1 Largest Meal Ever Eaten
In 1983, a 23-year-old woman from the UK died after eating what is still considered to be the largest meal ever consumed. She ate 19 pounds of food in about 4 hours.
2. In 2011, Dr. Pepper Ten’s “It’s not for women” ad campaign included a Facebook page for men only, and the label and cans for the drink used “gunmetal gray” to appeal to men. Interestingly, about 40% of the people who tried it were women.
3. The deepest known blue hole (underwater sinkhole) in the world is the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole, located in Mexico’s Chetumal Bay. It measures 1,378 feet (420 meters) deep, although scientists still haven’t found the bottom.
4. When a painting of the mugshot of killer Myra Hindley was displayed at the Royal Academy of Art in London in 1997, Hindley herself wrote from prison to ask for her portrait to be removed, describing it as a disregard for the emotional pain experienced by the families of the victims.
5. In the Game of Thrones series, the fictional languages were fully developed. Among all the actors who had to speak one or more of them, the person who portrayed Grey Worm was considered the most talented, speaking like a natural native speaker.
6 Mayan Arrow Sacrifice Ritual
In addition to the usual human sacrifice procedures, such as decapitation and heart removal, the Mayans also practiced an arrow sacrifice. They would paint the victim blue, make them wear a cap, bleed their genitals, and paint a white symbol for archers to shoot until the victim was filled with arrows.
7. Miracle Village, a small town in Florida, has a population of around 200 people. Over half of them are registered sex offenders.
8. While filming the witch burning scene in Day of Wrath, director Carl Theodor Dreyer left the actress tied to a wooden ladder while the crew went for lunch, using her genuine distress to film the scene.
9. Kyawthuite is the earth’s rarest mineral, with only one known specimen ever discovered in Myanmar.
10. In 2022, two Californians filed a class action lawsuit against Barilla pasta, claiming they believed it was made in Italy. They argued that they suffered financial harm because they wouldn’t have bought it if they had known it was made in the US. Together, they spent a total of $6 on the pasta.
11 Teen Murder Sting Operation
Authorities in Canada caught a 17-year-old boy who killed a 15-year-old girl after a sting operation that included staging a video game competition. They led him to believe a very wealthy and powerful entertainment executive wanted to help him and make his problems go away, leading to his confession.
12. During World War II, American artist Estelle Peck faced a difficult decision following her Japanese husband’s incarceration at the Japanese internment camp. She had the choice to either remain incarcerated with her husband of 13 years or continue living alone in Los Angeles. She chose to be with her husband, making her one of the few non-Japanese individuals incarcerated in these camps.
13. President Calvin Coolidge first met his future wife Grace when she walked by his house and saw him shaving, wearing nothing but a Derby cap and long underwear. Her laughter prompted Coolidge to notice her, and he sought her out later on.
14. Many Boeing 747s still receive software updates via 3.5-inch floppy discs as of July 2024.
15. Alexander the Great, who conquered a significant portion of the world, was only 32 years old when he died.
16 1922 Straw Hat Riot
In 1922, a Straw Hat Riot in New York lasted 8 days. An unwritten rule prohibiting the wearing of straw hats after September 15 led teenagers to steal straw hats from random men and stomp on them.
17. Over 10,000 people have won the 72-ounce steak challenge.
18. After Nazi Germany’s failure to take Moscow in 1942, some German leaders considered the war unwinnable and sought a political end. Albert Speer, Nazi Minister of Armaments and War Production, went on to create propaganda about massive increases in military production, convincing people the war was still winnable.
19. In 1970, researchers transplanted a monkey’s head onto another monkey’s headless body. Despite paralyzing from the neck down, the monkey retained its ability to hear, smell, taste, eat, and track objects with its eyes. It died after 9 days due to immune rejection.
20. Up to 25% of the Caucasian population cannot process codeine properly, and the medication may have no effect on up to 10% of the Caucasian population.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Cheddar Cheese Color Origin
Cheddar cheese is orange because manufacturers use the annatto fruit to add color.
22. Unsolved murders are not occasional in the US; authorities solved only around half of the murders in the past few years, with even fewer being solved in some big cities.
23. In 1947, a ship explosion in Texas City was enormous enough to knock two planes out of the sky, kill hundreds of people, and injure more than 5,000.
24. Deep Blue, a massive shark measuring over 20 feet long, is considered the largest great white shark ever recorded. People have spotted it around Guadalupe Island, Mexico, and Hawaii in recent years.
25. Mexican soap star Mariana Levy was literally scared to death when she was about to be mugged. Her stress response triggered a heart attack.
RE: Fact #41 (Conservation-Induced Extinction) – The most obvious example is when the last few vultures were deloused. This wiped out the whole species of lice that only lived on those birds.
Would losing all parasites be a bad thing?
Ecology’s a real head-scratcher, you know? Sometimes.
Turns out, parasites are a big problem in these cases. They take the few surviving animals, clean them up, and then let them go to have more babies.
Every example in this article is a total leech.
Deloused sounds right.
