26 Superbad Scripted, This Is Improvised
Writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who co-wrote both Superbad (2007) and This Is The End (2013), took very different approaches to dialogue in the two films. About 95% of Superbad’s lines came straight from the script, locking in the jokes on the page. In contrast, the actors in This Is The End improvised roughly 85% of the dialogue on set, riffing on only loosely scripted situations.
27. Streaming data suggests that many listeners stop actively seeking out new music in their early 30s. A 2015 study of Spotify users’ listening habits found that people, on average, stop listening to new music at age 33, while a 2018 report by Deezer put that “musical paralysis” point at around age 30. Together, the two studies suggest that by their early 30s most people stick more to familiar favorites than to fresh releases.
28. Lou Reed released the song “Perfect Day” in 1972 on his album Transformer, and fans and critics often assumed it was a coded ode to heroin. Reed repeatedly rejected that interpretation, saying it was literally about spending a perfect day drinking sangria in the park and then going home with someone you love. He summed it up plainly in one interview: “A perfect day. Real simple. I meant just what I said.”
29. In recent Harvard experiments, researchers observed family dogs responding to humans who pretended to cry or be in pain in a lab setting. Many of the dogs approached the distressed person, made eye contact, and tried to nuzzle or physically engage with them, even when the crying human was a stranger. The team interpreted these reactions as spontaneous empathy, suggesting that some dogs naturally try to “help” when they think a human is suffering.
30. Psychologists call it the end of history illusion when people recognize how much their personality, values, and tastes have changed in the past but assume they will change very little in the future. In a 2013 paper in the journal Science, researchers showed this bias across more than 19,000 people aged 18 to 68 by comparing how much older adults reported changing over the last decade with how much younger adults predicted they would change in the next one.
31 Aretha Ousts Carolyn From Sparkle
In 1975, Carolyn Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s younger sister and a songwriter who had penned several hits for her, got what looked like a breakthrough when producer Curtis Mayfield asked her to sing on the soundtrack for the film Sparkle. After Aretha heard Mayfield’s unfinished songs, she stepped in, and following an intervention by their father, Carolyn was forced off the project and replaced by Aretha on the recordings. Sparkle went Top 20 with Aretha’s vocals, and although Carolyn was devastated, she later admitted that her sister really did sing those songs better than anyone else could have.
32. Nickelback released How You Remind Me in 2001, and U.S. radio stations picked it up so heavily that it dominated the airwaves throughout the 2000s. Between its release and the end of 2009, the single was played over 1.2 million times on American radio, making it the most played song on U.S. radio that decade.
33. Curtis Priem, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and served as its chief technology officer, retired from the company in 2003 and sold off all of his Nvidia shares by 2006. In the years that followed, Nvidia’s stock price soared, and estimates suggest that if Priem had held onto those shares, they would be worth more than 70 billion dollars today (February 2026).
34. In 2024, researchers at the University of Birmingham Medical School dissected the donated body of a 78-year-old white man and discovered an ultra-rare case of triphallia (three penises), only the second human case ever reported. Although his external genitalia looked normal in life, the dissection revealed two small supernumerary penises stacked behind the primary one, each with its own corpora cavernosa and glans, with a single tortuous urethra shared between the main and one extra shaft, while the smallest lacked a urethra-like structure.
35. In 2017 in Vancouver, Canada, a woman ended up in the hospital after her husband smashed a black widow spider with a hammer, and a piece of its body shot straight into her left eye, delivering venom without a bite. Within minutes, her eye ballooned shut, and she developed nausea, full-body cramps, and spasms as the venom entered her bloodstream, forcing doctors to treat her for black widow envenomation.
36 Potosi Silver Triggers Price Revolution
In the 16th century, Spain tapped a massive mountain of rich silver ore at Potosí in present-day Bolivia and shipped vast quantities of that bullion back to Europe. As New World silver flooded into Spain and then across Western Europe, the money supply surged, prices and inflation rose sharply in what historians call the Price Revolution, and the real value of Spanish currency eroded. Combined with the high costs of imperial wars, this inflation and mounting debt pushed the Spanish monarchy into repeated bankruptcies by the end of the century.
37. In February 2023 at InSight Surgery Center in Lone Tree, Colorado, 56-year-old Bart Writer stopped breathing during a routine cataract surgery while surgeon C. Starck Johnson and anesthesiologist Michael Urban were playing a “music bingo” game based on 1970s and 1980s songs. A malpractice suit later alleged that a vital signs monitor had been turned off, so no audible alarm warned the team that Writer was no longer breathing, and he was pronounced dead shortly afterward, with an autopsy citing cardiac arrest. The case was eventually settled out of court.
38. In a season 5 episode of King of the Hill, a doctor jokingly calls Hank’s problem “diminished gluteal syndrome,” or “dead butt syndrome,” a term that later turned out to describe a real condition where weak glute muscles contribute to back and knee pain. Doctors also call it “sleepy glutes,” “flabby butt,” or “long back,” and they treat it with targeted strengthening and stretching exercises to wake the muscles back up.
39. In 1935, Judith Deutsch-Haspel was Austria’s most decorated female swimmer, holding multiple national records and being named the country’s top sportswoman. When she and fellow Jewish swimmers Ruth Langer and Lucie Goldner refused to compete for Austria in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a protest against Hitler’s regime, Austrian sports officials retaliated by erasing Deutsch-Haspel from the record books and banning her from all future competitions. Her titles and times were only officially reinstated decades later.
40. A systematic review of medical reports from 2002 to 2021 found 23 documented cases of “sudden gamer death,” where people died non-violently in connection with playing video games. In 18 of those cases, the final gaming session before death lasted from roughly a full day to several days with minimal rest. The authors warned that extremely long, uninterrupted gaming sessions can create dangerous conditions for sudden death in vulnerable players.
41 Phillies Owner’s Fishing Trip Consequence
In 1980, National League owners met to vote on adopting the designated hitter rule that the American League had used since 1973, but Philadelphia Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter was away on a family fishing trip and had simply instructed vice president Bill Giles to vote for the change, with the Pittsburgh Pirates set to follow the Phillies’ lead. When the discussion turned to delaying implementation and Giles could not reach Carpenter, he chose to abstain, the Pirates did the same, and the proposal ended with four votes in favor, five against, and three abstentions, short of the needed majority. Because the motion failed, the National League did not permanently adopt the designated hitter until 2022.
42. In 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult carried out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, hiding containers of the toxic nerve agent in public spaces, including trash cans. In the aftermath, authorities removed many public trash bins as a security measure to make it harder to plant hidden weapons or explosives. That policy was never fully reversed, which is why trash cans are still relatively scarce in Japan today.
43. In a 2021 interview with Esquire marking the 20th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings films, Elijah Wood admitted that he still had not finished reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. He said he had read The Fellowship of the Ring but never completed the entire trilogy, even after playing Frodo Baggins in all three movies.
44. In the 1790s, Welsh seaman Isaac Davis and English boatswain John Young arrived in the Hawaiian Islands as shipwrecked or detained captives and fell into the orbit of King Kamehameha I. Kamehameha turned them into trusted military and political advisors, and they taught him Western tactics and weapons that helped him conquer and unify the islands, later serving as high chiefs and even a royal governor. When Captain George Vancouver offered to return them to Britain in 1793, both men chose to stay and spent the rest of their lives in Hawaii.
45. In 2020, an antiques enthusiast browsing a yard sale in New Haven, Connecticut, bought a small white porcelain bowl with cobalt blue flower designs for $35, not knowing it was a 15th-century Chinese piece from the early Ming dynasty. Experts later identified it as an “exceptionally rare” imperial bowl from the reign of the Yongle Emperor, one of only seven such examples known in the world. When it went to auction at Sotheby’s in March 2021, the bowl sold for nearly $722,000.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Mike Boit’s 3:28 Downhill Mile
On April 9, 1983, Kenyan middle-distance star Mike Boit ran a downhill road mile called the Molenberg Mile on Queen Street in Auckland, New Zealand, finishing in 3:28.36 on an asphalt course with a significant net drop. Because the course was too steep to qualify for record status, his time did not count as an official world record, but it remains one of the fastest mile performances ever recorded by a human.
47. Facing population loss, many Indigenous American tribes used warfare raids not only to take goods but also to capture people who could be adopted into their families to replace lost relatives and maintain their numbers. In this system, a captive’s fate rested with the household that received them, and hundreds of white captives ended up fully adopted into Native communities. Some of those adoptees later wrote first-person “captivity narratives,” which have become important historical sources on Native warfare and cross-cultural life.
48. In 1781, as George Washington’s Continental Army and French commander Rochambeau struggled to pay troops and finance the Yorktown campaign, Spanish official Francisco Saavedra turned to the people of Havana, Cuba, for help. Havana’s residents quickly raised hundreds of thousands of silver pesos and shipped the money north, giving the Allied forces the funds they needed to keep soldiers supplied and moving. That emergency cash infusion helped Washington and his allies carry out the siege of Yorktown, the decisive victory that effectively ended the American Revolution.
49. On Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California, strict limits on private vehicles mean residents face a waitlist of around 25 years if they want to bring a car over by ferry. The island’s narrow roads and focus on protecting its environment and small-town feel have led authorities to cap the number of autos, so most people rely on golf carts, bikes, and walking instead.
50. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States saw waves of bank failures and panicked customers rushing to withdraw their money, which deepened the economic crisis. In contrast, Canada experienced no major bank runs, largely because its banking system used nationwide branch banks and tighter regulations that discouraged the kind of fragile, small local banks common in the U.S. As a result, Canadian banks remained stable throughout the period, and the financial shock never spiraled into the same sort of banking collapse seen south of the border.
RE: Fact #32 (Nickelback Dominates 2000s U.S. Radio) – Oh, and a neat tidbit: “How You Remind Me” might have been the last rock track to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, unless you count “Viva La Vida” as Adult Album Alternative.
RE: Fact #7 (Takeout And Delivery Now Dominate) – Just remember, this covers all fast food spots too. That kinda pushes the numbers way up, more than you’d think for a place with actual waitstaff.
Honestly, fast food joints seem to go out of their way to make eating inside a truly bad time.
Culver’s is a weird exception though. My local one always has families, teens, and older couples eating there. It’s a nice atmosphere, and for fast food, the grub is genuinely good.
They’ve hiked up the prices, the food quality is dropping, you wait forever just for mediocre grub, staff changes so fast nobody ever really learns the ropes, they get rid of all the good stuff, and the places themselves just look dull and uninviting inside.
RE: Fact #24 (Hamill Nixes Weird Al Segment) – One actor can totally throw a whole project off track, even if the creator already gave the thumbs‑up.
RE: Fact #48 (Havana Silver Helps Win Yorktown) – Here’s a quick rundown of what Washington actually did as president, something you’ll only hear about if you dig into his first few months in office. I’ve never had a clue beyond him setting the two‑term rule, stepping back from power, and warning against party politics. But he actually defined almost every part of the presidency in the first four or five months: why presidents make public appearances, how they avoid nepotism, where the Department of Defense, Treasury, federal courts, and the Attorney General all came from, and even the Bill of Rights. He was walking on brand‑new ground. “I walk on untrodden ground, ” he wrote January 9, 1790, noting that nothing he did could be taken for granted or used against him later. He knew what lay ahead and made the presidency his own by doing everything from welcoming foreign guests to handling Congress and making appointments. On the Bill of Rights he said, “I see no objection in the proposed amendments; some are essential, others aren’t, but they calm people’s fears.” And on nominations: “This is the most delicate part of my job. I’ve taken it up with no personal bias, yet I know it will be hard to find candidates who satisfy everyone.” Even his nephew asking for a post in Virginia was denied because Washington kept politics out of appointments and stayed “exceedingly circumspect.” He chose the first cabinet: Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton as Treasury secretary, Edmund Randolph as Attorney General, and Henry Knox as War secretary. He set up the federal courts and named John Jay as our first Chief Justice. In his first term he handled Indian treaties in Georgia, signed the first tax laws, paid war debts, oversaw the first census, helped build Washington D.C., pushed a whiskey tax to cover debt (which led to militia actions in 1792), created the U.S. Mint, the dollar, and the First Bank of the United States, and saw several new states join the Union. He also declared Thanksgiving a holiday, signed the first patent law, and vetoed a bill he thought unconstitutional. Basically, he built the executive branch from scratch, just as Jefferson later did with Senate rules for the legislature. By his second term he was already seen as America’s father figure. He won re‑election easily and gave the shortest inaugural address ever, just over two minutes long: “I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.”
Before any President can officially take a step, the Constitution says they gotta swear an oath. That’s what I’m about to do in front of all of you: If, while I’m running the government, it ever turns out I’ve knowingly broken those rules, I’ll be called out by everyone here today. There was no political stunt or hidden agenda, just a guy who’d already built a government and was ready to run it again. His second term would set our foreign policy and also force Jefferson out of the cabinet in 1793 to make Congress more federalist. In early ’93, France and Britain got back into war. Washington decided we wouldn’t get pulled into other nations’ fights. Britain was messing with our trade and ignoring the Treaty of Paris, so he sent Chief Justice John Jay on a diplomatic trip that led to the Jay Treaty. Congress pushed for a deal‑making protocol so presidents could show treaties to the public. We also signed a treaty about Mississippi River rights and peace with Spain. He’d sign the Fugitive Slave Act, which would stir trouble before the Civil War; he’d ban American ships from the Atlantic slave trade and build up our navy. He also handled Native tribes in the Northwest Territory. Overall, he set up a big part of the federal system: social rules, foreign policy, how presidents communicate with people, avoided war with Britain, and kept us from falling apart over France. In his farewell address he summed up what mattered to him and to all of us. He said that our unity as one nation is the backbone of real freedom, home peace, safety, prosperity, and liberty, something we must cherish like a guardian spirit. He warned us not to let anyone make us doubt that unity or pull any part away from the whole. He also reminded us that being an American is about shared pride in patriotism, more than local differences. We share the same religion, manners, habits, and political ideas, fighting and winning together for independence and liberty. His message was all about strengthening our young country, giving it time to grow solid institutions so we could steer our own destiny. He closed by pledging to enjoy good laws under a free government, sharing in the rewards of our collective effort. That’s why he earned so much respect and admiration across the U.S., Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, anyone who knew his deeds and character saw why people loved him.
RE: Fact #2 (Jonathan Metz’s Self-Amputation Escape) – Dude, my arm actually got stuck one time, like right in that same area, between my armpit and elbow. I seriously couldn’t pull it out. It’s kinda tricky to describe what happened, but picture a three-quarter by three-inch piece of wood, and a tight space between that and the side of my van. I was reaching down for a tool I’d dropped while I was wrenching on it. Man, that was super freaky. Good thing I could yell for help, and my buddy grabbed some dish soap. It still hurt a ton, and I ended up all scraped up. I could actually feel the blood just gathering in my arm. Really got my nerves going.
RE: Fact #34 (Birmingham Cadaver Reveals Triphallia Surprise) – I’m warning you the article has pictures, so it’s definitely NSFW, but I found it fascinating: > The primary, biggest, and most superficial of the extra penises shared one urethra that ran through the secondary penis before emerging from the primary. There was no urethra‑like structure in the tiniest supernumerary penis. If you’re curious about where all three were located without skimming the whole thing, here’s a quick rundown: > The largest and most dorsal of the structures is the only one that shows up on the outside, so we’ll call it the primary penis. The other two are tucked inside the scrotal skin, which explains why they weren’t visible in the intact specimen. The secondary penis sits right behind the primary and has clear, distinct regions that look like normal penile anatomy. The tertiary penis lies even deeper; it still has corpora cavernosa and a glans, but no corpus spongiosum and no urethra. Figure from the article shows label 10 as the secondary and 6 as the tertiary. Because those two were internal, the man probably never realized he had triphallia.
Thanks for adding that info to the comments.
They read the article so we don’t have to, that’s a real public service.
RE: Fact #33 (Curtis Priem’s Lost $70 Billion) – Back when Nvidia was just starting out, they were short on cash and ended up borrowing five million dollars from Sega, the video game company, in return for some stock. When Nvidia went public, Sega sold that stake for thirty million bucks. If they’d kept those shares, they’d be worth almost a trillion dollars right now.
Yeah, it’s an incredible story. Jensen even told his Sega counterpart back then that the $5 million would probably go to zero but could give NVIDIA a chance to stay alive. Still, Sega went ahead because they respected Jensen’s honesty. He lost touch with Nvidia’s CEO until Irimajiri was asked in 2017 to organize an AI seminar. That’s when he found Huang’s email and sent a note in English to the billionaire he hadn’t seen in twenty years: From: Shoichiro Irimajiri To: Jensen Huang Subject: from old friend “Hi Jensen‑san, ” he wrote. “This is Shoichiro Irimajiri, one of your business counterparts in the 1990s. You might remember how we struggled together to develop advanced graphic chips for the Sega Dreamcast. Those are some of my happiest memories.” Then he made the ask: would Huang or someone from Nvidia visit Japan and give a lecture to an intimate group of business leaders? He added, “If possible, I’d greatly appreciate it. Very sorry to disturb your busy schedule, but thank you for reading my letter. Best regards and best wishes for continued success. Sincerely, Iri.” It reads like the kind of email everyone has written and rewritten at least once in their lives. He wasn’t expecting a reply, but the next day he got one: “Dear Irimajiri‑san, ” replied Huang, now 61 with silver hair. “What a wonderful surprise to hear from you. Working with Sega early on is one of my happy memories as well.” As it turned out, Huang would soon be in Tokyo for a big Nvidia conference where he’d give a keynote about the future. But this time he’d speak to a much smaller audience and repay a debt from his past, anything for Irimajiri‑san. “I’m delighted to help, ” Huang wrote back to his old friend.
RE: Fact #45 (Yard Sale Ming Bowl Windfall) – There must be something far more special than that, maybe a famous artisan or a unique owner. Think about the millions of handmade bowls where only seven exist, or even just one copy found in an ancient dirt mound. That’s what makes it truly special.
It’s a delicate, beautifully crafted object that’s about 600 years old and you don’t find many like it. It was made for the Ming Dynasty court, but that in itself isn’t what makes it special, these pieces were just so high quality that only the imperial court could afford to commission them. So pretty much anything worth talking about from that era is probably imperial; the fact that it’s imperial doesn’t make it noteworthy on its own. The article doesn’t cover this part, so take it with a grain of salt, but a lot of classical Chinese art has been selling at premium prices for the last couple decades as China’s wealthier citizens have started buying back their heritage.
RE: Fact #12 (Marie Joseph’s Missed Pool Drowning) – Wait, the water was so mucky you couldn’t even see the bottom, and folks were actually swimming in it? That’s just terrifying.
