Useless information for your everyday life...

[billysgirl5]

Here are some more!

• The value of goods traded on eBay is larger than the gross national product of Denmark.

• President Gerald Ford's novel Marine-One was largely based on his experiences during World War II. It later become the basis for the 1998 Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan.

• Since the moon's gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth's, it is possible to jump 36 (six squared) times higher there.

• Don McLean has reportedly written a lengthy note explaining the meaning of his song "American Pie", which is to be published following his death.

• The latest fad for Japanese schoolgirls is leaving the tags on their new clothes, including the price tag. They can even buy "tag protectors" for about 2300 Yen (about $3.75) to cover the tags when washing their garments. 

• The Oxford English Dictionary (Unabridged) is the only English dictionary that contains an entry for "pompitous", a word made infamous by The Steve Miller Band's song "The Joker". It is defined as the pluperfect tense of pompous.

• Scientists at NASA calculated that if a professional baseball pitcher were on the moon, they would be able to throw a baseball into orbit, due to the low gravity and lack of air resistance.

• In 1978, Gerald Ford became the only U.S. President to simultaneously have books on The New York Times' bestsellers list for fiction (Marine-One) and non-fiction (In My Time: The Importance of Being Gerald).

• In the Dutch language, the restaurant idiom "let's go American" means to not leave a tip.

• It is estimated that the decrease in fuel efficiency due to car antennae balls is responsible for 6,500 extra barrels of oil being consumed per day in the United States alone.

• The Washington, D.C. Metro stop at the Pentagon is the busiest mass transit station in the country. Over 250,000 people pass through its turnstiles on any given weekday.

• Taipei, Taiwan has the largest high school in the world, with 32,000 students.

• The average donation required to have a university building named in your honor is $1.5 million.

• St. Filan is the patron saint of sky diving.

• The Walking Liberty half dollar is the only U.S. coin to have featured a design created by a woman.
 
• One in eight highway accidents is caused by a muscle twitch.

• A spider's legs will stop functioning if it stops moving for more than an hour.

• Henry Ford once said that the idea of a car that can reach a speed above 30 miles per hour was a "preposterous idea with zero commercial value."

• The cornerstone for the first Catholic church built in China was laid in 745 A.D.

• Shakespeare coined the term "jiffy" to describe a short moment of time in the play "Two Gentlemen of Verona."
 
• Only 36 percent of common spiders are capable of laying eggs under human skin.

• 72 percent of major newspapers decreased the width of their margins between 1994 and 2004 to save paper in order to compete with online media.

• The Black-headed Ibis can carry a fertilized egg for 14 months while waiting for suitable conditions to rear young. (a bird)

• A biceps curl is the most common exercise performed using free weights.

• The toothbrush was invented in 1839 in Essex, England.
 
• Emergency rooms see more loss of hearing victims than burn victims on the 4th of July.

• Microsoft estimates that 87 percent of computers running Windows XP use the default "Bliss" wallpaper.

• More people are injured in America on Independence Day by grills than by fireworks.

• Until 1921, British law mandated that all hourglasses sold in the city of London be tested against an hourglass housed in Buckingham Palace.

• Wikipedia, an online, community-edited encyclopedia, has to remove over 750 inappropriate pictures from articles every day.
 
• In high schools across the US, student career counselors have been forced to develop curriculums for teenagers who have listed their career aspirations as becoming "just like Paris Hilton."

• More fireworks are set off in the week prior to and the week following the 4th of July combined than on the actual day itself.

• Federal anti-discrimination policy currently does not include any mention of discrimination based on height.

• Red is the color in nature that most commonly indicates that a fruit or plant is edible.

• Today the ACLU is still battling a continual stream of court appeals following the 1925 Scope's Monkey Trial.
 
• The Titanic was carrying 750,000 plates when it sunk.

• From when it is manufactured to when it is taken off the road, an average car will use almost 11,000 gallons of gasoline.

