Curious Mind Blowing Facts - 16

That may make you say "No Way"

We have all heard about great sales people who can sell ice to Eskimos. In a similar vein the Aussies are selling sand to Saudi Arabia. The fine sand in the deserts are useless for construction purposes. But course sand (garnet sand) from Australia is perfect in helping with building infrastructure in the desert country. 
Australia also exports camels and oil to the Saudis.

Margarine is not one molecule away from being plastic. (as has been reported on the internet). 

ATM card passwords. The least-used 4 digit PIN is 8068, with just 25 occurrences in the 3.4 million set, which equates to 0.000744%. (From an 2012 study by Data Genetics).

Red Lobster is not considering bankruptcy because of an “unlimited shrimp offer.” Red Lobster's troubles include "a difficult macroeconomic environment, a bloated and underperforming restaurant footprint, failed or ill-advised strategic initiatives, and increased competition within the restaurant industry," said CEO Jonathan Tibus. 
When Red Lobster wanted to expand into Canada they were allowed with the proviso that they would not compete with local seafood restaurants. Hence, there were/are no Red Lobsters in either BC or the Maritimes.

If you are driving down Valley Road between Bellevue and Lorraine Avenues in Montclair, New Jersey anytime soon, be sure your car radio is tuned to 91.9 FM. The same song - “I’ll Make Love to You,” by the band Boyz II Men - will mysteriously start playing, as it has every day for 14 years.

There is a Canadian owned police force working in America that has full police authority. The Canadian Pacific Kansas City Police. They are railway police and work on the international railway line. Canadian Pacific Railway is the fourth-largest railway company worldwide as of 2022. If the CPKC PoPo arrests you, you’re going to jail. 

Lewis Hamilton is the only Black driver to ever race in F1. He is set to earn a whopping $100 million per year as part of his new Ferrari F1 deal from 2025. 

Butter can be left un-refrigerated for a day or two. But, is your fridge that full that you don’t have space for a block of butter?

Petula Clark was a backup vocalist on John Lennon’s famous anti-war song “Give Peace a Chance,” when John and Yoko were conducting their Bed-In for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

Animals can see ultraviolet light, but most humans cannot. The master painter, Claude Monet was an exception. He lost his left lens at the age of 82 and began seeing the UV light that reflects off water lilies. Then he started painting them as whitish blue instead of white.

By Midjourney, not Monet

Hawaii is the widest state. 

Amazon announced that it delivered over 2 billion items the same or next day to Prime members during the first three months of 2024, breaking its record for 2023. 

In November 2009, the Pontiac Silverdome, an 80,000 seat arena — once home to the NFL’s Detroit Lions, and the Detroit Pistons of the NBA - was sold for $583,000, or about 1 percent of the $55.7 million it took to build in 1975. That is a bit more than half the cost of an average single-family home in Kelowna, BC, Canada. It was demolished in 2017. (https://pau1.substack.com/i/45690241/the-pontiac-silverdome-home-of-the-nfl-detroit-lions).

Angela (LyonArtandDesign.com) from Hawaii sent me this article about dog names to add to this newsletter.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/medieval-dog-names

Good boys (and girls). 

Most common dog names:

1. Bella

2. Luna

3. Max

4. Daisy

5. Charlie

6. Coco

7. Buddy

8. Lucy

9. Milo

10. Bailey

Weird dog names:

1. Achilles

2. Amyable

3. Argument

4. Baby

5. Badde

6. Barefote

7. Belle

8. Beste-of-all

9. Birdismowthe

10. Blameles

It’s good to be the King:
King Charles gets his shoelaces ironed and has a personal toothpaste squeezer
King Charles can drive without a license
He is the only person in the U.K. who can drive without a license or plates on their car. 

Taiwan produces 95% of the advanced semiconductors in the world.

Prince Harry’s real name is Henry: “My name is Henry as well, but everyone calls me Harry. I have no idea why.”

