26 Mountain Dew Mouse Dissolution Case
In 2012, a man sued Mountain Dew after claiming he found a mouse in a can. Mountain Dew claimed that fifteen months in the can would have dissolved the mouse. The case was eventually settled.
27. Earth’s magnetic field was roughly twice as strong during Roman times as it is today.
28. In Japan, some restaurants and attractions have begun charging higher prices for foreign tourists than for locals. This approach helps manage increased demand without overburdening local customers.
29. In 2021, a Louisiana woman who ran out of her usual hair spray used Gorilla Glue Spray, mistakenly believing it was hair spray. Her hair became glued to her scalp, and eventually a plastic surgeon performed a free, 4-hour surgery to remove the adhesive.
30. Anyone in the U.S. can sign up to receive a free horse through the Wild Horse and Burro Program, provided they have the resources to house and care for it.
31 Ford Model T’s Price Drop
When Ford released the Model T in 1908, it cost $825 (equivalent to about $28,000 in 2023). Despite its popularity (around 15 million were eventually sold), Ford kept dropping the price. By 1925, the basic model cost only $260, or about $4,500 today.
32. The birds we call penguins today are actually not true penguins. They were named after an extinct species due to their similar appearance, but no true penguins are alive today.
33. Nazi physician Johanna Haarer advocated a child-rearing approach that placed newborns in a separate room from their mother for the first three months of life, allowing only strictly regulated, 20-minute breastfeeding visits.
34. In the Middle Ages, some suicidal individuals feared eternal damnation from directly ending their lives. Instead, they would commit a capital crime against an innocent child, then turn themselves in and demand execution.
35. In 1957, a man sued his own search warrant and won the case in the Supreme Court. In Marcus v. Search Warrant, he argued the warrant was too vague. Since the agents had acted within the law, he had no recourse but to challenge the warrant itself.
36 Female Gladiators Banned by Severus
In 200 CE, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus banned all female gladiatorial combat. He reportedly made this decision after hearing lewd jokes aimed at women in athletic contests, fearing that such events bred disrespect toward all women.
37. During WWII, pilots frequently blacked out during sharp turns as strong G-forces caused blood to pool in their legs. British ace Douglas Bader, who had lost his legs in an accident, did not experience this problem since he used prosthetics.
38. U.S. President Benjamin Harrison became a widower in 1892 while serving in office. Four years later, he married his late wife’s niece and had a daughter with her. His adult children, horrified by their father marrying their cousin, refused to attend the wedding.
39. A zeptosecond-a trillionth of a billionth of a second-is the smallest unit of time ever measured.
40. Hotels in the U.S. now routinely stock ice, a practice that began in the 1950s when the Holiday Inn chain aimed to set itself apart by offering this amenity to guests.
41 The 1939 Pet Massacre in Britain
In 1939, during the Great British Dog and Cat Massacre, Londoners voluntarily killed over 400,000 of their pets in a single month to ease the strain on resources as they prepared for war with Nazi Germany.
42. While still a teenager, mathematician Évariste Galois solved a 350-year-old problem. Tragically, he died at 20 after suffering wounds in a duel, the reasons for which remain unclear.
43. Adolf Hitler became stateless in 1925 after renouncing his Austrian citizenship, remaining without citizenship for seven years. He eventually gained German citizenship in 1932. The delay was due to several attempts to get him a government job, which would have immediately granted him citizenship.
44. Under the Invention Secrecy Act, the U.S. government can block certain patent applications if they pose a perceived threat to national security. Inventors may be forbidden from sharing or profiting from their creations without knowing the specific reason why.
45. In China, people usually drink their water hot.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 First Successful Primate Cloning
Scientists have largely overcome scientific barriers to human cloning. In 2018, Chinese scientists successfully cloned two crab-eating macaques, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, marking the first successful cloning of primates.
47. During the filming of Dazed and Confused, 16-year-old Milla Jovovich married her on-screen boyfriend, 21-year-old Shawn Andrews. Her mother had the marriage annulled two months later.
48. Near the end of her life, Ada Lovelace underwent a religious transformation and expressed regret over her past conduct. Three months before her death, Ada Lovelace confessed something to her husband, who then abandoned her at her bedside. What she revealed to him remains unknown.
49. In 2021, a 15-year-old blind teenager named Jasen Bracy played quarterback for a California high school football team. He accomplished this by memorizing plays and receiving real-time guidance from his father, who communicated from the sidelines using a walkie-talkie.
50. When Jimi Hendrix first performed in front of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and members of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, their reactions included astonished comments like “shit,” “Jesus,” and “damn.”
RE: Fact #49 (Blind Teen Plays Quarterback) – That story about the brave kid was really cool, but it’s also a reminder that the news doesn’t always get everything right. The kid hasn’t played quarterback since that year, he’s a senior now on the Enoch High team, but he’s not listed on the roster and the only thing he’s got on his record is one tackle.
It’s messed up how they’re showing this. I mean, there are real news articles about him playing college football. It’s just not cool to present it like that, it’s unfair to him and everyone else.
Dude, getting tackled when you’re totally blind? That’s gotta be like winning the big prize, right? How did you even get hit?
One more tackle than I got, bummer!
RE: Fact #9 (Loudest Shout Record Stands) – Corey Taylor, the guy from Slipknot, was on the show and even he was blown away.
“Man, that teacher totally got me,” Taylor said, laughing. “She just yelled right over me!” He added, “They’re seriously good,” repeating it a bunch of times. Corey was like, “I should totally add her to the list of musicians I play with this summer!”
Alex Terrible from Slaughter to Prevail does this thing where he sings a whole song without a mic, just by screaming super loud. I wonder how it sounds live.
He was an odd choice for QI, but he actually did pretty well. If you like factrepublic, you’ll probably enjoy it.
RE: Fact #33 (Nazi Infant Care Controversy) – Nazism was to destroy ,as far could be, all previous history in a way they could become ‘the master human race’, having removed, altered all sensible recollection of what had been before.
RE: Fact #22 (Baretop Tricksters’ Robbery Tactic) – That blurry image totally tricked me into going to that website with no pictures.
RE: Fact #5 (Early Cryonics’ Financial Downfall) – It’s actually ‘preserved’, not ‘cryogenically’ frozen.
RE: Fact #6 (Bassist’s Clever Placebo Switch) – Em 2010 eu tocava numa banda de jazz e o pianinho ficaram chato, ficava querendo que eu mudasse o som do baixo toda hora. Eu mexia nos pedais e voltava com a mesma regulagem de antes pois eu já tinha tudo mapeado e ele achava que eu tinha mudado o som do baixo.
Translation – In 2010 I was playing in a jazz band and the piano was annoying, he kept asking me to change the bass sound all the time. I would touch the pedals and go back to the same settings as before because I had already mapped everything and he thought I had changed the bass sound.
RE: Fact #7 (Top Gear’s Global Spread Secret) – I got to go to a recording of the show! It was a blast, and I even got to answer a question on TV. I also got to chat with Hammond between takes during one part.
Did you ask him what was up with him?
I hear a “jh” sound in the middle of it.
It sounds like “idjhiut”.
It wasn’t there! 😂
Seriously, how long were you on your feet?
It took a good few hours, maybe four or more. They had a break during the day for tea and snacks, so you could sit down for a bit. I snuck back in early though, to get a good spot at the front for the Cool Wall section. That’s how I ended up chatting to Hammond and getting asked a question by Clarkson.
