Tell Me Something I Don't Know

[Jester]

4 The founder of match.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on match.com.

Now that's hilariously ironic!

12 Just like humans, British cows moo in regional accents.

As funny as this is, it is rather likely that it is false. Most stories stating this cite a phonetics professor's comments on the subject. The problem is, they're completely misquoting him. They took his "it's possible but highly unlikely" and made it into a "yes." See his complete comments here

48 The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body.

Also untrue. While the blue whale can hold a staggering amount of food and/or water in its mouth--close to 100 tons!--that is only about half the blue whale's weight, give or take a few tons.

Check it out here, and scroll done to "Size."

More interesting to me about a blue whale is that they are not only the largest animal currently living, they are the largest animal known to have EVER lived, dwarfing the biggest dinosaur known to have existed.

[KhirasHY]

Since we mentioned QI (and I've been watching it nonstop since), here's some fun trivia that made the airwaves on that show:

1 When customers visited the UK’s first supermarkets they were afraid to pick up goods in case they were told off.

2 Women buy 80% of everything that is for sale.

3 Nelson Mandela was not removed from the US terror watch list until 2008.

4 The founder of match.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on match.com.

5 The proud owner of the first silicone breast implant was a dog called Esmeralda.

6 In 1915, the lock millionaire Cecil Chubb bought his wife Stonehenge. She didn’t like it, so in 1918 he gave it to the nation.

7 Thomas Edison’s last breath is held in a vial at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit.

8 A pumping human heart can squirt blood 30ft.

9 In ancient Greek the word “idiot” meant anyone who wasn’t a politician.

10 Jimmy Carter once sent a jacket to the cleaner’s with the nuclear detonation codes still in the pocket.

11 The second man to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, Bobby Leach, survived the fall but later died as a result of slipping on a piece of orange peel.

12 Just like humans, British cows moo in regional accents.

13 Every year, 4 million cats are eaten in Asia.

14 Under Chairman Mao, every Chinese family was obliged to kill a sparrow a week to stop them eating all the rice. The project was ineffective because sparrows don’t eat rice.

15 John Cleese’s father’s surname was Cheese. Cleese grew up 10miles from Cheddar and his best friend at school was called Barney Butter.

16 The last private resident of 10 Downing Street was a Mr Chicken.

17 The shortest war ever fought was between Britain and Zanzibar on August 27, 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

18 The sun’s core is so hot that a piece of it the size of a pinhead would give off enough heat to kill a person 160 kilometres away.

19 Liechtenstein, the world’s sixth smallest country, is the largest exporter of false teeth.

20 Michael J Fox’s middle name is Andrew.

21 In 1811, nearly a quarter of all the women in Britain were named Mary.

22 In 1881, there were only six men in Britain called Derek.

23 Only 4 Clives and 13 Trevors were born in the UK in 2011.

24 It’s unsafe for travellers to rely on St Christopher any more: he lost his sainthood in 1969.

25 Until 1913, children in America could legally be sent by parcel post.

26 China is the world’s largest supplier of Bibles: one factory in Nanjing prints a million a month.

27 Ants can survive in a microwave: they are small enough to dodge the rays.

28 Heroin was originally marketed as cough medicine.

29 The Nazis made it illegal on pain of death for apes to give the Heil Hitler salute.

30 When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, one of the suspects was Picasso.

31 The Dyslexia Research Centre is in Reading.

32 The United States of America maintains a military presence in 148 of the 192 United Nations countries.

33 If you drilled a tunnel straight through the Earth and jumped in, it would take you exactly 42 minutes and 12 seconds to get to the other side.

34 Beyonce Knowles is an 8th cousin, four times removed, of Gustav Mahler.

35 All but one of the ravens at the Tower of London died from stress during the Blitz.

36 George W Bush and Saddam Hussein had their shoes hand-made by the same Italian cobbler.

37 In his first year at Harrow, Winston Churchill was bottom of the whole school.

38 The Irish poet Brendan Behan became an alcoholic at the age of eight.

39 In Afghanistan and Iraq it takes 250,000 bullets (three tons of ammunition) to kill each insurgent.

40 Baseball legend Babe Ruth always wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep his head cool. In South Korea, this is considered unsporting, unless the player has a doctor’s note.

41 Under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter. (Note, QI said this on the show...but I think it was disproven Not sure)

42 The citizens of Kuwait celebrated the end of the first Gulf War by firing weapons into the air. 20 Kuwaitis died as a result of bullets falling from the sky.

43 The Sami people of northern Finland use a measure called Poronkusema: the distance a reindeer can walk before needing to urinate.

44 In 2009, a retired policeman called Geraint Woolford was admitted to Abergale Hospital in north Wales and ended up next to another retired policeman called Geraint Woolford. The men weren’t related, had never met and were the only two people in the UK called Geraint Woolford.

45 In 1999, Darlington FC acquired 50,000 worms to irrigate their waterlogged pitch. They all drowned.

46 Edmund Hillary, right, the first man to climb Everest, was a professional beekeeper. When filling in forms, he always gave his occupation as “apiarist”.