17 – 2.04kg in normal people units
1 – 8.61kg in every days people units
RE: Fact #41 (Conservation-Induced Extinction) – My stepmom’s an environmental lawyer, but she works for a bunch of big oil companies. She told one of them that it’d be cheaper to buy the last frog of its kind and move it than to change their pipeline route. They actually did it! They bought the frog and, well, moved it.
Crazy, right? Like, they can just buy the last of its kind?
24 – 6.096 m everywhere around the world.
39 – 609,6 km in humble persons units
50 – 34.068.706.056 l for folks drinking water on the civilized parts of the world
RE: Fact #2 (Dr. Pepper Ten Campaign) – My wife is bummed they stopped making that soda, it was her fave. What a dumb move!
DP0 is way better than DP10, even though I liked DP10.
I’m actually serious, I wish soda brands would try this. DP10 is so much better than diet, like totally different, so why not have more options in between? You’d think they could come up with something tastier with a few more calories, like 30 or 50.
RE: Fact #23 (1947 Texas City Explosion) – A two-ton anchor from the Grandcamp was thrown a mile and a half and landed in a ten-foot crater. That’s some serious force!
RE: Fact #49 (James Patterson’s Writing Process) – So that’s how they make those flavorless sausages.
RE: Fact #18 (Nazi War Propaganda Creation) – Turns out Hitler wasn’t a Risk player as a kid. Seven more guys at the start of every turn, but you can’t hang onto them.
RE: Fact #34 (Jamie Hyneman’s Dangerous Robot) – That’s like a super-powered Hypno-Disc from Robot Wars.
RE: Fact #33 (Olympic Skier’s Unusual Qualification) – That sounds pretty wild.
RE: Fact #37 (1989 Cocaine Seizure) – If you were moving that much coke through LA back in the 80s, you wouldn’t have been worried about some petty thief breaking in. It wasn’t the lock that was keeping things safe.
I’d probably freak out if I found 20 tons of marching powder just sitting around in a warehouse.
I’d probably be in way over my head… you know that feeling when you realize you’re messing with some seriously bad dudes? 😂
Adding extra locks or security guards just makes people suspicious. And if they figure out what you’re doing, you’re done, no matter what. It’s not like the cops are gonna go easy on you just because you have a fancy door.
Making the drugs wasn’t that expensive. Losing 20 tonnes wasn’t a big deal. Escobar was moving four times that amount every month. So that seizure was just a week’s worth of production. No biggie.
Security’s a funny thing, you know? Sometimes you need to be all guns blazing, guards, checkpoints, the whole deal. Other times, you gotta keep it low-key. Just a plain warehouse in the middle of nowhere, or maybe a guy walking down the street instead of a giant armored truck.
It’s like when they moved the Hope diamond. They went all out with the convoy, then just sent the thing through the mail. Crazy, right?
RE: Fact #32 (Trofim Lysenko’s Ideas) – So, I wrote a bit about Lysenko in my dissertation. It’s important to know he didn’t invent these ideas, though. He was basically pushing what Ivan Michurin and some others had been saying. Back then, it was called Michurinism, Michurin Biology, New Biology, and stuff like that. It wasn’t called Lysenkoism until it started getting rejected by the Soviet Union.
At the time, there were two groups of biologists: those who believed in genetics and those who followed Michurin’s ideas.
Lysenko was different because he claimed he had amazing results from his experiments. That really appealed to the Soviet leaders after the whole farm collectivization thing – you know, the messy part of history. He also liked to frame his work in ideological terms. Science, he said, should be about making things better for everyone. Genetics was a bourgeois science that didn’t let people change nature and make things better. Lysenkoism, on the other hand, was the People’s science, which would let Soviet scientists boost crop yields and feed everyone.
This helped Lysenko become a big deal in the Party. Stalin even took a personal interest in his work, helping him write things and speaking up for him. Eventually, the Soviets said Lysenkoism was the only way to do biology and agriculture. Scientists who didn’t reject genetics risked getting arrested.
RE: Fact #36 (Bezoar Stone Experiment) – Ouch, sorry about that, but you’ve really helped us all out here!
It probably wouldn’t have been painless for him anyway.
RE: Fact #14 (Boeing 747 Software Updates) – It’s actually not a bad thing. For most government engineering, how reliable something is over its lifetime is more important than being super fancy. Old tech tends to be way more reliable than newer stuff, which is why it’s still around. That’s why COBOL is still used, even though it’s like 70 years old. You can’t judge government tech the same way you judge consumer tech.
I’ve worked with software that’s older than dirt – 40+ years old! They’re still running, but locked down tight so no changes are allowed. The people who built them are long gone, probably retired, and these systems keep vital businesses humming along, making billions.
It’s a common story for companies that have been around for a while, especially those who’ve bought up other companies over the years.
I’ve had to hunt down these old-school programmers across the country, promising them big bucks to rewrite some ancient COBOL code.
Sometimes I’ve had to train young folks from India, teaching them how to use tech that’s older than their parents!
And on the other side of the coin, I’ve got teams working on brand new AI stuff, so advanced that we can’t even find anyone with the skills to hire yet!
It’s a wild ride being a tech leader, that’s for sure!
Why don’t they just do stealth updates to Ruby on Rails using Agile?