RE: Fact #34 (Suicide Through Capital Crimes) – They’d just make up stories too, you know? Like that time Otto of Hesse-Kessel tried to shoot a barking dog and ended up shooting himself in the chest, totally missed! Or maybe he killed himself and they came up with the dog thing so they could bury him in church.
RE: Fact #13 (Redd Foxx’s Draft Evasion Trick) – A new way to do things, maybe?
I’d rather drink poison than deal with another draft.
Just kidding, WWII is over.
RE: Fact #25 (Kidnapped Schoolchildren Escape Plot) – The kidnappers took the bus to a quarry and hid it in a truck trailer. The bus driver and the kids dug their way out after being trapped for 16 hours. The driver, Ed Ray, kept everyone calm, and they worked together to escape. The kidnappers were rich kids who wanted to pay off their debts. They tried to call for ransom, but the lines were busy. They didn’t fall asleep, though.
What a dumb way to get out of debt!
The kidnappers were all caught and sent to jail for life. They were let out after a long time.
RE: Fact #45 (Hot Water Preference in China) – I was in a meeting in Beijing and the office manager filled my cup with hot water. I thought it was because I had a cough from the long flight, even though I tried to hide it. Then I saw my boss and realized everyone got some. It was a nice gesture, even if it wasn’t just for me.
RE: Fact #18 (Hara Hachi Bun Me Diet) – It’s basically like, “don’t stuff yourself, just eat until you’re not hungry anymore.” That’s been the go-to advice for not overeating forever, right?
RE: Fact #9 (Loudest Shout Record Stands) – Yeah, Motorhead’s shows were LOUD, they actually made the ceiling collapse at one concert in Cleveland. So, yeah, 121dB is pretty loud!
I saw Motorhead open for Foo Fighters back in 2011, and I swear I got half my tinnitus from that gig.
Foo Fighters don’t open for Motorhead, they play after them.
130 decibels is seriously loud, like ten times louder than 120 decibels.
A 10dB jump means something’s twice as loud, but it needs ten times more power. So, 130dB isn’t ten times louder than 120dB.
So, like, a normal voice is usually measured at about a meter away, but concerts are way farther out, maybe 30 meters. A regular voice at 121 decibels a meter away would be about 90 decibels at 30 meters. But then, a concert at 130 decibels at 30 meters would be super loud, like 160 decibels, up close. It’s basically comparing two different things, you know?
Yeah, decibels are logarithmic, so a 10 dB increase is actually a tenfold increase in loudness. So 130 dB is much, much louder than 121 dB.
RE: Fact #7 (Top Gear’s Global Spread Secret) – I’m really glad it got shared around so much. Most of it was scripted, but the show was absolutely insane and incredibly entertaining. Clarkson, May, and Hammond can be a bit controversial, but they know how to make a really engaging show.
There’s so much crazy stuff that happens in what looks like a normal car show. I still go back and watch it because it’s one of the few shows that actually makes me laugh out loud. I remember one bit where they’re reviewing a car and it’s broken down into segments. As the review goes on, the segments get stranger. The final deciding point on whether or not the car was good was whether or not it would be useful for a sodium and eel salesman. It was completely absurd, in the best way possible.
I’ve been thinking about going back and watching the whole 23-year backlog. Their final show a few weeks ago hit me harder than I expected. I used to watch it with my Grandfather all the time when I was a kid, and he wasn’t around to see the final show. We have lots of great memories watching that show together over the years.
If you haven’t seen it, give it a try, even if you don’t like cars. It’s a real gem.
RE: Fact #34 (Suicide Through Capital Crimes) – The article is much clearer: “they would murder an innocent child.”
It’s crazy how killing an innocent kid didn’t even make them think twice about ending up in hell.
RE: Fact #33 (Nazi Infant Care Controversy) – Haarer thought separating a baby was super important for their “training”. If a baby kept crying after they’d been fed on time, cleaned up, and given a dummy, she’d say, “toughen up, mom!” and just let them cry it out.
She thought babies were like, pre-human, and didn’t really have a mind for the first few months. She thought crying was just their way of passing the time. She strongly advised moms to not pick up, rock, or try to comfort crying babies. She thought it would make them think they could get a reaction out of people and they’d end up being little tyrants.
Her work helped shape how people raised kids, and it all lined up with the goals of the Hitler Youth. Advice centers and training courses for moms based on her ideas were a way to teach Nazi ideology.
That’s a pretty harsh way to put it.
Or maybe just folks who are easily swayed by people in charge, kind of like they never really had strong parents around.
RE: Fact #46 (First Successful Primate Cloning) – We’ve got 200,000 clones ready to go, and we’re making a million more.
That’s messed up, right? Cloning tons of people just to use them as soldiers or for parts. It’s all for some crazy old guy’s twisted vision. We’d be better off without it.
Drones might be a cheaper and easier way to go, so that’s good news.
RE: Fact #29 (Gorilla Glue Hair Spray Mishap) – She thought it was glue, so she figured it would be fine.
RE: Fact #16 (Negative Buoyancy in Freediving) – I sink like a rock unless I’m totally full of air, and even then I barely stay afloat.
You probably have a low body fat percentage, since fat floats more than muscle.
I’m pretty hefty, too.
RE: Fact #49 (Blind Teen Plays Quarterback) – That’s seriously impressive, I’m not trying to downplay it, but I bet the other team isn’t exactly thrilled about facing him.
I used to play basketball in this league, and there was this guy named Kurt, kind of like an honorary member, because he had special needs. One time, it was a close game and I had to block his shot. I sent that thing way out of bounds. People still give me crap for it, but I’d do it again. We won the game, though. Basketball is the best.
RE: Fact #22 (Baretop Tricksters’ Robbery Tactic) – My old neighbor, a detective, warned me about a gas station near my house. Apparently, these women would pretend to be sex workers, lure guys to a parking lot, and then they’d get robbed by her and another guy.
RE: Fact #11 (Church Sanctuary Knocker Protection) – It wasn’t uncommon for escorts who felt sorry for prisoners to take them through a churchyard on the way to their punishment, so they could say goodbye to people. I think sometimes the church would send them away to live somewhere else instead of facing their punishment.
Some churches in the US are calling the cops on homeless people and talking about sending illegal immigrants back to their country.
Actually, just last year a bunch of immigrants who took refuge in churches won a lawsuit.
So, that’s how my family ended up in All Hallows Parish, Maryland in 1649.
Oh, it turns out it was just a feature, not a bug.
RE: Fact #26 (Mountain Dew Mouse Dissolution Case) – It’s not a crazy idea, and it doesn’t make Mountain Dew look bad.
If you put a mouse in a can of pure orange juice for a year and a half, it wouldn’t be in as good shape as the mouse he said he found.
The point is, pH is safe to drink, but it eats away at dead stuff.
Soaking something in water can actually make it fall apart, leaving just the bones. That’s how a lot of skeletons are made, by soaking them in water until all the flesh is gone. It’s called maceration, and it’s pretty common.
RE: Fact #33 (Nazi Infant Care Controversy) – These Nazis, man, the more I hear about them, the less I think they’re good people.
Hitler was a real jerk.
A German person can’t be all bad…
Wait, hold on…
I heard he ended up killing Hitler.
