1 UNSW Pupil Test for Aphantasia
In 2022, researchers at UNSW Sydney published a study showing that pupil size changes can objectively track visual imagination. When participants imagined bright or dark shapes with their eyes open, people without aphantasia (the inability to visualize things in your mind) still showed the expected pupil constriction or dilation, but 18 self-reported aphantasic participants demonstrated no meaningful pupil difference between imagined bright versus imagined dark objects.
2. In April 2013, Jennifer Thompson spotted the Stadium Events game for the NES behind the counter at the Steele Creek Goodwill in North Carolina, then used Wi-Fi to confirm what she had found before paying $8 with just $30 in her bank account. She took the game to a used video game store in Charlotte, where the clerk offered her all the cash in the register, but she refused and later successfully auctioned it online for $25,000. Collectors covet the cartridge because Bandai released it in 1987 for the short-lived Family Fun Fitness mat, then Nintendo bought the tech, relaunched it as the Power Pad, and reissued the game as World Class Track Meet, leaving the original Stadium Events release unusually scarce and its remaining stock a long-running mystery.
3. Makers build ballet pointe shoes by hand through a multi-step process that can take several days from start to finish. Dancers then put them through intense stress the moment they start working en pointe, crushing the box and breaking down the shank. Students typically get only about 10 to 20 usable hours from a pair, while professionals often burn through them even faster. In extreme cases, a dancer can retire a brand-new pair after a single performance.
4. Sneezing is involuntary, but the “achoo” part is not, because hearing people often add a learned sound effect to make the sneeze seem socially normal. Deaf people still sneeze, but many do not tack on an English-style “achoo” and instead only make whatever airflow noise the reflex naturally produces. Different countries teach different sneeze sound effects, so French speakers may go with “achoum,” while Japanese speakers use “hakashun.” Researchers say people cannot control the sneeze reflex itself, but they can still modify the sound in ways that match what their culture expects.
5. From the 1630s until the mid-19th century, the Tokugawa shogunate enforced a policy called Sakoku, which largely sealed Japan off from the outside world for more than 200 years. Foreign trade was tightly controlled and confined mostly to limited contacts with the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki, while most Japanese were forbidden to leave the country. In 1853, U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay with steam-powered warships and demanded that Japan open its ports. His show of force led to new treaties and the gradual end of Japan’s long era of isolation.
6 Prince Plays Reporters Instead Interview
Before Super Bowl XLI in 2007, NFL executives told Prince he would have to hold a standard media press conference as the halftime headliner. Prince flatly replied, “I do not do interviews,” then added that he would just play for the reporters, and he walked out and performed a mini concert for the press corps. The league weighed whether to push back but ultimately decided not to jeopardize the show over a few media rules he refused to follow.
7. In 2014, a 23-year-old man named John Boone was arrested in New York City on a misdemeanor charge and sent to Rikers Island to await his court date. Within a week, a judge ordered his release on just $2 bail, but his court-appointed lawyer never told him about the bail amount or the order. Boone stayed in jail for about five months, confused about why he was still behind bars and unable to reach anyone who could explain his status. He finally learned he could go free after a new attorney reviewed his case.
8. In October 1940, Benito Mussolini sent Italian forces from Albania into Greece, expecting a quick victory over a smaller, weaker neighbor. Instead, the Greek army counterattacked through the Pindus Mountains, pushed the Italians back into Albania, and inflicted roughly 102,000 casualties on Italian forces. The stalled campaign forced Nazi Germany to intervene in 1941 to rescue its ally and secure the Balkans. Even after German forces overran the country, Greece refused to surrender to Italy.
9. In 1900, American physician Jesse William Lazear, studying yellow fever transmission, deliberately let an infected mosquito bite him to test his belief that the disease spread through mosquito vectors. He soon developed yellow fever himself, confirming his hypothesis. Seventeen days after the experimental bite, Lazear died from the very disease he set out to understand.
10. In 2002, Eminem pulled off a rare entertainment sweep when he had the number one film at the box office with “8 Mile,” the number one album with “The Eminem Show,” and the number one single with “Lose Yourself” all at the same time. The movie dramatized a version of his early life in Detroit, while the album and single dominated radio and sales charts.
11 Overnight Orthokeratology Lenses Reshape Vision
Orthokeratology uses specially designed rigid contact lenses that you wear only while you sleep to reshape the cornea gently. By flattening the corneal surface overnight, these lenses temporarily correct refractive errors so you can see more clearly during the day without glasses or daytime contacts. The effect is reversible, so you have to keep wearing the lenses regularly at night to maintain clear vision.
12. In Ise, Japan, the most sacred shrine in the Shinto religion is not preserved as an ancient structure but torn down and rebuilt on a neighboring site every 20 years. For more than a thousand years, priests, carpenters, and artisans have followed this cycle, dismantling the old buildings and constructing identical new ones with fresh wood. The ritual renewal keeps the shrine perpetually young while preserving age-old craftsmanship and religious tradition.
13. A year after the F-14 Tomcat was withdrawn from U.S. Navy service in 2006, the Pentagon ordered every remaining aircraft to be shredded rather than sold or preserved. Officials feared that any surviving frames or spare parts might end up in Iran, the only other operator of the F-14 since the United States sold the jets to the Shah in the 1970s. To close that supply line, workers dismantled and destroyed stored Tomcats in U.S. boneyards piece by piece.
14. At 18, actor Dick Van Dyke learned that the March birthday he had celebrated his whole life was a lie and that he had actually been born in December 1925. His parents had quietly shifted the date to hide that he was conceived out of wedlock and to avoid the stigma attached to a “love child” in their small-town community.
15. In 1895, a 21-year-old Winston Churchill spent several months in Cuba and picked up a cigar-smoking habit, which he believed steadied his nerves. From then on, he smoked 8 to 10 cigars a day and kept that routine for nearly seven decades, right up until his death at 90. Throughout his life he stayed loyal to two Cuban brands, Romeo y Julieta and La Aroma de Cuba, and they became as much a part of his image as the bowler hat and bulldog stance.
16 Dolly Sinatra’s Rigged Slot Machine
When Frank Sinatra performed in Las Vegas, his mother, Dolly Sinatra, liked to spend her visits gambling in the casino. Staff knew she hated to lose at the slot machines, so they arranged a special one just for her. They rigged the machine so that whenever she played, it paid out, and she always walked away a winner.
17. As a 14-year-old eighth grader, Jack Black started using cocaine and quickly slipped into addiction a few years after his parents, Judith and Thomas, divorced. He gravitated toward older kids who were already partying and found himself in situations that felt increasingly dangerous and out of control. A school therapist who listened without judging him became his lifeline, giving him a safe place to talk about his fear and shame. With that support, Black chose sobriety and slowly pulled himself out of the drug scene instead of letting it define the rest of his life.
18. In 2021, a team of scientists at University Hospital Düsseldorf in Germany grew human stem cells into brain organoids that unexpectedly sprouted eye-like structures. These mini brains developed paired optic cups with light-sensitive retinal tissue, complete with lenses and corneal-like tissue that could respond to light signals.
19. When you shake a container of mixed nuts, the largest pieces, like Brazil nuts, mysteriously rise to the top instead of sinking. Physicists call this counterintuitive behavior the “Brazil nut effect,” a type of granular convection in which vibration causes smaller nuts to filter downward through gaps. As the container keeps moving, those small pieces effectively push the big ones upward, so the heaviest nuts float at the surface, where logic says they should never be.
