February 2010
28 posts
6 tags
Drugs or Synesthesia? (2/28/10)
Synesthesia (in Greek, the joining of the senses) is a phenomenon in which activation of one sensory reaction involuntarily causes another. I actually have this. In my case, when I hear music, I often perceive a color as well. I have iTunes playlists categorized by color. There are various types of synesthesia, such as seeing letters or numbers as colors, some people can even taste sounds or...
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There's a femur in my soup (2/27/10)
The idiomatic phrase “make no bones about it,” used to state a fact that allows no room for doubt, comes from 15th century England. When people wanted to show their dissatisfaction with something, they would say that they “found bones in it,” referring to unwanted bones that could be found in soup. If you had no bones in your soup, it was ingested without difficulty. ...
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Awkward... (2/26/10)
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was the founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood. I gotta imagine she and her mom had an awkward relationship. Mom, I hate you! You never do anything nice for me! I bet you would have aborted me if I was born earlier and created the opportunity for me to be aborted!
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Cans of Whoop Ass (2/25/10)
I don’t really enjoy eating Chef Boyardee brand pasta crap, but I was curious about who this guy on the can really was. He is Italian-American immigrant and chef, Ettore Boiardi. Boiardi opened a restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924, and it became such a hit that he decided to sell the stuff on a wider scale. Boiardi wanted Americans to be able to pronounce his name so he wrote it...
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Loony 2 (2/24/10)
As I detailed yesterday, the full moon has been said to incite odd behavior on earth. Although science trumps this myth, the belief was extremely popular in the days of our ignorant ancestors. Yesterday, I touched on the fact that the moon is also linked to women’s periods. The word “menstruation” comes from the Latin mensis (month). Mensis is derived from the Greek mene...
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Loony 1 (2/23/10)
Every 29.5 days, we witness a full moon. I remember hearing that the full moon causes various wild phenomena on earth. The Latin word for moon, luna, is the origin of the word “lunatic.” In the 19th century, lawyers could argue “not guilty by reason of the full moon.” But in reality, there is no truth to this. Recent studies have not found any significant evidence...
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The Almighty Word (2/22/10)
Today, I learned something from the most popular book ever— the Bible. As many people do, I opened the Bible looking for answers; I needed God’s guidance with a specific incident. Thankfully, I found the answer I was looking for in Deuteronomy 25:11-12:
If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes...
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Round 2: Fahrenheit (2/21/10)
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit proposed the Fahrenheit temperature scale in 1724, where water freezes at 32 degrees and water boils at 212 degrees. Currently the United States, Belize, Burma, and Liberia (the 4 Global Superpowers) are the only countries that have yet to be metricated. Nearly the entire science community in the U.S. uses Celsius now. Great Britain made the switch to only teaching...
4 tags
Round 1: Celsius (2/20/10)
In 1742, Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius created the Celsius temperature scale (mainly known as centigrade until 1948), which most of the world uses. Interestingly, the scientist designed it reversed— he set the boiling point of water at 0 degrees Celsius and the freezing point at 100 degrees. Just after Anders Celsius died in 1744, another Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus reversed it...
6 tags
LOL (2/19/10)
A FOX news channel in Atlanta did an online article featuring the “top 50” internet and text message acronyms every parent should know. As you can imagine, this is very stupid. Just an extremely, hilariously obvious attempt to scare parents into watching their news program. Here were some notable “acronyms”: No.1 is “8”, which apparently means oral sex. ...
6 tags
The Goddess of Quick Breakfasts (2/18/10)
In Roman mythology, Ceres is the goddess of growing plants. It is interesting to know that Ceres is also the inspiration behind our word “cereal” for her association with grains. Also, in General Mills Mythology, Choculus is the count of cavities, and is the namesake of Count Chocula cereal. That’s not true. But there was a man named Chocula who was known for sucking...
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You can only blame yourselves (2/17/10)
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable that stretched across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, connecting North America and Europe. The cable went from eastern Newfoundland to western Ireland. This enabled messages to be sent across the ocean in a matter of minutes, a great improvement to the weeks that a ship may take. There were many attempts to lay the cable, but the first...
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Show me your tittles (2/16/10)
The dot on a lowercase i or j is called a tittle. Without the tittle, the word tittles and titties would be easily confused. Thankfully, we don’t have to suffer that confusion. It is believed that in the phrase “to a T,” meaning exactly or meticulously, the T is short for tittle. You would be incorrect to assume that titties may also derive from tittle, as a nipple is no more...
7 tags
Lemon-Lyme (2/15/10)
When someone is prevalent in the public sphere, he or she is said to be “in the limelight.” This phrase comes from a type of stage lighting once used in theaters, which involves a flame directed at a cylinder of calcium oxide (lime). In the late 19th century, limelight was replaced by electric lighting. Another lime variation comes from Lyme, Connecticut, the namesake of the...
