Here's some interesting facts I came upon:

1. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)

2. If you passed gas consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that's more like it!)

3. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)

4. A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (I want to be a pig.)

5. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy, But I'm still not over the pig.)

6. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home...maybe at work.)

7. The male preying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. (" Honey, I'm home. What the....?!" )

8. The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes...can you imagine??)

9. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

10. Some lions mate over 50 times a day. ( I still want to be a pig...quality over quantity.)

11. Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I never wanted to know.)

12. Elephants are the only animal that cannot jump. (OK, so that's a good thing....enough holes in the earth as it is, do we need more!!!!)

13. A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)

14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)

15. Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)

16. Polar bears are left-handed. (Who knew? Who cares!)

17. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??!!!)

One of the interesting things about statements made in an authoritive manner and claimed to be facts is that many people will believe them without hesitation.

As some of you may know, this aspect of human belief was well-researched by the Bulgarian behavioural phsychologist, Michael Mishka, in the 1970s. For those who are not familiar with his theory, I will be happy to post details later.

I, though, am a cynic and I certainly view with considerable disbelief statements one and two - the difference in energy output between shouting and breaking wind cannot possibly be of that magnitude, even though methane emissions do create significant energy (the methane emissions from the world's termites contribute more to global warming than do the exhaust gas emissions of all the road vehicles in the USA - and that is a fact - I researched it myself and did my own calculations). Statement one is certainly an underestimate and two is certainly an overestimate.

And item 17 must be false since there is no way that anyone can check this (you can't say to a dolphin, "how was it for you, darling?") What's more, it is surely a commonsense deduction that animals like sex - otherwise they just wouldn't do it - especially if they happen to be Mantises!

Richard English

See here and here.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Oh, c'mon guys! Don't be so stiff here! You don't think I really believed all this, did you?

(I really admire that pig though! )

Sorry. I mispelt his name. It's Mikael Mishka. (but you probably all knew that)

Richard English

quote:

---

Originally posted by Morgan:
Oh, c'mon guys! Don't be so stiff here! You don't think I really believed all this, did you?

(I really admire that pig though! )

---

Of course not, I was pointing you over to the other discussions because I thought you might find some of the comments entertaining.
Sorry if you misunderstood my intent.

On the other hand it's surprising how many people do believe those lists and how many of the alleged "facts" on lists like this pass unchallenged into common belief when five second's thought will show up the flaws.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Sat Jan 11th, 2003 at 6:51.]

As I said, that was Mishka's hypothesis.

Richard English

My favourite factoid of this sort is the one that says that a duck's quack does not echo.

A moment's thought about the physics would show this up as complete nonsense, but it keeps appearing on this sort of list.

Many years ago a schoolfriend of mine, whose parents had once owned a pig farm, did mention something of the sort. Having the normal significant interest in matters sexual that is possessed by most teenage boys, I do recall being rather envious.

His actual claim was that the boar could be "at it" all night - though whether he had actually stayed up to watch the proceedings or whether it was an inference he drew from the noises emanating from the sty I did not check.

Of course, this statement does not actually prove or disprove the claim made in the list, since my friend's statement referred to the act of copulation, not its culmination.

Richard English

One of my favourites, especially in the version I'm about to quote, is

"It takes more muscles to frown than to smile - and even more muscles to reach out and slap anybody who tells you this."

You should always remember that seventy three percent of statistics are made up on the spot. Including this one.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

i still wanna be a pig cant stop thinking about the pig even after 5 years

Hmmm ...

Like mother, like daughter ...?

quote:

i still wanna be a pig cant stop thinking about the pig even after 5 years

Well, if anyone wants to try some porcine procreation techniques, I'm up for it

Well, the boar's appendage is corkscrew-shaped. Maybe that helps?

I missed this thread the first time around, but couldn't resist a few back-of-the-envelope calculations.