20. In South Africa, William Chandler worked as a pilot for South African Airways for over 20 years before anyone discovered he lacked the proper airline transport pilot license. He reportedly used false credentials to secure and keep his job, flying international routes and carrying thousands of passengers during his career. His fraud came to light only after an in-flight incident triggered a detailed internal review of his qualifications. The airline then removed him from duty and opened an investigation.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Andrew Lyne’s Applauded Exoplanet Retraction
In 1991, British radio astronomer Andrew Lyne had electrified astronomy by announcing what he believed was the first planet found orbiting another star, a supposed world circling the pulsar PSR 1829-10. After rechecking his team’s calculations, he realized the apparent planetary signal was just an artifact of improperly accounting for Earth’s motion around the Sun. At a 1991 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, he walked up to the microphone, publicly retracted the discovery, and explained the mistake in front of his peers. Instead of criticism, he received thunderous applause for his honesty, and his retraction became a classic example of scientific integrity in action.
22. When the Christmas comedy Elf went into production, Zooey Deschanel was not the first choice for the role of Jovie and originally came in as a backup. She walked into her initial meeting for the film with dyed blonde hair, a look that surprised the team. The filmmakers liked the contrast and asked her to keep the blonde hair for the shoot, so Jovie’s look in the movie came directly from that moment of chance casting.
23. Growing up in Timmins, Ontario, singer Shania Twain began her singing career in bars at the age of 8, often performing until 1 a.m. to support her family financially through tips. In 1987, her parents died in a car accident, and at 21, she suddenly became the legal guardian of her younger siblings. She put her music career on hold to raise them and keep the family together before eventually returning to pursue the country music stardom that later made her world famous.
24. Japanese engineer Fujio Masuoka invented NOR and NAND flash memory while working at Toshiba, creating the nonvolatile storage technology that is widely used in microprocessors today. Instead of a major payout, the company gave him only a few hundred dollars as a bonus and even tried to demote him. Meanwhile, Intel made billions of dollars in sales on related flash memory technology.
25. Archaeologists have found that Neanderthals deliberately heated birch bark in underground, low-oxygen pits to produce birch tar, the earliest known synthetic material. This tar does not form on its own in nature, so making it required planning, controlled fires, and an understanding that heat and smoke could transform raw bark into a sticky substance. They used the resulting birch tar to attach stone tools to handles.
RE: Fact #3 (Handmade Pointe Shoes, Hours Lifespan) – Oh yeah, for professional ballerinas, 100%! The sole on the bottom is called a shank. When you start pointe, you’ll probably only use a few pairs all year. Some kids have feet so strong they’ll break the shank on their first time up! So, they make double-shanked shoes that hold up longer for strong feet. It’s tough and painful, and I’m glad I’m not doing it anymore, haha. But I do miss the soft sole ones.
My daughter always wished I’d gotten her the split sole soft shoes, like her friends had. Her ballet teacher specifically said that full sole ones helped strengthen young dancers’ feet. She probably never got a pair of split soles, unless she bought some for her high school dance team. She was really proud of how her feet looked in jazz shoes, saying it was so easy to point her toes. Her feet honestly looked great at competitions, too!
RE: Fact #34 (Su Hui’s 841 Character Star) – I just can’t picture myself falling for anyone this hard.
RE: Fact #38 (Kim Stenger’s Life Without Touch) – Maybe she just keeps getting burned by accident.
It’s even worse than that—you’re stuck watching your bathroom routine every single day. The urge to pee or poop is blocked, so her bladder can burst or she could get a blockage if she just forgets to hit the toilet consistently.
I remember watching this show where a character ran into that exact problem. He was chatting with someone and ended up saying you have to live by a checklist.
RE: Fact #22 (Zooey Deschanel Becomes Backup Jovie) – That movie dropped back in 2003—that’s like 22 years ago…
I find it kind of odd—it’s like a fresh, modern Christmas film to me, but at the same time it’s as old, if not older, than the classics from my ’90s childhood.
RE: Fact #29 (Dickens’ Lavish Christmas Carol Losses) – Man, those first runs must be killing it in value.
RE: Fact #30 (Temple Houston’s Soiled Dove Plea) – Yeah, most of that would totally get objected to in a modern closing argument—people are too careful about playing on jury emotions or hinting at future consequences. The lawyer could even be sanctioned for it. I just wish defense attorneys still had that kind of freedom.
RE: Fact #37 (American Cats Friendlier Than Japanese) – My wife and I took over her grandparents’ house. They never had pets and aren’t big on animals. The neighbors’ cats started meowing at the patio door as soon as we moved in. I walked out into the yard and they ran straight to me. They don’t care who it is; they just want attention.
RE: Fact #7 (John Boone’s Two Dollar Bail) – there was this kid Kalief Browder from The Bronx, 16 years old, got held at Rikers from 2010 to 2013 for allegedly swiping a backpack, spent 700 days in solitary, never even got a trial, never convicted, got messed up physically and mentally cuz his family couldnt pay bail and he wouldnt plead guilty to something he didnt do, and he killed himself two years after he finally got out
RE: Fact #39 (Bass Speaker’s Fake Fire Extinguisher) – This just left scientists scratching their heads—like, how do fans actually work and why does fire even care about airflow?
Airflow is a solid way to keep the air fresh and also push hot embers into dry grass or someone’s house, so I don’t get why fire would be “afraid” of it.
RE: Fact #20 (William Chandler’s Fake Pilot Career) – By then, he’s already got twenty years of experience—how many more credentials can he even rack up?
Most of the training you get for IFR and multiengine is all about handling those rare situations that can kill you if you’re not prepared. That “pilot” might have twenty years under his belt, but he never actually ran an engine‑out on takeoff, never read up on the procedures in a book, or practiced them with a pro instructor. So one day he’s commander when an engine fails on departure and stalls the aircraft, killing everyone on board. Everyone will be asking why he didn’t just push the stick forward like they taught in flight school – only to discover he never went to flight school at all.
RE: Fact #42 (Xerox 914 Copier With Extinguisher) – A 1967 article in The New Yorker by John Brooks went into the whole deal between an office secretary and her copier.
“She told me that a Xerox tech had warned her not to be scared of the 914 because the machine would pick up on her fear and, like a mischievous kid, start acting up.”
That’s some hilarious sh*t.
RE: Fact #20 (William Chandler’s Fake Pilot Career) – He was a pilot, but not the right kind of pilot for long‑haul flights. Still, he forged his license to claim he was the second one.
RE: Fact #41 (Japanese Rail Pointing And Calling) – I’m a flight instructor, so I use this trick all the time. When a student talks about what they’re seeing or thinking, it doesn’t just tell me what’s going on in their head – it also helps them organize their own thoughts, gives them a sense of order, and cuts down the overwhelm.
RE: Fact #3 (Handmade Pointe Shoes, Hours Lifespan) – I remember reading a really interesting fact about the people who make ballet shoes. It’s often just typical working-class men, and a lot of them aren’t even big fans of ballet, or have never actually been to a show! Yet, they’re considered among the most skilled shoemakers anywhere, and elite ballerinas are always trying to get their hands on what they make.
