Random facts

[flarewearer]

A 10 gallon hat is named after "Galons", braids that Mexican cowboys used to tie to their sombreros. Up to 10 galons could be worn on a hat, which English speaking cowboys took as "Gallons". Hence, a 10 Gallon HAt is the sort fo hat that would have space for 10 Galons.

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image:www.magnificentoctopus.com/x/blackback.png

[Atangaladhion]

Quoting Jason Dunn from 18:47, 26th Jul 2005

Quoting Dave the Explosive Newt from 23:28, 15th Jul 2005
Carrots don't help you to see in the dark, this was merely wartime propaganda.


[hr]

Will Watson. Medical Student. Cake Lover.

Yes they do. Carrots contain carotene which is made up of vitamin A. Vitamin A is utilised by the body as the pigments of the retina; rod pigments rather than cone pigments; the very pigments that help us to see in the dark. This would seem to suggest a link, though I am aware that I am arguing with a medical student.

I think if you have a deficiency then carrots are a source of replenishment, but constantly eating carrots will not improve your eye sight beyond what it should be were you to not have a deficiency. I think.

[theflirt]

The average life of a tastebud is 10 days

The average life of a red blood cell is 120 days



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Oh pants!

[bramble]

Quoting Paranoid from 19:40, 26th Jul 2005
The traditional champagne glass was moulded according to Marie Antoinette's breast

If thats the case she must have had a very odd looking breast. Yes i am aware i probably thought about it too much (especially being a straight female!)


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"Everything will turn out fine....i dont know how, its a mystery"

[Eliot Wilson]

The stems must have made dress-wearing awkward, certainly.

OK, another clutch of random facts:

Admiral Lord Nelson never lost an eye, merely the sight in one of them.

An affliction her shares with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Who has a PhD in history.

Unlike David Baddiel, who started a PhD (in English) but never completed it.

As did Dawn Primarolo, the Paymaster-General.

Who works under Gordon Brown. Who lost the sight in one eye in a rugby match.

And was Rector of the University of Edinburgh in his early twenties.

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Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Quoting Jason Dunn from 18:47, 26th Jul 2005

Quoting Dave the Explosive Newt from 23:28, 15th Jul 2005
Carrots don't help you to see in the dark, this was merely wartime propaganda.


[hr]

Will Watson. Medical Student. Cake Lover.

Yes they do. Carrots contain carotene which is made up of vitamin A. Vitamin A is utilised by the body as the pigments of the retina; rod pigments rather than cone pigments; the very pigments that help us to see in the dark. This would seem to suggest a link, though I am aware that I am arguing with a medical student.

Vitamin A is indeed necessary for pigment and carrots do contain vitamin A, although the amounts carrots contain are very minimal - far too small to make any real difference to your eyesight.

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Will Watson. Medical Student. Cake Lover.

[Kizzy]

In Scotland it's still illegal to be drunk in charge of a cow.

[DrAlex]

The average life expectancy, I seem to recall as I'm too lazy to do the math, is 2.2 billion seconds.

In Star Wars, Han Solo says the the Millenium Falcon can run x amount of distance in x amount of time, only he uses parsecs as the measure of time. A parsec is an astronomical measure of distance.

According to most critics, Ralph Lauren has one of the most impressive car collections in the world.

The prime minister can only accept a gift if it is less than £120, unless he chooses to pay the difference.

If caught in a stampede of horses, you can stand still and they will run around you. In a stampede of bulls, you must try to run with them, as standing still will cause them to trample you.

A series of Walt Disney feature films contain hidden sexual easter eggs. For example, the tower in Beauty and the Beast is a giant cock, in The Little Mermaid the priest gets an erection during the wedding and in the Lion King when Mufasa falls to the ground, the word 'sex' is spelled out in the dust.

Speaking of Disney films, Beauty and the Beast, released in 1991, went to the artists in 1985.

Devon Aoki, 'famous' for modelling and appearences in "Sin City" and "2 Fast 2 Furious", is the daughter of the founder of Bennihana. We went to high school together.

Regular Sinner posters missed DrAlex while he was away.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

EDIT: Oh, and my grammar blows

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RUSH KATO '05!

rush.kato@gmail.com

[Nickel]

Quoting The Dude from 21:09, 22nd Jul 2005

That was before it's [The secret service's] job included presidential protection though. Originally it was created to combat counterfiting (which it still does) and remains a part of the treasury department.