• A glass of tap water contains around one cubic inch of dissolved oxygen.

• Three out of four Fortune 500 companies have more computers than employees.

• In Moss, Montana, it is illegal to be seen in public with shoes on your hands.
 
• Starbucks is the largest landowner in New York City, surpassing both the Catholic Church and Columbia University.

• 38 percent of all perfume ads contain subliminal images.

• The average subway handrail is touched 2,400 times a day.

• Black women are 10 percent more likely to become missing persons than white women.

• Wallet thickness increases 1/16 of an inch for every $20,000 increase in its owner's annual income.
 
• Lesotho is the only nation in the world that has never had a fatal terrorist attack on its soil.

• While alive, male sardines are very territorial, and will not get within 10 feet of another male.

• In 2004, 784 people died by overdosing on caffeine.

• Since the creation of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, August of 1794 is the only month in which no US patents were filed.

• 93 percent of the world's caterpillars become moths, and only seven percent become butterflies.
 
• An average wasp can sting 14 times before running out of venom

• One in eight sets of directions from MapQuest contains a turn that is either physically impossible, or disallowed by signs at the intersection.

• Amtrak trains are, on average, 14 minutes late departing, and 38 minutes late arriving.

• If one million copies of a typical spam message are sent, approximately 750,000 will be automatically filtered and deleted, 150,000 will be ignored or deleted after reading the subject line, 99,999 will be ignored or deleted after reading the message, and one will generate a sale.

• There are no cats native to Australia.
 
• Only one in 40 computers owned by individuals is behind a hardware firewall or has a software firewall activated.

• It is overwhelmingly unlikely (a 1 in 17 million chance) that any two raindrops in the history of the earth have had exactly the same number of water molecules.

• By weight, about 15 percent of produce put on display at grocery stores is never sold, mostly because of bruises or overripeness. Tomatoes are the worst, with one in 3 being thrown away.

• Certain brands of tennis balls are among the 143,572 products required to cary a label stating "This product contains or produces a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer"

• The largest chicken on record weighed 112 pounds. It could neither stand nor reach the ground with its beak, and spent 11 hours each day eating from a carefully placed tray.

• Only six percent of Mandarin speakers speak it as a second language.

• The Six-Day war is the only recorded conflict with a name accurately cataloguing its length, to date.

• A student majoring in criminal justice has a 97.2 percent average job placement rate, the highest of any field. The field with the lowest placement rate is Marine Biology.

• More shoes are sold on Fifth avenue between fifty-ninth and eightieth street in New York City than anywhere else in the world.

• It is estimated that at the current rates of mental health decline, suicide will surpass homicide as a leading cause of death by 2075.
 
• The amount of chewing gum trampled underfoot in the city of Manila accounts for an average altitude increase of one millimeter per year.

• The name "craps" is not used in many casinos throughout the midwest. Instead, the popular dice game is referred to as "seven-out".

• In 1988, the average computer hard drive had a lifespan of six years. Today, hard drives last an average of 14 months.

• Okinotori Shima is the only pacific island never to have been annexed or occupied by force.

• Green and blue eyes are both dominant traits in most canines. When these traits are expressed simultaneously, two different eye colors result.
 
• Before it is thrown away, a hanger will, on average, hold 26 different garments.

• More incense is burned on U.S. college campuses than in all of India.

• If all the coupons issued by grocery store Safeway were redeemed, its net profit would drop by 11 percent.

• Sheep are the most common animal mentioned in the New Testament.

• 14 out of 15 movies released by major studios in 2004 had a music montage.
 
• Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov correctly predicted the year of the moon landing in 1948.

• The most popular Jello mold is cat-shaped.

• Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, refused to be purchased by Google in January of 2005.

• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence picked up fifteen prank signals from ham radio operators in 2004.

• Three times as many editorials were written in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act than the US PATRIOT Act.
 
• By most expert estimates, a pound of ground beef, on average, only has three human hairs in it.

