You know, I usually only see people on these forums talking about things like... shows... games... and Lusternia stuff. So, I'm going to vary it up a bit for you guys and give you some random stuff to read! Comments on anything are welcomed and appreciated.

Meteor Showers with the Naked Eye

Arietids - June 7th
Perseids - August 12th
Leonids - November 17th
Geminids - December 13th
Lyrids - April 22nd

Events that you won't want to miss in NYC
because you guys don't come here anyway

Sakura Matsuri - usually in April
The Village Halloween Parade - October 31st at 7PM
Radio City Music Spectacular - November 9th to December 30th

Random facts for you to think about

- WAL-MART generates $3,000,000.00 in revenues every 7 minutes
- Over one million stray dogs live in the New York City metropolitan area
- Drivers kill more deer than hunters
- 45.2% people pee in the shower
- 85% of men don't use the slit in their underwear
- 53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on
- King Kong was Hitler's favorite movie
- Each year, more than 50k people in the USA are injured by jewelry
- People who ride on rollercoasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in their brain
- The first condoms were made of linen
- More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a typical French kiss
- Bluebirds cannot see the color blue
- In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt
- Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th"
- Bill Gates' house was designed using a Mac computer
- To take an oath, ancient Romans put a hand on their testicles (that’s where the word “testimony” comes from)
- The moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches a year.
- It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times
- 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts
- 2,500 newborn babies will be dropped in the next month
- 1/3 of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper
- Iguanas have two penises
- Floccinaucinihilipilification is the longest English non-technical word at 29 letters long; it means, "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation"

Phobias

- Achluophobia = fear of darkness
- Acrophobia = fear of heights
- Agoraphobia = fear of a place or event where escape is impossible or when help is unavailable
- Aichmophobia = fear of needles, injections or of pointed objects
- Ailurophobia = fear of cats
- Algophobia = fear of pain
- Altophobia = fear of heights
- Androphobia = fear of males
- Apiphobia = fear of bees
- Aquaphobia = fear of water
- Arachnaphobia = fear of spiders
- Astraphobia = fear of thunder, lightning and storms
- Astrapophobia = fear of thunder, lightning and storms
- Autophobia = fear of being alone
- Aviatophobia = fear of flying
- Aviophobia = fear of flying
- Bacillophobia = fear of microbes and bacteria
- Bacteriophobia = fear of microbes and bacteria
- Belonephobia = fear of needles, injections or of pointed objects
- Brontophobia = fear of thunder, lightning and storms
- Cainophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Cainotophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Cenophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Centophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Chiroptophobia = fear of bats
- Cibophobia = fear of eating food
- Claustrophobia = fear of confined spaces
- Coitophobia = fear of sexual intercourse
- Coulrophobia = fear of clowns (not restricted to evil clowns)
- Cynophobia = fear of dogs
- Dentophobia = fear of dentists and dental procedures
- Dysmorphophobia = a phobic obsession with a real or imaginary body defect
- Emetophobia = fear of vomiting
- Enetophobia = fear of needles, injections or of pointed objects
- Entomophobia = fear of insects
- Equinophobia = fear of horses
- Ergasiophobia = fear of work or functioning, or a surgeon's fear of operating
- Ergophobia = fear of work or functioning, or a surgeon's fear of operating
- Erotophobia = fear of sexual love or sexual questions
- Friggatriskaidekaphobia = fear of Friday the 13th
- Genophobia = fear of sexual intercourse
- Glossophobia = fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak
- Gymnophobia = fear of nudity
- Heliophobia = fear of sunlight
- Haemophobia = fear of blood
- Hemophobia = fear of blood
- Herpetophobia = fear of reptiles
- Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia = fear of the number 666
- Hippophobia = fear of horses
- Hoplophobia = fear of firearms (guns)
- Hydrophobia = fear of water
- Kainolophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Kainophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Keraunophobia = fear of thunder, lightning and storms
- Laliophobia = fear of speaking
- Lalophobia = fear of speaking
- Lygophobia = fear of darkness
- Melissophobia = fear of bees
- Microbiophobia = fear of microbes and bacteria
- Musophobia = fear of mice and/or rats
- Mysophobia = fear of germs, contamination or dirt
- Necrophobia = fear of death, the dead
- Neophobia = fear of newness, novelty
- Nosophobia = fear of contracting a disease
- Nyctophobia = fear of darkness
- Odontophobia = fear of dentists and dental procedures
- Olfactophobia = fear of smells
- Ophidiophobia = fear of snakes
- Ornithophobia = fear of birds
- Osmophobia = fear of smells
- Paraskavedekatriaphobia = fear of Friday the 13th
- Paraskevidekatriaphobia = fear of Friday the 13th
- Panphobia = fear of everything or constantly afraid without knowing what is causing it
- Phonophobia = fear of loud sounds
- Pyrophobia = fear of fire
- Radiophobia = fear of radioactivity or X-rays
- Scotophobia = fear of darkness
- Sitophobia = fear of eating food
- Sociophobia = fear/dislike of society or people in general
- Taphophobia = fear of the grave, or fear of being placed in a grave while still alive.
- Technophobia = fear of technology
- Terdekaphobia = fear of the number 13
- Tetraphobia = fear of the number 4
- Tokophobia = fear of childbirth.
- Triskaidekaphobia = fear of the number 13.
- Trypanophobia = fear of needles, injections or of pointed objects
- Xenophobia = fear of strangers, foreigners, or aliens
- Zoophobia = fear of animals

