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Author Topic: Useless Fact's Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 10-25-2007 07:35 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - How many colors can the human eye perceive? Color is how our eyes and brain interpret light. Our eyes can only see radiation with a wavelength of 380 nanometers to 740 nanometers. This is called the visible spectrum of light. Sir Issac Newton listed the pure spectral colors we see in light as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But "Roy G. Biv" isn't the only name in town when it comes to what colors exist. In 1790, researcher Thomas Young said the human eye sees only three colors -- red, blue, and yellow -- and every other color was just a combination of these primary colors. In 1878 Ewald Hering posited a theory of four unique hues of red, green, yellow, and blue, which, when mixed with white or black, represent all the possible colors humans can process. Useful knowledge for painters and printers perhaps, but it doesn't quite answer your question. The problem is that nobody really knows exactly how many colors the human eye can see. The closest researchers can estimate is millions and millions. Scientific experiments have shown that humans can discriminate between very subtle differences in color, and estimates of the number of colors we can see range as high as 10 million. Of course,every person's eyes perceive color a bit differently, and every culture has its own names for colors so coming up with an exact number may not be possible.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-03-2007 09:54 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - How did the tradition of dumping Gatorade on football coaches begin? Take one unsuspecting coach on the verge of victory. Add a bench full of giddy players looking to get a head start on the post- game celebration. Throw in easy access to a bucket of ice cold Gatorade and voila! -- you've got yourself a classic prank that's become standard operating procedure. So how did these impromptu (and involuntary) showers get their start? If high school gym class taught us one thing, it's that these sorts of pranks are usually inflicted on 98-pound weaklings who can't fight back. So imagine our surprise to learn the first victim was none other than Bill Parcells -- arguably one of the NFL's most intimidating coaches. The merry pranksters behind the act were Jim Burt and Harry Carson, two hefty defensemen for the New York Giants back in the mid '80s. According to one link, Burt was getting a bit of revenge for having to put up with Parcells' harping during the previous week's practices. Little did Burt know that players from pee wee to the pros would follow his lead in the coming years -- and little did Gatorade know the cruel and unusual act would spark a tradition that would come to be known simply as "The Dunk."  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-08-2007 07:11 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - What makes SuperBalls bounce so high? At the risk of making an unpaid endorsement, we think no childhood is complete without (accidentally) chucking a SuperBall into mom's crystal display case. Indeed, when it comes to instigating pure household chaos, nothing tops these wee bouncing balls of anarchy. So what gives SuperBalls their tremendous power? We leaped over to toymaker Wham-O for some answers. Or not. Unfortunately, the good people at Wham-O offered little explanation. However, they did give us one hint, claiming their SuperBall is made of something called "Zectron." Hmm, "Zectron" sounds a lot like some made-up Willy Wonka word rather than real scientific material. But just to be sure, we put it in the Search box. It turns out Zectron is legit, combining polybutadiene with sulfur. It was discovered by the ball's inventor, Norman Stingley. Like the adhesive behind Post-It Notes, this new rubber compound wasn't an intentional invention, but the material's ability to rebound 90 percent when greatly compressed led Stingley to believe he had a hit toy on his hands. And, of course, he was right.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-09-2007 05:42 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - If someone with a pacemaker dies, does their heart keep beating? No. A pacemaker can only stimulate an irregularly beating heart, not a dead one. The pacemaker would almost certainly be triggered, since it would detect the absence of a regular heartbeat, but it would be to no avail. Your heartbeat is a bioelectrical process, instigated by a mass of specialized cells in the top of the right atrium called the sinoatrial (or SA) node. When this "natural" pacemaker sends an electrical charge through a heart chamber, the chamber contracts. A pacemaker is a small mechanical device implanted underneath the skin that monitors this biolectrical process. If a heart is beating abnormally (say, slower than usual), it discharges a steady series of shocks to stabilize it. No doubt you're familiar with the dramatic scenes in medical dramas involving heart defibrillators and lots of shouts of "CLEAR!" These devices only work if the patient's heart is in fibrillation, which is a random twitching generated when a specific part of the heart starts to die. There's still electricity there, it's just uncoordinated.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-10-2007 01:35 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Do lion-tiger hybrids (ligers) really exist? Lions and tigers and ligers, oh my! Your interest in curious cat hybrids was probably sparked by the film Napoleon Dynamite. Jon Heder, the actor who played Napoleon, studied animation in college and drew his own imaginary liger for the movie. We were amazed to learn that ligers do actually exist. So do tigons, lepons, and jaglions. Big cats generally stick to their own so these amazing hybrids don't occur naturally in the wild. Rather they're the product of captive breeding programs. They were much more common in the latter half of the 19th century, during the heyday of traveling circuses and sideshows. Technically, a liger is the offspring of a male lion and female tiger. They can weigh up to a 1,000 pounds and stretch 12 feet long. They can have both stripes and spots, and if the liger is male, even a small mane. How are ligers and such possible? Lions and tigers are very closely related. Much like leopards and panthers, they share the same genus -- Panthera -- meaning they have enough genetic material in common to make breeding possible.