26 Skoptsy: Misguided Religious Zeal
The Skoptsy, an 18th-century Russian Christian sect, were notorious for practicing castration, mastectomies, and female genital mutilation. Their belief stemmed from a mistranslation of a biblical command, interpreting “castrate yourselves” instead of “be fruitful.”
27. Catherine of Braganza, wife of England’s King Charles II, popularized tea as a social drink in England. Coming from Portugal, where tea was already favored, the young queen’s daily tea-sipping routine helped shift its status from a health tonic to a social beverage.
28. Eating kiwi skin is not only acceptable but also very healthy. It can aid in managing irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
29. According to research by the Harvard School of Public Health, solar storms can affect our circadian rhythms, nervous systems, heart rate, blood pressure, mental health, and cognitive function. They may also increase adverse pregnancy outcomes, with some people being more sensitive than others.
30. British delegates negotiating the Treaty of Paris, which recognized American independence, felt so ashamed of conceding to the colonials that they refused to pose for the portrait marking the occasion. This left the painting by famed artist Benjamin West unfinished.
31 Amsterdam’s Nightlife Leadership Role
Some cities, such as Amsterdam, have appointed a “night mayor” who is responsible for developing and enhancing the city’s nightlife.
32. In 1976, the Hawaiian voyaging canoe H?k?le?a sailed from Hawai?i to Tahiti using only ancient Polynesian wayfinding, guided by navigator Mau Piailug. The landmark journey revived nearly lost navigation traditions and sparked a cultural renaissance across Polynesia.
33. In December 1943, Leon Crane, co-piloting a B-24, survived a crash into an Alaskan mountaintop due to engine failure. As the sole survivor of the five crew members, he endured 84 days in the wilderness with only matches, a Boy Scout knife, and his parachute.
34. Astatine, with atomic number 85, is the rarest naturally occurring element. Scientists estimate that less than one gram exists in Earth’s crust at any given time.
35. Leo Fender, the founder of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and designer of its iconic guitars, neither learned to play the guitar nor enjoyed rock and roll music.
36 McDonald’s Recalls Radioactive Glasses
In 2010, McDonald’s recalled 12 million Shrek-themed drinking glasses due to dangerously high levels of cadmium in the paint.
37. Thomas Paine, author of “Common Sense,” died in obscurity. An admirer exhumed him, sent his remains to England, and eventually sold them along with a bankrupt man’s house. It’s possible that the remains disappeared and became souvenirs.
38. Marcus Aurelius’ decision to abolish the imperial tax on gladiator sales was so well-received that the entire senate debate transcript was carved in stone throughout the empire, a costly and unique endeavor. The tax break was valued at 20-30 million sesterces annually.
39. In 2019, an unmaintained wilderness road in Oregon claimed the life of 70-year-old American actor Charles Levin. Seeking help, he left the vehicle and fell to his death down a 30-foot embankment. His dog, Boo Bear, was found deceased inside the car.
40. In January 2010, Black Hawk, Colorado, banned bicycle riding on its streets, except for town locals. However, in 2013, the Colorado Supreme Court overturned the law, citing the town’s failure to provide alternative paths for cyclists.
41 Golf Course Amidst Bangkok Runways
A golf course is situated between the two runways at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok. Owned by the Royal Thai Air Force, it is open to the public, provided golfers clear airport security.
42. In Japan, you can hire professional apologizers if you prefer not to apologize personally.
43. Soft-bristled toothbrushes can be more abrasive to enamel than hard-bristled ones.
44. Between 2020 and 2023, over 500 orca attacks on boats occurred around Spain, involving as few as 15 different orcas.
45. When communist Albania hired local troops to capture Prince Leka, the exiled Crown Prince of Albania, in Gabon, he deterred them by appearing at his plane’s door with a bazooka.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Martin Haug’s Zoroastrian Influence in 1862
In 1862, German orientalist Martin Haug proposed a radical reinterpretation of Zoroastrian teachings. Actual Zoroastrians found his arguments convincing and adjusted their doctrines accordingly.
47. Parasitic castration occurs when a parasite suppresses or destroys its host’s ability to reproduce. This diversion of energy benefits the parasite’s growth and survival.
48. Grant Imahara from MythBusters designed and built Geoff Peterson, the animatronic human skeleton sidekick on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”
49. Actor Joe Spinell was originally cast as the hitman Willi Cicci in The Godfather, and director Francis Ford Coppola liked him so much that he kept him on as a day player throughout the six month shoot-ultimately making him the only actor paid more than everyone except Marlon Brando.
50. Putt-Putt courses feature basic, minimalist designs with a strict par 2 on each hole. In contrast, mini golf courses are more intricate, with pars up to 6.
RE: Fact #25 (GPS Glitch Causes Global Chaos) – If a computer’s clock is way off compared to the main server in IT, it can get kicked off the network and even marked as “tombstoned.”
Heads up, GPS started out as military tech, so don’t count on finding much info on its operational security.
RE: Fact #1 (Beavers: Underwater Chewing Experts) – Wow, that totally explains why the Catholic Church decided they were fish!
Yeah, they could totally chow down on beavers during Lent and Fridays. Bummer for those little guys, though.
RE: Fact #38 (Marcus Aurelius’ Popular Tax Repeal) – The word “Sesterces” totally made me want to rewatch HBO’s Rome.
RE: Fact #9 (Windows Task Manager’s Humble Beginnings) – Plummer also whipped up the zip folders feature for Windows Explorer. He initially made it as a shareware thing on his own time, and then Microsoft swooped in and bought the rights. He never spilled the exact amount, but he did mention in a YouTube video that he was able to buy a car with the cash. Honestly, I’m pretty sure Microsoft didn’t touch the code much for ages because Windows Explorer was super slow with big zip files until pretty recently.