Seriously? You’re telling me they used PHP for nuclear launch computers? The wifi antenna would crash way before a floppy disk even had a chance!
Historically, Boeing had higher quality. It’s good to have a system that’s been around a while and tested.
RE: Fact #48 (China’s Motorcycle Law) – What a waste of resources! So, no vintage bikes in China then?
RE: Fact #36 (Bezoar Stone Experiment) – Bezoar stones aren’t real stones, they’re just clumps of stuff animals can’t digest. So basically, they were using animal poop to treat poisonings.
RE: Fact #11 (Teen Murder Sting Operation) – This wasn’t just some outburst, the guy beat someone to death with a bat and they even found he had a homemade way to choke people. I get giving young people another chance, but this seems like he was ready to do some really messed up stuff again. He needs to be treated like an adult, at least get some serious mental health help for a long time. There’s no excuse for what he did, and he hasn’t shown any regret. Some people are just messed up.
RE: Fact #42 (Ford Sues John Cena) – I was running the duPont Registry magazine back then, and we told him this was gonna happen. Ford said they’d make an example of him, and they did.
He’s really into his Civic Type Rs these days.
I wouldn’t have known it, but he seems like a practical guy. “It’s got a backseat, so you can pick people up in it.”
If you’re trying to carry a purse in a Countach, you’re in trouble.
He definitely likes to talk about how he’s taken his Type R to 145 mph a bunch of times, but whatever.
So basically, Tesla’s using this as a rule for every new car they sell. You can’t resell it for a year unless you sell it back to them, and they get to decide the price.
It’s not for every new Tesla. Only the Cybertrucks.
Tesla owners are all about it, and they love to spread the word. But, let’s just say the door panels and headliners on those cars aren’t exactly known for their precision.
RE: Fact #17 (72-Ounce Steak Challenge) – That list is wild! Like, one guy finished it in 16 minutes back in ’91. That’s crazy, almost 5 ounces a minute. Another guy said he had all you can eat pancakes the next day, and someone else said it was their third and last time. One of the early finishers said it was only $19.95 then.
They even had shrimp cocktail, a loaded baked potato, salad, a roll, and butter! So impressive for just 16 minutes.
I stopped there once on a road trip. I don’t remember seeing a salad, roll, and butter, but besides the shrimp, I think they also had strawberry shortcake for dessert.
I didn’t try it though, because I had breakfast earlier that day. I do remember seeing signs for it like 50 or 100 miles away though.
RE: Fact #48 (China’s Motorcycle Law) – Yeah, same thing here in Delhi-NCR, for both cars and bikes. Fifteen years is the limit for petrol vehicles and ten for diesel. After that, if it’s sitting in your driveway, you’re good. But if it’s parked on the street, the government will haul it away and scrap it. People usually just sell their older cars and bikes cheap in the countryside, though, because they’re not as strict about the rules outside the big cities.
And yeah, the automakers are definitely pushing for this.
It’s just Delhi-NCR, though. It is just poorly enforced outside the big cities.
That’s crazy! So, used prices just plummet after a while, no matter what brand you’re talking about?
It’s pretty steady for almost 15 years, then it plummets right before year 15.
So, couldn’t you basically just fix up a trashed motorcycle with used parts? Like, get a brand new one that’s been wrecked, and then buy some cheap old parts to put on it?
RE: Fact #1 (Largest Meal Ever Eaten) – She probably wanted to throw it all up, but it’s a tough cycle. She had been struggling with eating disorders for a while. Sometimes it just doesn’t work the way you want it to. It’s really sad.
Not exactly. I mean, I struggle with binge eating and there are a lot of people with eating disorders who don’t throw up after they binge. We don’t know enough about her situation to say she could have been saved if she’d just made herself throw up. A lot of people who die from eating disorders die slowly, it’s not one thing that kills them. It’s years of hurting themselves physically and emotionally, and eventually their body just can’t handle it anymore. Sometimes, even if they want to get better, it’s too late.
She had a history of bulimia and was only 84 pounds, apparently.
The article in The Lancet talks about how they tried to save her. Her stomach was so swollen that it cut off oxygen to her organs, and her heart gave out.
RE: Fact #8 (Witch Burning Scene Filming) – Someone even more of a jerk than Kubrick or Tarantino.
RE: Fact #33 (Olympic Skier’s Unusual Qualification) – She’s not the first person to make the Olympics just because no one else from her country even tried.
Get ready to ride, it’s bobsled time! Cool Runnings!
Yeah, I remember. They finished dead last at the Olympics and then went on to become spokespeople for booze.
My dad’s friend had a son-in-law from Costa Rica, this guy loved skiing. He basically just said, “Hey, can I be on the Winter Olympics team?” and they let him!
That’s so badass if you think about it from the right angle. Like, imagine saying “hmm, I think I’ll compete in the Olympics this year,” like it’s no big deal, and then actually doing it without breaking a sweat.
RE: Fact #10 (Barilla Pasta Lawsuit) – The Court basically said it’s fine to have an Italian name on the box, as long as you say where it actually came from, which is what they always did anyway.