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-23-2007 03:08 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why do light bulbs burn out? Couldn't you have asked us an easier light bulb question? Like how many web writers it takes to change one? To summarize: electrical current flows through the bulb's filament, a long, super thin, double coil wire made of the metal tungsten. This interaction creates extreme heat around 4,000 degrees and starts a process that causes the atoms to release extra energy in the form of light photons. At such a high temperature, though, some tungsten atoms will fly off and collect on the inside of the bulb's glass. This loss of tungsten is slowed but not prevented by adding inert gases, typically argon. The argon atoms rebuff the tungsten atoms when they collide, so that some tungsten atoms rebound and rejoin the solid filament. But eventually, as more and more atoms are lost, the filament starts to disintegrate. The filament is further compromised by the rapid heating and cooling of the wire when the bulb is turned on and off. This creates areas of stress almost like in a paper clip that's repeatedly bent. Eventually, this stress, coupled with the loss of tungsten atoms, weakens the filament enough to break. And that's when it's time to fork over another couple of bucks to GE.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-23-2007 07:36 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Can an employee view his or her employment file at any time? That depends on which state you call home. Currently no federal law mandates access to a personnel file, but 13 states have passed legislation offering varying degrees of access. This professional resource for HR workers offers an interactive U.S. map -- click on your state to learn more about its labor code. If your state doesn't have legislation on the matter, then your employer isn't obligated to show your file. If they do, there are a number of issues involved: offering advance notice, whether you can copy information, whether an employer agent is present, and perhaps most importantly, exactly what information is available. You should probably go over these details with your HR department. For example, in California, employees have the right to inspect any files related to work qualifications, promotions, raises, and medical documents, but not any records relating to an employer's investigation of a possible criminal offense. Employers are obligated to show these records "within a reasonable time." What's in a personnel file? This advice piece for small business owners details the main items: application forms, payroll details, performance appraisals, training records, commendations and/or written warnings. To protect themselves from lawsuits, employers try to avoid medical records, investigation records, and "insupportable opinions" in the margins of application forms.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-23-2007 07:39 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is writing on yourself with ink actually bad for you? Writing on your skin probably won't kill you, but it's not exactly healthy, either. While most writing inks are nontoxic, they do contain chemicals that can be poisonous if ingested in large amounts. According to Health Central, you generally have to swallow at least an ounce (that's several pens' worth) of writing ink to induce poisoning. We found an entertaining discussion about ink poisoning on the blog This End Down. Though most of the contributions come from middle schoolers who enjoy drawing on themselves while bored in class, we found some helpful resources, such as the Health Central link. One curious reader wrote the Sharpie company, and received this reply: "Sharpie Markers are not to be used on skin. Only markers that specify they are safe for use on skin are recommended to be used on skin. Sanford does not manufacture markers for skin. We advise you to consult your physician for information related to the health effects of writing on your skin with permanent markers." The blog Dandruff also weighs in on the issue, recommending that if you must write on yourself, do it with water-based ink. You might also want to seek out skin safe markers -- this English company makes nifty UV-reactive pens for skin art  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-23-2007 07:42 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - What's "continental" about a continental breakfast? Just because you live on a continent and are eating something in the morning, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a "continental breakfast." While croissants and hot chocolate in Belgium would qualify, penguin bacon and Sanka in Antarctica wouldn't. That's because "continental" refers to Europe, really mostly to France, which for many years enjoyed cultural hegemony over its neighbors. A typical continental breakfast consists of "a breadstuff (such as toast, croissants, pastries) and coffee, tea, or other liquid." Furthermore, the continental breakfast is the "antithesis of the hearty English breakfast," in which you sit down to cereal, bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes, toast, marmalade, tea, and, most likely, some Alka Seltzer. The continental breakfast concept isn't limited to Europe, as evidenced by the numerous American hotel chains that offer this service. And according to Ochef.com, some countries, especially those in Scandinavia, do add fruit and cheese to the bread menu, and even a boiled egg or salami.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-24-2007 08:46 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why are cartoon characters usually drawn with only four fingers on each hand? The answer to this one is pretty straightforward -- it's easier to draw and animate four fingers than five. The average cartoon short requires 50,000 drawings. If you're working with a five-fingered character, drawing each digit really adds up in terms of time and money. But if your character has four fingers on each hand instead of five, that's 100,000 fewer digits to sketch. Or as one site puts it, it's "accountant-based thinking that forces so many cartoon characters to go through life with only four fingers." Two of the earliest animated characters, Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse, were both drawn with four "fingers" per "hand," and later characters generally followed suit. But as one 'toon link states, "There's no cartoon bible that you can consult that states that all characters have four fingers."  