Actually it's part of the department of homeland security now

--
nickel

[Eliot Wilson]

Quoting DrAlex from 12:53, 27th Jul 2005
According to most critics, Ralph Lauren has one of the most impressive car collections in the world.

Having seen some of it in Boston, I'm happy to concur with "most critics".

Mary, Queen of Scots, was six feet tall, as was her mother, Marie de Guise-Lorraine.

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Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[DrAlex]

Quoting Eliot Wilson from 15:59, 27th Jul 2005
Having seen some of it in Boston, I'm happy to concur with "most critics".

I saw it at the MFA too; incredible stuff really-only wish I had the money.

Electrical burns can enter the body through a small wound, fry an entire limb, and exit through another small wound (which is another nice random fact-electrical burns often have entry and exit wounds). This is why the electrical burn you have to worry about most is the one that didn't hurt.

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RUSH KATO '05!

rush.kato@gmail.com

[Guest]

The Dunblane bill created a situation where small calibre pistols were illegal in the UK, apart from a 3 week period in 2002 for the Manchester Commonwealth games.

[Guest]

The Spectator Magazine is the oldest continuously published magazine in the world.

[exnihilo]

Carrots may not help you see in the dark, but they can make you turn orange. Which is entirely due to modern manipulation, carrots used to be purple.

Speaking of colour, men are about fifty times as likely to suffer from colour-blindness than are women.

And on the subject of men and women, authorities in China in 1910 recorded the world's youngest pair of parents, at 9 and 8 years of age.

They, of course, were much too young, but the first couple ever to be shown in bed together were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

So cartoon characters can get away with things the rest of us cannot, except in Finland, where Donald Duck was banned because he wore no trousers.

Not ducks, but chickens now. Poultry farmers artificially alter the length of a 'day' for battery chickens as it can alter the size of the eggs they lay.

Ostriches, as we all know, lay the biggest eggs of any bird. Sadly they have one of the tiniest brains, certainly in terms of their body size, smaller in fact than their eyes, poor thing.

A shame for the ostrich, but at the other end of the scale, the octopus has a surfeit of brain. One main one, and a distributed network of ganglia in each arm.

But then, octopus arms are very special things, if they are lost or damaged they'll grow back. Sadly, a stressed octoups will sometimes try to eat its own arms, which can lead to premature death. They can also be shed voluntarily and continue to colour-change for some time afterwards as a lure for prey or to distract predators.

And on that note, I'll leave it for now.

[Eliot Wilson]

Hugh Laurie's father was an Olympic gold medallist in rowing. Laurie himself competed in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

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Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[G]

Stalin had such a great 'soft and sweet' singing voice that he could of been a professional singer.

The Allied forces killed a total of 300,000 German troops whereas the Soviets killed 3,000,000 German troops

The Mongol Empire by 1300 is the largest the world has ever known.

The first designated land for Jews was not Isreal but Birobidzhan - set up by Stalin

[exnihilo]

Actually, no. Birobidzhan was established in 1934 but was never a nation state. Israel only became a nation in 1948, but had existed as "Zion", a Jewish homeland for over a hundred years before that, thanks in large part to the efforts of Baron Edmond Rothschild.

[Eliot Wilson]

And it can be argued that the Jews had been living in a Jewish state in Palestine, well, about two thousand years before that.

[hr]

Bill and Ted beat the Grim Reaper at Twister

Bill: "You played very well, Death, especially with your totally heavy Death robes."

Death: "Don't patronise me."

[ARTooD2]

Quoting G from 02:01, 28th Jul 2005

The Mongol Empire by 1300 is the largest the world has ever known.

Surely the british empire was bigger....covering between a quarter and a third of the earth's surface??

Anyways...

There are 7 dishwasher related deaths in Britain every year..

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Many Bothans died to bring you this information...

[The Yettoner]

Quoting ARTooD2 from 12:56, 28th Jul 2005

Quoting G from 02:01, 28th Jul 2005

The Mongol Empire by 1300 is the largest the world has ever known.

Surely the british empire was bigger....covering between a quarter and a third of the earth's surface??

Actually,I think G's right, the Mongol Empire was HUGE.

The woman billed to be the next up and coming children's author, Sophie Wainwright, whose book "Wizard" is released on Saturday, had to change her last name because her real one, Codman, was deemed too "fishy". She's also only 16 years old.

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"Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see." - Hebrews 11:1