1. Yelling for 8.6 years = heating one cup of coffee is actually in the ballpark, and on the high side. Assume we are heating 250 cc 100 degrees C (to actually bring it to a rolling boil you would have to take into account the latent heat of steam, but I'm ignoring that). That gives 25,000 calories or 100,000 joules or 100,000 watt-seconds (quick sanity check: 1000 W microwave heats cup of water in about 100 seconds, which is consistent with our numbers). Yelling produces about 0.001 watts of acoustic power, so you would have to yell for 100,000,000 seconds to heat a cup of water, or about 3.17 years.

2. I worked this one backwards: How much methane would you have to fart, per day, to equal 15 kilotons of tnt in 6 years, 9 months? Methane contains 34.6 x 10^6 J/m^3, and the Hiroshima bomb released 6.3 x 10^13 J, so 1 a-bomb = 2 x 10^6 cubic meters of gas. You would need to fart 800 cubic meters of gas per day for 6 years, 9 months to equal an A-bomb. A really good case of the farts produces about a liter of gas in an hour, so I'd say this one overestimates the power of a fart by a factor of 300,000.

8. 350 x 6 ft = 700 yards, or 7 football fields, not 1.

Harkening back to an old post, where Richard reminisces about his teen-age days.

quote:

Many years ago a schoolfriend of mine did mention something of the [pig's impressive sexual stamina]. Having the normal significant interest in matters sexual that is possessed by most teenage boys, I do recall being rather envious.

Of course, my friend's statement referred to the act of copulation, not its culmination.

For a teenage boy, there's not much difference between copulation and culmination.

Indeed, the latter can precede the former.

I would love to see how they measure the length of a pig's orgasm. Maybe our skeptical neveu could help us with that one.

Yes, Kalleh, I'm curious, too. Maybe you can do some original research on that and get back to us?

quote:

Originally posted by tinman:
Yes, Kalleh, I'm curious, too. Maybe you can do some original research on that and get back to us?

...Oh, don't mind me, just passing through, catching up on the forum... ( )

I'm looking for neveu's intellectual take on this. He probably knows of some valid and reliable measurement tool that has been used.

Of course, a pig in a non-gender-specific term. Is this lengthy orgasm that of the boar or the sow?

And if the latter, how do we know she's not faking it?

I seem to remember a lot of tabloid outrage at a TV 'reality' show a while back. It had the usual bunch of D-list 'celebrities' carrying out tasks on a farm. One of the tasks shown was of a woman 'collecting' sperm from the boar. Apparently they both seemed to enjoy the task, although I didn't read how long it took.

More useless information (or as I like to think of it unlikely, unverifiable and untrue information).

There are some beer mats around at the moment promoting an anti drinking and driving message. The front says "11 YEARS is a long time to have a drink drive conviction on your record".

But I'm not interested in that side, it's the backs that I find interesting. These contain a variety of alleged "facts" about things that happen in 11 years. Here they are with my comments

In 11 years you will

wear out 26 pairs of shoes (might be about right if you buy cheap enough shoes)

breathe enough air to fill 20 hot air balloons (how big a balloon? I can't be bothered to do the maths but if anything this seems to be rather low to me even if they are very big balloons)

listen to 19,501 songs (what a ridiculously specious accuracy)

spill 54 litres of assorted liquids (entirely unverifiable)

sweat enough to fill 1612 fish tanks (how big a fish tank, specious accuracy and unverifiability all rolled into one)

sleep for 22,621 hours (just over five and a half hours a night, possibly close enough but there's that curse of specious accuracy again)

shave 1.72 metres of facial hair. (verifiable I suppose but once again the misleading presentation of accuracy)

loose £64 in loose change (unlikely and unverifiable, by definition you don't know how much loose change you have lost)

eat 8,034 bananas (two bananas every day, clearly untrue)

----------

I am considering, just for the hell of it, reporting them to the ASA for printing information that is clearly untrue. As the advertising is produced by HM Government it would be nice to complain about it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I can tell you I wouldn't "wear out" 26 pairs of shoes in 11 years. I might throw them out, but I'd not wear them out.