They even had a part of their website saying it wasn’t made in Italy, but they were still mad that the Italian flag was confusing! 😭
RE: Fact #36 (Bezoar Stone Experiment) – The 1500s sound like they’d be a blast.
The smell would have killed me, seriously.
Imagine thinking you could make a magic rock that turns stuff into gold just by using your pee. Now that’s what I call living!
You’ll be surprised by what you learn about other times in human history.
I was down with the flu, stuck on the floor in the shower letting the hot water wash over me. And I thought, imagine how many people died alone, in the dirt, or freezing, or lost their homes to raiders just so we could get to a point where I could just chill in a hot shower when I’m sick. We’re so spoiled! We’re just a bunch of babies!
The more someone thinks the good old days were better and that we need to go back, the less they actually know about history.
RE: Fact #11 (Teen Murder Sting Operation) – Seriously, that fact isn’t helpful without the details. Anyway, get this, Wyatt DeBruin, 17, confessed to killing 15-year-old Laura Szendrei. Apparently, they tricked him into thinking some big-shot entertainment guy was going to help him “make his problems go away.” They used a fake video game competition as part of the sting.
RE: Fact #31 (Buick Sales in China) – My first car in high school was a Buick LeSabre, it felt like driving on a cloud.
RE: Fact #30 (Hans Bethe’s Career) – He was actually put down as a co-author on a paper just so they could say it was written by Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow.
So, it was actually Ralph Alpher’s paper, but his boss, George Gamow, thought it would be funny to add Bethe’s name because it would make a cute wordplay. Alpher didn’t think it was so funny.
By the way, the paper was all about how elements were made in the early universe.
RE: Fact #9 (World’s Rarest Mineral) – It’s bismuth antimonate.
RE: Fact #15 (Alexander the Great’s Death) – He even had Aristotle as his personal tutor.
Alexander looked at his huge empire and cried because there was nothing left to take over.
That was Hans Gruber from Die Hard, right? He was a pretty good thief, but a total jerk.
That Dean from Community quote, “JESUS WEPT! For there were no more worlds to conquer!”, is hilarious.
That’s a pretty impressive chain of teachers, right? Aristotle learned from Plato, and Plato learned from Socrates.
RE: Fact #1 (Largest Meal Ever Eaten) – She was only 84 pounds, but she ate a whopping 19 pounds of food! That’s almost a quarter of her body weight!
It seems like they might be dealing with binge eating. That’s really tough.
RE: Fact #5 (Talented Game of Thrones Actor) – He sounded totally fluent, like he was born speaking the language.
The linguist who made up the languages said that.
He was on a podcast and said all actors got an MP3 with their lines and just had to memorize them.
He totally pulls off that Southern accent as Louis in Interview with the Vampire.
RE: Fact #14 (Boeing 747 Software Updates) – If they can be updated online, they can be shut down online.
RE: Fact #28 (Dunbar’s Number Concept) – You might be surprised, but a lot of people probably know you better than you think. Think about everyone you see regularly, like your neighbors, the mail carrier, the person who works at your usual gas station, or even your hairdresser. Your family counts too, and if you’re still in school, your teachers would be on the list as well.
RE: Fact #24 (Deep Blue Shark Sighting) – That’s a big one, like twenty feet long. And he weighs three tons, easy.
RE: Fact #7 (Miracle Village Population) – And the rest, what are they? Nervous?
They say their community is like family, but it’s actually a town for sex offenders, run by a church led by a guy who’s been in prison. It’s crazy, the land used to be owned by a company that sold it and kicked out all the families with kids. The people who lived there even went to court to fight to stay!
Living in a town without kids would be great, but I’m not exactly thrilled about being around sex offenders. Plus, I’m way too young for a retirement community.
Unregistered
RE: Fact #34 (Jamie Hyneman’s Dangerous Robot) – Blendo was a real innovator with its spinning weapon, which you see all over BattleBots now. It was made from a wok and powered by a lawnmower engine! The blades on the shell were the real damage dealers.
RE: Fact #43 (Willy Wonka’s Final Line) – Remember that guy who got everything he ever wanted? Well, he lived happily ever after. You can see it in the scene where… It’s around…
That’s a really cool ending, it’s both happy and kind of creepy!
RE: Fact #7 (Miracle Village Population) – Lacombe, Louisiana has a bunch of apartments that are halfway homes for sex offenders. People call it “Molester’s Mansion.” One guy got stabbed after trying to rape a woman at the laundromat.
That part of town is known as Felony Flats.
Are you in Portland?
Gosh!
RE: Fact #50 (US Lawn Water Usage) – That’s about 2.7% of all the water we use in the US.
Just wait until you find out about golf courses. Apparently, “grey water” only accounts for 12% of the water used. I read it on factrepublic.
That’s about two billion a day, which is like half a percent.
RE: Fact #49 (James Patterson’s Writing Process) – So basically, he’s telling his ghostwriters to write the whole book for him.
He’s gotta be giving credit to those writers, right? I see tons of books by James Patterson and then some random author I’ve never even heard of. I picked one up and it said the other author’s bio was just “comes from the advertising field.” Like, one sentence? That’s it? Haha.