I was listening to the Rest is History podcast, and they were talking about the rise of Hitler. The host was going on and on, then he just blurted out, “These Nazis weren’t exactly nice guys.” Everyone in the studio cracked up, it sounded so funny. But it made sense, because he was talking about how the Nazis kept betraying each other until Hitler came out on top and screwed over all the guys who helped him get there. He was basically saying, “No matter how bad you think Nazis were, they were even worse.” It was just a bit of a funny moment because it sounded so ridiculous out of context.
We get so wrapped up in the Nazis’ whole act, you know, all the drama and showmanship. We just take their stories at face value and get sidetracked by how awful they were. The big war, the killing sprees, the constant bloodshed – those are definitely important things to focus on.
But what gets lost in all that is that these people weren’t geniuses. They were just petty, vengeful, superstitious bullies. Their war machine was successful despite them, not because of them. Most were just power-hungry little dictators who constantly got in their own way. If you knew them, you’d see they weren’t these warrior-philosophers, they were just cruel thugs in fancy clothes.
I think this is why it’s hard to spot fascist movements. Their whole self-image is so far from reality, it’s hard to match that image with the clowns we see when they start to take over. We forget that they think they’re all cultured geniuses, so that’s what they’ll write in their history books.
RE: Fact #20 (British Museum’s Hidden Collection) – It’s the same for most museums, right? They only show off a small part of what they have. There’s just not enough room, and they like to change things up to keep people coming back. Plus, some stuff is too delicate to put on display, and some things aren’t that interesting to look at but are still really important for scientists and historians.
RE: Fact #13 (Redd Foxx’s Draft Evasion Trick) – Sergeant: You good to fight?
Max: I’m gay, I wear dresses, I don’t like violence, and my lung’s a little messed up.
Sergeant: Just don’t have flat feet.
RE: Fact #16 (Negative Buoyancy in Freediving) – So, free divers gotta really hustle to swim back up to the surface.
Actually, the title’s a bit off. Someone showed that we hit negative buoyancy around 20 meters down in the ocean. Turns out it’s 15 meters for neutral buoyancy and 20 for negative.
Most people are around hit it at 33 feet, but it changes depending on how much muscle they have. My wife is closer to 39 feet, and I’m around 25 feet.
RE: Fact #20 (British Museum’s Hidden Collection) – Too bad, I’ve always been curious about that “unknown bone fragment”
RE: Fact #39 (The Tiny Zeptosecond Unit) – Light travels a tiny fraction of a nanometer in a zeptosecond.
That’s tiny, like really tiny!
It’s tiny, like a fraction of a fraction of a hydrogen atom’s size.
RE: Fact #7 (Top Gear’s Global Spread Secret) – Alex Mills, who went by Viper007Bond, really helped car fans through FinalGear. He’ll be missed.
RE: Fact #50 (Hendrix’s Astonishing First Gig) – Hendrix played “Sunshine of Your Love” live, right in front of Clapton and the Beatles, the same week it was released.
He put out his own version of “All Along the Watchtower” six months after Dylan did, and Dylan was like, “That’s his song now.”
That’s really cool. Makes me think of when Johnny Cash did a version of Hurt by NIN and NIN said it was his song from then on.
It got me thinking about covers that are better than the originals. I really love Nirvana’s version of Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World.”
Three days later, I think.
They probably figured out how to play it backstage before they went on.
Paul mentioned this in a talk he gave last year.
RE: Fact #12 (The Double Execution Case) – Willie Francis, a young Black guy, was sentenced to death by electrocution in Louisiana back in 1945 for killing Andrew Thomas, a Cajun pharmacist who’d hired him before.
Even though he wrote down confessions twice, Francis said he wasn’t guilty. His court-appointed lawyers didn’t fight for him, didn’t call any witnesses, and didn’t even try to defend him. They didn’t even question if his confessions were real. Just two days after the trial started, Willie was found guilty by 12 white jurors and the judge.
The gun used to kill Thomas was found near the crime scene. It belonged to a sheriff’s deputy who’d said he wanted to kill Thomas. The gun and bullets disappeared right before the trial.
People said they heard the teenager screaming, “Take it off! Let me breathe!” as the electric chair was turned on.
The electric chair, nicknamed “Gruesome Gertie,” was messed up by a drunk prison guard and inmate.
It’s weird, but the lawyer defending Francis in front of the Supreme Court was really close with Thomas, the guy who was killed.
The world we live in
Oh, so that’s where they got the idea for The Green Mile!
RE: Fact #4 (Teen’s Poor Diet Causes Blindness) – My half-sister was born when I was fifteen. She basically lived on junk food and microwave dinners. She developed a hunchback when she was sixteen, had no energy for anything, and now at thirty-nine, she’s got some weird immune disorder. I’m pretty sure she was really messed up by all the bad food.
RE: Fact #42 (Galois’ Life and Tragic Duel) – He got turned down by the top math school in France because they thought he hadn’t had enough training to explain his ideas. He ended up going to a less famous program and started making amazing discoveries right away.
It’s a typical French thing. You can have the skills but get told to go shove it if you don’t have the right paperwork.
RE: Fact #1 (Extra Fries for Value Effect) – He’s got a point. I know it, but I always feel like I got more than I should.
Bag fries are just *chef’s kiss* amazing.
Bagged fries are way better, the ones in the cup get all mushy.
Five Guys is kinda stingy with the fries sometimes. If I see the nice guy working when I walk in, I’ll get food from him. He’s always generous.
Seriously, $68 for a burger and fries? If they’re not even giving extra fries, I’m out of there.
So, from doing mystery shops, I’ve learned there should be around 15 fries at the bottom of the bag. Anything more than that is a bonus! 😎
I always seem to get more fries in the bag than the cup, haha! I guess I’m pretty lucky. If I get a large, the whole bag is basically just fries.
RE: Fact #6 (Bassist’s Clever Placebo Switch) – Leland’s played on a ton of albums, like Paul Anka, Chet Atkins, Clint Black, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffett, Glen Campbell, Vanessa Carlton, Kim Carnes, Cher, Joe Cocker, Leonard Cohen, Phil Collins, Alice Cooper, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Neil Diamond, Donovan, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel, Arlo Guthrie, Sammy Hagar, Merle Haggard, Hall & Oates, Don Henley, Faith Hill, Engelbert Humperdinck, Enrique Iglesias, Julio Iglesias, Wynonna Judd, BB King, Carole King, Kris Kristofferson, Lisa Loeb, Lyle Lovett, Barry Manilow, Ricky Martin, Reba McEntire, Bette Midler, Giorgio Moroder, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Randy Newman, Joanna Newsom, Juice Newton, Wayne Newton, Olivia Newton-John, Dolly Parton, Bernadette Peters, Bonnie Raitt, LeAnn Rimes, Linda Ronstadt, Diana Ross, Santana, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Sting, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, James Taylor, Toto, Dionne Warwick, The Weather Girls, Robbie Williams, Brian Wilson, Wilson Phillips, and Warren Zevon. He’s also done music for a bunch of TV shows and movies like The A-Team, ALF, Coyote Ugly, Groundhog Day, Legally Blonde, Magnum PI, Muppets Most Wanted, and The Prince of Egypt. He’s been around!
Wow, that’s a really long list!
Session musicians are seriously overlooked, they do so much for music! Paul Jackson Jr. is a great example, he’s played on tons of albums for super famous artists – Michael Jackson, Daft Punk, Celine Dion, the singer from Yes, Steely Dan, Lionel Richie, Kenny Loggins, Leonard Cohen, and so many more!