Most of them seem bogus to me. The only people I know who'd eat 2 bananas per day would be those on lasix or another diuretic.

quote:

there's that curse of specious accuracy again

A few years ago a former astronaut said in an interview that the probability of the Earth suffering a major catastrophe -- asteroid collision, supervolcano, etc. -- was 1 in 455.

Is that 1 in 455 in a year, a decade, a century? The time frame is very important.

Speaking of specious accuracy, see this recent strip.

[Can we insert an image into a post?]

Funny, Hab.

1 in 455 doesn't sound that rare to me.

The reason a number like 455 is silly, independent of time frame, is that -- in the best case -- it is the result of combining estimates of the probabilities of extremely rare events. Such estimates are likely to be off by orders of magnitude because the sample size is small and because the underlying processes may not remain the same over large time scales. I wouldn't quibble over an estimate like "somewhere between 1:100 and 1:1,000,000", but 1 in 455 implies that one knows more than one actually does.

more usless info for people that want to know


The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodlemaker (im hungry)


Americans eat an average of 18 pounds of fresh apples each year. The most popular variety in the United States is the Red Delicious. (i like gree apples hmmmm)

Table salt is the only commodity that hasn’t risen dramatically in price in the last 150 years. (no wonder people have high blood pressure we never will run out of salt)


Between 25% to 33% of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light. ( i think im gonna live in the dark then)



The first Band-Aid Brand Adhesive Bandages were three inches wide and eighteen inches long. You made your own bandage by cutting off as much as you needed. ( that better be a big boo boo)

In 1977, a 13 year old child found a tooth growing out of his left foot ( um thats just scary)


During his or her lifetime, the average human will grow 590 miles of hair. ( thats alot of hair)



The average Human bladder can hold 13 ounces of liquid. ( no wonder i have to pee so much)

The first toilet ever seen on TV was on 'Leave It to Beaver' ( lol)


Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie. ( hurry lets all lick stamps)

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

one more but this one i want to play with i want to see if we can find all 293 ways



1) 100 pennies
2) 20 nickles
3) 10 dimes
4) 4 quarters
5) 2 half dollars
6) 95 pennies 1 nickle
7) 90 pennies 2 nickles
8) 90 pennnies 1 dime
9) 85 pennies 3 nickles
10) 85 pennies 1 dime 1 nickle



keep it going

That makes sense, neveu. It's bogus statistics like those that create neuroses and extremism.

11) 80 pennies, four nickels
12) 80 pennies, two dimes
13) 80 pennies, one dime, two nickels
14) 75 pennies, one quarter
15) 75 pennies, two dimes, one nickel
16) 70 pennies, three dimes
17) 65 pennies, three dimes, one nickel
18) 60 pennies, four dimes
19) 55 pennies, two dimes, one quarter
20) 50 pennies, one half-dollar
21) 50 pennies, four dimes, two nickels
22) 45 pennies, one nickel, one half-dollar
23) 40 pennies, one dime, one half-dollar
24) 35 pennies, one dime, one nickel one half-dollar
25) 30 pennies, six nickels, four dimes
26) 30 pennies, two dimes, one half-dollar
27) 25 pennies, three quarters
28) 25 pennies, one half-dollar, one quarter
29) 25 pennies, five dimes. one quarter
30) 25 pennies, three quarters
31) 20 pennies, two quarters, three dimes
32) 15 pennies, three dimes, one half-dollar, one nickel
33) 10 pennies, nine dimes
34) 10 pennies. seven dimes, four nickels
35) 10 pennies, one half-dollar, eight nickels
36) 10 pennies, one half-dollar, one quarter, two dimes. one nickel
37) 5 pennies, one half-dollar, one quarter, two dimes
38) 5 pennies, one half-dollar, one quarter, four nickels
39) 75 pennies, five nickels
39) 70 pennies, six nickels
40) 65 pennies, seven nickels
41) 60 pennies, eight nickels

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

Once you've worked your way through the various combinations, you can try working out the same calculation in British money. We have £1 coins, then 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p, and 1p coins.