Back in the day, Zip Folders was this popular third-party app from the 90s. It had to get creative because of what Explorer could and couldn’t do. See, Explorer couldn’t really handle copy-paste or drag-and-drop with files that weren’t there yet. So, Plummer figured out a clever workaround: he’d just pull the archives out to a temporary folder first.
When you dragged and dropped something, Zip Folders would basically pause everything else while it extracted the files to your computer’s temp folder, and *then* it would let Explorer finish the job. It was impossible to extract the files straight to where you wanted them and still have it all work smoothly with Explorer.
Yeah, it made things a bit slower, but it wasn’t a big deal, right?
Explorer ditched that limitation with NT6, but hey, Zip Folders got the job done. It wasn’t until Windows 11 24H2 that Explorer’s built-in zip file handling became truly seamless. And that’s when the old way started causing problems. If you unzipped something, all that data would end up being written twice – first to temp, then copied over. That was really rough on SSDs, especially with their limited write cycles!
Classic Microsoft: they snag a cool feature for cheap, then just let it sit there gathering dust for ages, only to finally fix the whole mess when everyone’s totally fed up.
RE: Fact #36 (McDonald’s Recalls Radioactive Glasses) – I’ve been using one of those for ages. 🙁
RE: Fact #36 (McDonald’s Recalls Radioactive Glasses) – you wouldn’t be most effected as it’s more detrimental to growing skeletons and cells going through a higher rate of reproduction (mitosis) like children. Be weary of any bright color glazes or paints. And if it adds a sweet flavor you can suspect lead was used.
RE: Fact #29 (Solar Storms Impact Human Health) – My care team and I spent ages figuring out that super strong solar activity was actually messing with my seizure disorder.
It used to feel totally random, but then we clocked that aurora alerts somehow always lined up with my worst days. So now, whenever they predict an aurora watch, we bump up my meds and dial back my activity. It makes a big difference!
RE: Fact #37 (Thomas Paine’s Mysterious Fate) – He also wrote The Age of Reason, which totally set me free from religion. I really owe the guy a lot.
RE: Fact #18 (Character Amnesia in China ) – Yeah, that’s gotten super common now with all the computers and smartphones out there. To type Chinese words, you don’t even have to memorize the characters anymore. You just write down the pinyin, like “jieshi,” and then pick the right word from the suggestions – like if you meant 解释, 结实, or 皆是.
Yeah, it really says something about the language, doesn’t it? I totally get why folks forget characters. If you’re used to just typing out what you’d say on your phone, having to remember a whole symbol thingy makes you stop and wonder, “Seriously, why do we do it this way?”
Back in the day, King Sejong in Korea cooked up Hangul because he was basically like, “Forget this mess, let’s make writing super easy so even the least well-off can figure it out,” since, you know, being able to read and write is pretty darn useful.
Learning to read and write Chinese isn’t a big deal for folks growing up with it. It’s not like Chinese kids struggle more with the written language than kids elsewhere.
And about logographs in Mandarin, they’re super handy because there are tons of words that sound alike. With so many characters that can be spelled the same but mean different things, just using sounds would get pretty confusing.
RE: Fact #31 (Amsterdam’s Nightlife Leadership Role) – So, Boston, MA actually has someone whose whole job is to make the nightlife better, since things tend to shut down pretty early there.
They get paid for it, but honestly, nothing’s changed because they don’t have any real say in anything.
RE: Fact #45 (Prince Leka Stands Off with Bazooka) – “Deterred” is a pretty neat way to put it when you mean “threatened with a spectacularly messy explosion.”
RE: Fact #11 (No Naturalization Path in Uruguay) – So, isn’t naturalization how you become a citizen, not the other way around?
It’s actually right in the article!
So, here’s the deal with Uruguayan legal citizenship: it’s got some quirks. Basically, if you become a legal citizen there, you get to keep your original nationality, which Uruguayan law says is the one from the country where you were born, and that’s set in stone. Legal citizens get to vote and stuff, but they don’t get Uruguayan nationality like folks who are born there or have Uruguayan parents or grandparents do.
Because Uruguay makes this weird separation between citizenship and nationality, legal citizens have run into issues with their Uruguayan passports at airports since 2015. It all goes back to rules from the International Civil Aviation Organization that say travel documents need a “Nationality” field. Since there’s no naturalization process, that field in legal citizens’ passports shows their country of birth, which Uruguay figures is their original nationality. The problem is, a lot of countries don’t like passports that say you’re a national of a different country. This has seriously messed with legal citizens’ ability to travel freely, making it tough or even impossible to go abroad.
With its current, super-specific definition of nationality, Uruguay might actually be stepping on other countries’ toes by listing foreign nationalities on official documents. This whole situation could even leave some Uruguayan legal citizens stateless, depending on another country’s laws and how Uruguay interprets them.
So, earlier this year, Uruguay started putting out new passports. They only mention citizenship now, which sorted out that whole thing.
RE: Fact #28 (Kiwi Skin: A Health Boost) – Anyone else get those weird tingles and itchy feelings on their face if kiwi skin touches it, or after eating kiwi? Is that a thing, or could it be an allergy? I only just figured out that the tart sting I get when I eat it, and the itchiness from the skin (which I always figured was just from the prickly hairs), might actually be an allergy.
Yeah, that totally sounds like an allergy to me. I don’t have that issue with kiwis, but I get that same reaction from bananas and walnuts. Turns out I’m just a little bit allergic to both of them.
Man, you’re totally spot on! That totally confirms what I was already thinking. I just figured it was part of the whole exotic kiwi eating vibe, haha.