He mostly does that stuff in smaller print on the title page. It’s kind of like a super awesome internship, you know? You write a few books for Patterson, and if they do well, you usually get a chance to publish your own book. It’s a great way for writers to stand out in a really competitive field.
Film scoring is similar. Most people depend on other composers, but a lot of them have gone on to be the main composers themselves.
Yeah, a lot of times the other writer’s name is almost as big as the main author’s. Other guys, like Clancy or Cussler, put the real writer’s name way down at the bottom, tiny.
It’s like John Williams scoring a movie. He writes a tune and then tells his team, “Write it like I would have.” It’s his name that gets people excited, so why wouldn’t you do it?
RE: Fact #17 (72-Ounce Steak Challenge) – That’s still only 11% of all tries, but it’s been going on for so long, it makes sense.
It’s pretty wild that 11% could actually do it, especially since they’re probably the ones who think they can. It’s not like it’s 11% of everyone, it’s just the ones who believe they can eat a 72 ounce steak.
RE: Fact #41 (Conservation-Induced Extinction) – Parasites are a part of the natural world, but I’d rather not have anything to do with them.
RE: Fact #29 (EMP from Nuclear Bomb) – If you’re looking for a book that’s both exciting and scary, “One Second After” paints a realistic picture of what a disaster could be like in a small town.
It was a good read, even though it was kind of creepy. The place he described is totally real, he’s actually from there. From what I gather, he’d been trying to warn people about a real EMP threat for years, but nobody took him seriously. So he wrote a story about it, making it a fictional novel. And I’m pretty sure he used everything he knew to make it as realistic as possible, not about some future tech, but stuff that could happen right now.
RE: Fact #47 (WWII Surrender Leaflet Design) – The Passierschein, a safe conduct pass, was so important during the war that the Allies actually banned copies of it from being printed on other leaflets. They wanted to make sure the real ones stayed real, you know? It made me think about those surrender leaflets with QR codes that are being dropped in Ukraine.
That’s super German.
RE: Fact #42 (Ford Sues John Cena) – My dentist’s got a sweet 2022 GT Alan Mann Edition. He told me last time I was in that the two-year lien is off, so he’s finally selling it. He bought it for 800 grand, and he’s gonna get over 1.3 million for it. Wild, right?
My cousin in the UK is a dentist, and they have a Ferrari and a Rolls Royce. That’s some serious cash for a dentist!
They probably own a bunch of vet clinics. My friend’s parents are vets and they’re loaded because they have a few places.
Whoa, I thought my dentist’s 540i was fancy, but that’s next level! He must be raking it in.
RE: Fact #3 (Deepest Blue Hole Discovered) – Turns out, the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole is the deepest known blue hole, beating out the Dragon Hole. The Dragon Hole is around 990 feet deep, which is more than 300 feet deeper than the third deepest, Dean’s Blue Hole. The Taam Ja’ Blue Hole is actually more than twice as deep as Dean’s Blue Hole.
The researchers think the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole might actually be even deeper than they measured, based on how inland limestone cave systems work. They specifically mentioned Krubera-Voronya, the deepest known cave, which is 7,188 feet deep.
RE: Fact #8 (Witch Burning Scene Filming) – Forced to be real, huh?
RE: Fact #28 (Dunbar’s Number Concept) – I’m starting to feel overwhelmed, like I’m trying to organize a massive concert.
RE: Fact #19 (Monkey Head Transplant Experiment) – Why even bother transplanting Hawking’s head if he’d still be stuck in a wheelchair?
RE: Fact #31 (Buick Sales in China) – The top two Buicks you can get in the US right now are built in China.
I went to China once and saw a ton of cars with that three-shield logo. I thought it was some local brand, because I’d never seen it in Europe. Turns out it was Buick, though – they were everywhere!
RE: Fact #5 (Talented Game of Thrones Actor) – High Valyrian actually has its own writing system now.
You can find it on Duolingo.
RE: Fact #25 (Mariana Levy’s Death) – That’s a bummer.
It’s really heartbreaking. She had her three kids in the car with her, and her son was just a baby.
Every time I hear the name Levy, I can’t help but think of Chandra Levy.
RE: Fact #2 (Dr. Pepper Ten Campaign) – I was always puzzled by why they made a drink that was basically the same as Diet Dr. Pepper, but just with 10 extra calories. And I was even more confused to find out they added those calories so guys wouldn’t feel bad about drinking it.
Dr Pepper 10 was awesome, tasted just like regular Dr Pepper. Diet Dr Pepper tastes like, I don’t know, metal or something.
RE: Fact #9 (World’s Rarest Mineral) – Actually, I found one in Burma once.
It’s Istanbul now, not Constantinople.
RE: Fact #9 (World’s Rarest Mineral) – This might sound dumb, but could we make something like this with today’s tech? I don’t know if we can make artificial stuff besides basic diamonds, but it’s worth asking.
Not many gems are made in a lab, mostly the ones that are really expensive or have cool properties. This one would only be valuable because it’s rare, not because it looks amazing. So even if we could make it, it wouldn’t be worth much because the price would plummet once it’s not rare anymore.