• Cats consciously dilate and contract their pupils.

• A long-term study by a Harvard professor found that incandescent light bulb is, contrary to popular belief, cheaper than a compact florescent bulb over a period of more than 10 years.

• Profit from the sale of Star Wars toys could have covered three times the cost of making all six movies.

• Two rival Los Angeles gangs identify themselves by wearing brightly colored shoes. This has led to four slayings of innocent bystanders, who were misidentified as opposing gang members.
 
• Due to book discounts and free shipping offers online booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble will make no money off of the pre sales of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", but must rely entirely on the sale of other books on the same customer order.

• Friday evening more people lined up at bookstores for the release of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" than for the opening night of "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith".

• Contrary to the belief that the Harry Potter book series encourages literacy by its mere popularity, most fans of Harry Potter do not read books unrelated to the series.

• Due to massive presales for "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" UPS and FedEx drivers are currently processing more packages than at any time of year other than Christmas.

• "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" marks the first Harry Potter book which publishers in other countries will change the location of Hogwarts and the ethnicity of the characters to match their own audience.
 
• Elephants cannot sneeze.

• Homer Simpson's "D'oh!" is based on a noise made by Dan Castallaneta's girlfriend when she stubbed her toe.

• More hunters are killed by bear traps than by bears.

• While often attributed to Kurt Cobain, "It's better to burn out than to fade away" was actually coined by Achilles, before the Battle of Troy.

• The fear that small elf-like men are causing the subject to be ill is caused by a mental disorder known as Symptomatic Pygmic Dementia.
 
• Creating the pull tab on a soda can accounts for 61 percent of the cost of manufacturing.

• A fish can pull back against a fishing line with up to three times its body weight.

• One in 12 Americans doesn't believe the moon landing took place, as compared to one in nine non-Americans.

• Inter-nation fighting over the spice saffron has led to the deaths of more than 80,000 people since the start of the common era.

• A single queen bee can produce a 500-bee hive in less than 72 hours.
 
• One in four Americans takes a daily prescription medication.

• Theodore Roosevelt was an accomplished pianist.

• In Sacramento, California a cat can be the legal owner of a house, but not a dog.

• Swedish people consume more brownies per capita, than any other country's citizens.

• An average digital camera can capture and transfer around 126 images before it needs recharging.
 
• According to its annual audit the U.S. Army employes 18 full-time "combat candlestick makers."

• Fish decompose at twice the rate of mammals.

• If all the cigarettes smoked worldwide over the course of a year were laid end to end, they would come close enough to the sun to start the end cigarette smoldering.

• Actor Brad Pitt's middle name is Wesleyton.

• The human stomach secretes 49 different acids while digesting. Only two of these acids are responsible for heartburn.
 
• When the candy "Smarties" first arrived in Uganda confused shopkeepers originally marketed the sweet as a miracle brain enhancer from America.

• The most common computer password in America is "ulysses."

• 9 out of 10 Americans have no idea what the Function keys on their keyboards are for.

• The Supreme Court is most popular in Midwestern states with more than 5 electoral votes and least popular in Northeastern states with less than 5 electoral votes.

• In a survey of American office workers conducted by OSHA the staple remover was cited most often as the office item that is never around when one was needed.
 
• From construction of an oil drilling station, to filling up your gas tank, 16,000 calories of human effort are expended for every gallon of gas you use.

• Pisces is the most common astrological sign in the U.S.

• The Teapot Dome scandal, in the 1920s, created a wave of teapot-related merchandise.

• The Senate of the Dominican Republic is the only national legislative body where a percentage of each session must be devoted to citizens introducing their own legislation.

• Jim Henson named the characters Bert and Ernie after two of his uncles who passed away while he was developing the show Sesame Street.
 
• Cathedral catacombs were originally envisioned as a way to keep drinking wells safely away from saboteurs.