Tragically, something really similar happened to one of my friends. He was swimming in a hotel pool. His other friend, who couldn’t swim, was just watching from the side. My friend went under, and the other guy quickly told the hotel front desk. They came over, checked, and didn’t see a thing. So, they called the fire department. The firefighters showed up and poked around with a stick that wasn’t long enough, deciding nobody was in there. They were called back later, though, and this time they really searched the pool, eventually finding his body at the very bottom. The hotel had apparently received previous warnings about how poorly maintained their pool was, but they never did anything about it. From what I understand, they never even went to court over this. So incredibly sad; the guy wasn’t even thirty years old.
It’s wild that a kid actually witnessed him go underwater, and this person was truly gone, yet they just stood there waiting for the fire department to arrive.
I spent a lot of years as a lifeguard, even got my certification from Ellis. If we couldn’t see the main drain, we’d shut the pool down, no question. If you ever hit up a pool and the guards aren’t doing consistent, varied scans of their zones, honestly, they’re probably just there for looks. You’re pretty much on your own if something bad happens.
When I worked as a lifeguard in the EU, if someone drowned while I was on duty and I didn’t act or follow my training, I could actually face manslaughter charges. Our certification lasted for two years, but we had to do monthly training at our facility to keep it valid, which included practicing 2 to 4 different types of CPR every single month. I have honestly never, ever seen a pool so opaque you couldn’t see the bottom. The deepest pool I worked at was 20 feet. All of these stories on factrepublic just blow my mind.
I’ve held certifications from both Ellis and the Red Cross, and Ellis is definitely a lot more thorough. Having been a lifeguard myself, I can tell you this whole thing was absolutely a preventable disaster.
I spent a few years working as a swim instructor and a lifeguard. That job is incredibly dull… until it suddenly isn’t. There’s this group of parents who show up at public pools and totally abandon their job of watching their own children, just assuming *somebody else* will keep an eye on them. A kid playing alone can very easily go under without anyone noticing, especially when other children are busy playing together. I seriously can’t even picture trying to guard a pool where the water is so murky you can’t see someone on the bottom. I rescued quite a few little ones who’d lose their grip on the pool edge in water that was too deep for them to stand. You’d see them by the side, scan elsewhere, then scan back and realize they’re away from the edge, submerged, with their small arms and legs flailing. Even from the far side of the pool in *perfectly clear water*, it’s not always obvious right away unless you’re really paying attention. With cloudy water, like you mentioned, if I hadn’t been super alert, no one would’ve noticed for far too long. Oh, and you have to love those flustered, careless parents who try to pin the blame on anyone but themselves. If you bring your child to a pool, just pretend no one else is watching them. Way too many parents would just lie back on a towel, tanning with a magazine or book, while their kid played alone in the water. Those are the people lifeguards have to watch the closest, them and older folks with health issues. I’ve also had to pull unconscious kids out of the water a few times. The ‘No Running’ signs are there for a reason, you know? They run, they slip, *bonk!* then straight into the water they go.
RE: Fact #47 (Adopted Captives And Captivity Narratives) – The captives who weren’t seen as good for adoption usually got killed, often burned in a painful way, to calm the grieving spirits. Torture was part of Native American religious ceremonies, with prisoners being offered to the god of war. These torture rituals were probably most elaborate among the Iroquois and Huron.
I think European settlers saw those customs through a biased lens and called Native Americans “savage, ” so they ended up blowing their actions out of proportion. That’s the whole point, lol.
Exaggerated? I don’t see why they’d have to overdo it. lol. It’s still sadistic no matter how you look at it.
They took a prisoner, set him on fire with Iroquois firebrands all night long, but they made sure he didn’t die before dawn so they could bring him out to this special raised platform for their war god Aireskoi. When the first light hit the sky, they killed the charred but still alive guy with a single blow. Then they sliced his body up and boiled it in a kettle, and everyone shared that meat at a big community feast.
RE: Fact #26 (Superbad Scripted, This Is Improvised) – Evan Goldberg: > “On how much of the film was improvised:” I’d say it’s about 85% improv. Most of it came out of the actors’ own ideas. Seth and I are pretty solid writers, but sometimes a scene just wants to go one way or another. Take “Superbad”, there’s great improv in it, but we wrote like 95% of that movie. *Pineapple Express* was about half written, maybe 40%. But with all those guys on set here, you can’t really outshine them, so I might be a bit dramatic, but the bulk of this film is improvised. … > “On having to cut improv:” It happened all the time. That’s one of the biggest tricks in the movie. As a director you can’t stop someone if they think something’s hilarious, if you do, they’ll feel bad because they think they didn’t come up with a good joke. So when someone is on a run and it’s killing them, and they’re laughing, you have to give them enough space so they feel you’re using it in the film. Seth and I know we might not actually use it, but we try not to hurt their feelings because everyone needs to stay positive to do their best at improvising comedy. So you let them get it out of their system just enough, or you steer into something else without them realizing you’re manipulating the flow.
You really don’t realize just how sharp and smart Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are, especially as filmmakers. Comedies get overlooked, but the effort that goes into them is somehow even tougher than making drama.
I think Seth Rogen was basically the king of the box office for a few years. Every time he released a film it felt like a big event, something that pulled in an entire generation and showcased real, generational talent.
RE: Fact #10 (Fred Collins Escapes Straight Inc.) – Oh, so our grown son is doing great, being a good sibling by checking on his younger brother… and the response is ‘THROW HIM IN JAIL!’ What a joke!
I strongly suspect his younger brother wasn’t even truly troubled. These places usually just grab teens and keep them confined to drain money from parents. They don’t help the kids at all, just emotionally mess with them.
Exactly. The same thing happens with ‘conversion therapy’ places aimed at parents of gay teenagers. Those parents are basically paying for their kids to be emotionally crushed until they conform.
RE: Fact #21 (Rachael Gunn Becomes Spraygun Onstage) – It’s ridiculous that she claims ownership of that dance move, she actually stole it from the movie “Sherlock Holmes’ Other Smarter Brother”.
Sure thing. I could let a lot slip by me, but taking something from Gene Wilder? That’s not going to fly with me.
I’ve never mentioned it before, but this is a real hidden treasure from Gene Wilder. It’s a great film and the silly little tune stuck in my head all the time.
Gene Wilder did that “Puttin’ on the Ritz” scene in Young Frankenstein… The thread is called “The Carlton, ” so I’m guessing you’re talking about the Ritz‑Carlton?
RE: Fact #14 (When Celery Outpriced Caviar) –
RE: Fact #17 (Delbert Grimsley’s $100, 000 TV Surprise) – That cash was from his folks, and he was meaning to hand it down to his own relatives eventually.
What’s really wild here is just how many decent, honest folks it took for this guy to actually get his money back.
Yeah, seriously. Not sure I could’ve given it back, honestly. Who am I to turn down a blessing from above, right?
So this dude got a hundred grand, didn’t invest it, didn’t spend it, just let it sit there and lose its value. It was almost like he made the choice to “halve it and give it to the next guy.”
RE: Fact #37 (Music Bingo Distracts Surgery Team) –
Johnson was the only one officially sued by Chris Writer. In his court deposition, Urban explained how the game was played while a patient was under anesthesia. “So, as an example, if the ’70s group the Bee Gees were to sing a song, that would be the letter ‘B, ’” Urban said, per a quote obtained by 9News. He went on to add that he was likely the one keeping score on the day Bart Writer died. He added that the duo had played the game for years. In a statement to 9News, Johnson’s attorney blamed his longtime associate for Writer’s death, writing that he relied on the “anesthesiologist to provide the proper dose and type of anesthesia, to properly monitor the patient’s condition, and to communicate all relevant information to the surgeon including if they have elected, for whatever reason, to silence the audible alarms.” Johnson denied any involvement in turning off the alert system that would have warned staff that Writer had stopped breathing.
Holy crap, my dad’s had a bunch of cataract surgeries and I’m pretty sure it was actually at this exact location, now I’m so curious if he had anesthesia or not.
RE: Fact #2 (Jonathan Metz’s Self-Amputation Escape) – Man, I totally still remember this particular episode from _I Survived_. I can practically hear him talking about trying to saw his arm off and then hitting the ganglion. 😫 That show has so many episodes that just stick with you. He even mentioned he had no idea why he suddenly felt like cleaning under his furnace on that specific day.
I actually had no clue what a ‘ganglion’ was supposed to be, but then I thought about that moment in 127 Hours, and it clicked for me right away. Its the nerves. Cutting through should have been very painful.
RE: Fact #1 (Bruce Willis’ One-Man Razzie Category) – Wow, I didn’t realize how many films he churned out just for the money before he stopped acting. His Wikipedia page says he made 26 direct-to-video movies from 2019 to 2023.
He needed to get as much cash as possible for his loved ones, super fast. I once read about another actor’s experience where Bruce was forgetting lines.
This was for his family, and to cover any medical care. It costs a lot when someone is battling a mental decline and can’t earn money.
RE: Fact #28 (Lou Reed’s Perfect Day Explained) – Reed always kept things straight, but everyone else made them look complicated. He said the same about “Walk on the Wild Side”, just simple stories about people he knew. Often the plainest take turns out to be right.