Some common synthetic gems are:
Diamond
Moissanite
Cubic Zirconia
Spinel
Lots of rare earth garnet species
Sapphire/ruby
Beryl
Quartz
Nanosital
I’m a gemcutter and I mostly work with synthetic stones.
RE: Fact #23 (1947 Texas City Explosion) – It was a terrible tragedy, taking the lives of almost everyone in the Texas City fire department, along with over 500 other people.
RE: Fact #38 (LVMH Brand Ownership) – Life’s like a giant Monopoly game, you know? It goes on forever, but I’ve only ever seen one person come out on top.
It would have been awesome to be in the early stages of Monopoly, when everyone’s just goofing off and throwing cash around. Now it feels like two people own the whole board, every roll could be your last, and jail is the only escape you get.
RE: Fact #38 (LVMH Brand Ownership) – So, if you’re wondering what LVMH stands for, it’s Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. They own a bunch of brands, from wine and spirits to fashion and jewelry.
You know, LVMH is actually Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. It’s like a little game they play – one founder gets to be first in the abbreviation, but the other is first when you spell it out. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it’s a cool little detail.
It’s probably a story, but I think they agreed one guy gets the first spot in the shortened name and the other gets it in the full version.
French is pretty loose with how they put their words together.
I mean, how would they even manage all that? It’s impossible for one group to run so many different businesses.
Each company can kinda do its own thing, but all the money they make goes back to the main company. It’s like Berkshire Hathaway, you know?
No wonder that CEO’s swimming in money.
RE: Fact #40 (Sri Lanka Gravity Anomaly) – We’re kind of numb to it, you know? All the messed-up politics over the years have already got us down.
Your country’s pretty amazing, though!
This morning I caught a comedian doing a quick skit about Sri Lanka’s history. It was basically, “Last time, the Portuguese were messing everything up, but then they got kicked out by the Dutch who went ahead and messed everything up too. And what’s that on the horizon? Oh, it’s the British!”
RE: Fact #25 (Mariana Levy’s Death) – I always joke that I’d have a heart attack if I won the lottery, like that guy in the Singapore casino who won millions but dropped dead right there! His wife was beside herself.
Yeah, sounds like a bunch of fake news. I did some quick searching and it looks like some non-credible news sites are pushing this story around.
Isn’t that ironic?
RE: Fact #6 (Mayan Arrow Sacrifice Ritual) – That’s not exactly a fair way to play the game, is it?
La Mojarra Stela 1, made around AD 155, shows a ruler doing some pretty intense stuff. He’s piercing his own, well, you get the picture, and also his butt. It looks like they were sacrificing his brother-in-law too.
The Maya were around at the same time, and over at El Tajín, they had this cool rain god who did the same thing, but the blood went into this vat of pulque, their ritual drink. It was like, a magical refill for the good stuff.
Seriously, people’s ideas of what’s gross are all over the place. I’m not drinking anything that came from, you know, *that* source.
RE: Fact #27 (Total Human Deaths Estimate) – Things aren’t looking great.
It’s actually pretty impressive. Makes you think about how many people are alive right now compared to even just a few decades ago, let alone way back when.
RE: Fact #33 (Olympic Skier’s Unusual Qualification) – Back in the 80s, I did pretty well in the US Olympic trials for match sprints. I was in the top 10, but also the bottom 10. It was open to anyone, I lived nearby and had a track bike, so I just went for it. I think I ended up 8th. The guy who knocked me out early on actually won the silver medal at the Olympics. I wasn’t really a contender because I never took steroids. But if something crazy had happened, who knows?
There could have been like seven disqualifications and you’d end up with gold.
I remember one chess tournament in high school where I was the top seed. I went 2-3, but the guys I lost to were insane. One was a former junior US champ, another was a random Russian exchange student who was way better, and the third beat the US champ! And the guys I beat also lost to those three. So, I guess I was somewhere between pretty good and, well, not so good.
RE: Fact #26 (Divers’ Survival Story) – That dive boat captain is a real jerk. I used to work on a dive boat and it’s crazy they didn’t see them, even though they were so close.
An inflatable flag? And he just bailed? They had tons of time!
RE: Fact #39 (Mrs. Doubtfire Improvisation Filming) – We were kids, maybe 8-12, and our parents made us watch this thing. We all cried when his chest caught fire.
RE: Fact #22 (Unsolved Murders in US) – Murders are usually solved quick when the killer and the victim knew each other.
A lot of murders in the city I used to work in are unsolved because they’re criminals killing each other, and the suspect list is basically every other criminal in the city, which isn’t exactly helpful.
Growing up in the city, gang violence was everywhere. The only time those killings got solved was when the killer got caught for something else and spilled the beans.
Wow, those numbers are wild! My city’s about the same size, and we only average four.
Switzerland, with its population of around 9 million people, only sees about 42 homicides each year.
RE: Fact #46 (Shakopee Mdewakanton Payout) – That’s awesome for them, but it shows that gambling isn’t a sure thing.
RE: Fact #22 (Unsolved Murders in US) – A while back, The New Yorker wrote about this guy who made a database of unsolved murders. He started seeing things, like how some murders were probably connected, done by the same person.