This guy’s a total legend, super funny too! You should check out his YouTube channel, it’s awesome. He’s always booked for sessions whenever he’s on tour, he’s that good. Plus, he plays at the Grammys and the Oscars every year, crazy! He’s probably one of the busiest musicians ever.
I saw him on the tour with Billy Thorpe, the one they called “Children of the Sun.”
That song’s bassline is killer.
RE: Fact #24 (The British Empire’s Vast Reach) – Back in 1921, a whopping 25% of the world’s population was under British control.
RE: Fact #50 (Hendrix’s Astonishing First Gig) – I read two books on Hendrix, dude was totally obsessed with the guitar. He’d play for hours every day, all the time.
He’d do a show, then find people to jam with all night, sleep for a few hours, wake up and play some more, then do another show, find another jam.
It’s easy to see Jimi Hendrix as some kind of mystical freak guitar god, but when you read about how much time he spent on the guitar, it all makes sense.
For Jimi, the guitar was his whole world. He learned to play on his own, and even as a kid, he basically built his own guitar and figured out how to play it. Jimi didn’t really know anything else except the guitar. He was determined to be the best and never forget how to play. Even his studio guitars were basically homemade. Jimi was left-handed in a time when left-handed guitars were almost impossible to find. A lot of times he’d just play a right-handed guitar with the strings flipped around. He was the guitar, and the guitar was him.
RE: Fact #26 (Mountain Dew Mouse Dissolution Case) – Seriously, that guy used to fill those cans. It’s practically impossible he got in one. The way those cans fill up, it’s just not logical. There was no mouse in that can.
I always thought that whole thing was super fishy, like they were just trying to make a quick buck.
My dad was called in to testify about this guy who said a prune juice bottle exploded because it was fermented and hurt him. My dad totally debunked it, but they still settled because it was cheaper to pay up than fight it in court.
If we even got a few complaints about the taste or wrinkles in the can, we took it seriously and fixed things so it wouldn’t happen again. It’s super regulated for health and safety, so you can be sure we’re on top of it.
Remember that whole Wendy’s chili finger thing? It was fake, but people kept pretending to find weird stuff in their food for a while.
This makes me think of this customer who told us they choked on a metal bristle. They said it must have come from our meat grinder, because their “expert” said it was the kind used for cleaning food stuff. Except we didn’t even use brushes! We had this super cool power washer that used hot water and cleaner to blast everything clean. Then, it rinsed with just hot water. We figured the bristle came from their own grill brush.
So, this guy claimed he found a mouse in his bag of chips. He wanted to sue! Turns out, the mouse had been attacked by a cat and was actually a field mouse from the same area where the guy lived. Not where the chips were made, which was 600 miles away.
My parents ran a hotel in Nebraska. One time, this lady came in claiming she found a bug in her bed. She showed them a little glass bottle with some kind of bug in it, but it wasn’t the kind they usually saw. Weird, right? But she wouldn’t even let them look at the bug closer!
RE: Fact #36 (Female Gladiators Banned by Severus) – The Romans were a weird bunch – super tough in some ways, but also really uptight about other things. They were cool with women fighting to the death, but they didn’t like it when people made jokes about them.
Turns out, gladiators didn’t always fight to the death.
RE: Fact #44 (The Invention Secrecy Act Rules) – nuclear weapons design, cryptographic and encoding techniques, stealthy manufacturing techniques.
PGP is a cool example of this happening back in the early 90s. The guy who made it was in trouble for selling weapons, so he published the code in a fancy book and said the First Amendment protected him.
This law doesn’t really make sense for software that isn’t connected to some special hardware. Even if someone doesn’t release the software, someone else could just get a copy and figure out how it works.
And even with hardware that’s hard to get, I wouldn’t be surprised if spies were trying to find old American missiles in the Middle East or Afghanistan to see how they work.
That reminds me of the DVD encryption key thing – they tried to make a number illegal! People really showed them how dumb that was, like by making a flag with the number encoded in the colors.
For anyone interested, there’s a really good book called Crypto by Stephen Levy that covers the history of public key encryption.
RE: Fact #21 (Michael Bay’s Phone Booth Pitch) – Back in the 60s, Larry Cohen wanted to make a movie with Alfred Hitchcock. The idea was to film the whole thing in real time, and it would all take place inside a phone booth. Hitchcock thought it was cool, but they couldn’t figure out a way to make the story work with everyone stuck in one spot. Cohen said Hitchcock kept asking him if he had an idea, and they’d meet up now and then to talk about it. It took a while, like twenty years after Hitchcock died, before Cohen finally figured it out. He realized he could have a sniper forcing the main character to stay in the phone booth, and that’s when he wrote the script.
This is kinda funny, Hitchcock made a movie called Rope that happens in one place and is shot in a way that makes it look like it was filmed in one shot, even though it came out in the 40s.
Rear Window is about a guy in a wheelchair, all banged up, watching the world go by from his window. He’s stuck there, but we get to see what he sees in the neighborhood around him.
He spent 30 years coming up with “sniper”?
Like, how about this: I rig your phone with a bomb. You try to leave, I blow you up. Took me 30 seconds.
Larry Cohen was probably a good writer overall, but that’s not a hard problem to figure out.
Man, I’ve never had so many people agree with me and call me an idiot at the same time.
So, it’s like we have a cool movie setting, but no actual story to go with it. Maybe it’s not just the sniper, but everything else around him that makes the movie work. Yeah, coming up with interesting characters is pretty easy, people are pretty basic when it comes to survival, but turning all that into a good story? That’s the real challenge.
But hey, like I’ve ever written a script… ¯__/¯
Cool, thanks!
RE: Fact #35 (Self-Sued Search Warrant Victory) – Every little thing matters in law.
RE: Fact #33 (Nazi Infant Care Controversy) – It’s like that saying, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” but instead of spanking, you just kinda… ignore them.
Shepherds use their rods to guide their sheep, not beat them. They might use it to fight off a predator, but they wouldn’t hurt the sheep.
RE: Fact #31 (Ford Model T’s Price Drop) – Ford really focused on making things better all the time, and they used the assembly line, which helped bring down the price.
They kept things simple with the different car styles, and painted them all black to make production easier.
Black’s the only color we do.
RE: Fact #17 (Benefits of Dog Sniff Walks) – My dog doesn’t just sniff the ground, he practically sticks his whole face to one spot for ages, then has a sneezing fit that lasts forever!
RE: Fact #14 (Jimmy Carter’s UFO Pledge) – Didn’t Clinton, Obama, and Trump all kind of say the same thing?
Clinton, Obama, Trump
It’s all about keeping secrets, really. They have to test out their new military stuff, and they don’t want anyone seeing it, civilians or not. And why admit there are no aliens when you can use that as cover for all the cool tech they’re working on? They’ve been doing this forever, it’s why all the presidents sound the same. They’re told aliens don’t exist, but they can’t say that because it’s top secret.
But the real reason they’re hiding stuff is much simpler. It’s not some big alien conspiracy, it’s just their own projects they don’t want people knowing about. They’re probably just saying it’s UFOs to throw people off the scent of what they’re really up to.
RE: Fact #45 (Hot Water Preference in China) – A whole bunch of Chinese folks came to train with us for half a year, and we ended up taking out one of the water coolers. Turns out, they were going the whole day without drinking anything because the water was too cold.
