Curious Mind Blowing Facts - 27
Really?
A unique way to tell the story of your life/year. There are some people who make a one second video every day of the year, then publish it. I’m amazed at what some people do. There are tons of free and paid apps to help you do this. Let me know in a year if you do it.
Out of all countries on the planet, Sweden has the most islands with 267,570, the majority of which are uninhabited. Its capital, Stockholm, is built across a 14-island archipelago with more than 50 bridges.
How to write a story with “Fairy Tale structure”:
Once upon a time there was an unsuspecting hero.
Every day, the way things are.
But then, one day, change/event that motivates action.
And so adventure begins.
It was almost impossible because challenges/obstacles.
Until finally victory.
And forever after, the world is different.
Nearly 40% of Gen Z’s prefer using TikTok and Instagram for search over Google, according to Nieman Lab.
The actors who voiced Mickey and Minnie Mouse got married in real life. Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor were married in 1991.
The Windows “Blue Screen of Death" was the work of Microsoft developer John Vert, whom logs revealed to be the father of the modern Windows blue screen way back in version 3.1. Not Steve Ballmer or Raymond Chen which have been credited, wrongly, through recent history.
'Steve Jobs' is the name of an Italian clothing company created in 2012 when the creators realized that Apple never trademarked Jobs' name.
With a $5 correspondence course in ice cream-making from Penn State and a $12,000 investment ($4,000 of it borrowed), Ben and Jerry open their first ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont.
The letter Q is the only letter not used in the US state names.
The spinning, animated icon to indicate that something on your screen is loading is called a "Throbber" :
Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin owned the same tortoise, name Harriet
Flying is safe. "There have been effectively zero deaths per 100 million passenger miles traveled by air in the US each year from 2002 to 2020", says USA Facts.
Which Country Works More?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-average-working-hours-by-country/
The current CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and IBM are all immigrants. So are Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Research by the American Immigration Council finds that nearly half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
A Costco shopper returned a $1,400 playground set from 2008 because his ‘kids grew up.’ He got a full refund. This is hard to believe. (https://www.dailydot.com/news/costco-playset-return-from-2008/)
The U.S. is home to more millionaires (5.4 million) than the entire population of Ireland (5.2 million total).
The Chevy Nova automobile had problems selling in Latin America since “no va” means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish.
Illuminated Manuscripts and Illuminated Initials.
Had drawnings with vivid coloring…old manuscripts were beautiful!
More: https://www.thecollector.com/greatest-illuminated-medieval-manuscripts/
https://www.europeana.eu/en/galleries/9053-illuminated-initials
The Olympics were happening last month when I wrote this newsletter. The McDonald's worker makes almost 50% more than the average Olympian. Even with the sponsorships.
Cardboard beds and rooms with no air conditioning helped to make the Paris Olympics the greenest ever.
Yuki Togashi, captain of Japan men's national basketball team, is only 5'6 ft tall.
R. Norris Williams survived the sinking of the Titanic while clinging to an overturned lifeboat. His legs were crushed and the doctors suggested amputation. He refused and recovered. He ended up winning the tennis Olympic gold medal in 1924.
If you are applying for a job, and you need to submit a drug test, then DO NOT eat a Poppy Seed Bagel beforehand. It may turn up a positive result for opium. (Thanks Rick Rouse from) :
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there is fire, there is lightening. Then more fire. Repeat. Here in British Columbia on the west edge of Canada there are 95 million hectares of forest - 235 million acres in size which is about double the size of California. Almost 64% of the B.C. – about 60.3 million hectares (149 million acres) – is forested. In recent years, the summer’s high heat, and drought conditions have caused some of these forests to catch on fire. Primarily because of lightening.
Pyrocumulonimbus clouds form during intense wildfires when the heat from the fire sends a lot of smoke and hot air high into the atmosphere. This can create a type of cloud that is capable of producing lightning.
The process involves the buildup of static electricity within the cloud due to the collision of ice crystals and water droplets, similar to how lightning forms in regular thunderstorms. These clouds can even reach the stratosphere and cause severe weather phenomena, including lightning, which can start new fires.
The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft which holds the world record for highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft. The X-15 reached a speed of Mach 6.7 (4,520 mph; 7,274 km/h) when test pilot William J. Knight flew it on Oct 3, 1967. The jet was retired in December 1968.
The main difference between a jet and a rocket powered aircraft is that jets get the oxygen to burn fuel from the air and rockets carry their own oxygen, which allows them to operate in space. Here is a story which may or may not be true. It is about a jet airplane, the SR-71 Blackbird.
“I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of it’s ground speed.
’90 knots’, Center replied.
Moments later, a Twin Beech required the same.
‘120 knots’ Center answered.
We weren’t the only ones proud of our ground speed that day
as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted:
‘Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout.’
There was a slight pause, then the response,‘620 knots on the ground, Dusty.’
As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was,
I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my
back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I
had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison.
‘Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?’
They were in a SR-71 Blackbird. There was a longer than normal pause
‘Aspen, I show 1,942 knots.’ (Which is 2235 mph).
No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.”
The SR-71 Blackbird was retired in October 1989.
And another apocryphal story:
“A new Air Traffic Controlller was working in Houston and got a call from a SR-71 Blackbird coming back to the States through the Gulf of Mexico.
The SR-71 requested flight level 800. (80,000 feet)
The ATC, thinking someone was joking, said, ‘If you can get up there, FL800 is yours.’
The SR-71 replied, ‘Maam, we're coming down to 800.”
The X-15:
The SR-71 Blackbird:
Chuck Norris tells Chuck Norris joke:
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Your favorite fact?
It's an overload of mind-blowing facts actually. So it's difficult to pick a favorite.
Harriet the tortoise died, at the age of approximately 175, in June 2006.
Coincidentally, her last carer, Steve Irwin, died in September of the same year; he was only 44.