1 Migros’ Unusual Cooperative Business Model
Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, Migros, operates under an unusual philosophy set by Swiss entrepreneur Gottlieb Duttweiler when he founded the company in 1925. The chain refuses to sell alcohol or tobacco, pays no dividends to investors, and lowers prices if profits exceed 5% so customers benefit directly. Migros runs as a cooperative owned by more than 2 million members who can vote on company decisions, and it dedicates 1% of its revenue to cultural and social projects.
2. In the 2008 film The Dark Knight, the character Harvey Dent delivers the famous line, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Christopher Nolan directed the movie but did not write that line himself. His brother, Jonathan Nolan, created it during the scriptwriting process. Christopher Nolan later admitted he did not fully understand the line at first and said it “kills me” that it became the quote from the film that resonates most with audiences.
3. Cancun did not exist as a city until 1970, when the Mexican government decided to build a new resort destination along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Officials used early computer models to analyze potential locations and selected the narrow barrier island where Cancun now stands. At the time, the area had only three residents living there. The government then launched a massive development project that transformed the empty coastline into one of the world’s most famous tourist cities.
4. In 2016, a 64-year-old man in Michigan named Bob slipped in the snow outside his farmhouse on New Year’s Eve while walking about 15 feet to get firewood and broke his neck. Unable to move and trapped in freezing temperatures, he lay helpless in his backyard. His 5-year-old Golden Retriever named Kelsey stayed on top of him for warmth and repeatedly licked his face and hands for nearly 20 hours to keep him conscious. A neighbor eventually found him and rushed him to the hospital, where surgeons operated on his spine, and he later regained the ability to walk again.
5. In March 2021, a Massachusetts woman named Lea Rose Fiega bought a $30 scratch-off ticket at a convenience store during her lunch break. In a hurry, she scratched it quickly, assumed it was a loser, and handed it to the store owners to throw away. Ten days later, the son of the store owners noticed that one number remained unscratched, scratched it, and discovered the ticket was worth $1 million. The family returned the ticket to Fiega, who collected the prize and later rewarded the store owners for their honesty.
6 Kansai Airport’s Perfect Luggage Record
Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, opened in 1994 and quickly became one of the country’s busiest international hubs. Despite handling millions of passengers and bags over decades, the airport developed an extraordinary reputation for precision baggage handling. By 2024, the airport had reached 30 years of service without ever losing a single piece of checked luggage.
7. A 2022 study by the travel company Expedia found that 35% of adults in Japan said they intended to never travel again. Researchers compared attitudes across several countries and discovered that no other nation showed a similar level of reluctance toward travel. South Korea ranked second in the survey, but only 15% of respondents there said they planned to avoid travel permanently.
8. Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, famous for the 2012 Red Bull Stratos project, became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall after jumping from nearly 39 kilometers above Earth over New Mexico. On July 17, 2025, Baumgartner died at age 56 while flying a motorized paraglider above Italy. Investigators later determined that human error caused the crash, as he lost control and entered a spiral from which he could not recover.
9. During the 1929 World Chess Championship match in Germany, Cuban chess champion Jose Raul Capablanca defended his title against Russian grandmaster Alexander Alekhine. In one of the games, Alekhine delivered a checkmate directly on the board, rather than winning by resignation. This moment became historically notable because most later championship games ended when the losing player resigned before mate. As a result, the 1929 match marked the last time a checkmate actually occurred on the board during a World Chess Championship game (as of March 2026).
10. American retail giant Costco sells roughly 50% of all cashews purchased worldwide through its massive global supply chain. To meet this demand, the company sources cashews from independent farmers across at least 20 countries. In Africa alone, an estimated 2.5 million small-scale cashew farmers contribute to Costco’s supply network.
11 Supermarket Chicken Injected With Brine
Chicken sold in many supermarkets is often “plumped” by injecting it with a saltwater solution before packaging. Producers use this process to increase the product’s weight, and the added liquid can make up as much as 30% of the total weight. This treatment also raises the sodium content of the meat significantly. A serving of plumped chicken can contain between 200 and 500 milligrams of sodium, while non-plumped chicken typically contains only about 45 to 70 milligrams.
12. In 1968, Japan Airlines Captain Kohei Asoh accidentally landed his Douglas DC-8 jet in the shallow waters of San Francisco Bay while attempting to reach San Francisco International Airport. During the investigation, Asoh openly admitted responsibility and told the U.S. authorities, “As you Americans say, I f—ed up.” His blunt honesty surprised investigators and helped establish what later became known as the “Asoh Defense.” The phrase describes the idea that taking immediate and complete responsibility for a mistake, without excuses, can sometimes lead to a more lenient outcome.
13. During World War I, British writer C. S. Lewis served in the British Army and formed a close friendship with a fellow soldier named Edward “Paddy” Moore. The two men made a pact that if either of them died in combat, the survivor would take care of both families. Moore was killed in action in 1918 during the war in France. Lewis honored the promise by living with and caring for Moore’s mother, Jane Moore, for decades until the 1940s.
14. In the 5th century BCE, the Achaemenid Empire maintained an elite infantry unit known as the Persian “Immortals.” They were not called that because they could not die, but because their number was kept at exactly 10,000 soldiers at all times. Whenever a man was killed, wounded, or fell ill, another soldier immediately replaced him. This constant replacement created the illusion that the unit never suffered casualties, which is why Greek historian Herodotus described them as the “Immortals.”
15. In Alaska, a person who shoots a bear in self-defense outside the official hunting season must still follow strict state rules. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game requires the shooter to salvage the entire hide with the claws attached and the skull of the animal. They must then present these parts to state authorities and file a Defense of Life or Property report. Failing to do so is treated as a criminal offense under Alaska wildlife law.
16 Massachusetts Gambling Hotline Tech Confusion
In 2023, officials reviewing calls to the Massachusetts Problem Gambling Helpline discovered that more than one-third of callers were not seeking help for addiction at all. Many people contacted the hotline because they were having technical problems with their online betting apps. These callers mistakenly believed the state helpline could provide customer support or IT assistance for the apps.
17. For years, a woman named Lydia Abate has practiced what she calls “funeral tracking.” She searches obituaries to identify recently deceased individuals and then contacts the families to offer a free estate clean-out service. In exchange, Abate keeps the vintage clothing that belonged to the deceased. By collecting garments this way, she has built her wardrobe entirely from estate cleanouts and says she has not bought new clothes in years.
18. During the American Revolutionary War, Marquis de Lafayette traveled from France to support the American cause in 1777 when he was just 19 years old. Despite his youth and limited military experience, the Continental Congress appointed him a major general in the Continental Army. In France, Lafayette had never held a rank higher than captain, and even that position he had received as a ceremonial wedding gift.
