It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Oscar Wilde
So, to celebrate – here’s some information that is as interesting as it is useless. Unless, of course, you want to win your local pub quiz by quoting more inane trivia that the next guy….
- In 1983, a Japanese artist, Tadahiko Ogawa, made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
- A language becomes extinct in this world every two weeks.
- A Canadian tour company offers a two-day course in igloo building.
- 93% of all greeting cards are purchased by women.
- A person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day.
- One billion seconds is about 32 years.
- Americans did not commonly use forks until after the Civil War.
- Barbie’s boyfriend Ken was not sold in India until recently because it clashed with the traditional arranged marriage.
- In 1998, Sony accidently sold 700,000 camcorders that had the technology to see through people’s clothes.
- If someone was to fly once around the surface of the moon, it would be equal to a round trip from New York to London.
- In China, September 20 is “Love Your Teeth Day.”
- In Japan, by the time man reaches the age of 60, he is commemorated with a special ceremony. This ceremony features the man wearing a red kimono, which denotes that he no longer has the responsibilities of being a mature adult.
- One gallon of used motor oil can ruin approximately one million gallons of fresh water.
- The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.
- At lift off, US space shuttles weight about 4.5 million pounds.
- Anti-American demonstrators protesting in Bangladesh after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks carried posters of Osama bin Laden sitting alongside Bert, a beloved Sesame Street Muppet character.
- Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady” was written about Vince Neil of Motley Crue.
- The “naked recreation and travel” industry has grown by 233% in the past decade.
- A galactic year is 250 million Earth-years. This is the time it takes for our solar system to make one revolution around the Milky Way Galaxy.
- A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Thus the saying, I will be there in a jiffy.
- A meteor has only destroyed one satellite, which was the European Space Agency’s Olympus in 1993.
- Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.
- By weight, the sun is 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements.
- Research indicates that plants grow healthier when they are stroked.
- The United States has paved enough roads to circle the Earth over 150 times.
- The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that it breaks the sound barrier. The crack of the whip is actually a tiny sonic boom.
- The word “laser” stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission by radiation.”
- There are mirrors on the moon. Astronauts left them so that laser beams could be bounced off of them from Earth. These beams help give us the distance to the moon give or take a few metres.
- There has only been 193,000 metric tonnes of gold discovered to date.
And there you go. If that don’t confuse, intrigue and delight you – I fear not much will… :)