RE: Fact #27 (Ancient Earth’s Stronger Magnetic Field) – Will the Earth’s magnetic core ever stop spinning and leave us with a thin atmosphere like Mars?
Yeah, but I read somewhere that it would take 91 billion years.
The Sun’s going to become a red giant in 5 billion years and swallow Mars and cook Earth. Then, in 10 billion years, it’ll die.
Earth’s gonna be too toasty for us in a billion years.
RE: Fact #12 (The Double Execution Case) – People have definitely been messed up in executions before, but I’ve never heard anyone say they already served their sentence because of a botched execution. There was this guy who was supposed to be hanged, so he decided to pack on the pounds while he was on death row, hoping he’d get too heavy to hang. He ended up dying from health issues before they could hang him.
So, there was this crazy case in Britain, right? This woman got sentenced to hang, but somehow survived! She even argued that her sentence had been completed since she was hung, and they shouldn’t do it again. Can you believe that?
They changed death sentences to “hanged by the neck until dead” after that. I’d bet most of them are worded that way now.
RE: Fact #41 (The 1939 Pet Massacre in Britain) – The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel almost disappeared because of this culling.
Yeah, they’re just so happy and carefree… guess that kinda explains their health problems. All that led to them having a limited diet.
I have one myself and it’s really heartbreaking. He’s the sweetest little guy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Their skulls are too small, so they’re really vulnerable to meningitis.
RE: Fact #6 (Bassist’s Clever Placebo Switch) – Set designers do that. The big bosses like to feel like they’re in charge, so you put something out of place that’s easy to fix when they come by looking for something to change.
“Wait, why’s there a pink flower on that coffin in this horror movie? You know, you’re totally right! Good catch!”
My friend had this button in his car that did nothing. To impress girls he’d be like “Check this out!” and flip it, then just floor it.
RE: Fact #36 (Female Gladiators Banned by Severus) – Even female gamers back then got a lot of crap.
RE: Fact #22 (Baretop Tricksters’ Robbery Tactic) – I’d get crushed every time.
And it’d be totally worth it.
RE: Fact #43 (Hitler’s Stateless Years Explained) – You know, the funniest thing about all this is that one time Wilhelm Frick, this early Nazi guy who was already in the German government, tried to get Hitler a job as an art professor. He wanted to get him a gig at the Bauhaus school in Weimar, but it didn’t work out because the government didn’t want to hire anyone new. Talk about a guy who just can’t catch a break in the art world!
Hitler wasn’t a fan of the Bauhaus style, and most of its big names had to leave Germany when the Nazis took over. A lot of them went to Western Europe and America, but some headed to the Soviet Union. They ended up doing really well in their new homes, with some having big careers.
RE: Fact #24 (The British Empire’s Vast Reach) – To be honest, the Roman Empire wasn’t that huge when you look at the map. Places like Australia and Brazil are bigger today, and even most European colonial empires like the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish empires were way bigger.
It’s kind of unfair, right? The Romans ruled the whole Mediterranean. You’d think that would count for something! But it’s all about landmass.
If you’re gonna include the Mediterranean for Rome, you gotta at least throw in the Atlantic, maybe even all the oceans, for the Brits, right? I mean, they were all about “our navy rules the waves” back in the day.
You know, the Mongols had a much bigger empire than the Romans. They actually had the biggest empire ever, stretching across a huge part of the world in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Eastern history? Ugh.
The Roman Empire wasn’t the biggest in size, but it had a crazy amount of people living in it. At its peak, it ruled over about 25% of everyone on Earth! Think of it like China, the US, and Indonesia all ruled by the same government. That’s how many people they had!
RE: Fact #5 (Early Cryonics’ Financial Downfall) – So, I was reading about this guy, Orville Richardson, who was a member of this cryonics group called Alcor. He died in 2009, and his siblings buried him even though he had made a deal with Alcor to have his head frozen. Alcor sued them to get his body dug up, and after a whole bunch of legal stuff, they finally got it back a year later. I mean, even if you believe in cryonics, I’m pretty sure after a year in the ground, there’s nothing left to freeze!
I bet they didn’t think this would happen when they signed the contract.
Maybe they just wanted the money.
They promised Alcor a human head, and they were going to deliver. You can’t break a deal with the devil.
Wolfram and Hart are serious.
RE: Fact #40 (Hotel Ice Machines’ Origins) – “We’re gonna be different!”
“Awesome! We’ll be different too!”
“And us!”
“We’ll all be different!”
“Same way!”
So, are we saying we shouldn’t give out ice because it’ll make us sound like everyone else?
That’s just straight up copying and trying to get ahead!
It’s crazy how much money’s being poured into AI, like it’s the next big thing. I mean, is there even a real reason for all this hype? If CEOs were actually leading, they’d be able to justify some of their ridiculous paychecks. But most of them are just sheep, following whatever everyone else is doing, jumping on the latest trend. They just want to be in the middle, not the first or the last to do anything.
It’s all about the cash, really. The money goes where the trends are.
AI is like the new hotel ice, that’s pretty funny!
An ad for a real estate agent popped up, saying they’re AI certified. That’s… interesting. 😂
RE: Fact #34 (Suicide Through Capital Crimes) – Wouldn’t killing an innocent baptized child send you to hell?
RE: Fact #38 (Harrison’s Scandalous Marriage Choice) – He was also in charge of getting electricity set up in the White House.
RE: Fact #1 (Extra Fries for Value Effect) – Except for the Five Guys in New Orleans. They were always stingy with the fries, no matter how big your order was. One time I got so frustrated I asked an employee why they never gave extra, and he said their manager doesn’t want them to because it takes too long to fry up more. I stopped going to that place. I hope that manager got fired.
RE: Fact #11 (Church Sanctuary Knocker Protection) – It’s only as long as they stick around, though. If they left the church, it wouldn’t apply anymore.
RE: Fact #14 (Jimmy Carter’s UFO Pledge) – Every president who says this ends up backing down – they know military secrets are too important to give in to people who believe in UFOs.
RE: Fact #39 (The Tiny Zeptosecond Unit) – A zeptosecond is super tiny – it’s one followed by twenty-one zeros! Planck Time is even smaller, it’s one followed by forty-three zeros!
The experimental limit’s closing in on the theoretical one. Keep at it, physicists!
After the Theoretical Limit, try the TAS limit. Gotta practice those frame glitches, physicists!
RE: Fact #48 (Ada Lovelace’s Deathbed Confession) – She was wild, gambling and having affairs. That probably had something to do with it.
When I was twenty-six, I partied hard, it was way better than doing boring math or being all prim and proper.
I totally forgot to use a coaster when I put my drink on the table. It was a hot summer day and all I could think about was getting something cold to drink.
She got really into the idea of figuring out a way to beat the odds using math, it was like part of the whole gambling thing for her.
I can’t believe Lord Byron’s daughter would act like that!
Lovelace was Lord Byron’s only kid with his wife, Anne Isabella Milbanke. All his other kids were born out of wedlock. Byron split with his wife a month after Ada was born and left England for good. He died in Greece when she was just eight. Lady Byron was worried about her daughter and made sure Ada got into math and logic. She was trying to keep her from becoming like her dad, who she thought was crazy.
Seems she really took after dad.
RE: Fact #30 (Free Horse Program in the U.S.) – I’m buying a cheap house in Detroit and bringing my horse to live with me!
Can you still find cheap houses in Detroit?