19. The Boötes Void is an enormous, nearly empty region of space about 330 million light-years in diameter located in the direction of the Boötes constellation. Astronomers discovered the vast cosmic void in 1981 while mapping the large-scale structure of the universe. The region has significantly fewer galaxies than typical areas of space. Scientists note that if the Milky Way had been located at its center, humanity might not have discovered other galaxies until the 1960s.
20. In 2012, Facebook researchers quietly manipulated the news feeds of nearly 700,000 users as part of a study on emotional contagion. The experiment altered the balance of positive and negative posts shown to users to see whether it influenced the tone of their own updates. Participants were not informed about the experiment while it was happening. When the study became public in 2014, critics argued that Facebook had effectively treated its users as unwitting test subjects.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Mars’ Tharsis Volcanoes Broke Crust
On Mars, the Tharsis region hosts some of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System, including three massive shield volcanoes that formed in the same area. Because Mars lacks plate tectonics, the crust never moved over the volcanic hotspot the way Earth’s plates do. As a result, the volcanoes kept erupting in the same location for billions of years and piled up enormous layers of lava. The buildup became so massive that the weight eventually caused the Martian crust in the region to structurally deform and partially fail.
22. In episodic television, producers sometimes create special episodes known as “bottle episodes.” These are designed to be inexpensive and limited in scope, usually using very few actors, minimal special effects, and a small number of existing sets. The approach helps studios control budgets during a season by balancing more expensive episodes with cheaper ones. Famous shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Friends, Breaking Bad, and Community have all used bottle episodes as part of their production strategy.
23. In 1970, early audiences who heard “Black Sabbath” by British band Black Sabbath at clubs were reportedly terrified by the song’s dark sound. According to British singer Ozzy Osbourne in his autobiography, the reaction was extreme: “All the girls ran out of the venue screaming.” Osbourne later joked, “Isn’t the whole point of being in a band to get a shag, not make the chicks run away?”
24. Prussian officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who trained the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, lived as a lifelong bachelor. He eventually left all his property to three young men he had formally adopted. When he traveled to America to help the revolutionaries, he was accompanied by his young secretary and his beloved dog, which he reportedly took with him everywhere.
25. When developing the 1992 video game Ecco the Dolphin for Sega Genesis, American game designer Ed Annunziata was worried that kids would finish the game in a single weekend. Because of that concern, he deliberately made some of the levels extremely difficult. Annunziata later admitted the decision bluntly, saying, “So… I… uh… made it hard.”
RE: Fact #24 (Baron von Steuben’s Adopted Heirs) – Is this the guy who told Washington to stop putting the bathrooms so low?
Yeah, though you’d think they could’ve figured that out themselves.
Not really, they didn’t even have actual bathrooms back then. The Baron basically invented the concept for them. Before he stepped in, the guys just went wherever.
Setting up a camp properly is a total art form. Washington really struggled managing militias and irregular troops. Von Steuben basically built the army Washington kept bugging Congress for after he got embarrassed in New York. Washington was pretty average, honestly, and gets way too much credit. Showing everyone that morale is better when you aren’t walking through sh*t every morning is just a small piece of what he did.
It depends on how you weigh his skills. He was mediocre when it came to camp tactics, but his leadership was elite. He really knew exactly what kind of fight he needed to pick to take down the British.
RE: Fact #48 (President Kim Avoided Korean Air) – Wasn’t it all about the social pressure against questioning a superior? Even if a junior pilot saw something life-threatening, breaking social norms to correct the captain was a huge deal, so dangerous mistakes just piled up.
Look at Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509. The first officer didn’t say a word or try to take over when the captain was relying on bad data. The captain was the boss, so he was untouchable.
RE: Fact #34 (Women Long Excluded From Trials) – They didn’t even start testing those products with actual blood until just a few years ago.
Switched to a disc and realized tampons were barely doing anything. I used to need pads for backup and swapped tampons constantly, but now I just empty the disc a couple times a day. Everything else is pretty much useless compared to that.
RE: Fact #24 (Baron von Steuben’s Adopted Heirs) – He’s such a fascinating figure, and our military roots are basically what he put in place. A lot of people think he was gay, which might be why he was looking for a fresh start here. Weirdly enough, the anniversary of him showing up lines up with when the first guy got kicked out of the service for his sexuality. He probably even saw that happen.
RE: Fact #33 (Charles Dance’s 19th-Century Father) – What is even crazier is that he was born in 1946, while his dad died at 75 just three years later.
Stateside, we stopped issuing Civil War pensions around 2020 once the last of the veterans’ kids passed away. I looked into it years ago and was surprised to see Spanish-American War pensions from 1898 still being cut back then.
Any idea what those checks actually look like? I’m curious if they adjust for inflation or if people are just getting pocket change now.
RE: Fact #1 (Migros’ Unusual Cooperative Business Model) – Actually, Migros has a subsidiary called Denner that carries both tobacco and cigarettes.
Is there a specific business reason for keeping those separate, or is it just because?
It’s just for show. I’m pretty sure Denner was already stocking that stuff when Migros bought them out.
The legal separation comes from the co-op’s own rules, which forbid any “Migros” branded store from selling those. Flipping that would need a full member vote, which happened, and my folks participated. The proposal got shut down. To celebrate, they launched an alcohol-free beer named “non”, it’s basically Migros in a bottle. All their other sub-brands are exempt, so convenience spots like “Migrolino” do sell booze and smokes. The main argument for keeping it that way is having one chain where former addicts or folks trying to quit don’t get tempted. Plus, during my training, we’d get gift cards as presents, likely so we wouldn’t spend the cash on drinks.
RE: Fact #6 (Kansai Airport’s Perfect Luggage Record) – They hit their 30-year mark in 2024 and haven’t misplaced a single bag. That’s ten million suitcases every year.
Meanwhile I can’t keep track of my own stuff daily, and I barely own anything. Whatever system they’ve got, I need it.
I started paying for those tile trackers and they saved my life. I barely get a mile away from my house or office before my phone yells at me for leaving things behind.
RE: Fact #47 (Pasolini Made Vatican’s Favorite Jesus Film) – It paints Jesus as a revolutionary while staying faithful to the Bible’s events. It really could be the best Christ-focused film out there.
This makes me think of Nicholas Meyer. He wasn’t a Trek fan and didn’t really watch it, yet he worked on three of the best movies in the franchise. His first one, The Wrath of Khan, probably kept the series alive. Sometimes an outsider sees the core message of the source material better than a superfan does.
