Post: #1

This thread is for random facts and stories that aren't important to warrant their own thread, but that are interesting enough that you think other people might find them worth reading. I often find short things on the web that I don't want to write up into a full length post, and that don't really seem to fit the idea of a "lounge" thread, and I would imagine that other posters here do as well.

Here's a couple to get us started.

According to one estimate, 20% of American college students are "Book Virgins", that is, they have never read an adult-level book in their lives. Colleges are attempting to find easy to read books for their students for freshman reading week, because entrants can no longer even handle moderately complex works such as "The Old Man and the Sea" on their own.

The University of Arizona has been forced to disavow a visiting gender studies professor from France, who identifies as a Hippopotamus. Quotes the professor in his published journal article: "“I do strongly love when my friends call me ‘hippo,’ refer to my ‘paws’ and pretend that they see no difference between me and one of my stuffed hippopotamuses, except that I’m a little bigger than most of them."

Some ancient Zen Buddhist monasteries were located on mountains where cats were not allowed. It was thought that seeing cute cats would interfere with the soul's entry into paradise, because entering paradise requires a monk to be rid of all earthly attachments, and the monk might see the cat and think, "Hey, a world with cute cats isn't so bad after all. Maybe I'll just stay here instead of going to paradise."

Feel free to comment on any of this, or post your own random trivia or small, strange stories you've encountered in your web-browsing.

Post: #2

Did you know, in 2009, Christine Aguilera was the president of Skymall?

Post: #3

Did you know that electric eels are not actually eels? They're "knifefish", a group of long, bony fish that is found only in fresh water.

Post: #4

Elvis Presley's favorite food.

Quote:On the night of February 1, 1976, Elvis Presley took his private jet from Graceland to Denver and back in one night because he was craving an 8,000 calorie sandwich made from a hollowed out loaf filled with an entire jar of peanut butter, one jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon. Not your average snack, priced at $50, this is the story of how the Fool’s Gold Loaf became the Elvis Presley of sandwiches, King of the PB&Js…

Post: #5

There are very few native animals, even frogs, in New Zealand. When Europeans discovered the place, they climbed some mountains, poked around under some logs, and found some frogs. The native Maori people had never bothered to do so, and had no knowledge of or word in their language for "frog".

Post: #6

Great thread idea, but Sambro, your book virgin stats are killing me.

You're killing me, Sambro. You understand?

Anyhow, in my region there was a catastrophic dam failure 100 years ago (or so) which unleashed a torrent of water so powerful that it ripped houses from their foundations and sent them upstream so in-tact that there was still wood smoke coming out of their chimneys.

The major river the dam linked to ran the wrong direction (uphill) for such a distance that it's a ten minute drive to get to where it finally turned back.

Post: #7

This is gonna be my favorite thread.

When the whale "basilosaurus" was first discovered, it was assumed to be a mosasaur. Later analysis revealed it was in fact a mammal, prompting a renaming of "zeuglodon", but basilosaurus was catchier and stuck.

Post: #8

(06-27-2017 09:26 AM)YoungBlade Wrote:  This is gonna be my favorite thread.

When the whale "basilosaurus" was first discovered, it was assumed to be a mosasaur. Later analysis revealed it was in fact a mammal, prompting a renaming of "zeuglodon", but basilosaurus was catchier and stuck.

I just googled it and the images look awesome!

Post: #9

Sargent & Greenleaf digital safe locks have an "anti shoulder surfing" feature, to keep your combination safe. They use 6 digit combinations. After the first 5 digits of the combination, the lock will ignore all subsequent numbers OTHER than the correct last digit.

So if your combination is 263481, you can enter 26348253643864539841 and your lock will open. Meanwhile, anyone watching will think that your combination is 20 digits long.

Post: #10

Smallpox blankets sent to Indians was a myth:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451...w=fulltext

Also makes sense if you analyze how actual infections happen. It was literally impossible to be infected by any kind of blankets in those times.

But it makes for a nice anti-White anti-Western story.

Post: #11

Good contributions, but this is dupe thread, they should go here: /thread-26172.html