• If all the mosaics used in every mosque in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Jordan were laid flat, they would cover an area the size of Vermont. The grout alone would be the size of Connecticut.

• According to the Magna Carta, in the event of the deaths of the King, Queen, Princess, Princesses, and all other royalty whose nobility exceeds countship, the rule of the throne falls to the King's Consul to the Virgin Islands.

• More Americans can carry on a conversation in Klingon than in Esperanto.

• It is estimated that up to 15 percent of bottled water is bottled from unfiltered rainwater.
 
• The Vatican employs 16 Retainers of Church Secret. These retainers receive a salary of 160,000 euros a year, but are not permitted to leave Vatican City.

• Every afternoon, Americans return home with $452 million in change they have received during the day.

• Only two percent of cell phones emit a signal strong enough to penetrate a human skull.

• All the sneakers in the world weigh a combined 25 billion kilograms. Every day, this weight is diminished by 1000 metric tons due to wear and tear.

• The world's largest Crepe Suzette was 5 meters in diameter, and had to be made in a hangar for small aircraft. When it was lit, the 21 liters of cognac covering the crepe burned so furiously that the airport had to be evacuated.
 
• Railroad Model Craftsman is the oldest continuously published hobby magazine in the United States.

• Edgerton, Wyoming is the most well-educated town in the U.S. At the time of the last census, 95 percent of the town's 169 residents held a four year degree.

• 38 percent of people cite tape as the household item most often needed but not found.

• Camera phone pictures were used as evidence in 1,400 court cases in 2004.

• The Japanese TV show Iron Chef spent $1.67 million on secret ingredients in its first season alone.
 
• As of 1997, the surface of every major river in the United States has caught fire at least once since its discovery and catalogue by the US Geological Survey.

• The basic structure of carbonless triplicate paper has not changed since 1968.

• According to INTERPOL, sixteen murders have been attributed to the debate over whether Australia is an island or a continent.

• If the earth were hollow, with livable conditions on the inside of the crust, the centrifugal force created by the rotation of the earth would exert six times the force of gravity on the inhabitants of the inside surface.

• On average, Americans expend 150 calories daily during the preparation of food. Europeans expend 350 during food preparation.
 
• An average person burns 800 calories per hour in a fist fight.

• The British government released at 40 page document in late 2004 clarifying what job practitioners were to be called professionals.

• The wood of the cinnamon tree, the bark of which is used to make the spice, is the third densest known wood.

• The number of Russian language web pages is growing three percent a week, faster than any other language.

• The Italian government did not provide an option to select Islam as a religion on state paperwork until the early 1980s.
 
• Recruits entering the FBI's International Fraud department are required to be fluent in Somali, Pashtun, Urdu, Tagalog, and Cantonese.

• The Twilight Marigold is the only plant whose flower follows the moon.

• If both their parents are incapacitated, German children are allowed to vote in national elections.

• Roughly ten percent of winning scratch-off lottery tickets are invalidated due to unintentional tampering.

• Every summer, dripping water does $6 billion in damage to American ceilings.
 
• The world's fastest fish can swim at speeds of 45 miles per hour.

• Cigarettes are responsible for starting 29 percent of household fires.

• Zhuan Zhu, a Chinese assassin who died in 1643, is known for having personally killed over 5,000 people, more than any other single person on record.

• 12 percent of away messages on the popular instant messaging client AOL Instant Messenger contain the abbreviation "LOL."

• The compound on the head of a matchstick is a more powerful explosive than TNT.
 
• Corningware is widely considered to be the most profitable manufacturing mistake in history.

• In Ireland, up to four people can be buried in a single grave, but only if they can fit in the same coffin.

• In the 19th century, it was common practice for a man to wear heavy gloves when writing letters after a forgery of his signature, in order to change it completely.

• A third of all store robberies are committed for food items.

• Most anglo-saxons can trace their genetic lineage back to a single band of Welsh barbarians living in the third century BCE.