RE: Fact #35 (Leo Fender’s Musical Irony) – This guy and his company are also a pretty big deal in my little hometown, Fullerton, California. It usually gets kind of ignored because Anaheim’s right next door.
RE: Fact #12 (Varroa Mite Threatens Bee Survival) – Those mites are seriously annoying.
RE: Fact #30 (British Delegates’ Portrait Refusal) – This fact’s pretty subjective, right? Most folks agree the British were kinda glad to ditch the whole expensive business of maintaining and defending the colonies.
And get this, the wiki says the delegate didn’t want his portrait done ’cause he thought he was ugly.
So yeah, it was a loss and there was definitely some embarrassment, but I doubt the British were *that* petty about it
RE: Fact #35 (Leo Fender’s Musical Irony) – This guy also lost his hearing later on after some knucklehead cranked up an amp while he was messing with it.
That dude was Dick Dale
RE: Fact #49 (Joe Spinell’s Unexpected Godfather Role) – What’s a day player?
Actors in starring and supporting roles hash out their contracts for a set payday, no matter if the shoot wraps up early or takes ages, or how many times they have to redo a scene. But the day players? They just get paid by the day. So if the director has you on set for half a year, you’re looking at some serious cash.
RE: Fact #21 (Iceland’s New Island Emerges) – That’s awesome the cook caught that, likely during his smoke break.
The dude on the bridge was probably thinking, “Billowing smoke? Not my problem, man.”
RE: Fact #10 (Efren Ramirez’s Legal Action) – Wow how interesting
RE: Fact #8 (1940s Idaho Beaver Parachute Drops) – Getting those tiny goggles on them was the tough part!
RE: Fact #6 (Rearview Mirrors: From Cops to Safety) – The article mentioned it was a spotter for cops, but they actually called it the ‘cop stopper.’
RE: Fact #50 (Putt-Putt vs. Mini Golf Explained) – I’ve never heard of putt-putt either. Is that like an American thing? Over here in France, we just call it mini golf.
So, this was a big franchise thing back in the day in America, real popular in the 60s and 70s. Besides being like, “pro golf,” the way these courses were kept super simple meant they were way more compact and way easier to set up, you know? You could totally stick one in a tiny piece of land or even just carve out a corner of a big store’s parking lot.
RE: Fact #5 (Nikola Jokić: PER’s Top NBA Player) – PER is kinda like points per game, you know? It’s not just a raw number like total points. The more you play, the trickier it gets to keep those rate stats super high. So, it’s pretty misleading to use PER to compare someone like Jokic to players who’ve played way more games.
Jokic’s got a 28.5 PER through his 745 career games.
Michael Jordan had a 29.8 PER over his 748 games from 1987 to 1997.
RE: Fact #34 (Astatine: Earth’s Rarest Element) – Francium is super rare too, and its most stable version only lasts for less than an hour. Neither astatine nor francium have ever been made in amounts you could actually hold.
RE: Fact #24 (Jet Fuel Powers More Than Planes) – Navy digs JP-5 ’cause you can toss a lit match in it and it won’t catch fire, but when it *does* light up…
RE: Fact #24 (Jet Fuel Powers More Than Planes) – it makes a big boom. Take tnt to light it usually in a containment
RE: Fact #14 (No Scuds Fired in 2003 Iraq War) – So I was in Kuwait and then Iraq back in ’03. We had to suit up in our MOPP gear, mask and everything, a bunch of times. They said it was because Iraq fired off SCUDs and they were aimed to land close by. Now I’m kinda questioning why we even bothered with the gear.
So, like, there were other missiles that could have messed with US troops, even if they weren’t technically Scuds. People just kinda used “Scud” to refer to any of those types of missiles generally. I’m just splitting hairs here ’cause the article only mentions Scuds and doesn’t really cover the other missiles or warheads that were also a thing.
RE: Fact #29 (Solar Storms Impact Human Health) – That was a pretty interesting read, but I’m not so sure about the idea of directly blaming common symptoms like feeling tired or anxious on solar storms. There are tons of everyday things that mess with our health, so this feels kinda like a shot in the dark without more solid proof – honestly, it seems like a bit of a stretch.
Is my jerk boss stressing me out? Nah. It’s gotta be a solar storm then.
RE: Fact #39 (Tragic Death of Charles Levin) – Hey, I’m from Southern Oregon. So, if you’re heading down a less-traveled dirt road way up in the mountains, you might find yourself in some serious WILDERNESS pretty quick, not just a casual walk in the woods. If you don’t know the area, stick to the main roads. It’s safer for you, and for anyone who might have to come get you.
Yeah, I’m in Oregon too. It’s pretty crazy how many folks from out of state, who don’t know the area, have gotten themselves onto fire roads or other rough, unmaintained mountain roads after a single wrong turn, and it’s ended in disaster. There was that really heartbreaking case of the Kim family from San Francisco who took a fatal wrong turn trying to get to the coast. The video about it is about 14 minutes long. It’s just gut-wrenching.
RE: Fact #32 (Polynesian Navigation Revival) – So, the Polynesian Voyaging Society site has a bunch of cool stuff about this, by the way.
Back in the middle of the 1900s, some folks started questioning if those old wayfinding methods were actually legit. Their idea was that ancient Polynesians just randomly stumbled upon all the Pacific islands, basically drifting around until they hit land by chance. But this whole mission really supported the ongoing belief that ancient Polynesians absolutely could have sailed between islands using those traditional skills. Plus, it really reignited interest and got younger people learning those old ways again.
So, Mau Piailug from Micronesia showed them those tricks because wayfinding had pretty much disappeared for Native Hawaiians by then.
