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Post by Phalon on Sept 21, 2011 4:46:38 GMT -6
Oh, no!!!!
I just found out that my morning heaven in a cup can be deadly!
Just consuming a mere 10 grams of coffee in a short period of time can kill an average human...that's nearly 100 cups in 4 hours.
Even I can't drink that much.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 28, 2011 6:38:02 GMT -6
A 2 1/2 inch standard-sized Slinky, which is not a piece of coiled wire but is a piece of pipe shaved in a circular pattern, can stretch 70-80 feet.
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Post by stepper on Dec 30, 2011 21:04:40 GMT -6
Neither Samoa nor Tokelau will have a 30 December 2011.
They decided to move to a different time zone effectively moving them across the international date line which puts them in the same time/date as their economic partners. The move occurred at midnight on 29 December so they went straight from 29 December to 31 December - skipping the 30th.
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Post by Siren on Jan 16, 2012 13:41:18 GMT -6
From National Geographic:
A 4 week old golden eagle possesses vision that is telescopic, microscopic, monocular, binocular, and about 8 times finer than man's. Mature birds can spot a rabbit half a mile away.
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Post by Phalon on Jan 18, 2012 9:38:33 GMT -6
That's pretty amazing, Siren. Birds are such interesting creatures. Here's another raptor fact, this time about falcons.
Peregrine falcons are the world's fastest fliers, having been clocked while diving at speeds of 220 miles per hour.
I can't imagine something that small going at such a high speed. I'd think their feathers would fly off long before they hit 200mph.
I wonder if it hurts when a bird loses a feather. The quill end of some of the ones I find is quite large, and it seems like it'd be painful to have it plucked, kinda like losing a fingernail. Ouch!
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Post by Siren on Jan 18, 2012 22:40:41 GMT -6
220 miles per hour?? That is truly amazing.
Painful, reading about birds tonight. My niece's pet rooster was carried off today by a predator - maybe a coyote or hawk. The rooster was a pure pet. When he was very young, he was attached by a raccoon through the bottom of his wire pen, and lost some toes and part of a foot. My niece, who is 16, brought him to the house and nursed him, hand-fed him choice tidbits. By the time he was full-grown, and was walking just fine, he was so tame, he would walk about in my mom's kitchen, crooning for treats, and would let my niece carry him around. The whole family was charmed by him, and would pet him.
He was kept in a cage in my mom's garden room at night, and was put in a wire pen outside, near the house, by day. My folks went out today to check on him, and found a few feathers in his pen, but that's all. They searched everywhere, but he is gone. Mom says my niece is absolutely heartbroken, and that she cried for over an hour. Poor girl has such a great, pure love for animals. And as any pet owner knows, you are bound to lose them eventually. But lil sis has had more than her share of lost pets. Poor, sweet girl.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jan 18, 2012 23:06:43 GMT -6
It's hard enough to lose a pet to old age or illness, but to lose one to a predator, vehicle, or some other such freak outcome is more devastating. Or so it has always seemed that way to me.
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Post by quettalee on Jan 19, 2012 1:33:49 GMT -6
So sorry, Siren, for the loss. Sounds like he was pretty special.
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Post by Phalon on Jan 19, 2012 8:03:01 GMT -6
Aw, that's so sad, Siren. Poor "lil sis".
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Post by stepper on Jan 19, 2012 20:31:37 GMT -6
What Joxee said, and Q, and Phalon. To invest so much of yourself into a living creature only to have it ripped away is just so sad, and seems so unfair. Hugs to the niece!
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Post by Siren on Jan 19, 2012 22:37:52 GMT -6
You all are so sweet. Thank you for the kind thoughts and words. My mom said my niece was too upset to go to school today. She started crying first thing this morning, since she missed the rooster crowing and waking her up. She is grieving terribly. But my mom said she was tending to her guinea pigs this evening, and petting the 2 new puppies. So maybe she is calming a bit. Tonight, our local movie palace screened "To Kill A Mockingbird". Seeing it on the big screen made it even more powerful, and moved me to tears. What a pleasure, seeing it as it was intended. Here's an amazing bit of trivia from IMDB.com concerning Gregory Peck's Oscar-winning performance: Although Gregory Peck's inspirational performance as Atticus Finch turned out to be a perfect highlight to his long career, Rock Hudson was actually the studio's first choice for the role. James Stewart was also offered the part, but told the producers he believed the script was "too liberal", and feared the film would be controversial. www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/trivia
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jan 24, 2012 13:48:39 GMT -6
Lucy Lawless nearly missed being cast as Xena. She and her family were on a long camping trip when the producers selected her. Her in-laws correctly guessed where they would be and managed to get in contact with Lawless so that she could accept the producers’ offer.