I don’t know, there’s a big difference. An American in the 70s or 80s might have missed Star Trek easily. But every Italian of Pasolini’s time was raised in a culture completely centered on the Catholic Church. He knew the religion inside and out, regardless of his own faith.
RE: Fact #32 (Decidual Cast: Uterine Lining Intact) – It didn’t all come out at once for me. I was in the shower dealing with awful cramps and it just kind of slid out and blocked the drain. I usually have a strong stomach, but seeing that sitting there actually made me feel faint.
I’m sorry, but describing it like a fish flopping in the drain is killing me.
RE: Fact #22 (Television’s Budget-Saving Bottle Episodes) – Tell your disappointment to deal with it.
The 90s cartoon Duckman had a ‘clip job’ episode. The animation was rough, but the writing was top-tier and they had guests like Leonard Nimoy and David Letterman. Jason Alexander was the voice of the main guy.
RE: Fact #17 (Lydia Abate’s Funeral Tracking Wardrobe) – Met a guy while traveling who lives in a massive city full of elderly folks with no kids. When they pass, nobody is around to sort things out, so they often die alone. He makes decent money cleaning out those apartments and reselling the furniture, since it’s work most people won’t touch.
The Trauma Cleaner is a great book about a woman running a hazmat service. She dealt with hoarders living in their homes plus some pretty gruesome cleanup jobs. Totally worth a read.
A buddy of mine did that for a bit. He didn’t stick with it long because mopping up crime scenes while the grieving family is still standing there just drains your soul.
RE: Fact #18 (Lafayette Became General at Nineteen) – When US troops hit France in WWI, their general marched to Lafayette’s grave and said “Lafayette, we are here, ” giving a speech about how we owed them for our own fight for liberty.
There was also the Lafayette Escadrille, a group of volunteer pilots. I actually met one back when he was really old.
That’s awesome. My great-grandpa served in WWI, though my grandma said he never spoke about it. My family has been in the military since the Revolution, at least until we switched over to coastal defense.
Actually, Colonel Charles E. Stanton gave that speech at the grave site during the parade in Paris. It’s best known as “Lafayette, we are here!” Interestingly, there was a huge George Washington fan club among French revolutionaries. Napoleon was part of it, thought of himself as a French version of Washington, and even held ten days of mourning when Washington died. He kept a tiny wooden statue of him until the end. It’s wild who some people pick as their idols.
I would never stop bragging if George Washington offered to adopt me, even if it was just for show. I totally get why he was obsessed with the guy.
RE: Fact #5 (Lea Rose Fiega’s Discarded Million) – This whole situation is weird. Buying tickets and not even checking them? That’s bizarre behavior. You can bet that money is long gone.
Totally. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll just grab them and check them later.
RE: Fact #42 (Kung Fury 2 Stuck Post-Production) – The original Kung Fury had a Kickstarter that pulled in about $630k, way over the $200k goal. One stretch goal was David Hasselhoff singing the theme, which actually happened. And it’s genuinely catchy.
I’ve got the vinyl soundtrack and I’m never letting it go. Packed with absolute bangers.
RE: Fact #30 (George Harrison Survived 40 Stabbings) – That story is insane. Apparently, on the day he was attacked, someone was just starting their first shift at George Harrison’s place. As they wheeled him out on a stretcher, George actually asked the guy what he thought of the gig so far.
George was such a legend for keeping his wit sharp even in that situation.
People always label Ringo the funny one, but really, all four of them were naturally hilarious.
I just learned that one recently and was dying to share it, but you beat me to it!
He always had a witty comeback ready. Someone once saw him at a cafe and freaked out, asking what he was doing there, and he just deadpanned that everyone has to be somewhere. I love that guy.
RE: Fact #28 (Rouen Civilians Trapped Between Armies) – Everyone forgets how those folks were just being used as pawns. It’s a tragic game of survival where both sides blamed each other for the casualties. Henry V played the ‘your responsibility’ card, while the French defenders tried to hold their ground despite the horrific conditions. It’s pretty dark thinking about how those civilians might have been related to the soldiers watching them starve. It really turned into a grim contest where whoever cared more about human life was likely to lose the fight.
RE: Fact #13 (C.S. Lewis Honored Moore Pact) – Lewis passed on November 22, 1963, the same day as Aldous Huxley. John F. Kennedy’s death pretty much pushed their news aside.
RE: Fact #1 (Migros’ Unusual Cooperative Business Model) – Wait, I thought socialism was supposed to be terrible and that everything only functions if we’re obsessed with profit?
RE: Fact #15 (Alaska’s Mandatory Bear Kill Evidence) – And how am I supposed to handle that when I have no clue how to skin something?
You’d likely report it as a self-defense kill. It’s really just to stop poachers from taking trophies.
In Alaska? Some local would be happy to lend a hand, provided you share a bit of that meat.
RE: Fact #5 (Lea Rose Fiega’s Discarded Million) – I’m a bit cynical, so I suspect there’s a clause in those vendor contracts saying business owners can’t claim prizes from machines they’re obligated to sell.
The fact that they stalled makes me think they were weighing their options first.
I mean, who wouldn’t? She tossed it in the trash, it’s not like it just slipped out of her pocket by mistake.
Maybe, but they ultimately did the right thing, even if their motives weren’t exactly pure.
My local shop owner mentioned that he’s not allowed to buy scratch-offs from his own counter.
I used to work for two complete idiots running a corner store in Missouri. The older guy had his life paid for, while the younger one was constantly stressed and paying everyone under the table to keep the lights on. This moron was manning the register, scratching tickets all day thinking he’d eventually find the ‘guaranteed’ big winner if he just bought the whole roll. Hearing them scramble to pay out of pocket once they caught him was hilarious. His only real punishment was losing his front-counter privileges. I really should’ve turned them in.
RE: Fact #5 (Lea Rose Fiega’s Discarded Million) – >Lea Rose Fiega bought the $30 Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket in March at the Lucky Stop convenience store in Southwick near were she works. “I was in a hurry, on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it, and it didn’t look like a winner, so I handed it over to them to throw away, ” she said Monday. The ticket lay behind the counter for 10 days. “One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and found out that she didn’t scratch the number, ” Abhi Shah, the son of the store’s owners told WWLP-TV. “I scratched the number and it was $1 million underneath the ticket.” Fiega is a regular customer, so the family knew immediately who had discarded it. Shah went to see Fiega at work. “He came to my office and said ‘my Mom and Dad would like to see you, ‘” she said. “I said ‘I’m working, ’ and he said ‘no you have to come over.’ So I went over there and that’s when they told me. I was in total disbelief. I cried, I hugged them.” … “I mean, who does that? They’re great people. I am beyond blessed, ” she said. The store gets a $10, 000 bonus from the state lottery commission for selling the winning ticket. Fiega said she gave the family an additional reward. She’s saving the rest for retirement.