Yeah, that’s right. Reed got a reputation for being opaque, but it was really because of things he didn’t have any control over, like his tie to Warhol. People assumed he’d be as mysterious as Warhol and then brushed him off when he spoke in his usual clear style. That pushed him to stop talking to the press, which only made them think he was even more sarcastic. He wasn’t opaque at all; Reed isn’t Dylan. The weird rumors about *Metal Machine Music* show exactly that. Iggy Pop gets the same treatment from media and fans, just a bit less extreme.
I’m saying that it’s one thing to read meaning into songs, and another thing entirely to try explaining an album in a way that nobody could understand back then. The sales numbers were so low that the label pulled it from distribution.
RE: Fact #23 (Kenshin Sends Salt To Shingen) – You’ve got to be super sure of how good your army is before you’re expecting the other side to bring their A‑game.
It isn’t exactly the same thing, but back in high school I played pretty good volleyball and one time my team was set to face another squad whose assistant coach was running late. They didn’t have any balls for a warm‑up or water, so our coach had us share what we had with them. One of the moms got mad because that other team was also strong, and our coach snapped at her, saying something like “we’ll only win if they can’t warm up or don’t have water.” The point was that the guy probably wasn’t sure he’d actually win and just didn’t want to win that way.
I’ve been on the other side before. My college flag‑football squad got wrecked by the flu, so we turned up to a seven‑on‑seven tournament with only six guys. Every team we faced just looked us over and then dove into high‑tempo play, swapping out two players every snap, except for those two military‑college teams. Those squads came ready to win: everyone in cleats and receiver gloves, full uniforms, even pre‑designed plays. They didn’t say a word about it, just played us 6‑on‑6 and never made a substitution.
RE: Fact #24 (Hamill Nixes Weird Al Segment) – It’s kinda funny that it’s Hamill who resists instead of Sir Alec. Anyway, this show would have been absolutely killer and totally deserved more than just one season.
RE: Fact #45 (Yard Sale Ming Bowl Windfall) – From now on I’m not going to let anything go at a yard sale unless I’ve checked its value first. “It’s just something from Walmart.” “Doesn’t matter, give me the price.”
Hey, this looks like a finger painting you did in first grade, there’s even your name at the bottom.
RE: Fact #41 (Phillies Owner’s Fishing Trip Consequence) – Disclaimer, I’m a Phillies fan and totally agree with this, but the real reason there’s a DH is money. MLB doesn’t have a salary cap. When a team pays a pitcher an enormous payday, they prefer to keep him off the field where he could get hurt from hitting or running. They want him to just throw. For instance, if you’re looking for proof against the DH, remember Joe Blanton hit a homer for the Phillies in the 2008 World Series.
RE: Fact #2 (Jonathan Metz’s Self-Amputation Escape) – Yeah, he actually lost his arm. Jon is a really close friend of mine. What an insane journey that was. Honestly, it’s one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever come across. Just absolutely awful, awful stuff.
Oh yeah, having your arm jammed in a furnace for a whole week, then only getting half of it cut off yourself, that’s definitely pretty memorable.
Seriously, though. I honestly don’t think I’d ever be able to find the courage to even attempt cutting off my own body part, especially without any painkillers. That guy had an absolutely insane drive to survive. Having said that, I can’t even picture anything more awful than deciding to amputate your own arm and then only getting halfway done. I’m a total chicken, but I honestly think I’d just want to give up right there. Thank goodness his buddy arrived.
RE: Fact #37 (Music Bingo Distracts Surgery Team) – They just indicted that anesthesiologist last month on manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges, see the source. Music in the OR isn’t like driving; driving’s always riskier because anything can pop up that needs your full attention right away. Even having a game playing is usually fine, but shutting off the vitals monitor? That’s nuts. A mistake like that can’t just slide by.
The soundtrack’s just a distraction, he decided not to do any of his job at all that day.
RE: Fact #19 (Mehmed III Ends Ottoman Fratricide) –
Yeah, nothing to fear, bro.
Honestly, I’d be super paranoid. Imagine the person doing the circumcision “accidentally” cutting off too much, completely messing up my private parts. That way, I couldn’t have any kids, and they wouldn’t pose any threat to the current sultan’s children.
This actually happens quite a lot, even when doctors aren’t trying to cause harm. Every year, many babies end up with their genitals severely damaged from circumcisions that went wrong, even in really modern hospitals. Stats show that roughly one in a hundred circumcisions are botched and cause way more injury than intended. That’s around 14, 000 cases each year in the USA alone right now. I can’t even imagine how awful it must have been before modern medicine, what a nightmare.
Nothing to worry about? Nah, even if everything else was fine, a circumcision back in the 1500s sounds absolutely terrifying to me.
RE: Fact #13 (United 232’s Sioux City Miracle) – The guy who ran my church camp back when I was a kid? He was actually working in the ER in Sioux City, Iowa, the day that plane crashed. It really messed him up, to the point where, from what I recall, he ended up leaving medicine entirely. The pilots did an amazing job, saving so many lives, but it was still such a huge loss. If I remember right, the crash happened just when the ER shifts were changing, and they managed to warn the hospital beforehand, so all the staff ended up staying to help out.
I was living in a little town close to Sioux City back when this all went down. They actually called in every volunteer ambulance from all over, miles away, even before the plane hit the ground. So, most of them were already there or super close by, ready to help move people.
Seriously, everyone involved put in such an enormous effort. They really saved so many people that day.
Man, I’d feel incredibly guilty if I was one of those thirteen folks who walked away without a scratch.
RE: Fact #8 (Linda Atkins’ Lifesaving Orange Juice) – What kind of [retail store] manager even cares enough to stop an employee from having a drink while working?
Yeah, that’s usually the kind of person you find as a floor manager at a Dollar General. They’re definitely not sending their best employees to fill those roles.
Yep, exactly. In retail, the person in charge might only make a couple bucks more an hour than regular staff, but for that they get way more hassle, like ten times as much. I actually know a few people who worked in retail and wouldn’t take promotions because it just wasn’t worth the extra trouble. So a lot of the folks who do take those jobs are mostly doing it for the little bit of power they get, which isn’t really a good way to find great managers.
RE: Fact #14 (When Celery Outpriced Caviar) – So, my dad’s side of the family, they’re from New York, right? And seriously, every single dinner, there’s always this glass vase on the table. It’s got raw green onions in it, and you just dip ’em in salt and eat ’em. It’s such an old thing, nobody even remembers how it began. But now I’m thinking, maybe back then, green onions were like, what poor folks ate instead of celery?
Oh, this is kinda relevant! Just wanted to mention that back in the day, people actually had special glass vases just for celery. They’d put them in the middle of the table, kinda like a way to show everyone how well-off they were.
RE: Fact #9 (Usha Ram’s Fifty-Cent Firing) – The whole thing went down in Vancouver back in 2013. Ms Ram asked the manager, Tayyaba Salman, if she could take some food home after her shift because she left her wallet. She said in Hindi, “Can I have a fish?” The store lets staff grab free drinks and get half‑off food, and managers can bend the rules. The judge said the clash was just a mix‑up over what “a fish” meant. Ram says she wanted a combo, Salman thought she meant a sandwich, there isn’t a Hindi word for “sandwich, ” she told the court. Ram walked out with a fish sandwich, medium fries, and an orange soda without paying. After the employee discount, the fries and drink were worth about 50¢. On Dec 30 she was called into the office with Salman and Mr Mohammed, who accused her of stealing. She started crying and offered to pay for the food, but Mohammed told her to go home. Later he told the judge that her offer counted as an admission of theft. She got fired right after, with no severance.
Getting fired over a fifty‑cent snack is just ridiculous.
“Saying you’ll pay doesn’t automatically mean you stole anything.” Credit card companies act like that all the time. Bank of America kept badgering my wife after her mom died, blasting us with letters that said things like “just send a small amount, keep the payment going, ” so they could point to any penny we sent and claim we’d admitted the debt.
Yeah, it’s nuts, but you’ve got a point. Paying a bill is usually taken as a sign you think you owe it and are willing to keep paying. That’s not exactly what’s happening here. In most common‑law places, theft means you intended to take something permanently and unlawfully. If you only meant to borrow it, it isn’t theft. Same if you didn’t realize it was wrong at the time. Proving theft can be tricky because you have to show the person knew they shouldn’t have taken it when they did. So an offer to reimburse right after being called out doesn’t automatically prove guilt, especially when the value is tiny and the damage is negligible. It’s hard to see why this turned into a firing instead of just a warning about communication.
Someone stuck around 24 years as a BK cook? Most tech workers at $100k‑$250k quit after a few years. That owner kept an employee for two‑plus decades, wild. I’d be handing them free meals all the time, maybe even a king‑size, just because they stick around.
RE: Fact #43 (Elijah Wood Hasn’t Finished LOTR) – I’m a big fan of fantasy books, and I’ll never forget giving up on the first Lord of the Rings novel after about 100 pages. A few decades later, when I was a teen back then, I think I finally grew to appreciate Tolkien’s prose now that I’m older. Most of what I read has been Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, but I have also read The Hobbit.
I read “The Lord of the Rings” in middle school after falling in love with the movies. I had to push myself to finish it. “The Two Towers” is the first and only time I’ve ever literally dozed off while reading a book. Now I’m rereading “Fellowship”, and I’m about ready to quit. I’m more than halfway through, but they haven’t even gotten to Rivendell yet, they’ve just met Aragorn. They spend so many chapters doing basically the same thing: walking in circles and singing random songs. Those books are important to the genre, but I absolutely wouldn’t recommend them to anyone new to fantasy. They’re great if you’re a die‑hard LOTR fan.
