Useless Information

Subject: Useless Information
From: fiddler
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 08:01 AM

I have just WOWED at teh annagrams. Yup who does have the time - even if I had the inclination. But trivial puruit (reg trade mark sorry) apart, what useful and useless bit of information do we all carry that may be of no interest to our fellows and how or where (if decent) did we aquire such knowledge.

EG when I was having highland pipe lessons in REading UK I descovered that in Halifax (Nova Scotia) there are 20 pipe bands.

This means (assuming they do not practice on Sundays There are 3.33 bands practicing each evening.

If you extrapolate that further and each band has 10 members that is 200 pipers in a town of about 30K folk - frightening !!!!!!

Any more interesting offerings?

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 08:09 AM

The immature halibut looks like an ordinary fish, but when he grows up he becomes a flounder-like bottom dweller -- he moves down to the sandy bottom to play, and his eyes mover around on his body until they are both on the top! And you thought human adolescence was rough!

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Tiger
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 08:20 AM

You're all wasting your time - 86% of statistics are made up, anyway.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Micca
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 09:09 AM

If you try to extract the interesting colour that appears when you make Chlorine dioxide in a test tube, with ethanol, You get a jet of purple flame up to 30 feet long and a loud explosive sound, Luckily the tube was pointing away from all those present and only removed eyebrows and moustaches from bystanders !!!! discovered by stupidly following the suggestion of a bystanding colleague!!!

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 09:13 AM

When I first went to Wellington NZ there were two bagpipe shops/repairers. Not uncommon in a land overflowing with sheep's milk and honey.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 09:16 AM

if you want to catch a fly, sneak up on it from behind, because they take off backwards at an angle of 60 degrees.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 09:18 AM

On that sort of thing Micca, Sodium Hydroxide and conc Sulphuric Acid don't mix to well. I made this discovery while bored in a chemistry class at school (I think we had been doing esters) where I was stupidly tipping things into test tubes to watch what happened.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 09:30 AM

You can tell the sex of Eastern Box Turtles quickly by looking at them -- males have orange eyes.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:27 AM

To intimidate an emu, make a fist and hold it high over your head. Your fist will then resemble the head of a very tall emu. Emus are instinctively deferential to taller emus. Otherwise they can kick the shit out of you.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: fiddler
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 05:36 PM

LOL Keep it up!!!!

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 06:41 PM

Speaking of large pugnacious birds....

Anybody know any tricks to intimidate swans or geese? Almost everybody knows geese have an attitude problem, but many folks don't know that swans, and black swans in particular, are meaner than any goose ever thought about being. Especially during nesting season. They will fold their wing and hit you with its "elbow" just like a basketball player throwing an illegal elbow at an opponent. The impact can be hard enough to break bones if the victim happens to be a child or elderly person. We have friends that own two pairs of the things and they have to carry lawn rakes around with them to fend the swans off in the summer. If they were mine, we would have had four roast swan dinners long before now.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 06:46 PM

Blueberries are red when they're green.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: khandu
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 06:54 PM

My head, like my hard drive, is filled with useless knowledge. I easily delete the crap from my hard drive, but not so with my head drive; it appears to be stuck in there forever.

The root meaning for "sarcasm" is: The tearing of flesh, as by dogs. For "tragedy", it is goat song, as the sound a goat makes when it is being sacrificed to Dionysus.

For "religion" it is: Return to bondage

Ducks sleep in a row, the duck on either end sleeps with one eye opened, so he can keep an eye out for predators.

On March 4, 1849, David Rice Atchison was supposedly U.S. President for the one day.

I watched "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid" on TV in September of 1976. (Why did that get stuck in my head???

Joe Offer dislikes birthday threads.

Lotsa useless info here!

Ken

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Micca
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 07:41 PM

If you wish to breed and keep Daphnia in a tank, tap water has to high a copper content, just from the water running through Copper piping to the taps(faucets) and they die, they are VERY heavy metal sensitive and their populations are used as pollution indicators. You should use Rainwater or distilled water ONLY to top up their tanks.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 01:56 AM

111,111,111 multiplied by
111,111,111 equals
12,345,678,987,654,321

and a little info on David Atchison-clicky
Rustic

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Troll
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:45 AM

If you wish to check your tent for scorpions, shine a black light in it at night. Scorpions fluoresce(sp?) under black light.

troll

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 05:12 AM

there is a buy one get one free offer on chili con carne ready meals in jacksons on chants ave, hull.there really nice as well.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 12:16 PM

Like Khandu my head is full of useless junk. I win at Trivial Pursuit a lot. Coworkers often visit my cube with these words, "Kim, you'll know this..." Sadly, I often do. If I don't, I can usually find it on the Almighty Google.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:11 PM

Ther male kangaroo has a bifurcated prong; no-one can tell me what the evolutionary advantage of it is.

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:31 PM

If you laid all the economists in the world end to end they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.

DtG

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:32 PM

...and at least two thirds of them would drown.

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: khandu
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 04:35 PM

Amos, somehow it does not surprise me that the kangaroo info is stuck in your head! ;-D

But that info brings up several questions that I shall not ask!

k

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 05:31 PM

Well, Khandu, I admit that in my youth I was interested in that sort of thing...not roo's, uyou understand...but, well...oh, never mind! :>)

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: GUEST,Fred Miller no cookie
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 06:11 PM

Khandu, in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid director Sam P. had continuity problems because Bob Dylan liked to change hats. Do you remember if you noticed?

To determine how high your kite is, take the angle of the line, say 45 degrees, the sine of the angle, which is 0.707, times the length of the line, say 80 ft= your kite is about 56 and a half feet high.

   you don't want to stack round plate glass, it'll shatter.

