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The amount of knowledge we acquire over the course of our lives is astonishing. When we really sit down and think, we'd all be amazed at the stockpile of information our brains store. That's why more of us should try to get on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" You don't have to be a genius to know things. And we know the most inexplicable things.
Redditor u/JM5172 wanted to learn a few things about life by asking... What's a random fact you know for some reason?Did you know dolphins sleep with one eye open? How is that possible? I sleep with an eye mask and curtains drawn in complete darkness. But they do it to be ready for sharks. They can actually turn off half of their brains one side at a time. Crazy.
Slow Down!
Here is one "The first ever person convicted of speeding was going 8 mph."
Bless You
Approximately 20% of people in the world can make themselves sneeze by looking into the sun.
I'm more surprised by the fact it's only 20% of people. I remember having a conversation about being able to do this in grade school and everyone agreed that looking at the sun causes sneezing. Hell, if it's during allergy season and I focus enough I can create a genuine sneeze on command.
ZAPPED!!!!
Frank Zappa was playing a show with The Mothers Of Invention at a casino on a lake in Switzerland when an audience member shot a flare off causing the place to catch fire and burn down, destroying a ton of their equipment. A week later they played in London with rented equipment and Frank was pushed off the stage by a jealous fan who thought Frank was f**king his girlfriend. Frank was messed up really bad and never toured with The Mothers of Invention ever again. In fact for 6 months he was in a wheelchair and couldn't tour at all. These two events really changed the trajectory of his musical career.
At the same time as the infamous Switzerland show, a band had arrived at a hotel across the lake to record an album. They watched the casino burn from the hotel and it inspired them to write a new song right there in the hotel. The band, Deep Purple, then recorded what would become their most famous song "Smoke on the Water".
I don't know why I know this because I'm not a fan of either of them.
Tardigrades
Water bears (Tardigrades) can survive a few minutes near absolute zero. They can also survive being boiled. They can also lose like 99% of the water in their body and live for years as a dehydrated nothing. Then return to normal form when/if they end up in a better environment.
I read about them in in a science magazine when I was like 11. They seemed like the most bad@ss creature on earth so I never forgot about them.
Former Flat Earthers Explain What Finally Made Them Come Around | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Science is science. Fact is fact. Truth is truth and simple is simple. These are things we must now attest to in 2021. Can we please all get onboard with wha...What about Carrots?
When threatened, the sea cucumber will eject its digestive system to scare its predators.
So far, so very interesting. I never look into the Sun and know I have to to see if I'm part of the 20% of sneezers. And 8 miles an hour? That's petty...
Super Baby
Babies can hold their entire body-weight suspended from a stick for several seconds up to a minute. Current thought is that it's an ability left from when we were a lot hairier.
Equate it All...
81 x 81 = 6,561. In middle school, me and one of my friends were convinced we could memorize all math equations and this is the only one that stuck with me outside of the standard multiplication table.
Measured...
Music charts in the US is measured in 'Top 40' because standard jukebox machines in the past held 40 records.
Interesting, I heard something similar, but not jukebox limits but radio play time limits. Ie they wanted the "most popular countdown" show and 40 was the number of songs they could reliably fit into that format without making the show too long (three hours or something).
Secrets
The White House only got the ability to print double-sided documents in 2016.
The amount of ancient technology our government uses is staggering. You'd think the pentagon would be filled with super computers, but up until like three years ago, the Pentagon was having custom floppy disks made and paying a crap ton of money for it because...
1- No one made floppy disks anymore and...
2- the computers they were using were so old that they didn't have cd imports.
Sweat it Out
Cows sweat through their nose.
Dogs sweat through their nose and paws.
The Timing
Despite what you see in movies and TV, the effects of chloroform don't kick in for another 5 minutes or so after it's been administered.
That's just when you start feeling the effect. It takes a lot longer for what you see in movies. In fact a lot of people use chloroform to get high.
Manic Mondays
President James Garfield died on a Monday. His assassin, Charles Guiteau, when shopping for a gun, decided on one with an ivory grip because it would look better in a museum. He also tried touring the facility where he expected to be incarcerated, but was turned away.
Pounds Away
Crying helps you lose weight,
Told this to my friends every time they cried, sometime it helped.
And most weight loss (practically all of it, actually) is lost through breathing.
Granted, there's only a minuscule amount of waste CO2 expelled in each breath from you burning your energy reserves to stay alive, but think of how many breaths you take in a day, and over the course of weeks to months.
So Cute
Cute Aggression is a feeling you get when you get overwhelmed by positive emotion so your brain tries to counterbalance that with negative emotions. So there can be things that are so cute you wanna kill them.
I remember reading somewhere on the internet (so it has to be true) that the reason people squeeze cute small animals is because the human brain literally cannon comprehend how cute it is and therefore instinctively wants to make it stop being so cute by squeezing it to death.
The Dust
The difference in size between a grain of dust and the Earth is the same difference in size between a grain of dust and an atom. furthermore, the difference in size between the Earth and an atom is the same difference in size between an atom and 1 plank length.
Hey Flipper
Dolphins get high on pufferfish 🐬.
Apparently girls have more tastebuds than boys.
There are no clocks in casinos in Vegas.
3
I have three
- You are special, in that you are almost guaranteed to know something that someone else doesn't.
- By the age of 40 you probably still won't have heard the funniest joke you will ever hear, and over 40 you will probably already know the funniest joke you will ever tell to someone else.
- The number of possible ways to shuffle a pack of playing cards is 52 factorial - or 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000
If you were to make every person on the planet shuffle a deck of cards every second of every day for the entire life of the universe there would still be a one in a trillion, trillion, trillion chance of the two decks being in the same order.
Birth
Most of my random facts come from QI but the chain saw was invented to cut through the pubic bone and open the birth canal to air in child birth. It was on a pocket watch type chain that was pulled back and forth. So ya.
The Calvary
That a cavalry unit once captured a fleet of enemy ships.
Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder to cross on horse back.
Basically the Dutch fleet was anchored between the 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) stretch of sea that separates the mainland port of Den Helder and the island of Texel.
That stretch of sea was frozen trapping the ships in position and it just so happened to thick enough to cross.
After a quick charge across the ice the French horsemen surrounded the 14 dutch ships.
It seems both sides were in capable of any kind of military action, the french couldn't bring across their heavy guns and the Dutch prepared to destroy the ships but it both sides decided to wait for orders.
The Dutch were ordered to surrender, there were no casualties on either side. The French took ownership of the ships but later returned them to the Batavian Republic in May 1795 under the Treaty of The Hague; one of its other provisions was an indemnity of ƒ100 million.
Listen Up
When you lose your teeth for good, the bones in your ears shift and your hearing gets worse. Brush those bad boys!
Ok. I'm taking noted because like I said... who knows when "Millionaire" or "Jeopardy" will call? Also... snails sleep for three hours at a time... just so you know.
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It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
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