He thinks there are tons of serial killers out there, like two thousand in the US! He got some people at the FBI to look into how many murders in their files were unsolved but linked by DNA. Turns out there were around fourteen hundred, which is a small percentage, but still a lot!
He runs a non-profit called the Murder Accountability Project.
RE: Fact #11 (Teen Murder Sting Operation) – Wyatt DeBruin, got sentenced as an adult in 2013 and got life in prison. He wasn’t eligible for parole for seven years. The judge said he was pretty normal, smart, and had already assaulted three women before he killed Szendrei.
That’s absolutely horrific. What was going on in his head?
That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?
RE: Fact #31 (Buick Sales in China) – Buick, in some Chinese dialects, means something like “luxury.” The Buicks they make in China are totally different from the ones we get here.
Those Buicks in China are seriously impressive! They’re so stylish and practical. And get this, the minivan’s middle row had captain’s chairs that were actually massage chairs!
So, if you’re wondering about those fancy Buick minivans in China, the idea is for the owner to chill in the back, not drive.
I was blown away by a Buick minivan in Shanghai. It was way more comfortable than anything I’ve seen back home.
RE: Fact #17 (72-Ounce Steak Challenge) – This radio interview with the restaurant owner was pretty funny. He was talking about the two most memorable people who won his eating contest. One was a tiny old lady, maybe in her 70s or 80s, who ate the whole meal and got it for free. The other was a huge wrestler who did the same thing, but then ordered another meal and ate that one too, getting both for free!
I’m curious who that wrestler was. Andre the Giant could probably eat five of them for breakfast!
RE: Fact #30 (Hans Bethe’s Career) – I ran into Bethe at lunch back in college. It was a big group, like a dozen students. The dorm heads knew him and invited him to the university. While he was there, they set up a lunch for some students to chat with him. I was a physics student, so I got to join. I sat across from him and peppered him with questions. It’s a good memory.
Some people asked about when he visited and what we talked about. He came in 1981. The only thing I remember asking was about the time between getting the Nobel Prize and the research that won him the prize, and how the Nobel changed things for him. He said something like “people take me more seriously now.” He seemed friendly enough, but also kind of like he wanted to be somewhere else.
Anything stand out about that lunch with him?
RE: Fact #7 (Miracle Village Population) – So it’s not just some random thing, they’re basically a halfway house for ex-cons trying to get back on their feet. Sex offenders probably have the hardest time finding a place to live after they get out of prison, so it makes sense they’d be here. It’s not huge, only like 200 people, and the whole idea is that they’ll move on to regular life eventually. Although, maybe they should have picked a place a little further from the beach if that was their goal…
Yeah, that’s awesome. They’ve paid their dues and are trying to get back on their feet. That’s how prison should be, helping people turn their lives around and find their way.
There’s this motel near me, a real long-term stay kind of place, and it’s got like 12 registered sex offenders living there, all at the same address. It’s kind of messed up because they’re all stuck there due to those rules about staying away from schools and stuff. They call it the pedo palace, which is pretty messed up.
Why not the Pedotel?
This village is super remote. It used to be just a bunch of houses for sugar cane workers. Definitely not fancy.
That guy’s so weird, calling Lake Okeechobee “the beach.”
RE: Fact #13 (Calvin Coolidge Meets Grace) – Coolidge was pretty chill, he campaigned for president without ever leaving his house!
He just kind of faded into the background, not really interested in a second term. From what I’ve seen, he seemed like a pretty decent guy, down to earth. They even had pet raccoons at the White House.
RE: Fact #25 (Mariana Levy’s Death) – They’re just a bunch of scaredy-cats, Donnie.
They are.
RE: Fact #23 (1947 Texas City Explosion) – I grew up near Texas City. Everyone had a story their folks would tell them about the explosion. Apparently, stuff from one of the ships ended up in a yard two miles away! The death toll was huge because first responders were battling the first ship fire when it blew up. This caused the second ship, loaded with ammonium nitrate, to explode right next to it. They’ve put limits on how much ammonium nitrate can be on a single ship since then, but it seems like Lebanon forgot about that.
RE: Fact #32 (Trofim Lysenko’s Ideas) – Overplant your fields and the plants will help each other out, they’re all in it together.
RE: Fact #8 (Witch Burning Scene Filming) – People used to get away with a lot more.
RE: Fact #20 (Codeine Processing in Caucasians) – So that’s probably why codeine never did anything for me after my surgery. It didn’t even touch the pain, so I had to get hydrocodone. Of course, you can’t get that prescribed anymore.
Hydracodone’s basically codeine, but way stronger, like six times stronger.
Turns out I’m not the only one who doesn’t get much from codeine. Always wondered why that was.
Yeah, I used to drink that stuff and was all “What’s the fuss about?”
RE: Fact #2 (Dr. Pepper Ten Campaign) – People always want what they can’t have, right?
If you’ve got a killer product and everyone’s talking about it, you can set a high price and people will still line up to buy it. It’s like those fancy handbags – they’re expensive because they know people will pay for the status.
It’s so clever! It makes guys think, “This is the drink for a real man!”