RE: Fact #12 (Marie Joseph’s Missed Pool Drowning) – Yeah, twelve feet is definitely quite deep. But what’s even more messed up than the cloudy water is that everyone knew precisely when she vanished. She went down that water slide with a nine-year-old kid and just never resurfaced. The nine-year-old reportedly told the lifeguards, who either didn’t trust him or simply didn’t bother to check it out. But then, the nine-year-old just takes off? He doesn’t say anything to anyone else he was with? And her boyfriend and friends weren’t worried at all, even though she likely had her purse, phone, towel, and other stuff left by the pool? They just figured she’d left without a word and gone home by herself? Seriously, what?
RE: Fact #18 (South Korea Pauses For Suneung) –
Eight straight hours? Wow. No way any student could possibly perform at their best, especially with all that extra pressure, not even for four hours, much less eight.
The work culture over in South Korea is just so incredibly stressful and messed up. They probably only want corporate slaves who can put up with that kind of intense pressure anyway.
Alright, so let me just tell you about the bar exam, that whole multi-day pressure cooker.
Man, like it’s not stressful enough already, everyone’s just watching you, expecting you to lock in your entire future on just one single day. And what if you’re not feeling well then?
Nah, it doesn’t sound like it’s just a single shot. The article actually says some students have tried taking that test five different times.
RE: Fact #26 (Superbad Scripted, This Is Improvised) – The Superbad script makes way more sense if you know Rogen and Goldberg started writing it at 13. They basically turned a decade of real teenage chats into a movie. By the time This Is The End came out, they were established enough to just let their friends riff. It’s a totally different vibe when you’re not trying to prove yourself anymore.
RE: Fact #26 (Superbad Scripted, This Is Improvised) – I laughed so hard at Emma Watson calling out those guys for their messed‑up lines that I almost peed my pants.
If someone ends up hurting anyone around here, it’s most likely Danny.
The part that really cracks me up is when they’re kicking Danny out of the house, hand him the gun and he instantly tries to shoot them. Then they hit him with the classic “It’s just a prop gun.” It’s such a brilliant joke. “You gave me a prop gun?!? You assholes!” “You tried to shoot us! You asshole!”
Danny’s such a hilarious guy that I’m definitely going to rewatch “Eastbound & Down” again.
RE: Fact #41 (Phillies Owner’s Fishing Trip Consequence) – I’m totally clueless about baseball rules, can someone break down the DH rule for me in simple terms?
Pitchers are terrible hitters, so you usually put a DH in for them in the lineup.
When your team’s not on offense you’re out there defending, and everyone who hits also takes a fielding spot when they’re in the lineup. The pitcher is the absolute big deal on defense, like game‑changing stuff. So teams look for pitchers who are fire on the mound even if they can’t hit at all. That leaves you with one guy in the batting order who basically does nothing. The DH rule says pitchers don’t have to bat; you can put in a pure hitter instead. It swaps that dead spot out for someone who’s great at hitting and can totally flunk defense.
I’ll never be a fan of the designated hitter, but I’d feel a bit better if you could switch out any player instead of only a pitcher.
RE: Fact #19 (Mehmed III Ends Ottoman Fratricide) – This really shows what people mean when they say now is the best time to be alive.
Folks who talk about the past being ‘the good old days’ are just seeing history through rose-colored glasses. Yeah, there’s a lot of fu*ked up, unfair sh*t going on in the world and here in America. But if you rewind 100 years, things were even worse. Losing hundreds of thousands of young Americans in a world war, for instance, is something our current generations can’t even begin to imagine.
RE: Fact #42 (Sarin Attack Thins Japan Trashcans) – Some UK cities and towns miss out on enough bins because of those old IRA bombings, too.
Instead of taking the bins away completely, a lot of them got swapped out for metal rings that hold clear bags. That way you still have a working bin but can actually see what’s inside. It’s still part of the Department for Transportation rules on bins at bus and train stations.
RE: Fact #5 (Xbox Name Wins Hated Test) – So, that just goes to show their marketing crew probably wasn’t really plugged into the internet, seeing as they only switched gears once everyone else started sharing what they thought.
Man, what a bummer! Otherwise, we totally could’ve ended up with the 11-X Series X and the 11-X One X.
Seriously, tell me you wouldn’t have been hyped for a Microsoft system called Frixion, or maybe Psyclipse, or how about Norbo? Yeah, I guess that one totally sounds like something from Pixar, but it’s still pretty catchy. And my absolute favorite, Questria! It’s not just a game; it’s a whole Microsoft system that would’ve been legendary.
RE: Fact #1 (Bruce Willis’ One-Man Razzie Category) – What they said was pretty much what everyone else was thinking. They only knew what the public knew back then. It seemed like Bruce was just taking it easy and grabbing simple paychecks. After the diagnosis became public, I think they put out an apology and removed the award category.
I remember hearing Kevin Smith’s stand-up comedy right before the news came out. He was telling a story about Bruce phoning him. That story felt really different once I knew what was happening.
Bruce’s dementia was kind of an open secret for several years before everyone officially knew about it. He wasn’t just ‘coasting’; he was really just earning money for his family. Most of the movies he was in were filmed in just a day or two, and his lines were fed to him through an earpiece. A truly sad part of it happened during the peak of Covid when he went into a Rite-Aid on Sunset and Fairfax without a mask. He got wrongly labeled as an anti-masker or Covid denier, but that wasn’t true at all.
If I recall, he was apparently charging a million bucks a day for many of these films. They’d bring him in for just a day or two, shoot all his parts, and then build the rest of the movie around those. You can actually see in the last scene he filmed that his shots are clearly edited in, and he wasn’t even on set with the other actor. He was also getting lines from an earpiece or people holding up signs in many of these projects. I think Looper was his last truly genuine movie; for me, that marked the end of his real acting run. Everything after that was purely for the money, just a way to make sure his family would be okay financially.
RE: Fact #17 (Delbert Grimsley’s $100, 000 TV Surprise) – There’s an old saying, something like, “an amnesiatic and his 100 grand are soon parted.” Or maybe it’s not quite that, I just can’t remember the exact phrase.
Something else has to be happening here, we’re totally missing part of the story. Maybe the guy lived with someone, or got the TV from another person, or found cash that wasn’t even his, it’s gotta be something! I just can’t believe anyone would forget they stashed away a hundred thousand dollars in cash unless they had a truly terrible medical issue.
I’m still trying to find that hundred-dollar bill I misplaced in my house back around 2010. There’s just no chance a whole hundred thousand would ever totally slip my mind.
RE: Fact #6 (UNC’s Hidden Server Behind Wall) – Wait, wasn’t there that story about an IT person trying to track down a specific server? They knew it was running, and it hadn’t been restarted in ages, which is pretty wild. They were sure it was somewhere in the building but had no idea where exactly. After a complete check of the actual server room, they figured out it wasn’t even in there. I could be remembering it wrong, but I think they did something to confirm it had to be really close to the server room, maybe because of distance constraints. And yeah, it ended up being hidden right under one of the raised floor panels.
I kinda recall reading that they actually found it by flipping circuit breakers until the server finally went dark. That approach would definitely pinpoint it to a pretty tiny spot, and then you’d just trace those power cables.
RE: Fact #3 (Detroit’s 66-Year Population Slide Reverses) – Just check out Buffalo’s population numbers. In 1950 it was 580, 132, then in 2010 it was down to 261, 340. It’s gone up a little bit since then, but it’s still way lower. Other cities with huge drops include St. Louis, which went from 856, 796 to 279, 695; Cleveland, from 914, 808 to 365, 379; and Baltimore, dropping from 949, 708 to 568, 271.
RE: Fact #40 (Sudden Gamer Death After Marathons) –
Between ages 11 and 40, and even an 11‑year‑old, he just died like that. It’s so tragic. Shame on the parents for letting it happen.
RE: Fact #11 (Takeru Kobayashi Loses Hunger Signals) – When he first lost the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, his jaw was messed up with arthritis. Plus, he’s also had trouble breathing ’cause his stomach gets so big it squishes his lungs. And this is even with his stomach already stretched out.
I never really thought about how, just like stomachs can get smaller, they can also seriously stretch out for these eating pros and actually push on their other organs! Wild.
That whole competitive eating thing is pretty dumb. I always thought about joining a pie eating contest, and then just eating one slice and being like, ‘Yep, I’m done.’
I actually knew folks who went into competitive sushi eating. The deal was, they give every person a tray of twenty-five pieces, and you can take any uneaten ones home. The fee to get in was only around a fifth of what that sushi would usually cost, so everyone basically scored super cheap sushi.
RE: Fact #49 (Catalina Island’s 25-Year Car Wait) – I almost made a joke about how sweet Catalina would look with a bunch of ’80s cars soon, but then I remembered that 25 years ago was 2001.
I’m painfully reminded I’m not getting close to thirty anymore, I’m actually moving past it.
RE: Fact #45 (Yard Sale Ming Bowl Windfall) – Back a few hundred years, German sweatshops were churning out knockoff Chinese pottery just to sell to unsuspecting Europeans. I found out about this at the British Museum, where they actually display some of those fake pieces right next to the genuine ones, though it could have been another UK museum, I can’t remember exactly.