Who spends thirty bucks on a ticket and doesn’t even finish scratching it?
Back when I worked at 7-Eleven in the early 2000s, in a state where gambling was strictly off-limits, we had regulars hanging out for hours playing those things. They’d cycle through hundreds or even a thousand dollars, barely ever winning anything back. I once watched some guy burn through a whole roll of twenty-dollar tickets and not pull a single winner.
Man, I’m stunned the shop actually gave it back. Most folks would’ve just pocketed it.
RE: Fact #2 (Jonathan Nolan Wrote Dent’s Line) – Learning today that so many folks just assume directors are always the ones penning the script.
RE: Fact #38 (Left-Side Sleepers Report More Nightmares) – Since our bodies aren’t symmetrical, sleeping on your left side is supposed to help with acid reflux by keeping stomach acid down. So this claim actually seems to contradict that completely.
Just rewrite it to say that acid in the esophagus helps you sleep better. Makes about as much sense as the original.
RE: Fact #11 (Supermarket Chicken Injected With Brine) – You can tell because the meat shrinks up but stays super juicy. Happens with the Giant brand stuff. Those thighs get tiny but they’re still moist.
RE: Fact #19 (Boötes Void: Universe’s Loneliest Region) -“Sometimes called The Great Nothing’ or Great Void, the Boötes Void is a spherical area 700 lightyears from Earth in the constellation Boötes.” 700 light years is tiny, that’s definitely still inside our neighborhood.
RE: Fact #30 (George Harrison Survived 40 Stabbings) – Technically he passed from cancer, but recovering from dozens of stab wounds is a pretty tall order.
His son, Dhani, mentioned that the attack really hindered his body’s ability to battle the illness, noting that trying to survive such a traumatic event takes a massive toll on you.
He was only 58. It’s wild to realize I’m the same age now that he was when he passed. Life really moves fast. I’ve got my own health struggles, but luckily it isn’t cancer.
RE: Fact #21 (Mars’ Tharsis Volcanoes Broke Crust) – So Earth’s crust is basically made of moving parts that create volcanoes, and it has never had a structural failure?
Actually, Earth’s crust is always falling apart and shifting into unstable chunks. We don’t have a solid structure at all.
Seems weird to say it isn’t “firm” when it’s strong enough to hold up huge mountain ranges. It moves, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t solid.
RE: Fact #29 (Harvard Experiments Show Dog Empathy) – Years ago, I had to put my cat down and was waiting for my mom to pick me up since I didn’t have a car. I was sitting outside the vet just sobbing, and all these dogs being walked in seemed to be checking on me like they were asking if I was okay.
My sister was once crying her eyes out over something and our cat came over to comfort her with cuddles and licks, which only made her sob more. It’s definitely not just dogs who pick up on that stuff.
For real. I don’t think I would have survived my divorce without my cat sticking by my side when things were at their worst. She passed away last February and I still miss her.
My dog spent five days in the hospital before I had to let him go a few weeks back. That first night back home alone was brutal, and I was a total wreck. A stray cat wandered in through my cracked door and just started comforting me. He’s stuck around ever since.
RE: Fact #36 (Luciano and Lansky’s Secret Medal) – The government working with the mob during the war is one of those wild secrets everyone ignores. Luciano was basically running his business from a cell, but he was useful enough that they just shipped him off to Italy instead of keeping him locked away. You could write volumes on the ties between intelligence agencies and organized crime back then.
He ended up in Cuba for the Havana Conference shortly after. He was only there for a year or so before the U.S. pressured Cuba to kick him out because they hated having him so close to home.
RE: Fact #32 (Decidual Cast: Uterine Lining Intact) – I had this happen mid-class once and it was miserable. I was throwing up and nearly passing out from the pain, and my dad had to come get me because I couldn’t drive. Absolute nightmare.
This is the most American quote of all time. “I’m puking and passing out – better call someone to take me home and not an ambulance”. That is such a bleakly American vibe. Just casually opting for a ride from family because an ambulance bill would be worse than dying.
RE: Fact #8 (Felix Baumgartner’s Fatal Paragliding Crash) – I didn’t hear about his death, but if you spend your career doing dangerous stunts, it’s almost more surprising if you make it to old age.
Makes me think of that Norm Macdonald joke about the Crocodile Hunter, 45 is basically ancient for that line of work!
RE: Fact #21 (Mars’ Tharsis Volcanoes Broke Crust) – Some more wild facts: – The crust cracking probably helped form that massive canyon. – Olympus Mons is close but didn’t cause the lava flow. – It probably started up north, but the massive weight shifted the whole crust toward the equator because of spin.
About that second point, Olympus Mons might be connected if the whole area is just one giant volcano like some experts think.
I took a few geology classes, but I don’t get how it’s “one volcano” if the vents are miles apart? Maybe they share a magma source, but they still act like individual peaks.
The valley flows into those ridges in the Garibaldi Calavente Zone. Or the Calzone for short.
RE: Fact #31 (Flynn Effect Now Possibly Reversing) – The data on IQ scores is kind of all over the place depending on the study. Even if there’s a slight change, it’s not exactly a massive drop-off, so let’s not pretend one generation is inherently smarter than another.
RE: Fact #31 (Flynn Effect Now Possibly Reversing) – Childhood nutrition is a huge factor in cognitive development. When kids don’t get enough to eat, their bodies prioritize survival over growth, which impacts everything. Better access to food and removing toxins like lead helped, but IQ tests are also scaled by age, which confuses things. It’s why you get ‘child prodigies’ who just seem like regular adults later on. Plus, as parenting styles change, it’s harder to track those metrics across decades.
Can confirm. I took an IQ test as an adult about a decade after my childhood one and my score dropped eight points.
Don’t sweat it. I’m sure you had plenty of room to spare anyway!
RE: Fact #47 (Pasolini Made Vatican’s Favorite Jesus Film) – Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park, and he isn’t even a dinosaur.
RE: Fact #42 (Kung Fury 2 Stuck Post-Production) – I was on the VFX team for the sequel before it got stuck in limbo. I read the script and saw the work-in-progress edits. It had real potential to be the funniest cop movie ever made.