RE: Fact #23 (Shania Twain Singing For Survival) – I don’t really mind how skilled someone is; it just feels kinda off to see an eight‑year‑old hanging out in a bar, especially around midnight.
Yeah, there are some pretty family‑friendly bars here in Wisconsin, so maybe her part of Canada is similar. But staying open until 1 am is still a bit extreme. It’s not weird to bring the kids to a Friday fish fry, but most people finish up by around eight.
I’d say a bar that lets kids work until 1 am is definitely not family‑friendly.
It’s honestly really unsettling. Shania herself has talked about how much she loathed that part of her childhood, saying, “I hated going into bars and being around drunks. But I loved the music and so I survived.” It really highlights the extreme poverty and necessity that pushed her family to do what they did.
Oh my gosh I looked it up and it’s terrible. She could only perform after last call, made twenty bucks a night, and sometimes the bars had metal screens so it felt like she was in a cage. Her mom would wake her up at two or three in the morning to go on stage.
I saw her perform at the Zoo – I think it was called Central – back when I was in college in South Porcupine. I was underage so we slipped me in from the back. She was an amazing performer, and this was around the time her first CD dropped. I grabbed a copy that had her autograph on it; the label looked like it’d been printed out of a printer. She seemed so young among that crowd. It took real guts to do what she did.
Fast forward thirty years, and I ran into her at a checkout counter in Wanaka, New Zealand, where I was living. We had a great chat in French. She’s a wonderful woman and a true inspiration. She owned a station up there – not sure if she still does.
RE: Fact #27 (McDonald’s Japan MP3 Trojan Giveaway) – So it’s just an accidental trojan, huh?
That’s exactly how my wife ended up pregnant.
RE: Fact #28 (Richard Gatling’s Humane Machine Gun) – Just like how the guillotine was supposed to be a more humane way of killing people – and it kinda worked that way because death usually happened right away – it also made mass executions way easier and more organized. The thing is, a guillotine can be built out of wood with parts you already have around, so once you’ve got the device, you can take down dozens of people in rapid succession without much fuss.
Do you have a source for that? I’m not sure how the guillotine could be cheaper or faster than classic methods like “a dude with an axe” or “a tree with a rope.” It’s definitely more humane, but it seems oddly easier to plan out.
RE: Fact #4 (Why Achoo Is Learned Sound) – Seriously, do people actually say ‘achoo’ when they sneeze? I always figured that was just a sound effect for writing it down.
Yeah, some folks totally do that. I actually heard somebody almost forget it, then quickly blurt it out right at the very end.
Both my mom and dad do this. They’ll sneeze like normal, then shout ‘CHUUU’ right at the very end.
RE: Fact #48 (Beethoven Performs From Blank Pages) – If you’re into classical or piano music at all, and you haven’t heard Beethoven’s piano concertos yet, I seriously suggest listening to every single one—yes, all of them! Even though they’re long, they’re super accessible and a joy to hear.
RE: Fact #41 (Japanese Rail Pointing And Calling) – I used to do that on a tiny manual tofu and veggie‑burger maker. I’d have to time a couple of boils in the vats, so I’d shout out the start and end times. It felt kinda dorky at first, but it really forces you to think about it more—otherwise you’d just forget all the timings and order.
Being a chef, these phrases are second nature to me—I almost forget that people outside the kitchen don’t think like this. In my day‑to‑day chat I’ll hear stuff like “3 macs, 2 marrow!” and then reply, “Heard 3 macs, 2 marrow!” or “3 macs, 2 marrow walking!” and then say, “Thank you, 3 macs, 2 marrow!” I actually have to pause myself before saying “thank you” every time someone does what I ask of them in everyday life. lol
RE: Fact #36 (Michael Phelps Backstroke And ADHD) – Phelps is an amazing role model. If you kids out there want to follow in his footsteps, all you gotta do is try hard, believe in yourself, practice constantly, grow to 6’4”, and have Size 14 webbed feet. Literally anyone could be the next Michael Phelps. They just need the heart of a champion, and a skeleton with the perfect dimensions for swimming.
RE: Fact #33 (Weird Al’s Banned Nuclear Carols) – I’ve got a Dr. Demento Christmas CD that has this track on it—just heard it again before Christmas.
RE: Fact #16 (Dolly Sinatra’s Rigged Slot Machine) – Wow, I didn’t realize you could actually tell the casino you don’t like losing money. I’ll definitely keep that in mind for my next trip.
Yeah, you totally can if your son is Frank Sinatra and the mob wants him to keep performing at their casino. Then they definitely need to ensure his mom doesn’t get upset and tell him to quit.
Seriously, why isn’t everyone doing that? Exploit Vegas with this one simple trick!
RE: Fact #21 (Andrew Lyne’s Applauded Exoplanet Retraction) – I remember that happening back when I was a PhD student in astrophysics. Inside our group we’d joke that Lyne and his team had used ultra‑precise pulsar timing to find a planet orbiting a one‑solar‑mass star in just a year. Yet at the same time everyone respected how professionally he handled the retraction—complete with a hefty dose of, “I hope I never have to do that!” It was a sobering lesson for all of us.
RE: Fact #10 (Eminem’s Film Album Single Sweep) – Prince actually pulled off something like that with Purple Rain too.
RE: Fact #35 (Pilgrims Attack Thomas Morton’s Maypole) – They didn’t go to America to give everyone religious freedom – they went there to follow their own faith alone. – Stephen Fry
RE: Fact #47 (U.S. Craft Brewery Boom Decade) – Everyone thinks running a brewery means making, selling, and drinking beer. The truth? It’s all about cleaning – loads and loads of it.
RE: Fact #19 (Brazil Nut Effect in Nuts) – It happens with Lego bins too. If you’re after the little bits, you’ve got to dig through them.
RE: Fact #7 (John Boone’s Two Dollar Bail) – such a waste of time and taxpayer money
RE: Fact #19 (Brazil Nut Effect in Nuts) – It’s way easier to fit a tiny bit of something between two huge items than to try and squeeze a big item between two small ones.
RE: Fact #31 (Kotoku Wamura’s Lifesaving Fudai Floodgate) – From the article: “The village’s only casualty was one missing person who went to inspect his boat in the fishing port, located outside of the wall’s protection, immediately after the earthquake.” That’s actually amazing given where it is.
RE: Fact #11 (Overnight Orthokeratology Lenses Reshape Vision) – Absolutely! I’ve been using these for around two years, and honestly, they’re fantastic. No more needing glasses, no more contacts. I can see perfectly when I’m swimming, and I don’t stress about rubbing out a contact if some dust gets in my eye. Plus, no more battling dry contacts late at night. My eyesight has never been better. I opted for this since I wasn’t keen on LASIK. It’s also called Ortho-K.
I actually used them myself for about a decade before finally getting LASIK. They were definitely a big improvement over regular contacts or eyeglasses, but I’m incredibly glad I went with LASIK eventually.
It’s really great that everything went well for you, but I’ve heard so many awful stories over the years about how LASIK can go wrong for some folks. Stories so bad they talk about feeling suicidal or like their whole life is destroyed. Because of all that, I just couldn’t ever take that gamble with my own vision.
RE: Fact #36 (Michael Phelps Backstroke And ADHD) – As a swim coach, I can tell you there are literally thousands of these stories in the Olympics. Swimming is fantastic for kids with ADHD and autism too. Plus there’re so many tales of children who almost drowned, got lessons, and ended up becoming Olympic champions. Autistic kids actually drown more often than non‑autistic ones, but if they get lessons that risk drops about eight times.
