PC. The software that drives a scanner is referred to as TWAIN - apparently "Thing Without an Interesting Name".

[bambooneedle]

And who ships manure?

Someone else on that mentioned Store High In Transit and that it was used in trucking. But it does seem doubtful to be so recent. It's also likely that some acronyms' words would be thought up later on to suit it. .

[miss buenos aires]

It's like saying, "I'm named Luis because my parents thought, 'Luckily, Understands Intelligent Speech.'" You know?

[Goody2Shoes]

There are only three animals with blue tongues - the Black Bear, the Chow Chow Dog and the blue tongue lizard.

Giraffes have blue tongues.

[LittleFoole]

There are only three animals with blue tongues - the Black Bear, the Chow Chow Dog and the blue tongue lizard.

Giraffes have blue tongues.

My kids occasionally have blue tongues (what, with popsicle season almost upon us again )

[Extreme Honey]

Did you knows 10% of Starbuck's profits goes to support the Isreali army?

[noiseradio]

Did you know that most of what you posted here is utter nonsense? Not just useless information, but actually counter-productive. People might mistakenly believe some of this and repeat it. Then they'll look as foolish as you for posting it in the first place. Don't spread disinformation. Refrain.

[BlueChair]

Thanks noise - I didn't want to say anything

[mood swung]

did you know that 99.7% of elviscostellofans.com members do not credit anything that EH has to say?

[Extreme Honey]

did you know that 99.7% of elviscostellofans.com members do not credit anything that EH has to say?

Did you know that .3% of elviscostellofans.com members have enough intelligence to own the right to credit people in the first place?

BAM.

[noiseradio]

So is that the "I'm rubber and you're glue" comeback? Or was it "Nanny nanny boo boo?" I have trouble translating it, as I'm not fluent in Schmuck.

[mood swung]

[Extreme Honey]

Anyway...back on topic after completely useless information.

(From"Uncle John's Bathroom Reader: Plunges Into Great Lives"):

Elvis Presley made only one TV commercial-for southern Maid Donuts in 1954.

Nearly 50% of the newspapers in the world are published in the U.S and Canada.

Lady Jane Grey was queen of England for the 10 days. From the 10th of July to the 19th of July 1553.

Wilson Bentley was the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.

Leonardo da Vinci made a sketch for contact lenses in the 15th century.

Alexander Graham Bell was a private tutor to Helen Keller.

The first african-american to publish a volume of poetry was Philiis Wheatley.

Pearl Buck was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

[noiseradio]

Leonardo da Vinci made a sketch for contact lenses in the 15th century.

"Leonardo da Vinci is frequently credited with introducing the general principle of contact lenses in his 1508 Codex of the eye, Manual D, where he described a method of directly altering corneal power by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Da Vinci, however, did not suggest his idea be used for correcting vision - he was more interested in learning about the mechanisms of accommodation of the eye."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_lens

[noiseradio]

Alexander Graham Bell was a private tutor to Helen Keller.

Not really:

"By the time Helen was six her family had become desperate. Looking after Helen was proving too much for them. Kate Keller had read in Charles Dickens’ book “American Notes” of the fantastic work that had been done with another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and travelled to a specialist doctor in Baltimore for advice. They were given confirmation that Helen would never see or hear again but were told not to give up hope, the doctor believed Helen could be taught and he advised them to visit a local expert on the problems of deaf children. This expert was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, Bell was now concentrating on what he considered his true vocation, the teaching of deaf children.

Alexander Graham Bell suggested that the Kellers write to Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, and request that he try and find a teacher for Helen. Michael Anagnos considered Helen’s case and immediately recommended a former pupil of the institution, that woman was Anne Sullivan."

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/pu ... eller.hcsp

See, that's wht I'm talking about. Disinformation. These "facts" you're posting are pretty dubious. Check http://www.snopes.com and a few other websites before blindly posting every little item someone emails you.

[Extreme Honey]

Thanks for clearing those up. I got them off a book, as I already said. But lord knows how many dumb crap out there is false. Just post things that aren't so important and that you wouldn't want to waste your time trying to prove either.

[ice nine]

I was reaing further about Helen on the link that Noise submitted and found this item to be peculiar: 'At this time they were also offered the chance to make a film in Hollywood and they jumped at the opportunity. “Deliverance”, the story of Helen’s life, was made.'

I had no idea idea !!

[noiseradio]

I always thought Helen Keller had a real pretty mouth.

[Boy With A Problem]

If Helen Keller fell down in the woods, would she make a sound?

[noiseradio]

Yes, but she wouldn't hear it.

[Mr. Average]

Ahhh, come on! That's a mute point anyway...