The value of a huge 1 million-square-foot office complex, located at 1455 Market St., San Francisco, has plunged around 80% after the departure of Uber and Block, formerly Square. (As of May 4/24).

Research shows that the average time spent reading a newsletter after opening it is only 51 seconds. I hope this is not true :(

The most successful musical artist or group of all time was The Beatles by a mile. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr joined forces in Liverpool, England in 1960. Worldwide sales for the group have reached unparalleled levels: 1.6 billion singles in the U.S. and 600 million albums world wide. The number of Beatles albums that reached Number 1 in the United States is 25. “A Hard Day's Night," "Help!," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club," "The White Album," "Abbey Road," and "Let It Be" were the best of their offerings before their dissolution in 1970. America's Favorite Beatle? 
Paul McCartney ranked highest, at 35 percent; following by John Lennon (29%), Ringo Starr (11%), and George Harrison (8%). However, there is a gender gap: men favored John, while women preferred Paul.

not the Beatles…

However Taylor Swift topped the British music charts in April 2024 with "The Tortured Poets Department" album, outselling the rest of the top ten combined and beating the Beatles for the record of fastest artist to rack up 12 UK number one albums. And she surpasses The Beatles for the most weeks spent in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the last 60 years across all her top 10-charting albums combined.

A team of researchers has discovered two new minerals that have never before been seen on Earth in a 15 tonne meteorite found in Somalia — the ninth largest meteorite ever found. In 2022 the two newly discovered minerals have been named elaliite and elkinstantonite. (https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2022/11/new-minerals-discovered-in-massive-meteorite-may-reveal-clues-to-asteroid-formation.html)

On April 30th, in 1976 Keith Moon, the Who drummer paid $100 each to 9 cab drivers to block off the street outside the hotel he was staying at - the Hotel Navarro in New York City. After the roadway was clear and blocked, he went to his room and threw all the furniture onto the street. Alice Cooper once said “Nobody could compete with Keith Moon. Think of it this way: about 40 per cent of what you’ve heard about me, or Iggy, or Ozzy, is probably true. Everything you’ve ever heard about Keith Moon is true, and you’ve only heard a tenth of it.” 

In the western world, we lie an average of 3,250 times per day. Or is the correct answer 10 times a day? (10 is correct).

Larry King conducted 60,000 interviews.

The top gold producers in the world by country are:

More than 37% of all worldwide internet users are using ad blockers. Starting in June 2024, ad blockers such as uBlock Origin and many other extensions on the Chrome Browser will no longer work as intended.

China’s Chang'e-6 spacecraft just successfully landed on the far side of the moon to collect the first-ever samples from that part of the moon. 

The average age of business founders hovers around 40 years young. A business founder at age 50 is approximately twice as likely to experience a "successful exit," meaning they get acquired or go public, compared to a founder at age 30,  research has found. (MIT professor Pierre Azoulay, who analyzed 2.7 million people who founded companies between 2007 and 2014.)

Google Sends more than 3 Billion Clicks Per Month to these 16 companies who are behind nearly 600 individual brands:

Country legend Randy Travis sold over 25 million records and has won seven Grammy Awards, eleven ACM Awards, eight Dove Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Randy had a stroke in 2013 and it took his voice away from him. Well he just released a new song created by Artificial Intelligence and I cannot tell that it is not a real voice singing. Can you?

Literacy rates are defined as the percentage of people over the age of 15 that can read and write. There are nine countries in the world that have a 100% literacy rate: Andorra, Finland, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and North Korea. There are 37 countries with a literacy rate of higher than 99.0% The United States and Canada have a literacy rate of 99.0% along with other countries like Sweden, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, and France. (https://www.uscareerinstitute.edu/blog/which-countries-have-the-highest-and-lowest-literacy-rates).

Just last month a Virginia carpenter, frustrated by repeated thefts of his tools, successfully used Apple AirTags to track down the stolen equipment, leading police to recover approximately 15,000 construction tools valued at $3 to $5 million dollars.

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