My brother‑in‑law is severely autistic and he just loves water—whether it’s pools, hot tubs or the ocean, no difference. I swear he could sit in a hot tub for hours like a sous‑vide machine, lol. But we have to get him out because staying that long isn’t safe.
Missy Franklin’s mom nearly drowned, so she got some lessons after that. Cullen Jones almost drowned too and then went into lessons. Mike Burton was hit by a car as a kid, did physical therapy in a pool, and ended up winning three Olympic golds.
RE: Fact #7 (John Boone’s Two Dollar Bail) –the initial lawyer should be disbarred.
RE: Fact #33 (Weird Al’s Banned Nuclear Carols) – One of my all-time favorite Weird Al songs—plus that other one from Frank’s 2000‑TV collection.
I’ve always loved Weasel Stomping Day.
“Dare to Be Stupid”’s been my go‑to anthem ever since I was nine.
RE: Fact #4 (Why Achoo Is Learned Sound) – There’s that funny line from ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’ where Isaac Hayes says, ‘I am Asneeze. Father of Achoo.’
Also, from the same movie, ‘And I am Robin Hood, and unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.’
RE: Fact #28 (Richard Gatling’s Humane Machine Gun) – Sounds like one of those PR slogans that gets tossed out later, right? “Sure thing, officer—I’m just a little tipsy, but I’m speeding, so I hit the road faster and it’s actually safer!”
Statically most accidents happen at intersections. That’s why I speed up and ignore red lights—just to get through those corners as fast as possible.
I think Clarkson’s been using that exact logic before.
RE: Fact #15 (Winston Churchill’s Lifelong Cigar Habit) – He didn’t really smoke every single one all the way through. It’s more like he’d just light up a bunch of cigars each day, but a lot of them would just burn down on their own, barely smoked at all.
RE: Fact #47 (U.S. Craft Brewery Boom Decade) – The trend is definitely flipping now – so many breweries are shutting down. Rouge Brewing over in Oregon just closed shop, and they were one of the OGs in our craft scene. No more Dead Guy Ale 🙁
Rogue really does suck. Back when craft beer was a rare find, it felt cool to have something other than the boring macros, but they never actually delivered and never adapted to the times. Sure the trend is turning around now, but back in 2019 we were at laughably unsustainable highs. Even after a big shakeout, we’ll still be left with the best craft beer scene ever—outside that five‑year period of insane oversaturation.
The first hint that we were in a craft‑beer bubble was when Constellation bought Ballast Point for a billion dollars. I remember everyone in the industry saying, “Okay, this is way out of hand,” and it was the only thing people talked about for weeks after that. Then all those new breweries opened just to jump on the fad got put under pressure by investors who expected the same kind of returns, even though that’s a terrible fit for an industry with no quick payoff. Investors began pulling their money out and breweries started shutting down. Beer overall has been down for several years now, and the craft segment has taken a hit as people drink less, trade down, or stick to legacy or larger regional/local brands that can survive. The craft‑beer boom of the mid‑aughts through the mid‑teens was an awesome time to work in the industry, but it’s been hollowed out as the market corrects from massive overexpansion and we keep seeing more breweries close their doors.
They really screwed themselves over. Once it came out that they treated their employees like crap, they just collapsed.
Honestly, nobody in the Portland beer scene was sad about them leaving.
They’re mostly doing it for themselves. A lot of these guys know how to brew, but they don’t really get running a business—especially a restaurant. I’ve seen two great breweries that just made bad expansion choices and messed up their operations, and they shut down right away.
RE: Fact #48 (Beethoven Performs From Blank Pages) – Did he write the solo elsewhere, or did he just improvise it onstage from those few notes?
Improv was pretty standard back then—people were expected to wing it, even though composers would often write out a solo in the score and use that for their first run. So he probably had some parts planned ahead of time and just made up the rest on the spot.
RE: Fact #6 (Prince Plays Reporters Instead Interview) – Come on, it’s Prince! No one’s going to tell him ‘no,’ are they?
For real, I was just thinking that! Booking Prince probably costs a fortune and isn’t simple. And to lose out on him just because you won’t let him play a little longer? That’s beyond dumb.
My understanding is the NFL actually doesn’t pay musicians for halftime shows. The league only covers the production costs, so artists essentially perform for the massive exposure and to boost their music sales.
RE: Fact #15 (Winston Churchill’s Lifelong Cigar Habit) – Are those brands even considered good?
I’m not really into cigars, but the Romeo y Julietas I’ve tried were pretty good. No idea about the other one though.
I’m not really sure what everyone else is talking about, but as someone who smokes cigars and lives where it’s easy to buy Cubans, R&J is definitely one of the top Cuban brands, super respected. Yeah, you can argue about which Cuban is the absolute best, and technically the brand did split after the revolution, but among actual cigar smokers, it’s a highly regarded Cuban. Sounds like a lot of people are mixing up the non-Cubans made after the revolution with the real Cuban ones sold outside the US, that’s probably why opinions are all over the place. I haven’t tried those non-Cuban versions made for the American market. Just a side note, there are actually some amazing non-Cuban cigars out there that are even better than Cubans, but I can’t speak for the non-Cuban R&J because I’ve never smoked them!
RE: Fact #11 (Overnight Orthokeratology Lenses Reshape Vision) – Yeah, I actually gave them a try. The issue for me was that if I didn’t sleep flat on my back, my eyesight would be totally unpredictable the next morning. I never knew if I’d be able to see clearly or what my actual prescription would be that day, since they tended to shift out of place. I just can’t sleep on my back, so I ended up stopping them and went back to wearing glasses. You should definitely chat with your doctor about it.
My buddy used these back in high school, and she mentioned she absolutely needed a solid eight hours of sleep for them to properly work. She figured it was something about the pressure from your eyelids while you’re actually asleep that made them effective; just closing your eyes while awake didn’t do the trick. If she occasionally didn’t get a full night’s rest or slept poorly, her vision wouldn’t be completely corrected. On those days, she’d have to hold her regular glasses slightly away from her face just to read anything. She’d get so annoyed because her glasses were too powerful, but her natural vision wasn’t strong enough, so she’d just hold them out front, haha.
RE: Fact #45 (Driftless Area Ice Age Refusal) – That place is a real mess—backward and unappealing in every way. It’s truly awful, so don’t even think about spending your money on a trip there. I wouldn’t suggest fly fishing at all; the fish are horrible and you should steer clear completely.
Absolutely! The roads are awful—especially for motorcycle riders. I’d probably enjoy a trip to the Black Hills or North Carolina more than this.
Cows—cows and bulls all over the place. The fish? Super tiny, looks like something kids doodle. Best to stay away.
Iowa’s basically just a flat fly‑over state—especially that northeast corner. Don’t bother coming here.
RE: Fact #16 (Dolly Sinatra’s Rigged Slot Machine) – “…because they knew she didn’t like to lose.” Uh, who actually enjoys losing?
RE: Fact #5 (Sakoku and Perry Open Japan) – The country wasn’t really shut off completely. They actually stayed connected with Korea and China, using the lord of Tsushima and the Ryukyu king. Plus, they kept track of a good number of Japanese people living across Southeast Asia. They even assigned Dutch traders in Nagasaki to bring in European books on science and technology. It was definitely more about controlled interactions than being truly isolated.