The Chemical Composition of the Human Body
Hope you have good measuring cups!

- 43kg Oxygen
- 16kg Carbon
- 7kg Hydrogen
- 1.8kg Nitrogen
- 1kg Calcium
- .78kg Phosphorus
- .14kg Sulfur
- .095kg Chlorine
- .1kg Sodium
- .019kg Magnesium
- .0042kg Iron
- .0026kg Fluorine
- .0023kg Zinc
- .001kg Silicon
- .000001kg Zirconium
- .00068kg Rubidium
- .00032kg Strontium
- .00026kg Bromine
- .00012kg Lead
- .0000015kg Niobium
- .000072kg Copper
- .00006kg Aluminum
- .00005kg Cadmium
- .000018kg Boron
- .00004kg Cerium
- .000022kg Barium
- .000007kg Arsenic
- .00000011kg Vanadium
- .00002kg Tin
- .000006kg Mercury
- .000015kg Selenium
- .000012kg Manganese
- .00002kg Iodine
- .0000002kg Gold
- .000015kg Nickel
- .000005kg Molybdenum
- .000005kg Germanium
- .00002kg Titanium
- .0000007kg Tellurim
- .000002kg Antimony
- .000007kg Lithium
- .000014kg Chromium
- .000006kg Cesium
- .000003kg Cobalt
- .000002kg Silver
- .0000008kg Lanthanum
- .0000007kg Gallium
- .0000001kg Uranium
- .000000036kg Beryllium
- .0000000000000000078kg Radium
- .0000006kg Yttrium
- .0000005kg Bismuth
- .0000005kg Thallium
- .0000004kg Indium
- .0000002kg Scandium
- .0000002kg Tantalum
- .0000001kg Thorium
- .00000005kg Samarium
- .00000002kg Tungsten

Top Eight Mistakes Men Make on their First Dates

- Forgot to call to confirm the date
- Act like they have enough money to buy everything in the world, and have already bought most of everything in the world
- Talk about their Ex(es)
- Overcompliment
- Bad first location
- Don't hold doors open
- Talk on the phone with someone else
- Ogle other women

Top Six Mistakes Women Make on their First Dates

- Decide to bring a friend along
- Arrive more than 15 minutes late
- Talk about Marriage
- Talk about prospect of having Children
- Talk about things best talked about with your Physician
- Talk about Ex(es)

- In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt

Damn, that sucks...

It has use?
Wow.
Why?

...if that's not a technical word, then neither is (33) hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism.

EDIT: Yeah, most of those "factoids" are just urban legends or wrong.

Does that even mean anthing?

If you're actually counting all people in the world, I doubt that many men have access to/know of shower facilities, or that many women can afford/know the meaning of makeup.

And 83.75% of statistics are made up instantly.

I copied them out of the book I bought, the factoids... "The Little Giant Book of Weird & Wacky Facts (Little Giant Books)"

Is "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" technical?

Because this thread is intended to keep people busy, I decided to research!

- WAL-MART generates $3,000,000.00 in revenues every 7 minutes Wal-Mart generated US$351.1 billion last year, so that number is out of date. Now it's more to the tune of US$4.68 million every seven minutes.

- Over one million stray dogs live in the New York City metropolitan area Absolutely no reason to believe this to be true, even though official estimates are unavailable. The New York SPCA processes an average of 2900 dogs a year, both voluntary surrenders and captured strays. That number is far too low to project one million, or even 100,000.

- Drivers kill more deer than hunters Arkansas, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri, and Wisconsin have a combined bag total of 1.62 million in 2005, as compared to the 1.5 million collisions estimated by State Farm Insurance for the same year. I would get you a more complete number for deer hunting, but that's tedious work.

- 45.2% people pee in the shower No luck on confirming or disproving.

- 85% of men don't use the slit in their underwear As a male who's tried it, I can tell you that this statistic is invented, solely because it's too low. Using it makes you miss and uncomfortably restricts the flow.

