Curious Mind Blowing Facts - 67

Zimbabwe's bank balance was $217 at the start of 2013.

John Stamos played Jesse on the sitcom Full House for 8 seasons. Stamos has occasionally performed in concert with the Beach Boys, dating back to 1985, typically playing drums and various other percussion instruments.

Doritos could be made without the powder and taste exactly the same. It was left on because it was decided that the residue left on your fingers was part of the "Doritos experience"

Led Zeppelin was originally named "Lead Zeppelin", but they changed it to "Led Zeppelin" to avoid mispronunciation as "Leed Zeppelin". The change was made by their manager, Peter Grant. The name "Lead Zeppelin" came from a comment made by Keith Moon of The Who, who said the band would "go down like a lead balloon.

A pro hockey player named John Scott got voted by the people (as a joke) to be the captain of the All-Star team. NHL didn't want him to play, so he got sent to the Minor Leagues. There wasn't a rule against a minor leaguer playing in it though, so he played, scored twice and won MVP.

Puck, a budgie from California, became famous for his large vocabulary. He entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1995. Puck knew 1,728 words and could form original sentences. He lived to the age of five.

The loudest man-made sound in history is widely considered to be the detonation of the Tsar Bomba, the Soviet hydrogen bomb tested in 1961. Although exact measurements were not taken at the time, estimates suggest it produced sound levels slightly over 280 decibels, making it the most powerful human-made explosion and sound recorded.

By comparison, the loudest sound ever recorded on Earth overall was the natural event of the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883, which produced an estimated 310 decibels and was heard thousands of miles away. This natural explosion was about four times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba.

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Weird and Unusual National Animals

Indonesia: Komodo Dragon
The Komodo dragon is a giant lizard native to Indonesia, known for its size and predatory skills. It is a vulnerable species with only about 6,000 left in the wild and serves as a symbol of the country's natural heritage.

Wales: Welsh Dragon (Red Dragon)
This mythical creature appears on Wales' national flag and symbolizes strength, resilience, and Welsh heritage. The Red Dragon traces back to Arthurian legends and ancient battles, making it a powerful emblem of national pride.

Scotland: Unicorn
The unicorn is a mythical national animal of Scotland, symbolizing purity and strength. It is unique among national animals as it is entirely mythical.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Okapi

The okapi is a rare and elusive forest giraffe native to the Congo, notable for its rarity and status as a national animal.

Bhutan: Druk (Thunder Dragon)

Bhutan’s national symbol is the Druk, a mythical thunder dragon, which is central to the country's identity and appears on its flag.

Hungary: Turul

The Turul is a mythical falcon-like bird from Hungarian folklore, seen as a divine messenger and symbolizing protection and national pride. It plays a significant role in Hungary’s origin legends.

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During World War II, German and British airmen who shot each other down in Norway unexpectedly cooperated to survive. Their planes crashed near Grotli, Norway, on April 27, 1940. Despite being enemies, the crew members helped each other endure the Norwegian wilderness. Years later, they remained friends, with some even visiting each other.

After a falling out with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, who had written the phrase "A rose is a rose is a rose”, supposedly received a telegram from Hemingway that read: "A bitch is a bitch is a bitch".
Picasso painted Stein’s portrait. Interesting…

YKK not only makes 90% of the world's zippers, they produce the whole process - from smelting their own brass and building the zipper-making machines to making the boxes they ship in. The "YKK" on your zipper stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha.

Microsoft officially bid farewell to Windows XP in 2014, but guess what? Many ATMs, elevators, even transit systems are still using these ancient computer systems (some more than 50 years later)! Why? Well, they’re super reliable, stable, and seamlessly integrated with infrastructure.

A recent Vox article explained what “Dry texting” is:

“It’s anything that indicates “a change in the vibe of the conversation,” Tanisha, 18, told me. Someone who usually texts in all caps could revert to lowercase. They could text back only short replies, or comments that don’t invite a response — a “conversation ender,” as Joanne, 18, put it. Dry texting is the most common way kids at her school find out someone is mad at them, Akshaya, also 18, told me.”

Deplatformable Newsletter will never dry newsletter you guys and gals.

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We all know Charles Dickens for Scrooge, Oliver Twist, and those long, twisty plots. But here’s something interesting - there are still Dickens writings no one’s ever read.

Why? Because he wrote them in code. Not just any code - he used an old shorthand system called Brachygraphy. Then he made it worse… by tweaking it, inventing his own symbols, and never writing down the key. Thanks for that.

Now there’s a team trying to crack this 150-year-old mystery. Think literary escape room. A blue letter, secret publisher notes, even stories dictated to a student—all locked behind his scribbly shorthand.

Dickens called it a “savage stenographic mystery.” He wasn’t kidding.

Example “The Tavastock Letter”:

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I was just in Leamington, Ontario. Leamington is home to over 4 million square feet of cannabis greenhouses either operational, licensed, or under construction, with several projects having potential for further expansion. This small town of less than 30,000 residents has the largest concentration of greenhouses in North America. There are greenhouses as far as the eye can see. It is amazing. Leamington used to be the home of Kraft food’s Heinz ketchup. It’s called the “Tomato Capital of Canada”.

According to https://www.zerogpt.com/, a popular AI checker has figured out that the US Declaration of Independence is 100% AI-generated. Which LLM had a Chat model in the American Revolutionary War era? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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How did Kia get its name?

According to Kia, the word “Kia” derives from a Sino-Korean word, “ki”, meaning “to come out”. The “a” then stands for “Asia”. Thus, Kia more or less was meant to mean “to come out of Asia” or “rising out of Asia”.

So in 2021 Kia introduced a new logo. But the agency responsible for creating the new logo obviously did not run it by regular people, or through a focus group. It was so confusing to understand that 30,000 people every month Googled “KN car”. Now the search is way less as people have figured out that it is not a “KN” car. But a poor logo design choice.

It’s creators liken it to an "ornate layered cake," the Tor Alva has been completed in Switzerland. Hailed as the world's tallest 3D-printed building, this remarkable structure rises to an impressive height of 30 m (98.5 ft). It is located in a village that's currently home to just 11 people. The building took around 900 hours of printing to complete using two construction robots: a 3D printer and a machine used to add steel reinforcement.

Will Jony Ive's Futuristic OpenAI Device be like a Neck-Worn iPod Shuffle? Sam Altman says the new device will be "the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen."

About 30% of US adults use astrology or fortune-telling at least once a year.

The Canadian Government sent 1000's of personnel, 3 warships, the Coast Guard, and divers to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - to locations the USA were reluctant to go to because of contamination.

Occam's razor, also known as parsimony, is the scientific and medical principle that the simplest explanation that addresses all the data or symptoms is usually the most likely diagnosis. There is a counter argument to this called Hickam's dictum. It states that "patients can have as many diseases as they damn well please."

Ancient Roman and Greek sculptures originally were colorful, while white marble fashion came with the Renaissance.

In 25 years South Korea went from a 22% literacy rate in 1945, to a 87% literacy rate in 1970.

Remember, the flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year.
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