On that very first trip, it felt like our whole culture was about to vanish. We didn’t have any navigators left from our own people. The Voyaging Society actually had to look outside of Polynesia to find someone who knew traditional navigation to steer the Hōkūle‘a. They found Mau Piailug, a navigator from a little island called Satawal in Micronesia. He was cool with coming to Hawai‘i and showing the Hōkūle‘a the way to Tahiti. Seriously, without him, we never would have made that journey. Mau was the only traditional navigator who was up for and able to reach out beyond his own culture to help us.
RE: Fact #3 (US Military’s Bombing Strategy) – That whole Vietnam War wiki was a lifesaver for understanding things.
Everyone should really get this.
When North Vietnam went into South Vietnam, South Vietnam was like, “Hey US, can you help us out?”
The US didn’t want their soldiers crossing into North Vietnam because they were worried China might jump in, just like they did when the US and their buddies took over pretty much all of North Korea.
As a vet and history buff, I just learned something new today!
Basically, the US ditched the UN elections when it looked like Ho Chi Minh’s party was gonna win big time. That whole puppet government in the south was just them trying to hang onto some Western influence in Vietnam.
And I’m not even saying everyone in Vietnam was all about communism; they really just wanted their own country and freedom, and they totally got that the South Vietnamese government wasn’t going to give them that.
RE: Fact #8 (1940s Idaho Beaver Parachute Drops) – So, I heard about this. There was this one beaver that a test group kept dropping so much, he basically gave up fighting it and just went along with getting into the drop boxes. They’d just keep dropping him into this spot where people were waiting to grab him.
Seriously, that beaver did more parachute jumps than most army paratroopers.
As a thank you for his dedication, they dropped him with about eight females into a nice, quiet spot.
They ended up calling that test beaver Geronimo.
“The poor guy! He eventually just accepted it, and as soon as we’d come near him, he’d just crawl back into his box, ready to be flown up again.”
His kids are in charge of the Northern Territories now.
Long live the King in the North!
If I were a sentient beaver, I’d totally go for that deal. He gets to live and keep all those 72 virgins!
RE: Fact #40 (Bicycle Ban in Black Hawk) – back in my little Oregon town, the cops actually ticketed a kid for biking on the sidewalk. Then, just a few days later, they got another kid for riding on the street! We actually ended up in the local paper for that whole mess.
RE: Fact #14 (No Scuds Fired in 2003 Iraq War) – Saddam Hussein is kind of the go-to example of a dictator who’s a pro at keeping his own people down, but falls apart when he goes up against another country. Think Mussolini, the Greek colonels, and even more recent guys like Putin and Khamenei.
It’s way easier to take down folks with old-school gear from the World War 2 era than to face a major economic force rocking 1980s tech.
RE: Fact #7 (Womb Noise: 85 Decibels Loud) – So, if your little one’s having trouble snoozing, try putting on some background noise, like the hum of a vacuum. Seriously, it usually helps them nod off super fast.
RE: Fact #2 (Medieval Aristocrats’ Boiled Bones) – They were mostly focused on the bones, since they hang around way longer than the rest of the body. They’d stash those bones in a crypt with the rest of their family tree. After a while, they’d dig them up again and toss them into a charnel house, which is basically a bone graveyard. So your thigh bone might end up chilling right next to your mom’s arm bone.
Still a thing over in the UK nowadays? I heard folks used to leave bodies in the ground for a few years, like 3 to 5, and then they’d unearth them to put the bones in a shared pile.
RE: Fact #13 (Billy Bob Thornton’s Unique Phobia) – Back in 2004, Thornton chatted with The Independent and spilled the beans, saying, “I just won’t use real silver. You know, those big, heavy old forks and knives? Can’t stand ’em. It’s the same with antique furniture for me. I’m just not into old stuff at all. It kinda freaks me out, and I’ve got no idea why. It’s not American antiques though, that’s fine. It’s mostly French stuff that gets me – you know, those huge, old, gold-carved chairs with the velvet seats, the whole Louis XIV vibe. That’s what gives me the creeps. And I can totally tell when something’s a fake antique; they just feel different, less dusty.”
You can totally tell it’s his voice.
I didn’t get that I was reading it in his voice until I saw your comment.
RE: Fact #43 (Soft Toothbrushes Can Harm Enamel) – Soft bristles are actually for your gums, not your teeth directly.
And I doubt dentists are really stressing about enamel getting scraped off from brushing.
They’re more focused on getting rid of food bits while keeping your gums safe and sound.
Brushing too hard can wear down your enamel eventually. It’s even worse if you brush right after eating something acidic because that softens your enamel up.
So, I’m a dentist, and this person’s spot on. No dentist worth their salt would ever tell you to brush hard instead of soft. The biggest culprit for enamel wearing away from brushing is doing it right after you’ve had something acidic or sugary. Both of those weaken your enamel for about 30 minutes, so seriously, don’t brush during that time.
Check out the Stephan curve if you want to see what demineralization looks like over the course of a day and how to cut down on damage.
So, does that mean we should be brushing our teeth when we get to work, not before we leave after breakfast, and holding off until a bathroom break after lunch instead of doing it right during lunch?
RE: Fact #2 (Medieval Aristocrats’ Boiled Bones) – So, after Trafalgar, they packed Admiral Nelson in a rum barrel to bring him back. Apparently, some folks supposedly “tapped the admiral” during the trip.
Seriously, there’s this rum called Admiral Nelson, and I always messed around, saying it was because it outranked Captain Morgan. I never in a million years thought it was named after an actual admiral who was kept preserved in a barrel of rum.
It’s kinda funny how the rum mascot’s rank seems to decide how good the rum is, right?
Like, Admiral Nelson’s the cheap stuff,
Captain Morgan’s just a step up from that,
Sailor Jerry’s decent,
And then the Kraken, being way down there, must mean it’s the best!
