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 |  One hundred facts that are interesting but ultimately useless. |
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presenting: A Catalogue of Useless Facts - introduction - Whether I'm at work or out with friends, I have a reputation as the person who knows things. Not useful things, mind you; not once has it been profitable to know the reason why dogs have wet noses, or the meaning of the linguistic term "glottal stop", or the difference between a bug and an insect. If anything, all the aimless wandering on Wikipedia keeps me from finishing my other writing projects. But there is a purpose to this eclectic mishmash of trivia, and it ties into my own major philosophy: stuff is interesting. The world is often rough and depressing, but if I can find one neat little factoid, everything seems a little less meaningless. And this brings us to the point of this blog. Lately, it feels like my various newsfeeds are full to bursting with anger and bickering. As a generally positive person, I wanted to counteract this in some way -- only I'm not so adept with inspirational quotes or pithy wisdom. What I can offer, though, are useless facts. Over the past few months, instead of filing these accidental info-bits in some dusty corner of my brain, I've been taking notes. Before long, I had enough for a solid month of trivia. I collected a few more and thought instead I'd do a "Factoid Friday" every week for a year. But I'm a curious person by nature, and can't help but stumble on new things. Maybe I'm eating lunch one day, I suddenly wonder where ketchup comes from, and bam! I learn something new! So here come the facts. They may be short, or they may be long. They may cover language, biology, history, mythology, or any number of other subjects. Many of you may know some of these, and some of you may know many of these. But hopefully, at least once between now and the time my collection runs dry, you'll be inspired to say, "Huh! That's actually kind of interesting!" -BD Mitchell Blog is currently on hiatus. Blog Info ▼ Categories ▼
Comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome at all times! |
Nightingale Floors - miscellaneous - "Nightingale floors" are a building technique used in some traditional Japanese architecture. Any weight applied to the floor causes protruding nails to scrape against a metal clip, resulting in a noticeable squeak reminiscent of a chirping bird. Nightingale floors were mainly designed for security reasons -- an intruder would find it impossible to walk through a building without making noise and risking detection. #080 |
| The Wilhelm Scream - history / theatre - The "Wilhelm scream" is a widely-known sound effect originally recorded for "Distant Drums", a 1951 film set in 1840s Florida. A scene where a character is attacked by an alligator is the first movie usage of the famous scream. The effect's namesake is Pvt. Wilhelm, a character who was dispatched by an arrow in the 1953 movie "The Charge at Feather River". The Wilhelm scream was absorbed into Warner Brothers' stock sound archive until it was brought back into prominence by sound designer Ben Burtt, who employed the scream in the first "Star Wars" movie. Burtt would go on to include the effect in every subsequent "Star Wars" movie, as well as numerous other projects. Now something of an industry in-joke, the Wilhelm scream has been used in more than two-hundred films to date. #079 |
Cave Clouds - geography / landmarks - Er Wang Dong is a system of caves located in central China. One of its most famous features is Cloud Ladder Hall, which is the second-largest known cavern in the world. Due to the uneven placement of entrances to the chamber, Cloud Ladder Hall often traps mist and fog, giving the appearance of underground clouds. #078 |
Stage Ninja - history / theatre - Historical ninja never or seldom wore black. More often they dressed in unremarkable street clothes, which would have been far more practical and unobtrusive. Even at night, black clothing would be too visible; dark blue would have been far less conspicuous in low-light conditions. One theory for the popular depiction of ninja in all-black garb derives from "kabuki", a type of traditional Japanese performance art. Kabuki plays often utilized stagehands to manipulate props or move scenery during a performance; these stagehands, called "kuroko", typically dressed in black clothing to blend in with the background. As the audience learned to disregard the kuroko altogether, some productions used this as a plot twist. Suddenly, in the middle of a show, one of the "invisible" stagehands would leap forward and reveal themselves to be a hidden ninja assassin, providing an unexpected shock for the audience. #077 |
Shrews and Booze - biology - The nectar of the bertram palm (Eugeissona tristis) of Malaysia, Thailand, and Borneo naturally ferments to a 3.8% alcohol content. The pen-tailed treeshrew (Ptilocercus lowii) -- for which the nectar is a primary food source -- consumes daily an amount proportional to ten glasses of wine for a human. The shrews' specialized metabolism processes alcohol more thoroughly, preventing inebriation. #076 |
"Panic" - etymology / mythology - The word "panic" (referring to a sudden irrational fear) derives from the Greek god Pan. Pan was usually a peaceful deity of nature and shepherding, but when awoken abruptly he would cry out and startle nearby animals. Any unexplained stampedes were then thought to be "panikos" (or "Pan-related"). #075 |
The First Marathon - history - The Battle of Marathon was an armed conflict in the year 490 BC, in which the Greeks of Athens successfully repelled a Persian invasion at the site of the Greek town of Marathon One famous legend of the event involves a messenger named Philippides. First, he was tasked with running from Marathon to Sparta to request military aid for the battle -- a distance of nearly 150 miles (240 km), which he achieved in two days. Then, after the fight was won, Philippides was dispatched again to Athens to relay the news to the city leaders -- a distance of 25 miles (40 km). He managed to deliver the message, and then collapsed and died from the effort. Despite academic debate about the historicity or extent of Philippides' deeds, the story was the inspiration behind the creation of the first "marathon race" at the 1986 Olympic Games in Athens. #074 |
Pi - miscellaneous - "Pi" (also depicted as the Greek letter "π" or as the decimal number "3.141592...") is an irrational number that represents the ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter. When expressed as a decimal, Pi has no finite conclusion and no repeating pattern. Because of its infinite, non-repeating nature, Pi is often the subject of experimental or recreational computation for mathematicians. In 2010, one firm calculated Pi's decimal to two quadrillion (2,000,000,000,000,000) places -- an effort that took a thousand computers more than three weeks to complete. As of 2017, the world record for the memorization and recollection of Pi is seventy-thousand digits -- a feat that took nearly ten hours to recite. #073 |
| "Cartoon" - etymology - The term "cartoon" (referring to either an illustration or an animation) derives through French ("carton") from the Italian word "cartone", which is composed of the word "carta" (meaning "paper" or "map") and the suffix "-one" (signifying increased importance or scale). "Carta" ultimately comes from Ancient Greek ("khartes", meaning "paper" or "book") and is also the origin of "card" and "chart". #072 |
Daylight Saving Time - history - Daylight saving time (or "DST") in its modern form was devised independently by a New Zealand entomologist in 1895 and an English outdoorsman in 1905, both in an attempt to maximize use of daylight hours. The system wasn't implemented on any nationwide scale until 1916, as an effort to save coal by the German Empire in World War I. It was soon after adopted by the United Kingdom, most of Europe, Russia, and the United States. From 1942 to 1945, the United States adopted a year-round DST ("War Time") to conserve energy during World War II. Official daylight saving time was relaxed or abandoned by many countries following the war. It was eventually reestablished as a result of massive oil shortages during the 1970s. #071 |
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Initial posting ran from January 1 to April 10, 2017.
And as the sunsets, we bid adieu to Mitch the Elder 
Thank you for such a fun read.
Cool! I saw one once and wondered what on earth is was!!