70% of women say they fake orgasm, which raises the question, who cares.

   A dolphin has an I.Q. of 90. So does J.D. Salinger.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: khandu
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 07:09 PM

Fred, I did not notice the hat thing with Dylan. That surprises me. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll see if I can find a video of and watch it again. Lousy movie, though!

More useless info...Mr. Whatley (whom none of you know) had his nose shot off in WWII. They grafted his big toe on his face (sans nail, of course!).

k

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 10:35 PM

As a result, every time he puts his foot in his mouth, his nose runs....

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: jimmyt
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 10:45 PM

I am 54 and have never eaten a corn dog nor watched a miniseries

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: jimmyt
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 10:47 PM

Montevideo, the capital of Uraguay is loosely translated " I see a mountain" It is impossible to see a mountain from Montevideo, Uraguay

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Troll
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 11:06 PM

The potato is a member of the Deadly Nightshade family.
Many people in Victorian England thought that tomatos were poisonous.
Daniel Boone was not born in North Carolina. He was born in Pennsylvania.

troll

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 12:12 AM

In its immature larval stage, the sea squirt has a rudimentary brain that enables it to seek out and find a suitable place to mature.

When it finds a safe place, it anchors itself, grows a shell, and having no further use for its brain, it eats it.

Just like getting tenure?

(A very old bit of academic wisdom)

John

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: open mike
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 03:09 AM

Damsel flies have 2 wings, and when at rest fold them back along thier
abdomen, and Dragon flies have 4 wings, which they hold out while at
rest.

If dung beetles did not exist, the entire planet would be covered in
well--dung--at least five feet deep!

The bodies of some gurus after death, take many days to show signs
of decomposition.

it might be true that a bat eats its weight in mosquitos every day...

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 07:57 AM

the plural of cherub is cherubim - the only thing I remember from an article on memory published in the Readers Digest sometime in the early 70's. The story was written by a bloke with a memory like mine, it forgets important stuff & only recalls irrelevant stuff like the plural of cherub ...

sandra

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Sam L
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 09:24 AM

Khandu--the late James Coburn mentioned the Dylan hat thing in an interview I heard. You really have to watch for it, may not be worth it.

Gregor Samsa in the Metamorphasis had a domed back which does not fit the description of a cockroach, but rather a dung beetle, and so he might've been unaware of having wings.

   Biology has found no evolutionary purpose for the areola around the nipple, but it's supposed that it creates an illusion of a face of a larger animal. Test this if attacked by a bear--remove your shirt, manipulate your navel to say things like "I'm getting ANGRY"! while trying not to move your lips.

The singular of mores is mot. A more' is when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Mark Clark
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 10:02 AM

In the Northern Hemisphere, toilet paper comes off the top of the roll; in the Southern Hemisphere, it comes off the bottom of the roll.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 10:03 AM

Fred:

"The singular of mores is mot. " What, pray tell, is a mot?

I think you're confusing Pizza Pie with the Portuguese currency -- 10 scruples to the more, 10 mores to the lifestyle, isn't it? :>)

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Sam L
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:07 AM

Whoops, that's a mos! A mos, Amos. A mot is of course something else, a word, a remark, a bon mot.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Beccy
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 11:19 AM

If you put finely ground black pepper on vanilla ice cream, you will not taste the pepper.

(That was one of my Mom's favorite parlor shocker tricks...)


Beccy

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: open mike
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 12:17 PM

one of my favorite Candid Camera segments
involves interviewer questioning people
up and down a street filled with shops
looking to find somoe scruples, and each
person they spoke with claimed there were
none to be found there..

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Mark Clark
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 12:49 PM

During the 1950s a group typed up the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the form of a modern petition. Almost no one recognized the text and very few could be persuaded to sign it.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 12:59 PM

Information that is unfortunately nearly useless today: Thomas Jefferson and his peers were of the opinion "A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.".

A

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 01:50 PM

Hmmmm - I'm taller than Richard Gere - hows that for useless ?

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: fiddler
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 01:53 PM

If ever you are at a jumble sale!

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 09:04 PM

I can field-strip an M-1 rifle, and name the parts.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: jimmyt
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 09:29 PM

Rapaire seen with a pile of rifle bits and pieces moving them from one pile to another:

"Well, this is Wesley, this is Norma, this is Nick, this one is Betty................"

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 09:46 PM

Tortellini was invented by an italian chef who was totally enamored with his neighbor's navel.

Champagne glasses (not flutes) were designed upon the size and shape of Marie Antoinette's breasts. She should have eaten the cake herself and put a little weight on.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Troll
Date: 19 Mar 03 - 10:14 PM

Melba toast was created by mistake.
More people die each year from bee stings than from snakebite.
Pumice floats.
The "cake" that Marie Antoinette refered to was the floury dough that fell from the bread pans and adhered to the sides of the oven when the bread was baked. It happened when there were air pockets in the dough. It had nothing to do with desert.

troll

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Sam L
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 09:45 AM

Most people under thirty don't know what melba toast is.

Cat urine glows under a black light.

Pig orgasms last about thirty minutes. Men are pigs? we wish.

The common spring mousetrap was patented may 23, 1916, by J&C Morton, pat. #1,184,558.

Canines have been selectively bred for prefered qualities for more than ten thousand years, and they're still just dogs.

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 10:03 AM

Ha! I used to date Melba Toast -- she was hot stuff, but crusty until you buttered her up.

(Not very sorry at all....)

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: jimmyt
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 10:31 AM

More people die each year from falling coconuts striking them on the head than die from shark attacks. just when you thought it was safer to walk on the beach than in the water.............

Subject: RE: Useless Information
From: Beccy
Date: 20 Mar 03 - 10:33 AM

Tom Cruise is a very short man.