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Post by Siren on Jan 24, 2012 22:13:51 GMT -6
Holy cow! I didn't know that, Scrappy. I read somewhere that Lucy was only cast after another girl, who was originally cast, got ill and dropped out.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 18, 2012 7:06:53 GMT -6
The official state insect of Pennsylvania is the firefly.
How cool is that? I love fireflies. Michigan doesn't have a state insect; if we did I'm guessing it'd be the mosquito.
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Post by Phalon on Feb 21, 2012 5:44:01 GMT -6
While doing the taxes, Hubs found this strangely funny....I think it's strange that Hubs finds anything funny while doing the taxes...
A person can claim on their taxes casualty and loss due to sonic booms.
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Post by Spock on Mar 31, 2012 12:01:37 GMT -6
... Michigan doesn't have a state insect; if we did I'm guessing it'd be the mosquito. I used to live in Florida and the Mosquito is their "unofficial" State bird. While doing the taxes ... Taxes! Great, now you've gone and reminded me that I'm supposed to be doing those instead of being in here wasting time!
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Post by Siren on Apr 3, 2012 7:43:14 GMT -6
Taxes! Grrrrr..... I am still annoyed, after finding out how much it costs me to work harder and have extra jobs.
Fact: 25% of the bones in the human body are located in the feet, which are made up from 52 bones.
There's nothing like having trouble with your feet to make you aware of them. *winces, and rubs foot*
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Post by Phalon on Apr 4, 2012 6:22:31 GMT -6
Aw, Siren, sorry for your tender tootsies!
Here's another couple of weird facts about feet:
Matthew McGrory of the United States has the largest feet in the world. McGrory, over seven feet tall, has a 28 1/2 shoe size. (Now that's a guy with plenty of sole!) You think women have to shell out a lot of money for shoes? McGrory's special made shoes cost $22,745 for one pair! (Considering what they say about the size of a guy's feet, it kinda makes you wonder - and it's actually quite a scary thought!)
Madeline Albrecht of Cincinnati holds the record for having sniffed the most feet, (who would even want to attempt to hold such a record?). Albrecht's product research career at Scholl's has led her to sniff approximately 5,600 feet. Talk about having a job that stinks!
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Post by stepper on Apr 6, 2012 21:03:39 GMT -6
A little known bit of railroad history.
If you were in the market for a watch in1880, would you know where to get one? You would go to a store, right? Well, of course you could do that, but if you wanted one that was cheaper and a bit better than most of the store watches, you went to the train station! Sound a bit funny?
Well, for about 500 towns across the northern United States, that's where the best watches were found.
Why were the best watches found at the train station? The railroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all. The telegraph operator was. Most of the time the telegraph operator was located in the railroad station because the telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from town to town. It was usually the shortest distance and the right-of-ways had already been secured for the rail line.
Most of the station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and that was the primary way that they communicated with the railroad. They would know when trains left the previous station and when they were due at their next station. And it was the telegraph operator who had the watches. As a matter of fact they sold more of them than almost all the stores combined for a period of about 9 years.
This was all arranged by "Richard", who was a telegraph operator himself. He was on duty in the North Redwood, Minnesota train station one day when a load of watches arrived from the east. It was a huge crate of pocket watches. No one ever came to claim them.
So Richard sent a telegram to the manufacturer and asked them what they wanted to do with the watches. The manufacturer didn't want to pay the freight back, so they wired Richard to see if he could sell them. So Richard did. He sent a wire to every agent in the system asking them if they wanted a cheap, but good, pocket watch. He sold the entire case in less than two days and at a handsome profit.
That started it all. He ordered more watches from the watch company and encouraged the telegraph operators to set up a display case in the station offering high quality watches for a cheap price to all the travelers. It worked! It didn't take long for the word to spread and, before long, people other than travelers came to the train station to buy watches.
Richard became so busy that he had to hire a professional watch maker to help him with the orders. That was Alvah. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The business took off and soon expanded to many other lines of dry goods. Richard and Alvah left the train station and moved their company to Chicago -- and it's still there.