RE: Fact #4 (Kelsey the Dog Saved Bob) – I know quite a few people who have broken their necks and made a total comeback. None of them ended up paralyzed. I guess you have to have a pretty severe injury for that to be the outcome.
RE: Fact #12 (Captain Kohei Asoh’s Honest Defense) – Pretty wild story. They actually pulled the jet out and fixed it up to fly again, but the pilot’s career was basically over after he got demoted.
How do you know that held up for his whole career? The info you gave just mentions him being bumped down, retrained, and flying again.
I’d love to land a gig at that firm. Mine just puts you on a performance plan and shows you the door before the term wraps up.
Might be a regional difference. Getting canned in Japan is way tougher than in most other spots.
I am Vincent adultman and I do a business and keep track of performance by the semester.
At least everyone survived. He definitely messed up, but it could have been way worse.
Like they say, any landing you walk away from is a win.
<blockquote><p>The jet hit the water, gear down, with no damage to the fuselage. The only substantial damage was to the right gear leg. The San Francisco bay is quite shallow, so much so, that the aircraft gently sat down in the sandy bottom, with most of the fuselage and even the wing out of the water! Passengers recall a very calm, orderly evacuation. The Captain was the last person to leave the aircraft, after checking out the interior for remaining passengers.</p></blockquote> There were no injuries. So it was mostly luck. That’s pretty much all down to luck.
RE: Fact #33 (Charles Dance’s 19th-Century Father) – He was really committed to that legacy, having a kid at 66. It’s wild that 14-year-old Rose’s grandfather was born in 1874, over 130 years before her.
RE: Fact #1 (Migros’ Unusual Cooperative Business Model) – It started out as a gift to the shoppers from the creator, not a co-op. Prices are definitely up there by Swiss standards, but they stay pretty consistent across the board, whether you’re in a city store or a tiny spot in the mountains.
I get that. The markups in Colorado are no joke, everything gets expensive quickly, even at the exact same chain locations you’d find anywhere else.
RE: Fact #10 (Costco Controls Half Cashew Market) – Ever wonder if these factrepublic facts are just hidden marketing from stores like Costco?
People might be picking up habits from ad-speak without realizing it. If you spend your day surrounded by marketing, your regular way of talking starts to sound like a commercial.
RE: Fact #9 (Alekhine’s Last Championship Checkmate) – Dragging it out to force someone to prove they can land a basic mate is poor sportsmanship. Usually, once both sides see the forced sequence, the loser just packs it in. They might play a couple more moves, but once it’s set in stone, there’s no point.
RE: Fact #9 (Alekhine’s Last Championship Checkmate) – It’s not just the final time, it’s the only time. At that level, playing on when a forced mate is obvious is just bad manners.
Making someone grind out a checkmate after the game is clearly decided is pretty disrespectful. You’re just wasting everyone’s time. Pros know they’re beat long before the actual mate hits the board.
Unless the mate is actually awesome, though. I remember seeing a clip of Magnus looking thrilled to be on the receiving end of a cool En Passant checkmate.
RE: Fact #13 (C.S. Lewis Honored Moore Pact) – Surprised he didn’t swipe his ID and start running the local elementary school.
RE: Fact #26 (Emily the Cat’s Atlantic Voyage) – >The curious cat who wound up traveling to France in a cargo container touched down at the Milwaukee airport on Thursday, greeted by her family and a horde of reporters. … “She’ll be held onto a lot all the way home. And then when we get home, too, she’ll be cuddled a lot, ” Donny McElhiney said. Her sumptuous return in business class on a Continental Airlines flight was a sharp departure from her trip to France, where she was found thin and thirsty but still alive. “She seems a little calmer than she was before, just a little quieter, a little, maybe, wiser, ” said Lesley McElhiney, 32. Emily vanished from her Appleton home in late September. She apparently wandered into a nearby paper company’s distribution center and crawled into a container of paper bales. The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found Oct. 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Workers there used her tags to phone her veterinarian, who called the McElhineys. Continental offered to fly the cat home from Paris after Emily’s tale spread around the world and she cleared a one-month quarantine. … On her flight home, Emily passed up a menu of peppered salmon filet and “opted for her French cat food” and some water, airline spokeswoman Courtney Wilcox said.
RE: Fact #41 (Doctors Once Hid Cancer Diagnoses) – My grandmother passed away in ’87, and her doctor refused to let us tell her she was dying because he thought it would ruin her morale. It just meant my mom couldn’t have those final real talks with her, and it gave my mom serious trust issues later when my brother got sick. She actually asked his doctor if he’d be honest about the prognosis, and the doctor was shocked that someone would hide that information.
The 2019 movie “The Farewell” is all about this. The family fakes a wedding so everyone can see the grandmother without her knowing she’s terminal.
Sort of related, but I used to work at a clinic for non-English speakers. We had a strict rule against using family as interpreters because some cultures hide diagnoses like cancer or diabetes from the patient. We had one patient from a remote African village, and when we couldn’t get a translator on the line, we were stuck using her family.
I dig that rule. Family members usually aren’t prepared to deliver that kind of heavy news.
True, if the dialect is rare enough, you might end up with family on the line regardless.
RE: Fact #18 (Lafayette Became General at Nineteen) – I really love learning about Lafayette. He gets sidelined during the French Revolution, but his life was wild: 1. His father died in battle. 2. Inherited a huge property young. 3. Blew through his cash. 4. Ignored orders not to sail to America. Locals didn’t like the French at first, but Congress saw his title and changed their tune. 5. His army job was supposed to be for show, but he took it seriously. Got hit at Brandywine and saved the day at Monmouth. 6. Went home a legend, got a royal pardon, then headed back to fight his dad’s old nemesis. 7. Drafted human rights laws with Jefferson in Paris. 8. Ran the National Guard. 9. Had to bail when things went off the rails. 10. Ended up in a jail cell while his family dealt with the terror. An American diplomat had to step in and demand their freedom. 11. Napoleon got him out, and he had the guts to call the guy a tyrant. 12. Helped steer the transition after the Emperor was pushed out. 13. Toured the US and had cities named after him. 14. Came back and helped take down a king.
RE: Fact #49 (German Man Controls His Pupils) –
RE: Fact #23 (Black Sabbath Terrified Early Audiences) – Ozzy tells a great story about bringing his first record home to play for his parents. The track starts with wind and rain, then his crazy vocals kick in. After the song ends, his dad asks if he’s really just having a beer here and there.
If you ask me, his dad was probably asking because Ozzy looked totally wasted, not just because of the music.
It’s pretty likely Ozzy’s memory of the whole thing is fuzzy. He could’ve just been sprawled on the floor listening to the record, acting wild or screaming, and his dad just jumped to the conclusion he was on something.