IIRC China kept the secret to making porcelain locked up, so everything had to come over from there, back then that made it insanely pricey and only the richest could buy it. That was the deal until some guy pulled the trick out of China, but actually German scientists ended up cracking their own recipe for European porcelain instead. Suddenly a whole lot of factories popped up, especially around Dresden in Germany, turning that city into a fortune. Over time porcelain got cheap enough that now we even have toilets made from it.
RE: Fact #6 (UNC’s Hidden Server Behind Wall) – Man, I actually worked over at NASA. There was this server we couldn’t find for like three months, and nobody had seen it in five years! But get this, it was running a really important website that everyone in the agency used. Turns out, it was just chilling under a desk, plugged in, and someone was using it as a footrest. We only stumbled upon it because we were totally overhauling the network cabling mess, figuring out where every single wall port went. Those old UNIX systems just never quit, do they?
So, an old credit union got bought out by one of my clients. I was brought in to check out all their IT stuff and get the onboarding plan going. Get this: their IT closet was basically the janitor’s supply room. There were buckets of cleaning fluid and water sitting right on top of the routers and switches! Then, this 15-year-old tower server was just chilling in some random room, propped up on a couple of ancient Rolodex boxes. The reason? They said ‘that room floods whenever it rains.’ You really do come across some wild things in IT, seriously.
RE: Fact #4 (Stellan Skarsgard Acts By Earpiece) – Wait, he pulled that off even while filming Andor? Man, that’s seriously something else. His part in that show, his acting, it was just so good. Absolute fu*king peak.
He chatted about this during an interview, I’m pretty sure it was on Colbert. It was so cool to learn about the method he developed with his assistant.
RE: Fact #10 (Fred Collins Escapes Straight Inc.) – So, there’s this wild story about Fred Collins, who was 19 back then.
His parents paying for him to be imprisoned because they thought the program got it right? Yeah, they sound like total airheads to me.
His parents really should’ve just said, ‘Hey, he’s doing fine in school, nothing’s wrong.’ Keeping someone locked away for ten months is absolutely going to fu*k up their life way more than just smoking a bit of pot.
It’s wild how often parents fall for these types of teen programs. I seriously don’t get why it keeps happening.
RE: Fact #34 (Birmingham Cadaver Reveals Triphallia Surprise) – I was let down by the pictures. I’d hoped the other two would split out from the main one, like a meat trident.
Picture living for 76 years, passing away, getting dissected, and then people on factrepublic are just disappointed by your three penises.
RE: Fact #42 (Sarin Attack Thins Japan Trashcans) – That was a brutal attack. I think Japan carried out executions, around fifteen people, about twenty years after it happened, and those were members involved in the attack.
Fun fact: In Japan, if you’re sentenced to death they put you in a solitary cell and never tell you the execution date. One day, the guards come by and say, “You’re being taken to your place of death, please be dignified about it.” Then 12 hours later, your family gets notified that the sentence has been carried out.
That’s pure mental torment. I wonder if they even have a solid standard of proof before handing someone the death sentence over there?
RE: Fact #38 (Dead Butt Syndrome Proves Real) – I’ve got it, this is me. I’m hyper‑flexible and just went straight into a bend all my life instead of firing my glutes, I guess. Over time that led to sciatica pain, but it’s gotten better with clam shells, side planks, and squats. Now I’m excited to say I finally feel my glutes at the top of squats, so the world is looking up at ol’ long back over here.
Kettlebell single‑leg deadlifts were a lifesaver for me. I didn’t even know I had a problem until I ended up with a facet injury while doing jiu‑jitsu. That’s when I started adding the lock clam and McGill’s Big Three to my warm‑ups. Seriously, check out the lock clam.
RE: Fact #35 (Black Widow Venom In Eye) – Thank god she recovered. Not just because it would’ve been a horrible way out for her, but can you picture the guilt of killing your wife in such a weird accident? Especially when crushing that spider was partly about protecting his own wife too.
Black‑widow bites usually don’t kill you, they just feel awful: intense pain, big muscle cramps and spasms, tremors, nausea, vomiting, chills, and a fever can all hit at once. Those spiders are pretty chill; they like dark, damp spots. Growing up where I was, the water heater was in an outdoor enclosure, basically a closet you could open from outside the house, and we always had black widows hanging around there.
I’ve got a buddy who once went to grab some firewood from a pile in the woods. He scooped up a bunch of split logs, but before he made it back to his house he collapsed from pain. Little did he know that black widows were living in that log pile and had been disturbed when he started gathering wood. He ended up with more than a dozen black‑widow bites in his groin, he’d been wearing shorts, and the ER team were stunned he made it through.
They’re usually only deadly for little kids or pets. When I lived in a place full of them, I had to move them around because my cats loved bugs and would probably have gotten bitten by one. Beautiful creatures.
Black widows are everywhere where I live, you’ll almost always find one in a garage or shed when the weather gets warm. They’re pretty chill, but you’ve gotta be careful around trash cans because they love hanging out under the lid.
RE: Fact #13 (United 232’s Sioux City Miracle) – Man, this has got to be one of the wildest tales out there. So, in commercial flying, there’s a specific plan for pretty much anything that could go wrong. Like, if one thing happens, you do another. Pilots gotta memorize some of these steps to fly a certain aircraft, but loads of other instructions are in a manual right there in the cockpit. If an emergency pops up, the usual thing is to grab that book, find the right section, and just follow along. But what happened with flight 232? There was nothing in the books for that. An engine at the back blew up, and bits of it sliced through every hydraulic line, making all the flight controls useless. The only thing left they could mess with was how fast the other engines were running. Picture yourself zooming in an automatic car at 200 mph, and then boom, the steering wheel, brake, and gear selector just drop off. You’ve still got the gas pedal, but that doesn’t feel super useful, does it? There were no steps because back then, this kind of breakdown was just thought to be impossible to recover from. It’d be like trying to write down what to do if both wings suddenly fell off. Honestly, the plane should’ve just nose-dived and everyone on it should’ve died instantly. But because of some crazy good fortune, quick thinking, and really calm crew members, about half the folks aboard actually made it out alive from something that really, truly should’ve been impossible to survive. You gotta check out the whole story, it’s intense.
After that crazy crash landing, the FAA actually tried to figure out some new design elements or procedures to put in place. But in the end, they just couldn’t. Investigators and experts saw that landing as just a “highly random event, ” something that couldn’t really be planned for. The most valuable thing they managed to do was stress how super important Crew Resource Management is in their report.
Actually, they did learn a couple of things from it. For starters, they put in a failsafe system for the hydraulic lines. That meant if something similar happened again, at least the wing controls would still work. And get this, they also checked the tail engines on all the other D-10 planes out there and found three more fan disks that were about to fail.
So, here’s a random story from my flight school days… I once had to fly a simulator, like a 737, where we were in a super similar situation. My buddy and I tried a bunch of times to land the plane. All the usual controls were dead, so we could only adjust the engine power to steer, change speed, and control how high we were. We kept trying to follow the normal glide path for landing, but trying to handle the direction, speed, and height all at once was just total chaos. Every single time, we crashed. On our final try, the instructor hopped in and showed us what he thought was the “best bet” to get the plane down. His advice was pretty much to forget the glide path, get low early, and come in a bit fast. Then, on the final approach, just focus on keeping your direction and speed right by adjusting the two engines, and finally cut the power for a flat touchdown. It was still crazy hard, but at least by taking one thing out of the equation, we had a better shot focusing on the two remaining. This was just a “bonus” exercise with no official guide, not even graded, so it seems like the people who designed the course agreed that this kind of thing is just a “highly random event” that you can’t really make a standard procedure for. It felt like the whole point was to let us mess up a lot in the simulator to try and come up with our own desperate “Hail Mary” plan in case we ever had to do it for real.
RE: Fact #20 (McDonald’s $300 Million Arch Deluxe) – The burger itself was pretty decent, but the marketing push was just ridiculous. They said “kids won’t like it because we made it for adults.” So they filmed kids trying it and showing them not liking it. I actually enjoyed it back when I was a teenager.
I grew up with it and loved it, probably when I was around ten. Back then McDonald’s was starting to shift away from being seen as just a kids’ spot. The Arch Deluxe was one of the first steps in that direction, before they went on to remodel all their restaurants, ditch the play areas, add coffee to the menu, and so on. What feels like the biggest loss is that most kids today won’t even get to celebrate a McDonald’s birthday party.
RE: Fact #32 (Nickelback Dominates 2000s U.S. Radio) – I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve heard it a whole bunch of times, at least in my local market.
You’re probably just mixing it up with all the other Nickelback tracks you’ve listened to.
RE: Fact #42 (Sarin Attack Thins Japan Trashcans) – A few years back I was standing at what must’ve been King’s Cross station in London. I’d been looking around for a moment, hoping to spot a tissue dispenser somewhere, but there just wasn’t one. Eventually I walked over to an elderly couple and asked them why none of the stalls had one. The older gentleman whispered, “Because of the terrorists.”
I taught a class in London about five years ago and had two Irish students. They asked why there were no trash cans on the streets, and one of the locals replied something like, “That’s probably because of the Irish.” Awkward.
I was in that exact same situation at the train station, wandering around hoping there’d be a bin somewhere. Nope, none. So I just had to take my trash with me on the train.
Thanks for taking care of it and not dropping it, so many people don’t.
RE: Fact #8 (Linda Atkins’ Lifesaving Orange Juice) – Seriously, preventing a diabetic from grabbing a drink at the register? That ought to be illegal. Then getting fired just because they didn’t, you know, die? That’s not just a fine situation; somebody should really be in jail for that.