Calling it ‘keeping in touch’ with Korea and China is really downplaying how they invaded and tried to take over Korea back in the Imjin War, from 1592 to 1598, during the Joseon era. If Admiral Yi Sunsin hadn’t won the Battle of Noryang, which was one of the biggest naval battles ever, Japan’s imperialist control would have begun way before 1910.
Hold on, though, that happened before Sakoku. So did Japan keep messing with Korea after 1633?
Just to check the timeline, wasn’t the Imjin War before Japan went into isolation?
What I find really cool here is how many Japanese people learned to read Dutch, but not actually speak it. The only exceptions were folks from those specific families of hereditary interpreters who were permitted inside that small Dutch area in Nagasaki. It was mainly to keep up with scientific knowledge through translated writings, and they called this ‘rangaku’.
I once read Fukuzawa Yukichi’s life story, and there’s a section where he finally meets a Westerner who isn’t Dutch. He’s totally surprised to discover Holland is just a mid-tier nation, and that other countries are way stronger than Holland. Plus, practically no one bothers to learn Dutch outside of Holland itself, or that tiny group of Dutch experts in Japan.
Personally, I find Dutch much simpler to read than to actually speak. The way they sound is pretty funny.
They weren’t just “keeping in touch” with China, Chinese people actually lived right there in Nagasaki. They were the only non-Japanese people allowed on mainland Japan. The Dutch, however, were stuck on that man-made island called Dejima.
The issue was that the Chinese government would only take official visits if they followed Chinese rules, which meant they wouldn’t recognize any other emperor. But the Japanese insisted on their own emperor’s title. So, the trick they came up with was sending official groups to Korea for special events and then having talks with Chinese representatives there because of the whole protocol thing.
RE: Fact #9 (Jesse Lazear’s Deadly Mosquito Experiment) – That just makes me think about how big a deal ‘tastes like’ was for chemistry studies way back when.
People actually used to taste urine to figure out if someone had diabetes.
Geology did this kind of thing too. It wasn’t odd at all for people to figure out how big soil grains were by tasting them. No thanks.
Our sense of taste and smell actually acts like a super accurate detector. When you don’t have fancy tech, like those ‘black magic’ mass spectrometers, you just gotta use whatever tools you’ve got handy.
Just picture all the artificial sweeteners and other stuff we’ve probably missed out on finding because silly lab rules these days say you can’t taste your work! If you stick strictly to the rules, you won’t even accidentally get a taste, like what happened last time!
RE: Fact #9 (Jesse Lazear’s Deadly Mosquito Experiment) – Death means squat next to being proven right, Jesse William ‘Night Haunter’ Lazear might’ve said.
RE: Fact #38 (Kim Stenger’s Life Without Touch) – It feels like the setup for a classic Lifetime or Hallmark flick. I can picture the tagline: “She’s touched so many lives, yet the one thing she’ll never touch…is herself.”
RE: Fact #42 (Xerox 914 Copier With Extinguisher) – Xerox came up with this game‑changing lease deal—toner, service, parts and maintenance all rolled into a single $95 a month bill. They raked in billions of dollars, and the customers were thrilled.
I know a family of semi‑mobbed up millionaires in New Jersey. All their money comes from skimming on those service and maintenance contracts around Lower Manhattan.
I’m not surprised at all. Back in my day working in the industry, our service techs would get shaken down by some pretty unsavory customers. It didn’t happen often—luckily—but I heard a lot of stories and it happened at least twice while I was there.
RE: Fact #14 (Dick Van Dyke’s Hidden Birthday) – Let’s make it okay to lie to our kids, but only until they hit eighteen.
Sounds like Santa just joined the conversation.
Last year, my five-year-old wrote Santa a letter saying, ‘I’m sorry for saying you aren’t real, I’d like six presents please.’
RE: Fact #32 (North Korea India College Megastadiums) – When it’s game day, Beaver Stadium feels like the fourth biggest town in the whole state.
RE: Fact #31 (Kotoku Wamura’s Lifesaving Fudai Floodgate) – Winnipeg built one of the most expensive floodways in our area—one of the biggest land‑moving projects ever. Back then people called it Duffy’s Ditch to mock the politician who pushed it, saying it was a money waste. Turns out it’s been used dozens of times, saved the city from huge floods at least three times, and has paid for itself over tenfold.
It’s actually about 100 times the impact—costing around five hundred million dollars in today’s money, but preventing roughly forty billion dollars in damage, and it’s now set up to handle a one‑in‑700‑year flood.
This is just solid proof that we totally underestimate ecological disasters.
On average, every dollar spent on mitigation saves about fourteen dollars in response and recovery costs. But people are still reluctant to invest because the public will lash out over the high price of structural mitigation projects.
The benefits end up going to people in the future while the costs come from those living now. That’s why future folks feel grateful and current folks get mad. Sometimes the “future” crowd is basically just a slightly older version of the present, so politicians win that way too. But in this particular fact, the future people are actually one generation ahead of us right now.
RE: Fact #44 (Taylor Mitchell’s Fatal Coyote Attack) – What the heck? Coyotes are just plain cowards. That’s totally weird and out of character. Were they hybrids with wolves? Did anyone do any analysis on them?
Some folks say the coyotes in NS are kind of hybrids with Ontario wolves, but there’re actually no wolves in Nova Scotia at all. The coyotes here are pretty big though. We’ve got a few around our house and my wife—she’s from BC—noticed they look much larger than the ones she grew up seeing back west. When I was a teenager, my dad shot one that was eating our ducks; it was almost as big as our female German shepherd.
We have coyotes in Ottawa, even right in the city, and they’re not as skittish as I thought. One of them just walked past my car like nothing was happening—just stared at me.
There’s coyotes in Seattle because of the rabbits, and I’ve seen three or four. I was coming home late at night and one of them hid behind my recycling bin with her tail sticking out. It was kind of adorable.
A 2022 study showed that coyotes in that region had been mostly eating moose, which means they weren’t finding as much small prey as usual and had gotten used to going after bigger animals out of necessity. Because of that, their hunting habits have slowly shifted—now they’re bolder and more aggressive toward people, even when they normally wouldn’t try to tackle a human at all.
RE: Fact #50 (Bill Murray’s Groundhog Bite Scars) – In the old Abbott and Costello TV ShowBingo, the chimp was a real crowd‑pleaser, but it kept biting Lou Costello all the time and no one else. That’s why they pulled the plug on Bingo.
Chimps are such nasty, violent little bastards. I have no idea why they were so popular for a while.
I reckon humans are just a touch weaker than the rest of the apes—basically regular ape strength, because we’ve got this one gene that makes us the nerdy, puny sidekicks in the Great Ape family.
RE: Fact #34 (Su Hui’s 841 Character Star) – Picture yourself as her husband, feeling all this love.
It turned out to be a breakup poem, and that’s why he brought her back.
Sounds about right—ugh, he even took another wife while he was gone for a bit. The shorter poems show how she’s heartbroken and jealous. He really didn’t deserve her!
Hey babe, I tried to write you an insane palindrome poem but couldn’t. Here’s a sudoku instead—will you take me back?