RE: Fact #22 (Television’s Budget-Saving Bottle Episodes) – One of the best movies ever, 12 Angry Men, is a bottle story. It’s almost 70, but it holds up perfectly. It’s dialogue-heavy but doesn’t feel like a chore. The cast is basically 12 people, and it’s paced beautifully.
Just so you know, 12 Angry Men was originally written for TV. It aired live as a 50-minute Studio One episode back in 1954, so it makes sense that it feels like a bottle episode.
RE: Fact #15 (Alaska’s Mandatory Bear Kill Evidence) – I’m from Alaska and I’ve actually dealt with this. My buddy bagged a bear that charged him with one shot from a 44mag. We rang up the troopers, and they ruled it a legal self-defense kill. They’d already been out there once because of the same bear. They told us to take the skull and claws to fish and game, so I asked what about the rest. He just said to put some holes in it so it sinks and dump it in the river. Easy enough. I strapped the carcass to my quad and headed out. Here’s the kicker: a skinned bear looks freakishly like a person. We crossed a highway and I told my buddy to wait for some cars so we could troll them. A convoy of twelve RVs showed up right on cue. I pulled the carcass across to the river, and they all hit their brakes, watching me dump six rounds into the remains. Then we tossed the whole thing into the water and waved at the freaked-out travelers. A few turned around to find the cops. A couple days later, the trooper caught me and gave me grief for messing with those tourists, but I think he enjoyed it. The state usually auctions off the hides and skulls after they’re done with them.
RE: Fact #50 (Parakaryon: Lifeform Outside Tree) – Looking at the abstract:
The existence of this organism is an indication of a potential evolutionary path between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
How do they even run into something like this? I assume they didn’t just decide to scan random deep-sea gunk for sh*ts and giggles, but what makes someone decide to investigate that specifically?
Man, most of science is just messing with stuff to see what occurs. It’s usually done purely for sh*ts and giggles.
RE: Fact #16 (Massachusetts Gambling Hotline Tech Confusion) – My favorite is that video labeled “Betting $20 on whether the gambling hotline rep is male or female” which is just guys standing around a phone.
RE: Fact #48 (President Kim Avoided Korean Air) – Is this the same one where the executive’s daughter threw a tantrum over nuts and attacked the staff? Then the crew got blamed and told to stay quiet. I never got why people link Japan to cyberpunk outside of the neon lights; Korea feels like a better fit with those massive conglomerates ruling over everyone.
RE: Fact #8 (Felix Baumgartner’s Fatal Paragliding Crash) – I used to fly paragliders, and honestly, it’s pretty risky. People die doing it quite often. Commercial flights are super safe, and even flying a small plane is safer than paragliding. It’s a blast, but it’s dangerous. I quit once I had kids because I want to stick around for them.
RE: Fact #25 (Ed Annunziata Made Ecco Hard) – The game just drops you in as a dolphin on a blue screen with zero context. I spent half an hour as a kid just swimming around, totally lost. I thought the game was sh*t until a friend told me years later that you end up in outer space. I was like, no way that happens. 90s games were brutal.
The best rabbit hole is John C Lilly, the guy behind sensory deprivation tanks. Turns out this whole thing stems from him thinking dolphins were geniuses because of some alien messages, and the government bankrolled him to prove it so they could use them for warfare. He ended up putting the dolphin on land and drugging it, then had a woman live in a half-flooded house to teach it English. The guy who took photos of her sleeping with the dolphin is actually her husband now. The game is the least weird part of this whole saga.
Just for context, the guy who made the Sega game got his idea from Lilly’s wild experiments.
Wait, what? I clearly never made it past the lake. I never owned it since it was a Sega exclusive, but I played it a few times. I thought it was just a regular dolphin simulator.
Check it out on YouTube. I missed most of that story as a kid too, but the plot is insane. You fight cosmic horrors, use a time machine to visit Atlantis, hop to the Cretaceous period on a pterodactyl, and eventually take down Giger-esque aliens in space.
RE: Fact #2 (Jonathan Nolan Wrote Dent’s Line) – I don’t remember him doing much press regarding the writing side, mainly just the technical stuff. He seems more like the engineer type while Jonathan handles the script.
Still, it’s wild that a director wouldn’t pick up on what that line was getting at; it really isn’t that complex.
It sounded more like he was just double-checking if that was a common phrase.
RE: Fact #27 (Louis XIV Freed Henry Winstanley) – Henry Winstanley actually said he hoped to be in his lighthouse during the worst storm imaginable, which is super eerie since he died in the Great Storm of 1703.
People talk about the storm like it was legendary, but honestly, it’s the hail that really stays with me. That stuff was absolutely wild.
It was built of wood and got wiped out. Winstanley and five others perished when the whole thing was obliterated. They never found the lighthouse or any of the bodies.
RE: Fact #36 (Luciano and Lansky’s Secret Medal) – From the article:
Talk about an unlikely alliance.
Gives me the same energy as that old Marvel/DC crossover where Joker found out Red Skull was a Nazi and turned on him. He might be a villain, but he isn’t that evil.
RE: Fact #43 (Which Wich Sandwich Dislocated Jaw) – What would the legal basis even be? For opening my mouth too wide?
Usually, ambulance chasers jump in once a stunt goes viral. He likely never planned on suing, but once it grabbed attention, lawyers started hunting for a payday.
Any public filing brings out the sharks. My divorce years ago was super friendly and easy, but I still got random mail from attorneys claiming “DON’T LET HER TAKE YOU TO THE CLEANERS!” which was hilarious since she earned more than me.
RE: Fact #41 (Doctors Once Hid Cancer Diagnoses) – That’s because options were pretty much non-existent back in 1961. By 1977, prognosis and treatments had gotten way better for a lot of cancers.
RE: Fact #39 (Happy Feet Penguin Swam 2000 Miles) – We got a puppy in the fall when I was a kid. Once she was big enough to explore outside, winter hit hard. She went crazy for the snow, eating mouthfuls while running around like a maniac. When spring rolled around and the snow vanished, we hit the beach and she did the exact same thing with the sand. The poor dog was hacking up a lung, yet she kept grabbing more mouthfuls of sand between coughs. She eventually figured it out, though.
RE: Fact #14 (Why Persian “Immortals” Never Declined) – “Man, I could’ve sworn I took down 20 of them, but I just counted and there’s still 10, 000 left.”
RE: Fact #26 (Emily the Cat’s Atlantic Voyage) – Sadly, cats found inside shipping crates usually don’t make it due to dehydration.