RE: Fact #39 (Tragic Death of Charles Levin) – If I’m ever lost in the wilderness, Boo Bear is definitely tagging along.
RE: Fact #4 (Spiders’ Electrifying Flight Technique) – Not exactly. It’s the wind doing the carrying, not some electrical thing from the ground. The silk threads get a little static, which makes them spread out, so the spider basically turns into a dandelion seed, floating around.
So, they did this thing where they put spiders in these closed-up boxes with no wind, and guess what? The spiders totally reacted to this fake electric field, and it actually managed to lift them up! It seems like wind and static electricity probably team up usually, but you don’t need wind to get that vertical lift part going.
RE: Fact #4 (Spiders’ Electrifying Flight Technique) – Seriously, people are so lame and dull. Spiders are like, “What, you can’t shoot webs from your butt? Weird.”
Nah, but we did figure out how to make electro-rocks, and that totally changed the game.
My electro butt propulsion was way too loud, sorry!
RE: Fact #12 (Varroa Mite Threatens Bee Survival) – So, one of the main reasons bees have been dying off so much lately is these things called Varroa mites. They’re basically super dangerous parasites for bees. They latch onto a developing bee and then chow down on its fat. These little troublemakers showed up in America back in the 80s and now they’re pretty much everywhere, messing with almost every beehive out there.
A beekeeper actually put it really well once, comparing it to having a giant tick, like the size of a frisbee, stuck to you forever.
And to make matters worse, these mites spread a bunch of viruses, which just adds to all the problems the bees are dealing with in the hive.
If you don’t do anything about it, those hives are usually toast within about two years.
I’m a parasite expert, and I’ve had a beehive for a few years, and let me tell you, these little guys are absolutely brutal.
So, you’re saying these mites are everywhere on the continent now? Like, every single colony has them?
Down Under used to be the last free spot, but they’ve already found it there.
RE: Fact #46 (Martin Haug’s Zoroastrian Influence in 1862) – So, get this: the Parsis in Bombay were totally digging Haug’s take on things. They were pretty much getting hassled by Christian missionaries who were trying to convert them and calling Zoroastrianism “dualistic” compared to their own monotheism. Haug’s version also made the religion seem more in line with the whole nineteenth-century enlightenment vibe, suggesting Zoroaster himself was all about ditching rituals and only worshipping the main deity.
These new thoughts basically spread like wildfire as a Parsi perspective, made their way to the West, and then ended up backing up Haug’s ideas. In the cities where Parsis were used to reading stuff in English, Haug’s theories got shared way more than any pushback from the Gujarati-speaking priests. Because of that, Haug’s ideas really stuck, and now pretty much everyone accepts them as the official word.
Now, some smarty-pants scholars today have ideas about where Angra Mainyu came from that are kinda similar to Haug’s. But a lot of folks now think the old “dualist” view was actually right all along, and that Angra Mainyu was always seen as totally separate and on its own, not connected to Ahura Mazda at all.
Looks like Haug was off base, if I’m understanding this correctly.
RE: Fact #41 (Golf Course Amidst Bangkok Runways) – Playing here won’t break the bank – weekday rounds are less than ten bucks, and weekend ones are about twenty. But with planes flying overhead like every hour and a red light telling you to stop for them, it’s more of a high-octane driving range than a peaceful spot.
RE: Fact #35 (Leo Fender’s Musical Irony) – He was sharp enough to get and take advice from the pros, plus he was smart with his money when it came to building and getting supplies. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t into playing or following music fads; the main thing was he knew to listen to the experts and the folks buying his stuff.
So, a great instance of prioritizing what the player actually experienced was with the truss rod. He was totally against ’em at first, you know, propping up guitar necks between two chairs to show they were “tough enough.” But then enough players pushed back, saying they weren’t worried about the necks snapping, but about how humidity and temperature changes on tour would subtly bend them, even by just tiny amounts, which totally messed with how easy they were to play. Where most folks would dig their heels in even harder, Leo actually listened and got them retooled with truss rods. Wish more people were like that, huh?
Leo Fender was basically a whiz at what we’d now call industrial engineering or process management.
Think about one of the most asked guitar questions: Why’s the Telecaster way more popular than the Les Paul?
Wondering why starter Les Pauls aren’t as easy to find as strats or teles for your first electric?
And the reason’s pretty simple: a $129 Squier Debut is basically a legit Telecaster in all the ways that count. But a $150 Epiphone Les Paul Special? It just looks like a Les Paul, it’s not the real deal.
The classic Fenders – Telecaster, Stratocaster, P Bass, J Bass, you name it – were all built to be super cheap and easy to make, but they’re still awesome in every important way. Putting one together is about as tough as assembling IKEA furniture.
RE: Fact #10 (Efren Ramirez’s Legal Action) – Carlos swung by my place once and mentioned he was the twin brother. He was super chill and even took pics with whoever asked.
RE: Fact #37 (Thomas Paine’s Mysterious Fate) – That “may have been turned into souvenirs” bit is totally bonkers.
England was particularly odd about it. They also turned digging up old Egyptian dead people into parties where you’d open lootboxes.
RE: Fact #26 (Skoptsy: Misguided Religious Zeal) – Whoa, that translation is way off.
Get reproducing-> Reproduce Surprisingly close
EDIT: So, turns out that Wikipedia info might not be spot on and is probably wrong. It’s way more likely that these ideas came from people taking Matthew 19:12 super literally.
RE: Fact #15 (Sherlock Holmes Enters Public Domain) – Sherlock Holmes officially did hit the public domain in 2023 but Just a heads-up though, only the stories that came out before 1928 are fair game, the newer ones are still protected by copyright.