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E Pluribus Unum (2/14/10)
E pluribus unum— out of many, one. Before the Civil War, the United States was generally accepted as a plural noun. For example, we used to say, “the United States are full of people seeking political freedom.” Around the time of the Civil War, we started to view the country as a singular entity, rather than just a bunch of united states. Now we say, “the United...
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Olympic Games and Crafts (2/13/10)
The first Olympics were the 1896 Summer Games in Athens, Greece. The event was organized by Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat and historian. I found this interesting and hilarious: Hungarian Alfred Hajos was the first Olympic champion in swimming, AND he later became the first of two Olympians to win a medal in both athletic and artistic competition. Yes, Hajos won the silver medal in...
4 tags
Slowest Shoe-Shiner Ever (2/12/10)
Boulevard du Temple taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838 is the first photograph of a person. If you look closely, you can see a man standing on the street corner in the bottom left quadrant of the image. Because the exposure time was 10 minutes, the traffic was moving too quickly to appear on film, while the man was standing still getting his shoes shined long enough to make history. I am a firm...
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Smartest Year's Calculated Controversy (2/11/10)
The Streisand Effect is a phenomenon in which an attempt to censor or restrict the distribution of a picture or document incidentally makes the information more publicized and sought after. It’s named after an incident in 2003 where Barbra Streisand sued a photographer for millions of dollars for taking an aerial picture of her California mansion. As a result of the case, online traffic to...
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Not-So-Funbags (2/10/10)
A longitudinal study of over 3,500 Swedish women who had cosmetic breast implants between 1965 and 1993 revealed that these women were nearly 3 times more likely to commit suicide than women without implants. Who ever thought that a study involving 3000 Swedish women with big boobs could be so depressing…
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Heliophobic Heliophiles (2/9/10)
A team of astronomers at Johns Hopkins University have determined the color of the universe by averaging the spectral range of light in the universe. The resulting color is a beigeish white. The naming of the color was voted on by the astronomers, and those hilarious scientists chose “Cosmic Latte.” Other suggestions were Cosmic Khaki, Primordial Clam Chowder, Skyvory, and Cosmic...
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Snot Rocket (2/8/10)
If a person sick with the flu, God forbid, sneezes into my mouth, I know that I now have a chance of getting sick myself. But people in the olden days didn’t always understand the infectious disease. As we know, “flu” is short for influenza. Influenza is Italian for “influence.” This refers to the accepted cause of the disease at the time; they thought that the...
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Super Bowl (2/7/10)
In honor of the Super Bowl, I figured I should do a football fact. We always hear about the line of scrimmage, but I really never hear the word scrimmage used outside of sports. Scrimmage is related to skirmish- a contest between disputing parties. Scrimmage and scrum (in rugby) are also related, as scrum is just a shortening of “scrummage.” It’s pretty straight forward. More...
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Dead Presidents (2/6/10)
President William McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Originally, it was thought McKinley would survive the gunshot wounds but died six days later. He was the third of four assassinated U.S. Presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy). Although deceased, they live on in other aspects of our culture. We have Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest mountain...
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Text Book Mistake (2/5/10)
I always see this mistake made in text books— the incorrect usage of either i.e. or e.g., when explaining things. You should use i.e. when restating the idea. You should use e.g. when giving an example. In Latin, i.e. stands for id est which means “that is.” E.g. is Latin for exempli gratia, basically “for example.” I don’t want to misuse these words in any...
8 tags
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim (2/4/10)
Most of us are familiar with Big Ben, one of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom. Peter Pan flew by it (why does Peter Pan keep coming up whenever I try to explain a fact?— sorry). What I didn’t realize was that Big Ben referred to the massive bell inside the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London, not the clock itself. 23 feet in diameter, the clock first...
10 tags
Random Fact Websites Are Stupid (2/3/10)
Gelotology is the study of laughter and its effects on humans. Laughing has many known health benefits. It is said that laughing can lower levels of stress hormones as well as strengthen the immune system. Also, laughing can dilate blood vessels and increase blood flow. And here’s where it gets stupid. I read on some dumbass random fact website that the average 6 year-old laughs on...
12 tags
Parents Just Don't Understand (2/2/10)
After the death of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey became the de facto monarch of England. Some historians refer to her as “The Nine Days’ Queen,” as she only ruled for a bit over a week in July 1553, making it the shortest rule in England’s history. She became queen mainly due to nepotism and Protestantism (she shared a bloodline and religion with the dying Edward VI).At the...
11 tags
Bring me Peter Pan! (2/1/10)
I was just reading a book. I got distracted by the author’s use of “jerry-rigging.” It should actually be spelled jury rigging. Jury rig is originally a nautical term; on large ships, a jury rig is a quick-fix replacement of the mast and yard. The yard is the beam that intersects the mast where sails are set…or to some, the big wooden thing that Peter Pan and Captain...