RE: Fact #39 (The Tiny Zeptosecond Unit) – What’s the story behind this?
They caught me and my girlfriend in bed on camera.
I mean, they watched a hydrogen molecule soak up a photon and saw how an electron took off. This made a wave that they measured, and it was pretty fast. Not as fast as Planck time, though.
A zeptosecond is one ten-to-the-minus-twenty-first and Planck time is one ten-to-the-minus-forty-third, so we’re still a long way off.
Just a little tweak.
The Planck time isn’t the absolute smallest amount of time, it’s just the smallest we can really understand with our current science.
There’s no need to think there’s a smallest time in the universe, it’s just that our understanding of quantum physics breaks down at such tiny scales.
RE: Fact #45 (Hot Water Preference in China) – That’s pretty cool! I had no idea, even though it’s such a common thing.
It’s probably because they used to have to boil their water to make it safe to drink. Older Chinese people grew up doing that, so it’s just something they still do. And the Chinese government probably wants to keep it going as a tradition.
Yeah, it’s not just China. A lot of people in east Asia drink their water hot.
RE: Fact #23 (Tesla’s Longevity Predictions Revised) – Unlimited power
RE: Fact #16 (Negative Buoyancy in Freediving) – That’s pretty scary.
RE: Fact #21 (Michael Bay’s Phone Booth Pitch) – An eighteen-wheeler just loses it, spinning around and BAM! Then this huge tanker full of dynamite… boom!
Michael Bay said something funny about the Transformers. He didn’t want to make the robots look like giant boxes because it would look fake. He thought adding extra stuff, like car parts, would make them look more realistic. I always quote that part, haha!
It’s kinda clunky how they put it, but he’s not totally off base. Making the G1 designs into real-life 3D robots would have been super weird. Adding some extra bits and pieces, like gears and stuff, makes them look more like, you know, actual robots. We got some cool designs out of it, but they could have used more color and some…
It’s a scene from another film, with fire and then Megan Fox bends down.
RE: Fact #17 (Benefits of Dog Sniff Walks) – They just can’t resist poking their noses into everything.
They probably mean you should stop and wait for your dog when they find a spot they really want to sniff. A lot of people just keep walking when their dog stops to sniff.
Sometimes it’s just gross and they get super excited and want to lick everything.
RE: Fact #30 (Free Horse Program in the U.S.) – They have a place right near my house where they keep burros. We go over there often and give them carrots.
You get the pet perks without the hassle.
The local shelter really wants people to come by and hang out with the animals. Otherwise, they just chill out all day. It’s different from pet stores, where they mostly have puppies, and people are way more comfortable petting them.
RE: Fact #28 (Japan’s Price Disparity for Tourists) – Japan’s been jacking up prices on foreigners for ages. Try finding an apartment too, you’ll be in for a surprise.
Man, it’s crazy how much more they charge foreigners for apartments, cars, and even phone plans.
How do those mobile plans work, anyway? Do people actually sign up for them in person?
I’ve lived in Japan for ages, but I’ve never noticed any mobile plans charging more for foreigners.
I was helping a friend look for an apartment in Shimokita. One place had extra fees for pets and foreigners, and the foreigner fee was even higher! My friend ended up talking to the landlord, and they said they would waive the foreigner fee because he speaks Japanese and goes to Todai. But it still felt weird to be grouped with dogs like that.
RE: Fact #8 (Holy Water Replenishment Rule) – Things must be tough when they’re watering down the holy water.
It’s not like you’re diluting it, you’re actually making the regular water into holy water permanently. So you end up with almost twice as much holy water and you can keep doing it forever to have as much as you want.
I’m not an expert on Catholic stuff, but I learned this at a big cathedral near me. They have a holy water fountain and they use this trick to keep it full.
I don’t know if there’s a specific time limit, I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. I think it works like this: once you stop adding water and it’s just sitting there, it becomes holy water right away. But I’m not totally positive about that.
Homeopathic water!
Priests hate this simple trick!
So how long should you wait before watering it down again? You can’t do 51% right away, but it seems like you can do 75% or more with plain water after a good rest.
Blessings are getting pricey these days. Inflation is a real pain! Seriously, I wonder if there’s a limit on how much water a priest can bless at once? Someone must have blessed the whole ocean. You know, according to Wikipedia, if someone blessed the ocean over a hundred years ago, almost every lake in the world would be holy water now!
RE: Fact #9 (Loudest Shout Record Stands) – Bene Gesserit training has its benefits.
The Landlady in Kung Fu Hustle must have been trained by the Bene Gesserit!
Xiaolongnü, who’s often called “Landlady of Pig Style Alley,” has this crazy move called “Lion’s Roar.” It’s like a super-loud yell that can shatter wood and glass, rip plaster off walls, and even toss people around like they’re nothing. It’s kind of a side effect of her training – she can scream so loud, she could drown out a hundred people yelling at once! The name “Lion’s Roar” comes from the Chinese phrase “ho’dong si,” which means something like “a bossy wife.”
RE: Fact #44 (The Invention Secrecy Act Rules) – Taxes are just part of living in a country, right? Not fun, but we gotta do it.
But what’s really messed up is when the police take your stuff without even a trial. They can even sell it or use it themselves! It’s just plain wrong.
I get it, if the government’s telling someone they can’t sell their patent, they should pay for keeping it quiet. Otherwise, it’s like asking them to sell it to China.
The government only has to pay inventors 75% of what their restricted idea is worth, and they have to prove they lost money because of it. But it’s really hard for inventors to show that they were hurt, since they can’t talk about their invention.
RE: Fact #42 (Galois’ Life and Tragic Duel) – He’s got a whole branch of math named after him, Galois theory. It’s all connected to his solution of that problem.
RE: Fact #11 (Church Sanctuary Knocker Protection) – Quasimodo’s mom tried this out in Paris.
Look at all the innocent blood you’ve spilled, right there on the steps of Notre Dame.
In the book, he was basically left alone on a park bench. The crowd was going to burn him, but then Frollo showed up and decided to take him in.
Frollo and the Archdeacon were the same guy in the book too, huh?
Yeah, that sounds familiar.
RE: Fact #36 (Female Gladiators Banned by Severus) – Later in his life, he disappeared, got totally obsessed with those old Dwemer ruins, and went a little nuts.
RE: Fact #30 (Free Horse Program in the U.S.) – My dad was a biologist who worked for the BLM his whole career, and he helped out with these events. He brought Buster home around 1991. Buster’s still going strong. You can just hop on his back and hang out. He’s been on lots of pack trips and lives the good life with his horse buddies and a couple of mules.
RE: Fact #50 (Hendrix’s Astonishing First Gig) – You hear a lot of Hendrix on classic rock radio, but some of them are pretty overplayed. Check out “Machine Gun” from his live album “Band of Gypsies.” It was recorded late in his career and it shows that Hendrix was always pushing boundaries, playing stuff that people weren’t ready for. It’s a shame he died so young.
That’s what you mean? Even if I don’t play guitar, it’s wild how Hendrix can just mess around and get sounds I’ve never heard before.
It’s crazy that his whole “career” was just four years long. He died three years younger than Justin Bieber is now, which is pretty wild, too.
It’s wild how some of the biggest stars of the 60s music scene, like Hendrix and the Beatles, put out so much music in such a short amount of time, and then just burned out so quickly. Hendrix only had a career of four years, and the Beatles only recorded together for six years.