So, this character is totally fair game for anyone to use. All the Arthur Conan Doyle stories came out before 1928.
The bigger deal is that the Basil Rathbone movies are public domain now. Before, you couldn’t just put Sherlock Holmes in that deerstalker hat and cloak thingy, because that was the costume designer’s idea, not Arthur Conan Doyle’s.
RE: Fact #15 (Sherlock Holmes Enters Public Domain) – Seriously, I figured Sherlock Holmes had been public domain for ages, like a century. The whole copyright thing really needs a makeover.
So, that’s why when Japanese media mentions it, they sometimes used names like Sherlock Holmes before settling on the final one, Shelling Ford. It also explains why in the Ace Attorney series, they went with Herlock Sholmes for the English versions. Apparently, they were trying to avoid copyright issues, which is also why the game took ages to get an international release.
RE: Fact #14 (No Scuds Fired in 2003 Iraq War) – Was that like, the second-best super secret mission ever or something?
RE: Fact #17 (Tautological Place Names Explained) – Naan bread is pretty much just bread bread.
RE: Fact #41 (Golf Course Amidst Bangkok Runways) – It really puts into perspective how huge a runway is at a major airport.
RE: Fact #44 (Orca Attacks Surge Near Spain) – Orcas that are against tourism
RE: Fact #32 (Polynesian Navigation Revival) – They’re heading out again! Just left Hilo, HI not too long ago. There were two ships this time around.
Wow, I had no clue!
This is so cool for Polynesian people wanting to reconnect with their heritage and ancestors. What a fantastic project!
RE: Fact #16 (King George III Almost Abdicated) – Wonder if his upcoming breakdown had anything to do with it? I’m guessing he realized his mind was going and it was only a matter of time before he totally lost it. Maybe he wanted to step down to save his kingdom the mess of having a crazy king. At least he hung on until his son was ready to take over as regent.
RE: Fact #3 (US Military’s Bombing Strategy) – So, like, tons of political rules made the war even crazier, you know? The military was totally stuck with these ridiculous rules of engagement and what they could even shoot at. At one point, they were even telling them exactly how to fly into North Vietnam, which basically meant all their air defenses were right in the main flight paths, and that let them take down a bunch of US pilots.
And I’m not saying this to defend the war or anything, ’cause I think it was messed up too. But it just makes no sense to send guys to fight and get killed, and then not let them fight the way they were trained or use their full skills.
Yeah, there were other problems with drafted soldiers too, but honestly, if we’re talking about what the US could have done better, especially in the air, they really could have. But even then, I don’t think they ever would’ve won against the insurgency, just my two cents.
After Vietnam, the US really got the memo, so when Desert Storm rolled around, they pulled out all the stops.
Back in Vietnam, the US had a military that was still kinda figuring things out, and the politicians basically had them fighting with one arm tied.
For Iraq, the US military was fully professional and actually got to do their job without the politicians messing things up too much, and you could totally see the difference in how it turned out.
Turns out having a clear win condition really helps you know what you’re aiming for.
RE: Fact #47 (Parasitic Castration: A Survival Strategy) – Just so you know, parasitic castrators are usually about the same size as their hosts. The other kind of parasites, the ones that don’t castrate, are way, way smaller. So, we’re mostly talking about stuff like crustaceans, snails, barnacles, bugs, and worms.
So, based on the data, a human parasitic castrator would probably be about as big as your spouse or significant other, right?
RE: Fact #34 (Astatine: Earth’s Rarest Element) – Astatine-219 hangs around for 56 seconds, making it the longest-lasting of the naturally occurring isotopes.
Kind of a bummer to think that a whole element’s only gig is to be around for about a minute before it turns into Bismuth.
RE: Fact #24 (Jet Fuel Powers More Than Planes) – JP-8’s pretty much diesel, so converting the engines would be pretty easy, and then the logistics crew only has to deal with one kind of fuel. Some airports even use it in their ground vehicles.
RE: Fact #34 (Astatine: Earth’s Rarest Element) – How wild is it to think you’re rarer than a unicorn but still on the periodic table?
So, like, how much unicorn stuff is actually in the earth’s crust, you reckon?
It’s super rare, like less than a gram, kind of like astatine.
RE: Fact #45 (Prince Leka Stands Off with Bazooka) – I’m not usually one for the whole royal thing, but man, that was a killer move.
RE: Fact #11 (No Naturalization Path in Uruguay) – So, when we’re talking about where people are from, it’s kinda wild but you can totally have it backwards. Like, my partner, who’s from Hong Kong, is a Chinese citizen and lives in Hong Kong, and they’re also a British National but *not* a British citizen.
Yeah, we have something similar over here. Folks from American Samoa are considered American Nationals, but not citizens. Samoa’s cool with it like that, probably ’cause it lets them keep non-Samoans from owning land there if their constitution doesn’t completely cover the place.
So, my friend is from Switzerland, right? But it’s kinda complicated, she’s basically stateless. She was actually born there while her parents were just visiting family. Her parents themselves came from Yugoslavia back in the late 90s as refugees.
She’s been trying to get US citizenship since 2008, but being stateless has made it a real headache. Plus, the US doesn’t even recognize her as a Swiss national. They gave her that status because, at the time, Switzerland would give it to kids who had no nationality, since that whole stateless thing is a whole messy business.
Anyway, she recently got a deportation notice after running a red light. So now she’s basically deported herself back to Switzerland.
Man, this US policy on statelessness is a real bummer. It’s like they’re inviting more stateless kids, especially if birthright citizenship gets yanked in some places.
I remember at a conference before the election, they talked about this Russian family who fled a Soviet bloc country. Their kid can’t even get a new Soviet passport and has never set foot in Russia. But the US policy was basically, “Hey, they can probably claim citizenship from the country that took over, so you gotta fight that battle in their courts, not ours.”