RE: Fact #15 (Winston Churchill’s Lifelong Cigar Habit) – And get this, the guy drank so much hard liquor, even Don Draper would’ve been like, ‘Whoa, slow down there!’ It was totally just his genes. Seriously, kids, do not try this at home. You’d totally kick the bucket.
Yeah, you’d be dead, and way before turning 90 too.
His son actually tried to live that same kind of life, and he passed away pretty young. So I guess you need some serious luck along with those genetics.
From what I’ve heard, his son actually drank and smoked way more than his dad did. Plus, he smoked regular cigarettes, not cigars. There’s a big, big difference there.
Here’s what he was drinking, day by day: Scotch and soda in the morning. A whole bottle of wine or champagne at lunch. More Scotch in the afternoon, maybe a gin martini. Dinner meant more champagne and wine. Then brandy and port to finish the evening.
Turns out, his drinking wasn’t quite as wild as everyone thought. Like, his scotch and soda would supposedly just have a super tiny bit of scotch in it.
Some of those YouTube channels about liquor actually tried to copy his drinking habits and, well, it didn’t go so well for them.
RE: Fact #37 (American Cats Friendlier Than Japanese) – I keep thinking about that video of the Asian girl where her cat just stares at her for a few seconds and then slaps her in the mouth. Sure, it’s typical cat stuff, but it still cracks me up.
Is that the one where she’s putting a cat face over Snapchat and then showing it to her actual cat?
RE: Fact #23 (Shania Twain Singing For Survival) – She also had her husband ditch her for her best friend, but then she married that friend’s ex—who turned out to be a big upgrade—so she actually came out on top.
It might make “You’re Still The One” feel a bit disappointing because that song’s all about her and Mutt Lange, but I recall an interview where she gave a great take on it – something like the music belongs to fans and their relationships now. Edit: I think it was on Song Exploder, which is a really cool podcast by the way.
She also mentioned that when she sings it she’s reminded of how much her parents loved each other 🥲
RE: Fact #24 (Fujio Masuoka’s Underpaid Flash Invention) – The way this fact’s framed is a bit misleading—it makes it sound like Toshiba was acting vindictive when really they just didn’t see the value in his invention and were incompetent. Intel caught wind of it in 1984 and started mass‑producing it by 1988, but Toshiba kept dragging its feet until the late ’90s. Masuoka ended up suing Toshiba and settled out of court for about $758,000.
RE: Fact #14 (Dick Van Dyke’s Hidden Birthday) – I kept thinking, why exactly at eighteen? Turns out, he actually hit eighteen way back in 1943. The whole thing came out when he was chatting with his mom about the WWII draft in February of ’44. He figured he’d turn eighteen the next month, March ’44. That’s when his mother admitted his real birthday had already passed a couple months prior, making him already eighteen. She then spun this tale about him being born early. The best bit from the article is when his mom, smiling, tells him, ‘Don’t worry, you’re fine now. We just moved your birth date up to when you would’ve been full term.’ He wanted more details than she’d give, so he went to his Grandmother Van Dyke. Both sets of grandparents lived close by, but Grandma Van Dyke was always the most direct one. He dropped by her place after school and asked what she recalled about problems from his ‘early birth.’ She looked like she was about to say ‘bullsh*t.’ She asked who told him such a crazy story. When he said ‘My mother,’ she just told him, ‘You weren’t premature.’ He was like, ‘I wasn’t?’ Then she dropped the bombshell: ‘You were conceived before your parents were married.’
Haha, my aunt just loves telling everyone at family get-togethers how she was a ten-pound ‘premature baby’. It’s super funny, but also just incredibly awkward, you know?
Oh yeah, it’s totally normal for the first kid to show up a month or two early, especially when they were conceived right on the wedding day.
RE: Fact #31 (Kotoku Wamura’s Lifesaving Fudai Floodgate) – The village honored him at his gravesite and apologized profusely for all the criticism he faced while he was alive. Big props to the folks who do the right thing even when it’s unpopular.
Is it just like how Chicago honored the person they blamed and ridiculed until she died because someone claimed her cow started the fire that killed a lot of people? They made her life miserable, and now that she’s gone, people can say at least we apologized and honored her, so we’re good.
I think the biggest blunder Chicago ever made was leasing its parking meters to a Middle Eastern country for 50 years. They got a nice sum up front, but those meters are supposed to bring in billions—now that money is flowing to a foreign power.
RE: Fact #14 (Dick Van Dyke’s Hidden Birthday) – Back then, society was way more judgmental about kids born outside of marriage. We’re talking a hundred years ago, after all.
Actually, not quite. It wasn’t totally crazy or the end of everything for folks to have a shotgun wedding back then. A kid in that situation wasn’t seen as illegitimate because their parents actually were married when he arrived. His parents probably just didn’t want him digging for answers and forcing them to explain things. Plus, they really should’ve just lied about their wedding date, not about when he was born.
RE: Fact #21 (Andrew Lyne’s Applauded Exoplanet Retraction) – Back in 1991, Andrew Lyne and Matthew Bailes claimed they’d found a pulsar with a planet orbiting it—apparently the first exoplanet ever spotted. But once they announced it, they double‑checked their data and realized they hadn’t properly removed Earth’s motion around the Sun from their calculations. When they redid the analysis correctly, the pulse timing variations vanished, showing there was actually no planet around PSR 1829‑10. Lyne later admitted the mistake at an American Astronomical Society meeting, and his peers gave him a standing ovation for owning up so openly.
It’s kind of funny—he was only a few years shy of discovering the first exoplanet.
I had no idea that documented exoplanets were such a recent development. Insane.
RE: Fact #16 (Dolly Sinatra’s Rigged Slot Machine) – Keep her happy, keep Frank happy, keep the cash flowing. It was a pretty smart move for their business. Though, it’s likely illegal now. Can you even imagine trying to get to that slot machine after she left? They probably rolled it out just for her when she arrived and put it away as soon as she was done. Or maybe bouncers just stood guard, telling people, ‘Sorry, this game isn’t for you. Go find another spot.’
RE: Fact #43 (DARVO Deny Attack Reverse Offender) – Now that people know it better, it’s kind of recursive because it mirrors what a real victim might do when someone accuses them: they deny being abusive, throw mean stuff at the abuser, and flip the roles so they’re the victim and the offender.
I’ve been thinking about this too—if someone with a twisted agenda slanders me out of spite, what can I do that doesn’t come off as DARVO?
From what I’ve seen, people usually try to steer the conversation by framing it a certain way and pushing you onto one topic. The trick is to keep questioning that framework. A long time ago in school there was this dumb rule: “You can only answer yes or no. Do your parents know you’re gay?” The bully would force the other kid to pick yes or no and wouldn’t accept any other reply. Anyone who’s an adult would see right away that the question was loaded with hidden motives, so the smart move is to dismantle it instead of answering. I’ve trained myself to challenge authority: ask “Who are you to challenge me on this?” “Do you lead by example?” and “Is this question fair?” But honestly, the best response most people miss is simply refusing to talk. Some folks think they have to answer any question that comes their way, but we don’t owe anyone an explanation. We can say no to a conversation, make our own choices without explaining them, and insist on respect. A manipulator stays in the chat because they want power. If you don’t care about controlling them, just put up a wall between you two and move on with your life. You don’t need the abuser; they need you.
Walk away is the simplest thing to do. Just leave the psychs behind and let everyone know you’ve got no interest in hanging out with them.