Yeah, that’s absolutely against the law. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act for good reasons. It’s not just about things like wheelchair ramps or having bigger door frames.
That’s totally correct. But you really can’t expect your employer or landlord to know their duties under the ADA or any similar law. I put in a small request for an accommodation at my apartment, totally within ADA guidelines, and the folks in the leasing office figured they could make me go through an online screening or just completely disregard what I’d given them. I sent one email to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and my problem was fixed almost immediately. It wasn’t even that the leasing office tried to mislead me on purpose; the people I spoke with just didn’t have legal training and thought the terms of my lease mattered more than federal law. This lady won because she took them to court. For a lot of businesses, that’s usually what it takes: actual legal action, or at least threatening it.
RE: Fact #36 (Potosi Silver Triggers Price Revolution) – De Beers learned that lesson, so they’re now keeping a close hold on the natural diamond supply.
RE: Fact #1 (Bruce Willis’ One-Man Razzie Category) – That was a really thoughtful move they made after Bruce’s diagnosis became public, though:
I recall seeing so many Bruce Willis films come out really fast. I watched one where he played a crooked cop and barely said ten words the whole time; it was mostly just expressions. I told my brothers something had to be off with him, thinking they were rushing to crank out movies for quick cash, with him having minimal lines. A few months later, his diagnosis was public. I’m not sure if he or his family pushed for all those films in a short period, but I felt bad for him just standing there making those weird faces for the camera. His daughter even mentioned he reached a point where cue cards didn’t help anymore. Brain diseases are truly awful. That story about Robin Williams on set, calling his wife in tears because he couldn’t remember his lines, really got to me. I hope we find a way to stop this sh*t soon.
Actually, that’s their follow-up *to* their follow-up. The same Wikipedia article notes that right after his diagnosis went public, they posted this tweet: *”The Razzies are truly sorry for #BruceWillis diagnosed condition. Perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021. Our best wishes to Bruce and family.”* They didn’t take back the award then. It was only after getting a lot of criticism for that tweet that they issued the statement you mentioned and finally rescinded it. I’ll still give them credit for eventually doing the right thing, but their initial reaction and not rescinding it immediately wasn’t exactly top-notch.
They really shouldn’t have had to do a thing. They didn’t know at the time that he was sick, and it was intentionally kept private. Nobody expects them to be mind readers, so any criticism was totally ridiculous. People who waste their day getting mad about stuff like this? We should absolutely smash that kind of behavior until it’s gone.
RE: Fact #46 (Mike Boit’s 3:28 Downhill Mile) – My pastor only goes for a run at night, saying the moon’s pull makes him feel lighter.
I only run during the day because sunlight lightens me up, and that’s why people call it that.
RE: Fact #47 (Adopted Captives And Captivity Narratives) – I love hearing about Cabeza de Vaca, one of the most epic tales, like a real-life Odysseus adventure.
RE: Fact #44 (Davis And Young Choose Kamehameha) – King Kamehameha I was the first ruler to unite all of Hawaii under one king. During his campaign, both John Young and Isaac Davis acted as his advisors. Isaac Davis survived the wreck of the *Fair American*, a ship that came after the *Eleanora* had killed Hawaiians who were trading there in revenge for a stolen boat. Kameʻeiamoku, a high chief serving under Kamehameha, promised retaliation because he’d been whipped by the captain and because of the earlier slaughter. That’s why the crew of the *Fair American* was almost all wiped out except Isaac Davis. The captain of that ship was actually the son of the *Eleanora*’s captain, although there’s no evidence Kameʻeiamoku knew this. John Young had been a boatswain on the *Eleanora*, which later came back to look into what happened to the *Fair American*. Unsurprisingly, Kamehameha captured him so he wouldn’t uncover the truth, and John was left behind when the *Eleanora* set sail again. Both men eventually gained great influence, becoming close, trusted advisors, interpreters, and early missionaries. Each was offered a chance to return home but declined, probably because they went from ordinary, common families to powerful leaders with multiple high-born wives on a literal tropical island.
The idea that having several wives could keep you motivated is probably because you’re picturing a large, healthy family, something that would really pull you into staying committed.
They had kids who wed into the Hawaiian royalty, so those families became major players in the kingdom’s power scene.
RE: Fact #19 (Mehmed III Ends Ottoman Fratricide) – And after all that, the dude just dies at 37 because of ‘sadness over his son’s death.’ Seriously?
Since I don’t know much about this historical period, I’m just going to assume that the idea of him being poisoned is an unproven theory, and nobody ever really talked about it.
I’m pretty sure the comment you’re replying to is a reference to Crusader Kings, which is a computer game about dynastic role-playing.
RE: Fact #40 (Sudden Gamer Death After Marathons) – Playing over 72 hours straight in EverQuest while gulping down two 2‑liter bottles of Dr Pepper? Yeah, that’s not great for you.
RE: Fact #3 (Detroit’s 66-Year Population Slide Reverses) – I got to check out Detroit a couple of years back, wasn’t from the US. What I saw definitely wasn’t anything like the bad rap I’d always heard about it.
If you’d visited a decade ago, it would’ve totally lived up to its reputation. They’ve seriously done a great job getting the city back on track since then.
Quite a few manufacturing cities that were struggling have actually started making changes to improve things. Baltimore is another example; it’s done much better for itself in the last 15 years or so.
Something people really miss about Detroit’s supposed fall is that a ton of folks, like 1.2 million, didn’t just disappear. They actually moved out to the suburbs. The whole metro area has actually grown, going from 3.1 million in 1950 to 4.4 million now. Most of the car plants and engineering roles people link to Detroit are actually located in the ‘burbs. Ford’s in Dearborn, Stellantis is in Auburn Hills, and most of GM is over in Warren. All that money folks associate with Detroit back in the 50s? It’s pretty much still around. We’ve still got all the great stuff too, the museums, opera houses, zoos, and public parks. Our facilities are top-notch. UofM is in Ann Arbor, a famous guide says the DIA is as good as the Louvre, the riverwalk often gets picked as one of the best public spots in the country, Belle Isle gets more visitors than *Yellowstone*, and MOVEMENT is one of the biggest EDM festivals anywhere. Detroit gets a bad image across the nation, but like many Rust Belt places, the city’s established attractions really surprise visitors who aren’t from here.
Seriously, it totally depends on where you are. If you were downtown Detroit? Yeah, that part’s pretty good. But go deeper into the residential areas and you’ll get why it has its reputation. That’s actually true for tons of cities. Chicago’s another good example. Someone might wonder, ‘Where’s all this crime I keep hearing about?’ Well, check out places like O Block or Englewood. In most American cities, the criminal activity you hear about is really concentrated in specific spots. People hear about big city crime and imagine it’s happening right in the city center, in front of some major tourist spot. But it’s not. It’s usually further out in the neighborhoods, often near housing projects.
Even the neighborhoods are way better these days. My friend moved into a spot that had a really rough name, just off some major roads. In the five years he’s been there, the whole area has just bloomed. The ‘bad’ parts have shrunk, moving closer to the main roads as more families have come in. People are buying up old, burned-out, or empty houses, fixing them up, and selling them to families. Even former ‘trap houses’ are getting sold and flipped for families now. So yeah, the city’s putting its money into downtown, and that part is definitely improving from the inside out. But even the residential areas are getting better on their own because folks actually want to live in Detroit these days. My buddy apparently bought his house for $80, 000 in 2021, and now it’s estimated at like $150, 000. Back in 2020, it was only valued at $22, 000. Zillow had it under $10, 000 in 2016. That’s just an absolutely wild turnaround.
RE: Fact #22 (Portugal Bans After-Hours Boss Calls) – You might not know this, but in the U.S., if you’re an hourly employee you can actually bill for time spent on work calls even when they’re off the clock. So if your boss reaches out to you on your day off just to discuss work stuff, the Department of Labor says you have a legal right to submit a time adjustment for that phone call. The only twist is something called “De Minimis Time.” For example, if they call and ask where a key is, you tell them, and then you’re free to go. However, in some states, California, for instance, you’re required to get paid for every minute you talk about work with your boss while off the clock.
RE: Fact #29 (Harvard Dogs Comfort Crying Strangers) – A few years back when I had to put my cat down I called my mom and she offered to pick me up because I was taking the bus home. So there I was, standing outside the vet, crying. All those dogs that were going in kept coming over as if they wanted to say “You okay, buddy?”
It just makes me think, “duh, ” when I see that headline. Is anyone actually surprised by this? Have they even seen a dog before?
RE: Fact #7 (Takeout And Delivery Now Dominate) – Just last week, I tried to order a couple of footlong subs and a cookie for my wife and me from Subway. But seriously, the delivery fee alone would’ve been $32! I just thought, ‘Nope, not happening, ‘ and vowed right then I’d never do that again.
RE: Fact #44 (Davis And Young Choose Kamehameha) – They always say, “Once you go to Hawaii, you never really leave, ” and they do it with a proper Aussie twang.
RE: Fact #33 (Curtis Priem’s Lost $70 Billion) – The whole deal with working hard and investing is that you want to retire and live comfortably, so you don’t just hold on forever hoping for more, only to end up buried without ever enjoying the payoff.