Switzerland’s on board with the Convention on Statelessness, so if someone can convince the SEM they’re stateless, they’ll get a B residency permit. After ten years with that, it can become a C permanent residency, and then after another ten years with a C permit, you can start the process for Swiss citizenship. That’s what I would have told your friend to go for. But honestly, I wouldn’t really call someone on that route a true Swiss National – it’s more about having legal residency and then eventually citizenship.
The US, on the other hand, isn’t part of that Convention and hasn’t been very sympathetic to people in that boat.
RE: Fact #16 (King George III Almost Abdicated) – Basically, he was super bummed out and felt totally stabbed in the back by Parliament. They signed a peace treaty to end the war, but he was still all about fighting. It’s pretty wild when you think about it, especially since his kid was still just a little one, meaning Parliament had all the say.
He was planning to bug out to Hanover, Germany, since he was also the Elector of Hanover over there. It would’ve been like choosing to leave, seeing as he grew up in England and had never even seen Hanover.
George IV was 20 by the time the revolutionary war wrapped up, lol, so not exactly a kid.
RE: Fact #19 (Tendril Perversion in Phone Cords) – Man, I wish I’d known this like 30 years ago.
RE: Fact #15 (Sherlock Holmes Enters Public Domain) – Wild nobody’s whipped up a cheap slasher flick with him as The Killer yet.
Imagine a gay romcom where he, Watson, and Moriarty are all tangled up in a super awkward love triangle.
Is that the show Sherlock?
RE: Fact #44 (Orca Attacks Surge Near Spain) – So, get this: they only went after the boat rudders. They totally ignored the smaller boats that didn’t even have rudders, and no people were touched either. Turns out, they were just messing with the rudders, not trying to cause any trouble.
It was a particular size of boat, usually sailboats or ones not using their engines then.
Plus, they’d bail whenever someone fell in the water, which happened a fair bit. These things are tough against little boats. An orca could totally take out a human without even realizing it, and they seemed to avoid that risk.
And I think there was this one time with kids on a boat who started crying, and the orcas backed off pretty quickly after that…
It’s like they’ve turned it into a game. And it looks like they’re teaching each other how to play it.
The whole situation is just super interesting.
RE: Fact #41 (Golf Course Amidst Bangkok Runways) – A plane’s landing at 180mph, golf balls whizzing down the course at 50mph… yeah, what could *possibly* go wrong?
When I look at the pictures, it seems pretty wild that someone could hit a ball so far out of bounds it’d end up on the runway. There’s gotta be at least 100 yards on either side of the playing area.
You’ve definitely never played my game, my friend.
RE: Fact #45 (Prince Leka Stands Off with Bazooka) – Having a bazooka pointed at your face is a pretty convincing reason to change your plans, I gotta say.
RE: Fact #30 (British Delegates’ Portrait Refusal) – Americans treating the War of Independence is kinda cult-like, right? They bash kings but then act like the revolutionaries were actual deities. I’m a republican myself, but I’ve never seen anyone in continental Europe talk about a king with the same odd reverence they show for Washington.
RE: Fact #21 (Iceland’s New Island Emerges) – So I browsed through about five or six pages about this place, but couldn’t actually find out who the cook was.
It’s like, how they left out the Professor and Mary Anne from the Gilligan’s Island theme song – a real snub, and a pretty seafaring one at that.
So, his name is Ólafur Vestmann, I found it in the original sources.
RE: Fact #4 (Spiders’ Electrifying Flight Technique) – I was checking out a spider bloom in Hawaii and thought the volcano had erupted! Ash was raining down on me, or so I thought. Then I realized the “ash” was actually crawling and had legs – hundreds of spiders dropping from the trees on little parachutes.
Found a new fear I never knew I had
So, get this, a few years back I was just chillin’ at my desk, right? And out of nowhere, this super tiny spider rappels down in front of me on a thread. Then another one, and then a third. I looked up and the whole ceiling was just covered in them, like a hundred baby spiders that had just hatched and were crawling all over the place. And I’m not even a spider person, you know? But even I felt that fight-or-flight thing kick in, lol.
RE: Fact #48 (Geoff Peterson: Craig Ferguson’s Skeleton Sidekick) – We go fishing and we toss beads at folks.
RE: Fact #27 (Tea Time with Catherine of Braganza) – So, like, she started that whole tea trend? Guess I owe her a cuppa.
RE: Fact #7 (Womb Noise: 85 Decibels Loud) – Nine months of your heart going thump-thump, your tummy rumbling, and your blood rushing, then BAM – silence, falling, and some dude in scrubs waking you up. What a way to make an entrance!
If babies could chat with each other on phones, they’d probably think life was just nine months of non-stop noise before they pop out and… well, you know.
Imagine living your whole life in a warm bath, and then bam, you’re out.
RE: Fact #26 (Skoptsy: Misguided Religious Zeal) – With all these mistranslations floating around, you’d think at least one Christian group would get a few folks to learn Hebrew and check out the Old Testament in its original form, just to make sure their version is all good.
RE: Fact #33 (Leon Crane’s Alaskan Survival) – So Crane ended up knee-deep in snow, yelling “Ho!” but nobody answered. With no food and no clue where he was, he started heading down to the river. All he had to survive was a Boy Scout knife, a couple of match packs, and his parachute.
For the next nine days, Crane set up camp in a rough shelter. He kept a fire going with his few matches, slept in his parachute, and tried to catch squirrels, but no luck. After nine days of living on just water from under the frozen river, Crane started walking north along the river, figuring no one was coming to get him anymore.