You’ve got to look at it from a “Cover Your Ass” angle. Keep notes, records, and document everything they say. At work that’s as easy as sending a confirmation email after you talk in person. At home just take screenshots and make dated lists of their behaviors. They’ll deny it all the time, but if you’ve got proof of their shenanigans you can keep the focus on what they’re doing. It still gets messy, though. Most people who do this have a lifetime of experience manipulating others.
I’ve dealt with this kind of thing at work. I supervised someone for a year who kept using deny, attack, and reverse‑victim tactics. Since his behavior was predictable and I’d known him for 2½ years before becoming his boss, I kicked off the year with a one‑on‑one where I spelled out exactly how we’d evaluate him and what ratings meant. I tracked his performance all year long. When the review came around, I gave him the lowest rating – and it was the most fully documented rating I’ve ever written. His reply was the same DARVO pattern he’d used all year. That predictability is what makes the difference. A real victim might react emotionally in the moment; DARVO shows up as a repeated strategy over time and across situations, especially when accountability can’t be avoided.
RE: Fact #45 (Driftless Area Ice Age Refusal) – Wow, it’s wild that the “forgot to get glaciated” area ends up in the Midwest. It makes me wish we’d have a Driftless National Park before it gets ruined.
I love driving on the highway that runs along the Mississippi in this area – it’s one of my all‑time favorites in the whole country. The river is so wide that the hills reflect off its surface perfectly, and there are some great hilltop pull-offs for sunsets.
Yeah, totally! Next time you’re in the area, head into Saint Paul, MN. Take Highway 61, then turn onto Shepard and Warner Roads—turns out you’ve been driving along an old river bed all this time. Those hills a half‑mile apart? They’re actually ancient banks from Glacial River Warren. It’s mind‑blowing.
RE: Fact #2 (Jennifer Thompson’s $25,000 NES Find) – Hey, I actually worked at the Charlotte, NC store where she brought that in! We closed a few years back, but seriously, her visit was the highlight for us. All the media attention we got was amazing advertising for a little business like ours. The place was called Save Point Video Games. I recall us offering her nine grand, but she said no, and yeah, that was definitely the smarter move, ha!
So, was that ‘all the money in the register’ thing just an exaggeration, or did you seriously keep a ton of cash around?
From my years in retail, especially back when cash was how most people paid, your till would never have that kind of money. Stores only kept enough on hand to handle daily transactions. On a busy, profitable day, you’d just swap out the cash drawer for a new one and move the extra money into the safe until it went to the bank that evening.
Oh yeah, totally hyperbole, haha. We actually offered her a check for nine grand.
That’s a pretty solid offer, honestly, considering it ended up going for twenty-five thousand. My local game shop would usually only give you twenty percent of what they expected to sell an item for.
Honestly, unless you’re some well-known dealer in super old artifacts, that’s gotta be the absolute coolest story you could ever get from a job like that. Someone actually walking in with something genuine and getting to realize you’re staring at an authentic rarity. Most of the used items you make money from won’t be a ‘let’s offer a crazy amount, this is practically an investment’ kind of deal, not even close.
RE: Fact #42 (Xerox 914 Copier With Extinguisher) – That takes me back to my engineer grandfather. He worked at a place that got its first computer in the late ’40s or early ’50s. It was room‑sized, and they still had to check every calculation by hand because it would sometimes spit out the wrong answer.
RE: Fact #46 (Frank Culbertson’s 9/11 From Orbit) – That’s not even the whole picture. Turns out he actually knew Charles Burlingame from back in the day—both were classmates at the Air Force Academy. Burlingame was the captain of Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon.
RE: Fact #32 (North Korea India College Megastadiums) – I just learned that the biggest stadiums in the world are actually designed for propaganda, patriotism, and America’s love of yelling at college kids for a full three‑and‑a‑half hours.
It’s pretty amusing when folks from outside the U.S. start to see how huge college sports are here. I’ve just found out that 50,000‑100,000 seat football stadiums aren’t really the standard over there.
Probably because college football only exists in the US.
Isn’t college football basically the second tier of American football? In that sense it could be compared to the English Championship, which is a pretty huge league in terms of attendance and TV viewership.
RE: Fact #18 (Mini Brain Organoids Grow Eyes) – Hey, I’m an immunologist and we actually have some pretty intense names for this stuff. Pluripotent germ cells are what trigger tumors and cause stem cells to go haywire. Basically, the cells get all confused about their identity and think, “Forget it—I’m a tooth cell now,” or “I’m an eyeball.” When it happens in the womb we call it embryonic chaos; when it shows up in a tumor we call it a teratoma—Greek for “monster tumor.” Before modern medicine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people thought this was dark magic.
What an awesome band name—“Embryonic Chaos” sounds perfect.
None of that is what this is. It’s an organoid—basically a developmental model made from 3‑D induced pluripotent stem cells taken from human patients, then steered toward specific cell types and simple organ shapes. These models aren’t just random or chaotic; they’re built by exposing the cells to particular growth media at precise times that mimic the in‑utero environment, hoping to trigger the right signals for regionalization into a certain organ type or structure. Source: me, a PhD neuroscientist who builds and uses these models every day.
Sure thing—if you look at the original study, the scientists added retinol, just like during normal eye development, and that’s exactly what let the eye cups take shape.
I guess we’ve finally shown that dark magic isn’t real?
Sounds like another sign that there’s some dark magic at play, rather than evidence against it.
Sure thing—lots of folks still decide to dive into economics.
Did we actually prove dark magic is a myth? Not really, but we did show that alchemy has some truth to it: people managed to turn lead into gold. It was an insanely expensive, tough and demanding process to make a tiny bit of it—less than a trillionth of a gram. Not worth the effort, but back in medieval times the scientists were right when they thought it could be done.
RE: Fact #27 (McDonald’s Japan MP3 Trojan Giveaway) – I wouldn’t touch a USB from McDonald’s, lol. Ever since the Xenoblade Chronicles X drive was crashing PCs, I’ve stuck to only putting my own flash drives—or ones from a trusted friend—into my computer. I have a bunch of game promos in my collection just for show; I never actually use them.
My IT buddy had this nasty trojan stuck on a USB drive called “Irish nuclear secrets,” and it disappeared. A week later, a teaching assistant walked in with a bricked laptop, and the whole screen was just a gif of a leprechaun dancing around a mushroom‑shaped nuke.
RE: Fact #32 (North Korea India College Megastadiums) – It’s pretty hilarious that somebody had to point out to Kim Il‑Sung that he’d need a bigger arena than the University of Michigan’s if he really wanted the biggest stadium on Earth.
Hey, just a quick fact: Michigan Stadium can hold just over 100k right now, but it’s basically only half built. The whole place is one level, yet when they constructed it, they added footings and reinforcements so it could be expanded pretty easily in the future to more than 150k seats. And get this—it was built almost a century ago.
RE: Fact #44 (Taylor Mitchell’s Fatal Coyote Attack) – I went to that national park a few years back and heard coyotes could be dangerous there, so I grabbed the baseball bat I had in my car just in case. Later I realized when I passed other hikers it probably looked pretty odd—someone striding out of the woods with a bat. They might have thought I was some kind of murderer burying bodies. But honestly, I think I was right to bring a weapon.
The local authorities said many of the coyote bite marks actually looked like “bat wounds.”