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-24-2007 11:56 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Why are the letters in the English "alphabet" in the order that they are? The alphabet has often been described as an arbitrary collection of symbols representing an arbitrary collection of sounds. Its order is equally random. The origins of the earliest alphabets, which were probably created around 4,000 years ago, are quite murky. The earliest form of the alphabet was invented by the Semitic peoples living in Egypt. This original alphabet eventually gave rise to written Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and the modern Roman languages. The alphabet developed much out of laziness. Early pictograms required readers and writers to memorize hundreds of specific images representing words and ideas. The alphabet, on the other hand, was a kind of phonetic shorthand in which thirty basic sounds could be strung together to form words. Egyptian hieroglyphics used both pictograms and phonemes (symbols that represent sounds). The first phonemes were based on pictograms -- for example, the symbol representing house, or "beth" in spoken Semitic, eventually became the letter "B." So, while we can't give you an exact reason for the order, we can give you one fun (if rather obvious) fact you may not have realized -- the word "alphabet" comes from "alpha" and "beta," the first two words in the Greek alphabet.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-26-2007 10:50 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is the Bible copyrighted? There are no original Biblical copyright holders. The Bible was written by roughly 40 or so people over the span of 1,500 years (from around 1450 B.C. until A.D. 100). It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. Many modern translations of the Bible are copyrighted. While several of these Bible copyright holders offer their translations online and allow people to make attributed quotes, they would probably frown upon someone printing their translation and trying to sell it. Besides, since a Bible quote in English is by definition a translation, it's good practice to attribute the source. As we quickly discovered, copyright law is a complicated affair. Many books become public domain 70 years after the author's death. Of course, it goes without saying that the Bible isn't your average book, so we suggest you check with the publisher. However, the Bible Gateway notes that many versions are in the public domain including the King James Bible.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-27-2007 09:51 AM                        Rated G Useless fact - When is the planet going to run out of oil? Oil is indeed finite. The Society of Petroleum Engineers estimates remaining official reserves represent 41.6 more years of oil. But there are many factors, including continual increases in demand and the possibility of new discoveries, that make this merely an educated guess. In any event, many who follow this issue agree the question is not entirely relevant. That's because long before that final drop is burned, a more subtle watershed will occur. The energy industry calls this "peak oil," the time when the production capacity of suppliers is completely maxed out. Led by rapidly industrializing China, global oil consumption has been increasing over two percent annually. In order for prices to remain relatively stable, supply must keep up. Therefore, when production finally peaks, with only decreases in supply to follow... well, you can do the math. At the very least the end of cheap oil will mean fewer gas guzzlers on the road. A more cataclysmic scenario projects power shortages, economic and political instability, and war. But when will "peak oil" occur? Estimates range from the ultra-optimistic (no sooner than 2035) to the bleak (it's imminent or already here). The U.S. Department of Energy, not exactly going out on a limb, estimates world oil production to top out anytime from 2021 to 2112. One factor driving the difference in predictions: Many claim oil nations routinely inflate the amount of their official reserves. So there could actually be considerably less left in the world's tank than is on the books.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-28-2007 02:52 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - Is there a "suggested donation" to pay a minister for a wedding ceremony? Religious wedding officiants don't usually charge fees for their services, but they may request donations to their houses of worship. The donation amount varies from place to place, so it's wise to inquire before choosing the person who helps you say, "I do." A commonly suggested donation is $75 to $100. The dollar figure might be less if you belong to that minister's church, or it could be more if the clergyperson provides pre-marriage counseling. Officiants for civil ceremonies will charge set fees -- just ask their offices. If your officiant has to travel to get to your wedding, you may be expected to cover that cost, too. As for who foots the fee, traditionally, the groom pays for the officiant services at the wedding.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-28-2007 06:20 PM                        Rated G Useless fact - What is the purpose of "hand-tossing" pizza dough? What effect does it have on the finished pizza? This turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected, but we certainly expanded our minds (and rumbled our bellies) in the process. The ancient art of the perfect toss does more than entertain wide- eyed pizzeria patrons. Astrophysicist Charles Liu compares the shape of the Milky Way to an airborne disk of pizza dough, noting that we toss dough for the same reason our galaxy spins: to get rid of the lumps (or "warps," in the Milky Way's case), resulting in a smooth, thin, even circle. And according to the American Institute of Baking, this thinner crust expands more effectively in the oven. However, while some restaurants claim hand-tossing adds a level of authenticity to the pizza experience -- and draws in customers -- most professional chefs seem more concerned with the earlier step of kneading the dough. Gluten, a protein found in wheat that enables dough to stretch and bend, is activated by kneading. If there's not enough air worked into your pizza dough before you toss it, even the fanciest moves won't result in a well-balanced, evenly baked, tasty pie. And as Dean Martin has told us time and time again: That's amore.  |  IP: Logged

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