The thing is, trying to get guys to drink Dr. Pepper – DOCTOR Pepper. It’s just too fancy. Real men drink Mr. Pibb – now that’s a drink for a real man. Pibb doesn’t try to impress you with any fancy titles. His soda does the talking. He’s like a long-haul trucker who chops wood on the side. Dr. Pepper is the opposite – some brain surgeon who reads…ugh…non-fiction books in his free time! I don’t trust him. Pibb gets my vote.
My neighbor kept finding dog poop in their yard, so they put up a sign asking whoever was doing it to clean up after their dog. Guess what? They started finding even more poop! Some people just hate being told what to do.
RE: Fact #35 (Most Divorced Person Ever) – Wolfe passed away in 1997 at 88 from heart problems. He was buried in Blythe after nobody claimed his body. Only one of his kids showed up at the funeral. Apparently, he was married to 28 women, but only one of his 19 kids made it.
Around 19 kids?
RE: Fact #21 (Cheddar Cheese Color Origin) – Way back in the 1600s, the color of cheese used to change with the seasons, depending on what the cows were eating. People thought the cheese made from summer milk was the best, because it was super colorful. So, to get people to pay the same price for winter cheese, some cheesemakers started dyeing it with carrots, beets, or annatto. They wanted to make it look like the good stuff from the summer!
The best stuff is usually in the comments.
RE: Fact #28 (Dunbar’s Number Concept) – So, this theory says you have five really close people, like family. Then it goes out in circles, with 15, 50, 150, 500, and 1500 people in each. People can move around between these circles, but it’s about making room for new people.
RE: Fact #42 (Ford Sues John Cena) – If you can swing that car, you can probably pay whatever Ford wants to fix the contract mess.
I’m probably being dumb here, but wasn’t it a problem that he couldn’t fit in the car? Or am I just making that up? He could have sold it back to Ford, but I thought that’s why he didn’t keep it.
Yeah, that was it. The car was too small for him, so driving it was out of the question. What’s the point of owning it then?
He thought he’d fit in the car, but he didn’t, so he couldn’t drive it and ended up selling it for a profit.
He might have a good case for deceptive trade practices!
RE: Fact #5 (Talented Game of Thrones Actor) – Come on, that’s ridiculous! Hiring someone to make up a few phrases for a show isn’t the same as creating a real language. Tolkien was a language expert, and even he said his languages couldn’t be spoken properly.
RE: Fact #34 (Jamie Hyneman’s Dangerous Robot) – Yeah, wasn’t Grant Imahara the champ in the first Battlebots tournament?
RE: Fact #40 (Sri Lanka Gravity Anomaly) – So you’re saying the Grand Line entrance is near Sri Lanka? Cool, thanks for that.
We need to find a big mountain with a whale on the other side!
Laboon? Is that really you?
The One Piece is real! 🗣️
RE: Fact #43 (Willy Wonka’s Final Line) – Willy Wonka: “The factory’s yours, you can move in right now.”
Grandpa Joe: “And me?”
Willy Wonka: “Nope, not a chance. Get back in your bed, you fake cripple. And you called me a fraud?”
THE END
RE: Fact #35 (Most Divorced Person Ever) – How did five women much younger than him die during their marriages?
“Only” is a weird way to talk about five people who died, especially when they were all young and married to the same person.
One of his wives, Bonny Lee Bakely, was murdered by one of her husbands, though not this one. Talk about a crazy coincidence!
She definitely had a thing for a certain kind of guy.
RE: Fact #47 (WWII Surrender Leaflet Design) – Reminds me of that scene in *American Psycho* where they’re comparing business cards.
“The tasteful thickness of it”
RE: Fact #15 (Alexander the Great’s Death) – This quote from Alexander the Great really resonates with me: “Mans immortality is not living forever. Every moment free from fear makes man immortal.”
The world wasn’t big enough for him, so now a tomb is all he needs.
RE: Fact #3 (Deepest Blue Hole Discovered) – Did they run out of sonar juice?
They sent the intern to get more stuff, but they’re taking their sweet time.
RE: Fact #46 (Shakopee Mdewakanton Payout) – It all comes down to the people who decide who gets what.
The Seminole tribe in Florida used to have a lot of Black members whose families had run away from slavery and joined the tribe long ago. These folks had been Seminole for generations. But when gambling came along and being a tribe member meant money, the tribe suddenly said the Black members weren’t really Seminole and kicked them out.
RE: Fact #35 (Most Divorced Person Ever) – Well, at least he didn’t do anything *that* bad.
RE: Fact #29 (EMP from Nuclear Bomb) – “Over Kansas” is a big deal here. To get that kind of EMP, Wikipedia says it needs to blow up in Earth’s orbit.
If it goes off in the atmosphere, the range would be much smaller.
So, to be clear, it would need to go off higher than the space station to cover the whole US.
The height thing probably comes down to gamma rays. They go straight, so they can’t go past the horizon. Higher up means a longer horizon. But maybe the atmosphere does something different if it goes off lower.
The moon is over Kansas at some point, you know.
The moon only passes directly overhead in a pretty narrow band, between about -28.5° and 28.5°. That means it’s further south than Kansas.