Your favourite bits of 'useless information'

[Ranil]

I often get told that I know too much 'useless information'. I counter this by saying that such information is not useless at all. For example, If every one of the world's 6.5billion people were to move to Texas, the population density would be 9344 people per square kilometre. This is still less than the population density of New York City and only 38% of the population density of Paris. I like to pull this bit of information out whenever someone tries to say that we are 'running out of space' on earth.

OK, your turn.

[Sherry]

The state of NH can fit into TX 27 times.

[scottkursk]

Texas is actually much smaller than it used to be. Here's a picture, although not the best, of how big we used to be. We stretched 3/4 of the way to Canada.

My weird fact is that it takes 850 peanuts to make a normal 81oz jar of peanut butter.

[Sherry]

The black footed ferrets main source of food is praire dogs.

[Atlashrug9]

I know way too much about Sid Meyers Pirates (video game).... and it is actually wasting my time!!!!

[thejohngaltline]

J. Edgar Hoover liked to fire FBI agents whose palms were sweaty when shaking hands.

[Lathanar]

Hermie Sadlers radio frequency is 464.6625

[DavidOdden]

The University of Tromsø is the world's northermost university.

[Sherry]

The phrase "Often a bridesmaid, but never a bride," actually originates from an advertisement for Listerine mouthwash from 1924.

The French have a doughnut called "Nun's Fart."

How appropriate!

I found those on the following website:

Amazing Facts

It's full of wonderful "useless facts".

[Proverb]

You add the DEX bonus to a ranged attack as opposed to adding the STR bonus to a melee attack.

[Felix]

If you cut an ant in half, the part with the head still crawls towards the honey and eats it.

[Mike]

The only U.S. coin made for circulation since the birth of this nation that was not made with any copper is a 1 cent coin, specifically, the 1943 steel cents made to save copper for the war effort.

Mike.

[Maarten]

You add the DEX bonus to a ranged attack as opposed to adding the STR bonus to a melee attack.

This is not useless information! Do you know what a huge difference this little bit of info can make?

[miseleigh]

Mmm, useless trivia... I used to have a couple small books of that. Here's a few tidbits I still remember. (Not guaranteed to be entirely accurate, since my memory isn't always reliable )

~A thirsty camel can drink up to 8 gallons of water in one minute.

~The giraffe used to be called a cameleopard, as it was believed to be a cross between a camel and a leopard.

~President Taft once got stuck in the White House bathtub.

~Covering your mouth when you sneeze, and the 'God bless you' from others that often results, began as a superstition that your soul could escape when you sneezed, and the devil could enter.

~People who are afraid of the number 13 are called triskaidekaphobes. Most hotels do not have a 13th floor.

~October 5th 1582 through the 14th did not exist in Catholic countries- they were skipped, by order of Pope Gregory the 13th, due to the buildup of error using the Julian calendar.

[JMeganSnow]

Calico cats are always female.

Antibiotics will turn your bones yellow.

You have no oil glands on your palms.

About 1/4 of the population has no parallax depth perception.

[D'kian]

Years ending in 00 are not leap years, unless they are evenly divisible by 400.

[JMeganSnow]

Dave Barry made up a silly term for this sort of information (like memorizing the theme song to "The Beverly Hillbillies"): Brain Sludge. He blames it for increasingly poor memory late in life: you can't remember what you need to remember because your brain is busy remembering all this stuff you don't need and never will.

[Felix]

This is not useless information! Do you know what a huge difference this little bit of info can make?

I guess you guys would totally pwn me, even if I had uber micro

[orangesiscool]

There is a fly next to me.

Beat that.

[LaszloWalrus]

There is NOT a fly next to me.

Beat THAT.