Or try it with "proper" money (as it was when I started work) and use the guinea as the main unit. Our currency was, at that time, divided into farthings, halfpennies, pennies, threepenny bits (joeys), sixpences (tanners), shillings (bobs), two-shilling pieces (florins), half-crowns, crowns, ten-shilling notes and pounds.

Or, in order, ¼d, ½d, 1d, 3d, 1/-, 2/-, 2/6, 5/-, 10/- £1, 21/-

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard English,

21/-

Twenty-one shillings is a guinea. The virgule (i.e., '/') which is used to separate the amount of shillings from those of pence originated in a long s which was short for shilling. The stylized L (i.e., £) for pound is from the Latin librum 'pound' and the d for penny/pence is from the Latin denarius 'penny'.

Of the pre-decimal or Lsd coinage of the UK and England that was before even Richard's youth, my favorite is the mark (which is also a common currency in other countries (at least before the euro was introduced):

quote:

In England the "mark" never appeared as a coin, but as a money of account only, and apparently came into use in the 10th century through the Danes. According to 19th century sources, it first equaled 100 pence, but after the Norman Conquest equaled 160 pence = 2/3 of the Pound Sterling, or 13 shillings and 4 pence. In Scotland, the Merk Scots comprised a silver coin of this value, issued first in 1570 and afterward in 1663. (Link)

In my coin collection I have a ten bob note of WW2 vintage which my dad brought home from his time stationed in the UK during that war.

quote:

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

one more but this one i want to play with i want to see if we can find all 293 ways

I'm afraid you'll only find 242 ways.

As usual, Google comes to the rescue.
See also this ... and this

THIS is the best.

I didn't include half-dollars.

There are 388,000,582 ways to make change for a pound with farthings, halfpennies, pennies, threepenny bits sixpences, shillings, two-shilling pieces, half-crowns, crowns, and ten-shilling notes. Those damn farthings kill ya.

quote:

Originally posted by neveu:

quote:

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

one more but this one i want to play with i want to see if we can find all 293 ways

I'm afraid you'll only find 242 ways.

The other 51 ways are what happens when you don't count your change properly in the pub.

OK. What about my newly proposed currency. Here in Bobland we have done away with all that nasty decimal (and pre-decimal) stuff and gone for nice sensible, logical prime numbers.

So I have coin denominations of 1p 2p 3p 5p 7p 11p 13p 17p 19p 23p 29p 31p 37p 41p 43p 47p 53p 59p 61p 67p 71p 73p 79p 83p 89p and 97p

The pound is of course worth 101p

Let's see you work that one out!

quote:

nice sensible, logical prime numbers

I agree. That way you only need three coins to make change for anything.

quote:

I didn't include half-dollars.

You didn't include the $1 coin either. That's necessary to produce "293 ways"; without it, you get only 292.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:

So I have coin denominations of 1p 2p 3p 5p 7p 11p 13p 17p 19p 23p 29p 31p 37p 41p 43p 47p 53p 59p 61p 67p 71p 73p 79p 83p 89p and 97p

The pound is of course worth 101p

Let's see you work that one out!

631620
The larger primes don't contribute much.

The mathematicians are at it again!

wow i never thought this would go this way this is interesting and alot different than when i used to post a couple years ago

quote:

The mathematicians are at it again!

I'm not a mathematician. I wrote a ten-line, recursive lisp function that takes an amount to change and a list of coins, does an exhaustive search and returns the number of ways to make change.

quote:

I wrote a ten-line, recursive lisp function

I'm pleathed that that you told uth what you did.

I never knew that Richard was an Igor. (Only Pratchett fans will get that.)

quote:

Originally posted by Morgan:
10. Some lions mate over 50 times a day. ( I still want to be a pig...quality over quantity.)

Clearly posted by a woman.