That improv on the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock is still one of the craziest guitar solos ever. Jimi really was a gamechanger.
Okay, so, don’t kill me, but I’m not a fan of that track. Love Jim, but it’s just too much for me. It was cool the first few times, but now it’s just annoying.
RE: Fact #28 (Japan’s Price Disparity for Tourists) – Years ago, I met up with a buddy for lunch in Tokyo. They gave us an English menu, but it was way more expensive and had a set order. The Japanese menu was cheaper and you could pick and choose. We just went with the Japanese one, they never said anything but it was kinda crazy.
Ordering would be a lot easier with a set menu if the staff doesn’t speak much English.
Yeah, a lot of places have a tourist menu, but they also have a secret menu for locals with more options. I’m totally fine with that.
Same thing happened to me in Greece! I was sitting at a table that hadn’t been cleaned and started looking at the menu, which was all in Greek, but of course the euro symbol and numbers are the same everywhere. They snatched the menus from us and gave us English ones, but the prices were 20% higher! It’s probably a common thing.
And hey, in Greece, it wasn’t about race. It was definitely more about “look after our own” and charging tourists more. So it feels a bit unfair to call Japan racist for charging foreigners more, even though they’re different from most of the people who visit.
RE: Fact #35 (Self-Sued Search Warrant Victory) – I’m still confused. If the warrant was illegal, wouldn’t that be the main thing to fight in court? You’d sue the state or appeal the original ruling if you got convicted, right? Going after the warrant itself seems weird.
If the cops can take your money, shouldn’t you be able to take back the warrant they used to get it? Plus, then they can’t use any evidence they found with that warrant.
Seems like civil forfeiture could be breaking a bunch of those US Constitution rules. That Yale article says it’s technically okay, but they say it’s misused a lot in real life.
He wasn’t facing any serious charges, just trying to get his porn back after it was taken illegally.
It’s like, if you get busted and convicted on a bogus warrant, you’d appeal the conviction and it’d be called something like “US vs. Joe Smith,” like a regular criminal case.
But if they took your cash but didn’t actually press charges, you’d sue to get it back and it’d be “Joe Smith vs. a pile of cash.”
Yeah, you can’t sue a search warrant. That OP just didn’t do their homework before posting.
RE: Fact #27 (Ancient Earth’s Stronger Magnetic Field) – So, does that mean the Romans got to see some really crazy Auroras when they were around?
So, I figure stronger magnetic fields mean less Aurora, since it’s all about the gaps in the Earth’s magnetic field, right? When the field’s weaker, it kind of splits apart at the poles. I think. I also remember this old Discovery Channel thing from when I was a kid about the magnetic north flipping to the south. They said during that time, the Earth’s magnetic field would get weaker, and the Aurora Borealis could be seen way south, like in Paris. Of course, I’m not a scientist, just a big nerd!
Paris is way up north, so that’s not really a big deal. You can see the aurora even further south.
RE: Fact #23 (Tesla’s Longevity Predictions Revised) – He probably wouldn’t have made it past 2006.
Just in time for the big reveal.
Tesla the car company would probably be called Edison in this timeline.
Elon’s actually a lot like Edison, you know?
RE: Fact #2 (The Bannister Effect Explained) – I saw this thing where Tony Hawk was talking about how crazy it was to finally land the first 900. Now I see 13 year olds doing 900s in the park when I’m driving by!
Rodney Mullen, the big name in street skateboarding, talks about something called the Barrier of Disbelief. When someone nails a trick no one’s ever done before, it makes other skaters think, “Hey, maybe I can do that too!”
RE: Fact #15 (Sylvester Graham’s Clean Eating) – He was so stoned on opium, he forgot to eat or drink.
RE: Fact #19 (Maersk Alabama Cash Mystery) – Trust me, but don’t trust me with your money or your wife.
I always tell my wife, “Hey, if some army guys show up in an emergency, I’d trust them with my life. But no way am I leaving you alone with them!”
How often do you have to tell her that? 😅
It’s the same with medicine. I’d trust a doctor to give me good medical advice, but I wouldn’t ask them for life advice. I know a ton of nurses and doctors who are great at their jobs, but their personal lives are a mess. It’s like they’re really good at what they do, but they’re also terrible people who cheat on their partners and stuff. But they also save lives every day, so it’s messed up.
RE: Fact #46 (First Successful Primate Cloning) – Cool, so can we start growing organs in a lab now? I’m thinking like, test tubes and stuff, not cloning people. Just organs I can use.
You’re broke.
That’s so true.
So, you’re rich enough to get clones made, right? They grow them up to look just like you did when you were 20. Then, they swap your head onto this new body. They skin your old head, and like, slide it onto the new body for a whole new look! But the thing is, your brain is still getting old, so you end up like a 120-year-old with dementia stuck in this young body!
I’ve been thinking, would your brain still age the same way if you were in a young body? Or would a young body actually help keep an older brain healthy? Seems like all those young hormones and good blood pressure would be good for an old brain, right?
Check out “The Island”
You should check out “The House of the Scorpion” by Nancy Farmer
RE: Fact #27 (Ancient Earth’s Stronger Magnetic Field) – Remember back in the day? Men were men, magnets stuck, and a Big Mac and Coke cost next to nothing. Now? The whole thing’s gone downhill. The bosses are crooked, and you can’t even trust your compass anymore. Don’t even get me started.
And those little fuzzy guys from Alpha Centauri were REALLY tiny.
Back in the good old days, when things were simpler.
Back when men were beasts.
Good thing Wales is still keeping the flame alive.
RE: Fact #3 (Scream Filming Setback Memo) – They were supposed to film for ten days at Santa Rosa High School in June, costing about $50,000. But the school district pulled the plug right before filming started in March. They said it was because of the disruption, but a lot of people in town didn’t want the school used for a violent movie, especially because of Craven’s history with horror movies. They ended up using the Sonoma Community Center instead, but they had to rewrite some scenes and spend a bunch of extra money to make it look like a high school, like getting bigger desks and putting in lockers. Craven said the whole thing cost them an extra $350,000, including $270,000 for using the Community Center for three days. They definitely haven’t forgotten about what happened with the school, though. The credits even say “No thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa city school district governing board.”
No contract? That’s crazy! They can’t just revoke it without paying up, right?
Ever hear back from Santa Rosa schools about that?
The thing is, with something like that, it’s their property, they can say no. If the cops get involved, they don’t care about contracts or agreements, they just want everyone off the property if the owner says so.
The only way to fix it is through the courts, and the only real solution is to get money for what you lost. That doesn’t help with the immediate problem of needing to film and suddenly not being able to. It’s a real mess if you’re stuck like that.
Sometimes, even when you’re totally right, you still lose.
The reason they gave was that filming would mess things up during school time. They could have just planned it for when school was out.
Filmmaking doesn’t work like that, you can’t just shuffle things around whenever you want. Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger missed a day on Predator? They had to ditch the whole scene and use the two actors who were there instead. So you’re thinking about moving the whole thing to different months? That’s a ton of extra cash. It’s way cheaper to just find a new place and fix it up.
The School Board was totally hypocritical. They greenlit “Inventing The Abbots” to film there, but then turned around and said no to this other movie. It was obvious they were just picking and choosing what they wanted to allow, and a public school can’t do that.