- 53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on Highly suspect, only because the number is ridiculous. However, unconfirmed.

- King Kong was Hitler's favorite movie Urban legend with supposedly untraceable roots. He certainly never wrote that, and the first references to it appear in America, not Germany, so oral transmission seems unlikely.

- Each year, more than 50k people in the USA are injured by jewelry If you include the act of piercing, this number is way too low. If you don't, dental problems top the list, with choking presumably in second. I've worked my heart out trying to get a solid number on this, since there are a lot of numbers out there, but there is no amalgamation of "jewelry injuries in the US" on the 'Net. However, this does seem to be in the right general ballpark, although it's probably by accident, considering the quality of scholarship that went into the rest of this list.

- People who ride on rollercoasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in their brain There is one confirmed case of a roller coaster causing two clots in a Japanese woman's brain that had to be surgically removed. While probably true in the strictest sense, the preceding statement is what you get when you repeat a story too many times.

- The first condoms were made of linen Sheep intestine seems to be the first confirmed material. Gabriele Falloppio, the first person to seriously write about condoms, didn't seem to care which cloth should be used to experiment. He was known to have been involved with the intestine trials, however, so it's possible that his idea never panned out or was never tested.

- More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a typical French kiss Human normal flora consists of about 200 types of bacteria. While it's quite possible that most of those reside in the mouth, not all of them are going to be exchanged in every kiss. Regardless, the number is a bit high.

- Bluebirds cannot see the color blue While I can't find anything on bluebirds specifically, the avian visible color spectrum is typically blue-shifted. Most birds can't see red, but can see a portion of the ultraviolet range. This is likely false.

- In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt The method and location are semi-confirmed, the era and amount are not. First, you don't kill yourself by eating salt. You kill yourself by drinking highly concentrated salt water. Also, it doesn't take a pound of it. Sources range from 1 g NaCl/kg body weight to .33g/kg as the lethal dose, but in either case, it's not a pound. Also, the "ancient" is highly suspect--salt was an expensive commodity until fairly recently, and all sorts of foreign and exotic things are put on "ancient China." Regardless, it's a method known to the Chinese, although primarily as infanticide.

- Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th" This is true, but not exactly shocking. Months that begin on a Tuesday will have a Friday the 11th and a Wednesday the 15th.

- Bill Gates' house was designed using a Mac computer The project was drawn entirely by hand. It started in 1988, what else would you expect? The architects, however, were known to have Macintoshes in their office. If you were to hire Bohlin Cywinski Jackson to make your house today, it'll probably be done on a Macintosh.

- To take an oath, ancient Romans put a hand on their testicles (that’s where the word “testimony” comes from) The bit about the oath is correct. The entymology is highly suspect, but has not been entirely ruled out by linguists.

- The moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches a year. True. I can't be bothered to give myself a crash course in the mathematics of orbits to calculate how much longer we'll have our moon.

- It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times
- 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts
- 2,500 newborn babies will be dropped in the next month
- 1/3 of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper

- Iguanas have two penises False.

- Floccinaucinihilipilification is the longest English non-technical word at 29 letters long; it means, "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation" True. As far as I can tell, it's also used almost exclusively by politicians and comedians.

EDIT: Oi, I missed some. I'll fix that.

There's a slit on underwear? O_o

I love how people are fully willing to state that some of these statistics are made up, just because they aren't aware of the survey that might have once been done, at some point in history to gather the number.

Something tells me that not all studies ever written or published are accessible on the internet.

Maybe only 5% use the slit, but 35% have cut a hole in the side of a pizza box and used it to freak out their friends in college.

I had to use the slit at my wedding, because my pants were too difficult to unbutton, and I didn't want to waste time.

I imagine the height of the slit also depends on what type of underwear you are wearing, what size, and how long you are.

What's with some of you and saying 'There's a slit?'

Do none of you look at what you're wearing?

It doesn't matter if a non-random survey was done. If 53% of all Cosmo readers checked a box that said they won't leave the house without makeup (or some misleading question that amounts to something similar), does that mean that 53% of all women won't leave the house without makeup on?

some slits are easier to spot than others

http://www.hanes.com/Hanes/Categories/Kids...soft-Hanes.aspx

http://www.hanes.com/Hanes/Categories/Men-...iefs-Hanes.aspx

I really don't think that's what the slit is for. Variable sized units require variable sized covers. The slit helps with that.

And what if it was an internal survey of 5,000 women from 17 different countries across 6 continents, done by the L'Oréal marketing department?

Right, cause the wide open hole in my boxers with a single button on it, really helps with the coverage!

Odd Slate article...

http://slate.com/id/2143313/

Relevant passage