47 Tintin is called Tantan in Japanese because TinTin is pronounced ‘Chin chin’ and means penis.

48 The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body.

49 Saddam’s bunker was designed by the grandson of the woman who built Hitler’s bunker.

50 The first-ever edition of the Daily Mirror came with a free mirror.

[SongsOfDragons]

On the subject of tornados, the UK get a few too...more per capita than the US!!

Though that's not hard, and they're not movie-worthy damaging. One passed through Romsey some years ago and I remember the cloudburst of thick rain that destroyed all visibility that accompanied it in Winchester.

[sms001]

Weird, random trivia bits:

And several fun ones as well! Thanks.

[Tama]

And the second sweariest movie, with the most instances of the F words used is Wolf Of Wall Street, with 544 instances.

-Anywhere between 1-10% of people from European descent are either immune or resistant to HIV/AIDS.

This is thought to be because of their ancestors having lived through the black plague.

[firecat88]

And now for some Minecraft stuff:

- In Area 11's song "Minecraft Christmas", there is mention of the server seed '68954012663'. This is an actual seed that will spawn you in a snowy taiga biome.

- Digging a one-by-one hole down to bedrock level and filling said hole with TNT blocks on your way back up will, when set off, result in a crater that may or may not drop all the way down to the Void.

- In every jungle temple you come across, the hidden treasure room will always be behind or adjacent to the wall of levers.

- When using the portal gun mod, you can send yourself to the Moon. However, you will instantly die upon entry and the portal there will continue to suck up everything that gets close to it.

- If you see a tree that has cobwebs on it, dig around it. There's a spider spawner, but also a chest of loot.

- Though chickens, cows, and such are normally peaceful mobs, those that are exposed to Taint will be hostile.

- Void glitches can actually be quite useful. They tend to expose where all of the good ores and such are so, if you're playing multiplayer, you can direct a friend where to dig.

[dalesys]

Excuse me?!? You ALLOW jaffa cakes to go stale?!? I don't think I can ever speak to you again!

SongsOfDragons didn doodn nit. A lower form of pseudo-life (AKA Barrister) abandoned the Holy Jaffa cakes to go stale.

[KhirasHY]

Weird, random trivia bits:

-The reason that artificial banana flavoring doesn't taste like bananas is because it is based on the Gros Michel Banana, a species that went extinct in the 1960's due to a banana disease.

-Despite all the romanticist stories about it, the Pony Express was only in operation for 2 years.

-US eggs would be illegal to sell in Britain because they are washed. British eggs would be illegal to sell in the US because they are unwashed.

-The stickers that supermarkets use on fruit are edible (by requirement). Even the glue is food based.

-Micro-gravity is known to cause severe flatulence.

-A Fish Called Wanda is the only movie with a recorded death by laughter (although an argument could be made for Who Framed Roger Rabbit as well)

-When Ozzy Osbourn left Black Sabbath, Michael Bolton auditioned to replace him.

-"Graffiti" is actually the plural of the word; the singular is "Graffito."

-Had the Titanic actually struck the iceberg head on instead of trying to go around it, it would have had a much higher chance of survival, and could have avoided sinking.

-The melody for the USA National Anthem is based on an old English drinking song.

-Considered one of the more offensive games ever made, the Atari featured a game called Custer's Revenge. The objective of the game was to avoid arrows falling from the top of the screen while raping a Native American woman tied to a post.

-There is a high school in Jacksonville, Florida named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first ever Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The school still bears its name to this day.

-Cookie Monster's real name is Sid. The Pringles Man's real name is Julius.

-For most of us, our earlobes and nipples are perfectly aligned.

-There is a desk in the US Senate called "The Candy Desk." It's filled with exactly what you think it's filled with.

-India has a mascot named "Mr. Poo," a talking and dancing pile of crap that encourages people not to defecate in public.

-Collectively, as of 2014, the "Gangnam Style" video has wasted over 15,400 years worth of time on YouTube.

-Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.

-Continuum was an HIV/AIDS denial magazine that ceased publication in 2001...after all of its editors died of AIDS-related sicknesses.

-During the 18th century, the price of admission to an English zoo was three half-pence. You could also bring a dog or cat as payment, they would be fed to the lions.

-The movie which currently holds the record for usage of the word "fuck" is a documentary, appropriately titled "Fuck." It's used 857 times, averaging over 9 times per minute.

-The reason that we have the term "movie trailers" is because they used to be shown after the movie, not before. Thus, "previews" would now be more accurate.

-The child songs "The Alphabet Song," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" all use the same tune - one which was originally written by Mozart.

-Harvard discovered at one point that three books in its library were bound in human flesh.

-Nintendo is so wealthy, they could lose $250 Million every year and still remain solvent until 2052.

-75% of the world's known tornadoes occur in the United States.

-A single US Aircraft Carrier contains an air force more powerful than 70% of the countries in the world.

-When properly sealed in a glass container, honey will not rot or spoil, and can be consumed thousands of years afterward.

-A survey in Oregon once discovered that panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart were making more money than the workers inside.

-There is a metal band called "Hatebeak" whose lead singer is an African Gray Parrot.