RE: Fact #39 (Judith Deutsch-Haspel Erased For Refusal) – Judith was an absolute legend, as this article goes into more detail about it. She and her teammates swam for Hakoah Vienna, a club that started in 1909 to give Jewish athletes a place when they were barred from non‑Jewish teams or gyms. At competitions, Jewish wrestlers would sometimes escort the female swimmers to shield them from antisemitic crowds and opponents. By 1935 Judith had become the top‑ranked female swimmer and one of Austria’s most famous athletes. She also worked as a fashion model, was reportedly bisexual, married, but still kept affairs with other notable Viennese people. Everyone expected her to win gold for Austria in 1936, and that expectation essentially ended her career there. The Nazis took over Austria in March 1938 and destroyed the Hakoah club. The club had helped hundreds of athletes and their families flee the country. In the 1990s Judith and two other resisters were invited back to Vienna but they declined.
That move from a decorated athlete is seriously badass! Stories like that were way too common back in 1936, and even a bit less so in 1932. My granddad was on the Austrian soccer squad set to go to the 1936 Games, but just before they left, they told us Jews weren’t allowed on the team and everyone got kicked off. He wasn’t a big star at all, but several others quit in protest too. Of course they erased it from the records and faked the roster to show non-Jewish alternates as if they’d always been the starters.
RE: Fact #12 (Marie Joseph’s Missed Pool Drowning) – Back when I was a kid, vacationing in Greece, the only pool in the whole village was absolutely huge, like, 4 meters deep on one side. Some guys were repeatedly diving in, totally sure there was something hidden down there. The water was pretty… not clear. Hotel workers eventually showed up and, get this, they pulled out a boat! It was enormous, probably a quarter of the pool’s size. That meant no damn pool for a whole week while they drained and cleaned it. So frustrating! Nobody had any idea how long that boat had been chilling at the bottom.
RE: Fact #15 (Bruce Pryor Finds Belanglo Victims) – So, between 1989 and 1993, this guy Bruce Pryor was super bothered by the Clark/Walters murders that happened right near his place in Belanglo State Park, Australia. He knew that park super well. He ended up spending nine months looking around the park for leads and eventually, he actually found Debra Everist’s body. He reported it, and then he and the police kept searching together, finding two more bodies. But instead of getting any thanks, the police took him in, treating him like a suspect for four hours, really grilling him. Then they held him as the main suspect for three months, tapping his phones, following him everywhere, even though evidence clearly pointed away from him. Man, watching this story, the level of police incompetence back then was just enraging. The Backpacker Murderer, Ivan Milat, who was eventually caught largely thanks to Bruce Pryor’s work, was a seriously violent and depraved killer. He’d actually sever the spinal cords of his victims so they had to watch or listen as he brutally killed their partner. Then he’d come back and mess with them, stabbing them to death while they lay there helpless. There was one person who survived him and got away, a guy named Paul Onions. Onions escaped to the road, being chased, shot at, and tackled twice by Milat, with drivers just passing by! Onions somehow managed to jump into a local driver’s van and get away. He reported all this to the police, giving them a name, a description, plus details of the van from both Onions and the driver. But they just filed it away. An armed robbery, attempted murder in public view, and they just put it in a file. So, for Bruce Pryor and his nine months of tedious work, helping them find two more bodies, instead of getting credit, the police at the time grilled him for four hours. Then they went on to treat him as their top suspect for the next three months, following him everywhere he went and tracing all his calls. This was despite evidence he couldn’t have committed the murders, AND they still had Onions’ report, the sole lucky survivor of the Backpacker Murderer. It’s wild.
RE: Fact #3 (Detroit’s 66-Year Population Slide Reverses) – That’s why Detroit got the 313 area code. When they first brought in area codes back in the 1940s and 50s, Detroit was pretty much at its population peak. The original plan said the first and third digits had to be between 2 and 9, and the middle one was either 1 or 0. They gave the largest cities the shortest numbers to dial on a rotary phone. New York got 212, Chicago received 312, LA was assigned 213, and Detroit ended up with 313.
RE: Fact #25 (Gardening: Planting Phrases For Codebreaking) – For instance, while the Polish, British and American codebreakers were busy cracking the German Enigma, a bunch of sea‑mines would be planted at a specific spot so the Germans would run into them. The Allied scientists knew those coordinates would come over naval radio, so they could reverse‑engineer the message by picking Enigma settings that included those coordinates. It’s the same idea in Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon, ” where a cryptographer in the jungle spins up rumors about a guy named “The Crocodile” just to get his rival to send a message with that string. I think social engineering as a cryptographic tactic is absolutely fascinating.
He’s trying to break the code but is having trouble, so he invents a term he knows they’ll use, so he’ll be able to pick it up and help crack the code, is that right?
Yeah, they cracked an updated Enigma encryption code before D‑Day in kind of the same way. In *The Imitation Game* the plot has them breaking it by spotting common parts in every message and thinking it spells “Heil Hitler.” But the real key was a longer phrase, something like “Today’s Weather Forecast.”
RE: Fact #31 (Aretha Ousts Carolyn From Sparkle) – Aretha Franklin actually blocked her older sister Erma from getting a big deal with Epic Records. She worried that another singing Franklin in the spotlight would mix up the public and possibly damage her own career, so she even convinced their dad to shut down the contract.
She even tried to block her husband Matt Guitar Murphy and an employee, Lou Marini, from reviving their performing careers, and some people think that was basically fighting against a god‑given mission.
RE: Fact #40 (Sudden Gamer Death After Marathons) – I think it’s probably some Freddy Krueger‑style figure that jumps into video games and actually kills players in real life, or maybe it’s just about the high stress, terrible diet, and staying still for 72 hours.
RE: Fact #30 (The End Of History Illusion) – I’ve always wondered, in those movies about immortals who have lived for centuries or even millennia, why they aren’t a complete mystery to ordinary people.
I was thinking about this and Groundhog’s Day the other day, how everyone around him doesn’t freak out the next day when he becomes a totally different person after being stuck in that loop for whatever time.
He was pretty much a mystery to everyone. He’d moved in from somewhere else and didn’t really hang out with his coworkers either.
In that exact situation, I feel he just pushed everybody away and kept his distance because he’s not a fan of people.
Doctor Who does this amazing thing with “Me”, a Viking‑era Scandinavian girl who accidentally gets immortal after the Doctor uses alien tech to save her life. Throughout the season arc, he bumps into her a few times, once as a Stuart‑era noble and finally at the very end of time. Even though she’s human in mind, she can’t keep all those memories; she forgets even her own name and just goes by “Me.” All she knows comes from a literal library‑sized stack of journals she keeps and flips through now and then.
They wouldn’t shift their personality any quicker than anyone else. It’d be kind of funny to see an immortal just sigh and scoff while flipping through a history book, grumbling about the things they did when they were “young.”
RE: Fact #16 (Odin Refuses To Abandon Goats) – Oh, here’s something cool: that dog actually made it to ten years old! And get this, he passed away quietly in 2021, totally a local hero.
Yep, that’s definitely the dog from the Grim Reaper meme. I’d bet money on it.
RE: Fact #24 (Hamill Nixes Weird Al Segment) – Also just wanted to point out that Al’s band is one of the tightest you’ll find in the business; those guys can play every single part flawlessly.
Totally legit. Most folks probably don’t realize how many different sounds and vibes he throws out in a live show. His band is just amazing.
I think it’s been the same crew from day one of his career, and that’s probably why they just click so well together.
I can vouch for it. I wasn’t even a big fan and kind of went to the show on autopilot. But wow, what an experience! I earned full respect in just a few minutes. Definitely check out Weird Al live.
I’m going to see him again later this year and I can’t wait. The tickets turned out to be surprisingly cheap, about $75 a head, all fees included.
RE: Fact #7 (Takeout And Delivery Now Dominate) – Man, I really enjoy heading to my neighborhood diner. I’ve been a regular there for over ten years now, going with my family, buddies, or even just by myself sometimes. Grabbing a bite there always seems to lift my spirits. The food’s awesome and the people who work there are great. I had an operation a few years back and couldn’t make it in for a couple of months. When I finally got back, most of the servers came right over to my table, asking where I’d been. They were actually concerned, which felt pretty cool, being so welcomed back. Wish everyone had a cool diner like mine close by.
RE: Fact #34 (Birmingham Cadaver Reveals Triphallia Surprise) – He’s gotta be six feet tall, pull a six‑figure salary, own a lake house, work in finance, and, wait for it, have three penises.
RE: Fact #27 (Most People Quit New Music) – Some of us never stop digging for new tunes, it’s still a rush when you stumble on a killer song or fresh band. Edit: happy to see others feel it too. By the way, most of my new music finds come from Radio Paradise, human‑crafted playlists, no algorithms or ads, high‑quality flac/mqa/aac streams split into five main vibes: Main mix, rock, jazz, global, mellow. I almost always discover something cool there. Another edit to shamelessly plug RP for those who don’t know them: they’ve been online and ad‑free since 2000. Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith were streaming before it even had a name, no ads, supported by listeners, never sold out or caved in, always using cutting‑edge tech. They fought the entertainment industry over royalty rates back in 2007 and won, saving internet radio from dying. They keep evolving and improving today. These folks made the Internet great for music lovers, check them out.
It’s honestly one of the best things in life. Every year my favorite song ends up being something I’ve only found in the past six months.
RE: Fact #6 (UNC’s Hidden Server Behind Wall) – So the fact says, ‘this article is more than 1 year old.’ Yeah, well, 25 years definitely counts as ‘more than one, ‘ doesn’t it?