Useless (But Fun!) Fact For Today

[Emerikol]

5 Nov 22

Riding Roller Coasters Can Help You Pass Kidney Stones.

After multiple people claimed that they had passed kidney stones while riding Walt Disney World's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride, a research team from Michigan State University decided to take a look at the situation in 2016. When they conducted tests using a model kidney, they found that there was a 64 percent successful pass rate for those seated in the rear of the roller coaster. But that number was just 16 percent for those seated in the front.

Unfortunately, this only worked on Big Thunder Mountain. "We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and both failed," the study's lead author David Wartinger, a professor emeritus at Michigan State's Department of Osteopathic Surgical Specialties, said in a statement. "The ideal coaster is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements."

[Emerikol]

7 Nov 22

Dr. Seuss is responsible for coming up with some wild and wacky words. But we can also thank the children's book author for a very common term: nerd. American Heritage Dictionary explains that "nerd" first appeared in Seuss' 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo. The passage reads, "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo and bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep, and a Proo. A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!"

According to Merriam-Webster, a year later, Newsweek included the word "nerd" in an article about the latest slang, writing, "In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in less severe cases, a scurve." Unfortunately, "scurve" didn't catch on in the same way.

[Emerikol]

10 Nov 22

There's a city named Rome on every continent (except Antarctica).

If you're trying to locate Rome on a map, you'd probably head right to the boot-shaped country of Italy. But Europe isn't the only continent that decided to use that particular name, or rather, the Italian version, "Roma." In fact, there's a Rome on every continent except Antarctica, according to National Geographic.

[wheelbender6]

Metallica is the only is the only rock band to perform in Antarctica. They played 10 songs before they had to stop to warm their hands.

[Emerikol]

11 Nov 22 - Veterans Day Special!

November 11th is the date of Veterans Day each year, with only the day of the week fluctuating. What's the significance of that exact date? The armistice between the allied forces and Germany was put into effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

[wheelbender6]

Singer/Songwriter Pink proposed to her boyfriend at a motocross track.
She was serving in his pit crew at Mammoth Lakes.
She wrote "Marry Me" on the pit board, rather than the traditional "number of laps to go" or "lap time" as he zoomed by.
Motocross riders don't have two way radios to communicate with their pit like Indy drivers and Nascar Drivers. They use the traditional pit board.

[Emerikol]

14 Nov 22

It's been a few days since my last one of these, but here it is!

Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction?
Since medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up.
Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process. The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.
The stairs were also intentionally poorly lit and built to be uneven, making it even more difficult for the attackers to gain any sort of balance or momentum during their fight up to capture the castle.

[wheelbender6]

In early prototypes of the A-10 Warthog, the 30mm main gun was mounted slightly offset from centerline, so the front landing gear could be mounted in the centerline.
-Test pilots complained that it was impossible to fly the A-10 straight while firing the main gun. The main gun was so powerful that it turned the plane.
-Engineers solved the problem by mounting the main gun exactly on centerline, requiring that the front landing gear be mounted off the centerline, making steering more difficult. its been that way ever since.

[TominMO]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

14 Nov 22

It's been a few days since my last one of these, but here it is!

Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction?
Since medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up.
Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process. The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.
The stairs were also intentionally poorly lit and built to be uneven, making it even more difficult for the attackers to gain any sort of balance or momentum during their fight up to capture the castle.

Great idea. I shall incorporate this design into my next house.

Presumably once the attackers figured out what was happening, they sent their left-handed fighters up first.

[Mudflap]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

14 Nov 22

It's been a few days since my last one of these, but here it is!

Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction?
Since medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up.
Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process. The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.
The stairs were also intentionally poorly lit and built to be uneven, making it even more difficult for the attackers to gain any sort of balance or momentum during their fight up to capture the castle.

Some Japanese castles use the same general idea by making the ceilings very low so invaders couldn't swing their swords.

[TominMO]

Originally Posted by Mudflap

Some Japanese castles use the same general idea by making the ceilings very low so invaders couldn't swing their swords.

Solution: midget warriors.

Correction: left-handed midget warriors.

[wheelbender6]

Today is National Clean out the Fridge Day. Have fun.

[wheelbender6]

The term "motorcycle" was coined by British inventor Edward Butler in 1884 when he was inventing a three-wheeled petrol vehicle.

[wheelbender6]

Late Entry: Yesterday was National Thawing Day.
If you have one of those big 15lb birds and you want to thaw it in the fridge, you needed to start yesterday.
You can still thaw it faster in the sink.

[Emerikol]

Been a little bit since I put one of these up, but this one will be kicking off the holiday season - here you have it guys and gals:

As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May wasn’t feeling much comfort or joy. A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara.
One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope, and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.
In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.
Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune.
Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”