-Anywhere between 1-10% of people from European descent are either immune or resistant to HIV/AIDS.

-Betty White is literally older than sliced bread.

-Nearly all koalas have chlamydia.

-The University of Phoenix requires a Masters Degree in order to teach there, but if you received your Masters from the University of Phoenix, they do not consider you qualified enough.

-When television studios play the movie Groundhog Day, the customary joke is to play the same commercials during every single commercial break in order to fit the theme.

-Bee hives have "Undertaker Bees" who remove the corpses of dead drones from the hive, leaving them at least 50 feet away.

[crazylegs]

And they proved it in court by showing that cakes go hard when stale and biscuits go soft.

Stale Jaffa cakes are like mini frisbee shurikens

Excuse me?!? You ALLOW jaffa cakes to go stale?!? I don't think I can ever speak to you again!

[SongsOfDragons]

Jaffa Cakes are defined in law as cakes, not biscuits. Unsurprisingly this is down to tax - chocolate covered biscuits are defined as a luxury item (and therefore attract VAT, a type of tax) whereas chocolate cake is not.

And they proved it in court by showing that cakes go hard when stale and biscuits go soft.

Stale Jaffa cakes are like mini frisbee shurikens

[crazylegs]

Jaffa Cakes are defined in law as cakes, not biscuits. Unsurprisingly this is down to tax - chocolate covered biscuits are defined as a luxury item (and therefore attract VAT, a type of tax) whereas chocolate cake is not.

[fireheart]

Speaking of Studio Ghibli, the only movies they've modified were Spirited Away (slight dialogue changes) and Pom Poko (the changing of "raccoon testicles" to "raccoon pouches")

[KhirasHY]

Anime stuff? How about some Hayao Miyazaki trivia?

-He is sometimes called the "Walt Disney of Japan", but he hates that title.

-Frequently makes references to nature, ecology, and pollution by humankind in his films, such as "My Neighbor Totoro", "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", "Princess Mononoke", and "Spirited Away".

-Graduated from Gakushuin University with a degree in political science & economics (1963).

-Allows no more than 10% of footage in his films to be computer generated.

-For a long time many of his films were not available in America following the original poor English language version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which cut roughly 20 to 30 minutes of time, changed character names and diluted the film's themes. Miyazaki was so upset over this poor handling that he refused to give the distribution rights to anyone who did not agree to follow a more strict translation of the Japanese dialogue and not remove any scenes. Walt Disney Studios eventually agreed to these terms and have been steadily releasing his films ever since, including a new English language version of Nausicaä that restores the lost footage and plays at its proper length.

-Two of his title characters have been voiced by Batman actors in the English language adaptations of his films. Michael Keaton provided the voice of Porco Rosso in "Porco Rosso" while Christian Bale provided the voice of Howl in "Howl's Moving Castle"

-He and animator Isao Takahata had wanted to do an animated version of Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking. This dated back to 1971, when Miyazaki and Takahata prepared to do an animated film called "Pippi Longstocking, the Strongest Girl in the World" ("Nagakutsushita no Pippi, Sekai-ichi Tsuyoi no Onna no Ko"). They traveled to Sweden and not only did extensive research (he scouted the area of Visby in Gottland, where "Pippi Longstocking" was filmed), but met Lindgren in person to discuss the project with her. After their meeting with Lindgren, their permission to complete the project was denied and the project was canceled. Among what remains of the project are beautiful watercolored storyboards by Miyazaki himself. Since then, Miyazaki based many of his young heroines on Pippi Longstocking, especially Mimiko in "Panda! Go Panda!".

[fireheart]

Fun factoid: in an episode of Sailor Moon (the anime), Usagi gets an English test back. If you look closely on the English test, there is a line written (in English) about how one of the directors went to a red-light district, picked up a girl/prostitute and discovered they were a MTF transsexual!

On top of that, the same line actually got past the censors when they dubbed the series! (Probably because they'd used the terms "Nanpa" and "new-half" and the dubbers assumed that it was just dummy text )

[fireheart]

Fun fact: In NSW (my soon-to-be actual state), there are the following types of "alternative" schools:

-Ananda Marga (I like to think of this as "Hindu/Hare Krishna Lite": they share some elements, but they're not a religious per se, more a self-help thing. While they encourage yoga, meditation and so forth, the oddity is that they actively discourage things like onions and garlic because "They affect the nervous system." Seriously)

-A "Dalton Plan" school (I have no idea what this is, or how it works. It's NOT religious though, it's meant to be some way of allowing children to explore projects independently while still studying the curriculum from memory)

-Exclusive Bretheren School (they tend to segregate themselves slightly from the community, but not to the point of the Amish.)

-Hare Krishna.

-FOUR bilingual schools that are not linked to a belief system (a French lycee and Italian and Japanese schools too, along with German. The other schools are Armenian/Assyrian and are also run with a reliigous stance)

-Sathya Sai (another spiritual school of sorts, sort of akin to Hare Krishna, but the schools don't encourage the spiritual side as much)

-Scientology. Yes. This exists. They claim to use the "methods" but not hte actual teachings. I have yet to see how effective this actually is.