IT'S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT that for a while in the1880's, the biggest watch retailer in the country was at the train station.
It all started with a telegraph operator - Richard Sears and his partner Alvah Roebuck!
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Post by Siren on Apr 8, 2012 23:05:46 GMT -6
Very interesting! I was waiting for Paul Harvey to pop in and say, "And now you know...the REST of the story."
Watches are one of my passions. And if I leave the house without mine, I miss it greatly. But I've noticed that watches are mostly worn by folks age 35 and above now. I've noticed that many younger people check the time on their cell phone.
++++++++
Fun fact: a group of turtles is called a bale.
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Post by Phalon on Apr 9, 2012 6:06:00 GMT -6
Oooo, cool story about Sears, Roebuck!
I'm with you, Siren - I feel discombobulated throughout the day if I forget to put my watch on in the morning. Interesting observation about the 35 and unders using their cell phones instead. I hadn't really paid much attention, but now that you mention it, you're right; I don't know any young people that wear watches...and I don't know any young people who don't go anywhere without their cell phones.
Wireless communication was actually invented long before the first cell phone was developed. The first wireless transmission occurred in 1865 when Dr. Mahlon Loomis used the atmosphere as a conductor to send messages within an 18-mile radius. It wasn't until 1973 though, that Motorola released the first cell phone prototype.
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Post by stepper on Apr 9, 2012 17:30:36 GMT -6
We can't have cell phones, radios, etc. in my office so a watch is pretty much the norm. Of course we can and often do just look at the computer, but swapping things out when coming and going during the days' activities isn't convenient and a watch just makes it easier.
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Post by Siren on Apr 18, 2012 23:07:36 GMT -6
I have always thought it was easier to check the time on a watch than to get my phone out and hit a button. But that's just me. ++++++++++ Frogs have two sets of eyelids. The first set works much like human eyelids. The second set of eyelids is transparent and enables frogs to see clearly as they swim underwater. www.heartheanswer.com/index.php?action=feature&qid=1222&PHPSESSID=714b481b14a2af3d06db23aaa2c93055We feature "Nature Watch" on my radio station. It's always interesting and well-produced.
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Post by stepper on Apr 19, 2012 13:26:11 GMT -6
Excluding daytime soaps, the show having the most episodes was Gunsmoke with 633; second place goes to Lassie with 588. I'm old enough to remember watching both. Of course, at the time, it never occurred to me to ask how last week 'bark bark' meant little Susie was down a well, and this week 'bark bark' meant Uncle Jesse shot himself in the foot and was directly in the path of a raging flood that was caused by a storm in the mountains that you didn't see but the viewers know about it because they saw the previews.
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Post by scamp on Apr 26, 2012 10:04:25 GMT -6
5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian National Anthem, but do know the first 9 words of the USA’s National Anthem.
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Post by Spock on Apr 26, 2012 14:33:19 GMT -6
50% of all married couples in the USA are women but, due to recent trends in US laws, that may change soon.
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Post by quettalee on Apr 26, 2012 17:47:04 GMT -6
50% of all married couples in the USA are women but, due to recent trends in US laws, that may change soon. Let's hope so. We've waited long enough.
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Post by Spock on Apr 27, 2012 3:48:54 GMT -6
Let's hope so. We've waited long enough. Ah but it may not. Don't forget there may be as many male/male as female/female pairings ...
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Post by quettalee on Apr 27, 2012 22:16:47 GMT -6
True, true.
I have never really had a strong feeling about marriage because it has never made a difference as far as having the same rights as heterosexual couples. I do keep up with the changes & after 30+ years of being treated as "less", it is nice to see some changes coming. I've worked just as hard, paid just as many taxes, been a productive member of society, struggled with the same day-to-day issues as everyone else and never had to same opportunity to benefit from the rights that so many straight marriages take for granted everyday.
And even now, if it does happen in my lifetime, I will still not benefit, because the person that I would finally marry after 30+ years is not from this country.
I wonder how many straight marriages have taken place over the years as a matter of convenience or money to gain American citizenship...and then ended in divorce after two years?? Maybe Ana & I should try advertising.
OK, enough of the soapbox. After all, I have 30+ years of oppression and discrimination to pull from...it could turn into a long post.
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Post by quettalee on Apr 27, 2012 22:19:04 GMT -6
And certainly in the wrong thread, since it is anything but "useless" facts. Stepping down now...
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