After a day of slogging through the snow, Crane stumbled upon a small cabin covered in snow. It was just big enough for a bed, a table, and a tiny stove. Inside, he found canned food, sugar, powdered milk, a rifle, tents, mittens, and other important gear. Turns out, this cabin belonged to a trapper named Phil Berail. Crane later found out that hunters and trappers built a bunch of these cabins around there for their work, and some were stocked with supplies.
Before he left Berail’s cabin for good, Crane whipped up a simple sled from some wooden planks to haul supplies for his trip to Woodchopper. On February 12th, he started his slow journey down the river, pulling his sled, which was way tougher than he expected. Pretty quickly, though, his foot went right through the ice, and his mukluk, which he’d found in the cabin, froze solid around it. Crane had to spend the night thawing it by the fire, really hoping the frostbite wouldn’t come back. A few days later, things got bad again. Crane fell through the ice and was almost completely underwater in freezing water. Knowing he had maybe minutes to live, Crane dragged himself to shore, stripped off his wet clothes, and got a fire going, barely making it out alive. He set off again the next day and found another small cabin with food, where he chilled out for three days. A few days after that, as Crane was crossing the ice again, his sled broke through, and all his stuff went into the river. Crane only managed to grab a few essentials like food and the rifle. Eight days later, he spotted a sign of people – a landing strip.
Crane eventually…
…found a sled dog path that led him straight to another cabin. This time, a Native man named Albert Ames and his family lived there. Crane told them his unbelievable story of walking 120 miles down the Charley River in freezing temperatures. Ames told him they were about 30 miles from Woodchopper and offered to give Crane a ride to town in his dog sled. Once they got to Woodchopper, they contacted Ladd Field and let them know Crane was, in fact, alive and kicking. Crane even got to meet Phil Berail in Woodchopper, who was happy his cabin had been useful to Crane. Berail mentioned it was standard practice for Alaskan trappers to keep their cabins well-stocked in case a traveler needed shelter.
RE: Fact #3 (US Military’s Bombing Strategy) – Honestly, the US and its buddies didn’t even have a handle on South Vietnam.
The main takeaway was you just can’t win a guerrilla war unless most of the local folks are on your side.
Russia had to get that lesson hammered home in Afghanistan, too.
And then, surprise, surprise, the US had to learn it all over again in Afghanistan.
RE: Fact #30 (British Delegates’ Portrait Refusal) – Honestly, for the British Delegates, it’s kind of like making them the ones getting dunked on in the NBA slam dunk contest.
Hey, sorry it got to this point, but we’re still cool, right? Wanna stick around for another week so we can snap a pic to remember how you lost and who it was? Man, don’t bail now, I’m still gonna finish my part!
The Brits were pretty swamped back then, so the whole US independence thing wasn’t really a top priority for them.
Instead of action shots, they could’ve totally struck whatever pose they felt like, even if it was a “nope” pose.
It was just another middle finger, and historically, that’s worked out fine for them. They probably racked up points at home and didn’t give a second thought to what Americans might think.
RE: Fact #47 (Parasitic Castration: A Survival Strategy) – What’s up with the comments on this factrepublic lately? Can folks just learn stuff without cracking completely lame jokes? You’re not funny, and you don’t have to be.
RE: Fact #10 (Efren Ramirez’s Legal Action) – Folks, check out the Gallagher v. Gallagher 2 case…
Totally felt the same way!
RE: Fact #18 (Character Amnesia in China ) – Super cool typing trick! We can read them no problem, but writing them? That’s a different story. See, every little character has tiny bits that your brain can just skip over if you’re not constantly writing them by hand.
Plus, the usual ways we type digitally are all about sounds. We use a few symbols to make out the word, and the computer just fills in the right characters for us. This is a bit wild for us Westerners to get, since our letters pretty much match up perfectly with sounds. I heard somewhere that in Japan, katakana is getting more popular than kanji for this reason.
Anyway, Cangjie is this input method that’s all about the strokes you physically make. You actually build the character itself, instead of sounding it out. Makes you wonder if using that keeps you from forgetting characters as much.
As a Japanese person, I don’t really see katakana getting used more than kanji. Actually, what I’ve noticed over the past couple of decades is that people have started using more complex kanji, or even using kanji for words that used to be written in hiragana. I figure it’s because typing has made it super easy to pop in kanji.
Still, it’s true that I can’t really write a lot of kanji myself these days, and even if I have to do it by hand, I’ll still type out a draft on my computer first.
RE: Fact #10 (Efren Ramirez’s Legal Action) – Hold up, are they twins? ‘Cause the dude who played Napoleon’s got a twin too. Did they just round up everyone from a twin convention for the cast?
Seriously, it feels like twins just flock together. I’ve got at least seven coworkers who are twins, and even two pairs where both twins work here.
So, Efren Ramirez did an interview ages ago, and he was saying that Jon Heder’s twin and Efren’s twin actually ran into each other at Costco. Apparently, no one bought their story when they tried to explain they weren’t actually Napoleon and Pedro.
RE: Fact #13 (Billy Bob Thornton’s Unique Phobia) – Totally sounds like a vampire.
That’s just what a werewolf wants you to believe.
RE: Fact #23 (Wimbledon Embraces Technology) – Looks like not many tennis buffs are chiming in – honestly, I was a bit hesitant at first too, but most tournaments have been doing this for ages. It’s a lot more even-handed for the players, and there are solid rules for challenges with photo replays. Plus, the chair umpire is still in charge, and you get to hear Rod Laver call out balls. It’s pretty good.
So, there was this video clip not too long ago showing an electronic line call messing up big time, and the main umpire was like, “Nah, I can’t fix it.”
Fact #14 (No Scuds Fired in 2003 Iraq War) – Wrong! They did release several! They were intercepted.