RE: Fact #24 (Fujio Masuoka’s Underpaid Flash Invention) – What’s up with Japanese companies and how they treat their own electrical engineers? I think the guy who invented the blue LED got short‑changed too.
I remember Veritassium made an awesome video about how tough it was to invent the blue LED. He only got $200 for the patent, but later he sued the company and earned 8 million dollars. The good part is that he won a Nobel Prize and has kept working on this since the lawsuit in the US, thanks to people who really appreciate his work.
I heard Nakamura got an $8 million award, but if my memory serves me right it all went straight into legal fees. He seems to be doing fine these days, working in the US and probably getting a good paycheck. And snagging the Nobel Prize in Physics? That was seriously impressive, no doubt.
Japanese companies? You’ll find most firms and people around the world are in that boat. Engineers and inventors often don’t get the public praise or money they deserve for their big breakthroughs.
RE: Fact #12 (Ise Shrine Rebuilt Every Generation) – It also helps preserve valuable skills and information. The apprentices who construct it one year turn into the masters, then they use those exact techniques to rebuild it later. That’s what I call planned obsolescence I can truly support.
RE: Fact #8 (Greece Repels Mussolini’s 1940 Invasion) – France gets way too much crap for losing battles, but Italy gets off scot free even though they were a total mess in WWII
RE: Fact #11 (Overnight Orthokeratology Lenses Reshape Vision) – Got it. So it’s basically like braces, except these are for your actual eyeballs.
What about calling it your nighttime retainer, maybe?
Actually, it’s more like a retainer, I think. If you happen to stop using them, your vision goes back to being ‘crooked’ or off, and then your eye doctor probably gets a bit annoyed with you.
RE: Fact #38 (Kim Stenger’s Life Without Touch) – From the article she says, “I’ve always been on a journey to understand myself because my disability is so rare.” That’s how University of Chicago neuroscientist Peggy Mason met Stenger back in 2014. Since 2017, Mason has been doing experiments with her to figure out what’s behind her condition. “My life is basically organized around Kim,” Mason says. She remembers it started when she was lying in bed and one of her cats jumped up—she thought, “She can’t detect that.” Stenger got diagnosed at birth, and doctors said she’d be in a vegetative state, but she proved them wrong. “I have my JD, my law degree, and I currently work at our county prosecutor’s office,” Stenger says. “I do criminal law research and writing.”
RE: Fact #8 (Greece Repels Mussolini’s 1940 Invasion) – Germany took over Greece, but they never really controlled the whole country. it’s like afghanistan, all mountains and villages, so you can take the cities but the rest is hard to hold. that’s why the greek partisans were so strong during the war
Germans were in charge of the cities like athens, because italy was too fu*ked up to handle it. they’d sh*t on anyone who resisted, like my great uncle’s cousins, and almost killed his dad. but he had a german wife so they let him off with a warning
and then there was the time they burned kalavryta to the ground, killed every kid over 12, just because some guys from the village had killed a bunch of german soldiers. or what they did in distomo, killed every single person, even babies. there’s pics of ss dudes taking smoke breaks in the ruins. germans were brutal, but the greeks kept fighting, and in the end the nazis got what was coming to them
RE: Fact #41 (Japanese Rail Pointing And Calling) – They adopted this from Canadian National Railway. It basically makes sure the switch points are set exactly where we intend them to be.
I heard from a friend who emigrated to Canada that when you’re taking driving lessons you have to call out any visible hazards so the instructor knows you’ve seen them, but it’s not safe to just point.
Yeah, it’s pretty much the same in that way. When we do a point and call, we either over‑exaggerate the movements because it’s funny or we rush through them to save time. That usually ends up annoying engineers or breaking switches.
RE: Fact #37 (American Cats Friendlier Than Japanese) – I get the sense that a lot of people in the U.S. kind of “own” a cat that isn’t really theirs—a random neighborhood cat that sometimes rolls into your yard or even makes its way into your home.
George lived under our porch for two years. He’d have turned into an indoor cat if the previous under‑porch resident hadn’t already moved in. Both of my buddy’s cats were also street cats that decided they wanted to move indoors too.
I only have my cat now because one day she knocked on my door, meowing her head off just to get in. I checked around, tried to find a owner, hit up the city and shelters—no one had any info. So I thought, “Well, guess I’ve got a cat.” Twelve years later she’s my damn daughter, and I’d give anything for her. Edit: people were asking for pics, so here she is! [link]
I grew up with three dogs and a cat. The dogs stayed around for ten to fifteen years, while the cat was only about five. Except for the first dog, all the others just appeared at our house one day.
RE: Fact #27 (McDonald’s Japan MP3 Trojan Giveaway) – It’s kind of hilarious—this is exactly how international spy stuff can actually look.
There’s this virus called Stuxnet, which was actually a US‑Israeli joint project aimed at Iranian nuclear refineries. They basically dropped it on the internet; it spread by itself and hunted for specific control systems used in Iran’s nuclear sites. Eventually it landed on a computer that got brought into a facility, infected the machine, and altered the speed of the centrifuges without triggering any alarms or changing the readouts. Iran didn’t realize what was happening until a long time later, and it probably set them back about ten years in their nuclear program.
I first heard about it in college courses around 2009‑2011, even though it hadn’t been fully revealed yet.
As an aside, I think this kind of thing is one of the scariest nightmares for power producers worldwide. The control systems used in power generation aren’t exactly cutting edge and are very vulnerable to attacks like this. It’s not farfetched to imagine that similar viruses could already be installed in power stations around the globe, ready to activate if a major country goes to war—Russia, for example, could just shut down power production or wait for a strategic moment. The best counterargument I see is that it never happened to Ukraine, but that might just be because they didn’t need to deploy such an emergency measure until absolutely necessary.
I’ve always heard that Stuxnet actually hit the wild a lot sooner than they expected.
Another trick was to drop USB sticks with malware into the target’s parking lot. People would pick them up, plug them in out of curiosity, not thinking twice. A slicker version sent staff free high‑end mice that actually hid the payload inside the mouse’s USB connector.
RE: Fact #36 (Michael Phelps Backstroke And ADHD) – Doing a workout is probably the top trick for getting ADHD under control.
Yeah, for sure—especially in endurance sports. Just a heads‑up from my own experience; take it with a grain of salt.
RE: Fact #17 (Jack Black’s Teenage Cocaine Recovery) – Imagine Jack Black high on blow; that just seems like a total mess.
Could be he has ADHD, and then the drug would actually calm down his usual high energy.
That movie Tropic Thunder totally backs up what you’re saying.
Maybe his system has a really weird metabolism, and that stuff he did way back is still fueling him now.
RE: Fact #49 (Abu Said’s Alleged Poisoned Handkerchief) – He killed her dad and brothers, then made her split up with her husband. When he couldn’t get her pregnant fast enough, he turned on her little niece instead. Good job, Baghdad Khatun.
They say Baghdad Khatun got nailed and killed—supposedly beaten to death by a Greek slave with a club while she was in the bathhouse. These violent delights have violent ends…
Yeah, but that or some other awful thing was probably going to happen anyway. Glad she got her licks in, too.
The other choice was basically having her get raped and beaten on a regular basis throughout the rest of her life, so it feels like a less violent end than it could have been.
That’s exactly the type of creative leadership we need right now.