Useless Facts about anything

[Kimbers]

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.

[Iconic Ride]

 "...except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil."

 

 

They're not?  

[comem47]

Left handed people are the only ones in their right mind! !! (both sanity and dominant brain half)  

Edited July 19, 2014 by comem47

[Iconic Ride]

And without them American Baseball would have to eliminate first base, completely changing the geometry of the game. 

[Kimbers]

In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.

 

Human Cannonball fact: On two occasions, Miss 'Rita Thunderbird' remained inside the cannon despite a lot of gunpowder encouragement to do otherwise. She performed in a gold lamé bikini and on one of the two occasions (1977) Miss Thunderbird remained lodged in the cannon, while her bra was shot across the Thames River

[Iconic Ride]

In eighteenth-century England, there was a constable whose only job was to filter human feces looking for dice.

[mayevora]

There Is A Project Called "A Call In The Night" That Will Call You Once A Week After 2 am And Connect You To A Random Person To Discuss Your Dreams.

[Kimbers]

It now takes me all day to recover from drinking when it used to take me all morning. Owch.

[hyteck9]

There is a rare group of humans on the planet, originally detected in Bombay , that do not posses the "H" antigen which determines a person's blood type.  ( They are not A,B,AB or O ) The Bombay phenotype humans can only accept transfusions from other Bombay phenotypes.  Their normal life span and health demonstrates there is no clear advantage or need for the various other blood types. 

[Iconic Ride]

Just don't leave Bombay without a clone in your suitcase.  

[Bibs]

The prize of a slice of pizza in NYC is the same as a standard subway fare, and has been since the 60's! 

[Sparky]

Yeah, I've tried that a few times, but they still prefer a Metrocard.

[Kimbers]

Wearing headphones over your ears for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

[johnpwalsh]

Good god, you people need to get out more, mind you I must be as bad as I have just read the listings, self diagnosis, SAD.

[slewthy]

Lustier Pots is an anagram of Lotus Esprit....

[Bibs]

[basalte]

Add to the above : "That banks in the UK have the remotest concern for their ordinary customers".   

[pete]

[mayevora]

An approximate 18 million trees are planted each year by forgetful squirrels.

[Barrykearley]

This lil man has more hairs on his head than we have honest politicians in Scotland

[molemot]

And today's oxymoron is......"Honest Politician"....

[Bibs]

Ever wondered why gold is gold coloured?

Gold has a characteristic, mellow, yellow color. Its beautiful sheen seems even more exotic when you find out that it's actually due to relativistic effects. Were you to calculate the frequency (color) of light that gold emits without taking relativity into consideration, you would predict it to have a silver sheen. However, the color gold actually leans further to the red end of the spectrum.

This discrepancy can be explained when examining how electrons in gold atoms move around in their shells. There is a total of 79 electrons zooming around a gold atom, and 79 protons in the nucleus. In the orbital closest to the nucleus (otherwise known as the 1s orbital), the electrons have to move at a shockingly fast speed. They move at roughly half the speed of light to avoid being dragged into the nucleus by the powerful positive charge from the protons in the nucleus, and that causes a lot of relativistic effects.

Because the electrons are moving so fast, the separate electron shells appear to be closer than they actually are. For an electron to jump to a higher energy level it needs to absorb a specific wavelength of light. In gold, the wavelengths that could be absorbed are usually in the ultraviolet range – beyond what we can see. However, when we account for the relativistic effects that appear to squeeze the shells closer together, we find that the gold actually starts to absorb light with a smaller frequency: blue light. 

The blue light is absorbed and only the red colors are reflected into our eyes. Hence, gold has a glamorous, yellowy sheen.

[Kimbers]

Ohh lets resurrect this one, I liked it!

Not once in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme does it mention that he’s an egg.

The difference in time between when Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the difference in time between Tyrannosaurus Rex and now.

Honey never spoils.

90% of the cells that make us up of aren’t human but fungi and bacteria.

 

[ChrisJ]

Not once in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme does it mention that he’s an egg.

Humpty Dumpty wasn't an egg, but possibly a cannon during the siege of Colchester. I was in a schools TV opera about it in 1973 - clicky and here - where it was a siege engine in the royalist siege of Gloucester during the English Civil war. I've just found out it was shown at the BFI last year - damn.

 

 

[ramjet]

Apparently the most shop lifted book in the world is...

Wait for it...

the Bible.