RE: Fact #24 (Baron von Steuben’s Adopted Heirs) – Keep in mind his secretary was 17 when Von Steuben was 47, and those two ‘adopted sons’ were in their mid-20s.
Started watching that John Adams show again, and this is such a random thing to mention. Obviously, the focus is on JQ, but the way they show his son Charles dealing with his dad is interesting.
They brought him up in that new Ken Burns series. The way they framed his time in Germany made it feel like they pegged him as a creep the second he showed up.
RE: Fact #49 (German Man Controls His Pupils) – Seriously? I’ve been able to pull this off since my early teens, though I really have to stare at one spot for a while. I totally thought this was normal. I even checked with my wife recently because I figured everybody could do it if they tried hard enough.
Adding to the chatter here, it kind of feels like switching your eyes from nearby to distant, but not quite the same. There’s no fear involved or anything. I discovered it when I found I could make my surroundings look darker. Being on the spectrum, I used to hang out in the shower with the lights down low to clear my head, and eventually I realized I could manually dim and brighten the room. It’s wild that this is actually rare.
RE: Fact #7 (Japan’s Post-Pandemic Travel Reluctance) – Probably because vacationing in Japan means dealing with a massive guilt trip at work. You’re made to feel bad about the workload you’re dropping on everyone, then you’re expected to drop a fortune on souvenirs as an apology. That’s assuming you can even afford travel with the weak currency and garbage wages.
When we lived there, we were constantly traveling, but eventually we had to stop mentioning weekend trips to colleagues. Buying gifts for everyone just wasn’t sustainable.
The souvenir culture is wild. My family used to pack half their bags with gifts whenever we visited Korea. East Asian norms, man.
RE: Fact #45 (Celia Killed Enslaver Robert Newsom) –
RE: Fact #39 (Happy Feet Penguin Swam 2000 Miles) – Given they weigh between 49 and 99 pounds, this guy downed a massive amount of sand before realizing it wasn’t frozen water.
Must have been absolutely parched to try and snack on snow like that. And eating sand definitely wouldn’t help. Poor little guy.
RE: Fact #44 (Robert E. Howard’s Four-Year Output) – The movie *The Whole Wide World* covers that part of his life, based on a book by his former flame, Novalyne Price.
RE: Fact #3 (Cancún Chosen by Computer Models) – Cancun is packed with ancient ruins, even right in the hotel area. The Mayans didn’t need a supercomputer to pick a prime location for a city.
RE: Fact #28 (Rouen Civilians Trapped Between Armies) – It definitely wasn’t a one-time thing. Julius Caesar left huge numbers of civilians to starve during the Alesia siege.
To be fair, Caesar ended up getting sieged himself in that battle because the Celtic forces outside of Alesia were able to coordinate an attack & surround his ongoing siege. The Celtic attack happened too late though, and the forces in Alesia were too weak to break out. Had he let those people out, the attack would have happened much sooner because word would have gotten to the outside Celtic forces how desperate they were inside Alesia That makes sense, but the timing was brutal. If those people had been released, the outsiders would have pushed in much earlier because they would have known how dire things were inside.
Alesia is such a fascinating battle to read about. The sheer audacity Caesar had to construct those double fortifications is just incredible.
RE: Fact #19 (Boötes Void: Universe’s Loneliest Region) – To be real, we didn’t confirm other galaxies were a thing until the 1920s. We saw them, sure, but thought they were part of our own galaxy. Must have been crazy to realize the cosmos is way, *way* bigger than anyone guessed.
Forty years isn’t that long in the grand scheme. It just shows how fast science jumped ahead in the 1900s. We didn’t even prove planets existed outside our system until the 90s. It’s been a wild century for figuring out how tiny our slice of the universe is.
Hubble confirmed other galaxies around 1924, so it’s barely been over a century.
RE: Fact #45 (Celia Killed Enslaver Robert Newsom) – Great, now look at Chrystul Kizer. Something eerily similar popped up in my town back in 2022.
RE: Fact #20 (Facebook’s Secret 2012 Mood Experiment) – Should have walked away from the platform two decades ago. But now works too.
It used to be decent twenty years back. Great for connecting with friends if you kept your circle tight. Now it’s just useless. They ignore what you actually want to see and shove junk in your face instead. I’d definitely jump ship, even if it wasn’t perfect back then.
RE: Fact #46 (Party Held After Malcolm X Assassination) – I’ve seen people faint at two different funerals. At the second one, I was seeing my now-husband and mentioned how it happened before. He’s a first responder and said he’d show up to churches where someone died, and the service would just keep rolling like nothing occurred. They’d just haul the body to the back while medics worked on them. He couldn’t wrap his head around how a priest could stay focused during that.
RE: Fact #50 (Parakaryon: Lifeform Outside Tree) – Science News covered some organisms like this called Asgard archaea. They have these extensions that can trap other cells, which might explain how complex life started.
RE: Fact #4 (Kelsey the Dog Saved Bob) –
RE: Fact #41 (Doctors Once Hid Cancer Diagnoses) – I found out about my cancer diagnosis in 2018 when I watched my doctor read it for the first time, nearly 9 months after he’d initially gotten the results. > Me: “Hey doc, so how about that giant polyp they pulled out of my colon. Did anything ever happen with that?” > Doc: “Oh, no, but let me verify. I’ll just bring up the findings and… *[color washes from his face]* …oh. I don’t know how this happened. You have cancer.” > Me: “For how long has this been a thing?” > Doc: “Somehow I missed this. Give me one moment.” He ducked out, came back, and told me to see a surgeon immediately. A few days later, I was prepped for surgery. They removed my sigmoid colon, and even though they got it all, I had to deal with terrible digestion issues for two years afterward.
Please tell me you sued for malpractice. Even if you’re okay now, that’s a massive, unforgivable screw-up.
RE: Fact #48 (President Kim Avoided Korean Air) – The turnaround there is one of the most insane stories in aviation. They brought in a Delta leader who made everyone speak English in the cockpit and forced co-pilots to call out captains. Turns out, the crashes were mostly due to Korean hierarchy where juniors were scared to flag danger. Korean Air hasn’t had a fatal crash in over 25 years since that change. Nathan Fiedler would be thrilled about that one.
Co-pilots running errands for the captain was pretty standard. Planes have redundant systems so they can keep flying if something breaks, but Korean culture essentially threw away the redundancy of having a second pilot. In one crash, the captain pushed into a brutal storm, and the co-pilot just meekly asked about clouds instead of shouting, “Hey, this is a terrible fu*king idea!”