RE: Fact #32 (The Penguin Naming Confusion) – So, the word “Pinguinus” was used for the great auk, which went extinct a while back, but we’ve known about it since the 1800s. It’s actually part of the auk family. Then, the birds we know as penguins were discovered later. They’re called penguins because they look like the great auk, but they’re actually not related. They’re in a different family and order, and they were classified in the 1830s. Pretty interesting, huh?
Apparently, there are some old documents, like from the 1600s, that say “penguin” comes from Welsh. And get this, there’s a whole thing going on about whether it’s really Welsh or Latin!
Good for penguins… who wants to be called “Pinguinus I’m penis”?
Can you believe it? They wiped out the last colony of great auks just to stuff them for museums! They knew the birds were vanishing, but they still killed them. There were even two great auks sitting on an egg when they showed up. They chose to make the species extinct so they could have a stuffed one! And it gets even worse – egg collectors were also after them, so it’s no surprise they died out.
You’ll be surprised when you find out why we don’t see a lot of whole Egyptian mummies around anymore.
RE: Fact #41 (The 1939 Pet Massacre in Britain) – It’s pretty wild that rationing in Britain didn’t end until 1954, nine years after the war! People were only allowed one egg a week in 1940!
I heard this podcast where the person said after the war, there were no bananas for years. One day, their dad managed to snag a single banana and they cut it up so all the kids could have their first taste.
I think I heard on a podcast where they explained the whole “British food sucks” thing. Apparently, Americans went over there and everything tasted bad because Britain was still rationing food after the war. Even after the war ended, rationing continued for another 10 years which only reinforced the bad food idea in American’s minds.
I’d bet a generation that grew up with 15 years of rationing wouldn’t have a lot of fancy cooking skills.
RE: Fact #21 (Michael Bay’s Phone Booth Pitch) – There’s only so many ways you can blow up a phone booth.
Imagine a phone booth surrounded by a ton of explosions, and it’s the only thing keeping the main character safe. And get this, it’s a transformer!
RE: Fact #38 (Harrison’s Scandalous Marriage Choice) – Harrison went back to Indianapolis to be a lawyer after he left the White House. He was getting older and lonely, which was strange for someone who liked to be by himself. His wife’s niece, Mary Dimmick, was also feeling lost. Her grandpa and mom had passed away while they were living in the White House, and she didn’t have any other family close by. Back then, women like Mary weren’t supposed to work or live on their own.
Harrison and Mary had become close during the time they spent at the White House, even though they weren’t related. He had a big house, and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone. It would have been weird for him to ask Mary to move in as his housekeeper or someone he was looking after. So, four years after his wife passed away, he married Mary. He was in his mid-sixties, and she was in her late thirties.
Harrison’s kids, Russell and Mamie, were shocked. They were really upset with their dad, not because he wanted to get remarried, but because of who he wanted to marry. They were cousins, so they were both related to Mary. They skipped his wedding to Mary. When Harrison and Mary had a baby a year later, the family split up for good.
Harrison’s grandkids were older than his new baby, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was also their aunt!
Russell and Mamie never talked to their dad again. They didn’t even go to his funeral a few years later. Mary lived to be almost ninety.
Talk about a life! Mary Dimmick was born before the Civil War and lived through World War II. She saw slavery and the atom bomb in her lifetime. My dad was born in 1948.
Given the situation, it makes sense why they were together, and I hope she found some joy in it. I totally get where his kids are coming from though, I wouldn’t blame them for cutting him off either.
That’s just it, they were going to be ripped apart?
I hear ya about the inheritance thing, but if that was the real reason, I think more families would cut off their dads for remarrying.
Makes me wonder if they thought he was having an affair. His niece lived with him at the White House, so it’s kind of strange for him to be talking to his “niece-in-law” a lot. He was a former president and a lawyer, there were probably tons of women interested in him.
It’s funny how they act like it was just a casual thing, like she couldn’t be his housekeeper… then how did she get pregnant?
RE: Fact #19 (Maersk Alabama Cash Mystery) – We had this officer in Iraq, his job was to basically pay people off whenever we messed up their stuff. When we came home, dude bought a Hummer with a giant wad of cash. Someone snitched, and it turned out he’d been sending a million bucks back home! He ended up in federal prison, got kicked out of the military, and his life went downhill.
He’s clever enough to pull off a heist, but not smart enough to cover his tracks. You’d think he’d wait a while before spending the loot, or at least use small bills. I bet the whole thing’s traceable anyway. Maybe he laundered some of it, but I’m not sure it would make a difference. Seems like he’s in a lot of trouble.
Thieves often can’t help themselves.
RE: Fact #26 (Mountain Dew Mouse Dissolution Case) – That guy’s obsessed with Strange Brew!
RE: Fact #37 (WWII Pilot G-Force Blackouts) – Gotta share my favorite Bader story, even if it’s totally made up!
So, he gets invited to this girls’ school to talk about being a pilot in World War II. And he says something like, “There were two of these fu*kers behind me, three to my right, another to the left…”
The principal, all pale and stuff, jumps in, saying, “Ladies, Fokker was a German aircraft.”
And Bader just goes, “Maybe, but these guys were in Messerschmitts!”
I read *Reach for the Sky* when I was a kid, and the craziest part was when he filled his legs with ping pong balls to float if he crashed over the water. But then, when he got high enough, they all started popping from the air pressure and he thought his plane was getting shot at!
Turns out ping-pong is older than I realized.
RE: Fact #13 (Redd Foxx’s Draft Evasion Trick) – My grandpa wanted to join the army during World War II, but they wouldn’t take him because he was too skinny. So he went to a grocery store and ate twelve bananas, came back, and got weighed again. They either let him in, or he was so annoying they just wanted him to go away, but either way, he was in training the next week!
My grandpa was kind of in the same boat. His mom made him apple pies, but he was really skinny. His dad was killed during World War I because he was a German immigrant, so he just wanted to show everyone he was an American. He couldn’t join the army though, because he was too small. He ended up working at an airfield for like 70 years, from when he was in his 20s until he was in his 90s. He was happy to have the job. He never got promoted, but he liked it and wanted to keep working. He stayed in great shape too. They tried to get him to retire, but he’d just show up back at work anyway.
They wouldn’t take him because he was too skinny – he didn’t weigh enough. I had a similar experience trying to join the German army in the 2010s. They told me I needed to gain 20kg just to make the minimum weight. So I never became a soldier.
That’s why the National School Lunch Act was passed in the US: lots of guys trying to join the army during the war weren’t healthy enough because they weren’t getting enough to eat.
A soldier in Band of Brothers said some guys from his hometown took their own lives after being rejected for service. He said it was a different time then. Vietnam really shifted how Americans think about joining the military.
RE: Fact #1 (Extra Fries for Value Effect) – Bagged fries are the best, no doubt.
The Five Guys near me is always messing up, especially with the fries. It’s really annoying! I’ve been eating there since 2006 in Florida, and they opened one near me, but the people working there have no idea how much fries they’re supposed to give.
It’s just true, I don’t get it either.
They probably stay crispy because they’re not trapped in a greasy fry cup and getting soggy.
The bag fries don’t get soggy like the ones in the cup, they stay nice and crispy.
RE: Fact #25 (Kidnapped Schoolchildren Escape Plot) – Imagine if they wrote the kids’ names on hamburger wrappers, and the ransom was to fix up some old Victorian house. That’d be a hilarious crime movie, right?
RE: Fact #3 (Scream Filming Setback Memo) – Caused by a form of Anorexia?