Also, the airline CEO’s daughter made the plane turn back to the gate just because she wanted snacks while taxiing. The pilots actually obeyed her instead of telling her to zip it.
RE: Fact #47 (Pasolini Made Vatican’s Favorite Jesus Film) – As an atheist, I think Ivan Karamazov is the best atheist character ever written, even though his creator was a Christian trying to disprove atheism. Sometimes creators are just on another level.
RE: Fact #40 (Stoats Mate at Fifteen Days) – They only live for a year or two and are pregnant for nearly a year? How are they not extinct by now?
The article linked states > The stoat has quite a long life expectancywhich is not typical for such a small animal.
So they just get pregnant right away? Nature is super creepy. Sometimes evolution just leans into the nightmare fuel.
I don’t think it’s necessarily scary. It’s not like humans, but some people can’t help but make that comparison.
Actually, that gestation stat is a bit misleading. The females stay pregnant almost constantly, but the embryos just hang out in a suspended state until it’s the right time to develop. The actual growth period is way shorter. They’re actually super prolific and can take over a whole area on their own, which is why they’re such a pain as an invasive species.
RE: Fact #31 (Flynn Effect Now Possibly Reversing) – It’s really about cognitive offloading. We aren’t necessarily getting dumber, just lazier because we don’t have to use certain skills. Nobody uses paper maps anymore, they just check their phone. We used to write and edit essays by hand, now we rely on spellcheck and auto-correct for everything. My spelling is absolute sh*t now because I don’t force myself to do the hard work anymore, and it’s pretty obvious.
RE: Fact #12 (Captain Kohei Asoh’s Honest Defense) – I guess I use the Asoh defense. Just admit the mistake, get it fixed, and move on.
Same here. But the Asoh approach doesn’t work against people using the ‘Jimmy defense.’ Those are the types who won’t admit to a single sh*t-up and love pinning it on others. Since they’re high-ranking, they usually get away with it because they never technically have a fu*k-up on their record.
It’s so much faster and easier than playing the blame game.
RE: Fact #34 (Women Long Excluded From Trials) – Researchers often keep women of childbearing age out of trials because of unknown risks. I’d sign up now at 54, but I would’ve been way more cautious when I was younger.
I do a few of these trials every year. They don’t mind my age as long as I show I’m on birth control. Honestly, I love them because I’m fine with needles and getting paid thousands to just hang out at the clinic is a sweet deal.
RE: Fact #15 (Alaska’s Mandatory Bear Kill Evidence) – Keep the skull and hide if you want, but everything from the wrists up is yours. US citizens do have that right to bear arms, after all.
Centuries of American law combined with Alaska’s local rules felt like they were written just to set up this exact punchline.
RE: Fact #37 (Dr. Young’s 1892 Rectal Dilators) – Wait, what? A butt plug for acne and insomnia? That is quite the claim. Anyone got a recommendation to start with?
<blockquote><p>could relieve foul breath, bad taste in the mouth</p></blockquote>, I tried this and it definitely did not help my breath.
I’m betting some doctor just got tired of patients and stopped caring. ‘Constipation? Shove this up your ass. Acne? Shove this up your ass. Just fix everything with this one item.’
Always go a little bigger than you think you need. You’ll definitely want to size up eventually.
RE: Fact #34 (Women Long Excluded From Trials) – It turns out crash testing usually relies on male-sized dummies. So women end up at way higher risk for injuries or aren’t protected as well because of the size difference.
RE: Fact #38 (Left-Side Sleepers Report More Nightmares) – Are there any legit sources mentioned? I’m not really trying to visit some random, sketchy site.
Doesn’t matter if the reviewers are just hacks. Hypnosis isn’t exactly hard science.
RE: Fact #3 (Cancún Chosen by Computer Models) – They were running an IBM mainframe just to map out beaches and weather patterns. A few guys living on a coconut farm suddenly found themselves right in the middle of Mexico’s massive tourism push.
RE: Fact #39 (Happy Feet Penguin Swam 2000 Miles) – I was actually living in New Zealand then. The animal was super stressed, hot, and dehydrated. It wasn’t just messing around; it was relying on old instincts because it had never seen an actual beach. Back in its natural home, it would just eat snow for hydration.
I remember reading this. I bring it up a lot when people talk about modern news cycles. Honestly, I’d rather get updates on a confused penguin than hear about some orange clown trying to wreck our already shaky society.
RE: Fact #19 (Boötes Void: Universe’s Loneliest Region) – Are you saying the gear to spot galaxies without light didn’t pop up until the 60s? Or that the light from nearby ones didn’t reach us until then?
RE: Fact #35 (Lay’s Chips “Made With Potatoes”) – I’m convinced Lays just fabricated that study to grab some headlines and get people talking about their brand.
It looks super fishy when you realize half their products are corn-based like Doritos or Cheetos. They probably asked people to define chips and then acted like everyone is a moron if they don’t count potatoes exclusively.
It is way too simple to rig survey questions for a specific outcome. You ask if people agree that chips are made of potatoes, and then label anyone not picking ‘strongly agree’ as clueless. It’s a classic statistical trick. You see it all the time with those ‘surprising number of people think X’ pieces, where they use a scale to set people up to look like idiots.
This has been going on forever. There is an old documentary from the 80s that shows how surveys can trick the exact same person into supporting and opposing the same thing: [
RE: Fact #18 (Lafayette Became General at Nineteen) – He was just a kid, but he showed up with serious resources, gear, and ships.
RE: Fact #42 (Kung Fury 2 Stuck Post-Production) – Isn’t this whole thing stuck in legal hell? The post-production team took the cash, didn’t finish the work, and wants more, while the Chinese investors are suing everyone and cutting off the funding, right?
That matches what I heard. Things are pretty much stalled waiting for a fix.
Hope it clears up. Similar sh*te involving rights and cash basically killed off Iron Sky after the first one.
I work in VFX, so let me weigh in. Sometimes a bad fact is just messy production, but often it’s because clients keep flip-flopping. Studios eventually have to issue change orders. If the client refuses to pay while the scope keeps creeping, things fall apart. Bids exist for a reason. Great clients and vendors lock in a plan early and stick to it.
Worked in TV myself, and companies often sign terrible deals just to win the job, then get crushed by constant revision requests. I remember a small shop with a massive reality hit; after a few seasons, the network stopped approving edits, only giving feedback like ”it needs more oomph.” Since final pay relied on that approval, the company hit a major cash crunch. A larger studio tied to the network’s parent company eventually bought them out for pennies. The original team had to sell just to keep their jobs, losing their own business.