Useless Trivia: Places to Drive on Left

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Discussion Overview

The thread explores various snippets of trivia that may be of limited practical use but are of potential interest to participants. Topics range from geographical facts about driving regulations to peculiar statistics and historical anecdotes.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Meta-discussion

Main Points Raised

  • One participant lists numerous places where driving is on the left side of the road.
  • Another mentions the height comparison between Norway's Galdhøpiggen and Glittertind, suggesting Glittertind may be higher when accounting for snow.
  • Several participants discuss the nature of trivia, with some asserting that "useless trivia" is redundant.
  • A participant provides a detailed list of food additives categorized by E-numbers.
  • There are claims about the dangers of animals, noting that one is more likely to be killed by a pig than a shark.
  • Another participant shares trivia about the longest fingernails and tectonic plate movement.
  • Mr. Potato Head is noted as the first toy advertised on television, with a humorous anecdote about his political candidacy.
  • Participants engage in light-hearted banter regarding the term "Norweeds" and the historical context of Norsemen.
  • One participant humorously questions the accuracy of trivia presented, suggesting discrepancies in the information shared.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a variety of viewpoints, with some agreeing on the nature of trivia while others contest specific claims or interpretations. The discussion remains largely unresolved with multiple competing views on the significance and accuracy of the trivia shared.

Contextual Notes

Some claims made in the discussion lack sufficient context or supporting evidence, leading to potential misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the trivia presented. Additionally, the accuracy of certain statistics and historical references is not verified.

  • #31
Ivan Seeking said:
...and a horse is approximately a sphere.
*ahem*

I think you mean a chicken. We're not -that- unabashed.

*narrows eyes*

- Warren
 
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  • #32
Danger said:
That reminds me...





http://img104.echo.cx/img104/2310/pf7ka.th.jpg


sorry
Should I be keeping track of these things?

This one is a bit more subtle than the others. I can't tell you how many times I've said those exact words in a bar to someone who reminded me of Mr. Potato Head. OK, I could tell you, but I won't
 
  • #33
Author, Ernest Vincent Wright, wrote a book called "Gadsby" which is over 50,000 words long and it does not contain the letter "E".
The world's largest pyramid is 177 feet tall and covers 15 acres it in Cholula de Rivadabia, Mexico.
 
  • #34
I found this tidbit while looking up information on exploding frogs, so will share it here since it seems more appropriate:
If you feed tomato hornworms cornmeal, they can't digest it and will blow up! :biggrin:
 
  • #36
Huckleberry said:
Freud would be proud. And very busy. Take a look at these sex hangups from around the world.
In Minnesota, it is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse with a live fish.
So a dead fish is okay? Or does that violate the no-sex-with-a-corpse law?

In Detroit, couples are not allowed to make love in an automobile unless the act takes place while the vehicle is parked on the couple's own property.
Makes one wonder how much time Hypatia must have spent in prison...

In Kingsville, Texas there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city's airport property.
Hey SOS! Did you see this?

Women can sell items and be topless in Liverpool, England—but only in tropical fish stores.
That's just cruel. Get the guys all worked up, and then tell 'em they can't use the fish...

In the quiet town of Connorsville, Wisconsin, it's illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm.
Can he fire a rocket?

In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances (including the wedding night).
Does anyone else see a paradox here? I suppose this has something to do with Clinton's definition of 'sex'.
 
  • #37
Makes one wonder how much time Hypatia must have spent in prison...

None,..lol I have a lot of property~! o:)
 
  • #38
If you repeatedly use your microwave oven to heat a sodium acetate solution sufficiently such that supersaturation is achieved, your microwave will forever smell like an aspirin.
 
  • #39
Ivan Seeking said:
If you repeatedly use your microwave oven to heat a sodium acetate solution sufficiently such that supersaturation is achieved, your microwave will forever smell like an aspirin.
Will that keep it sterile?

You can also heat water past the boiling point in a microwave without it breaking the surface tension. As soon as the surface is disturbed the water can explode into steam and cause serious burns.
 
  • #40
007 is the ISD telephone code for Russia.
 
  • #41
Pierre Trudeau's favourite snack food was/were chocolate chip cookies

Canada's founders considered the following names for the new country in 1867:
Albertoria (I guess after Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband)
Cabotia
Efisga (england, france, italy, scotland, germany, aborigines)
Hochegela (former name of Montreal, the Toronto of the day)
Norland
Tuponia (short form of the United Provinces of North America)
Victorialand
West Britainnia

-- simultaneous translation in Canada's House of Commons was introduced by Dief the cheif early in 1959. i don't know how non-bilingual people could have got by before then.

-- a Canadian photographer (the toronto star's norman similas) took a photo of dealy plaza or whatever that clearly showed 2 assassins in the window of the texas school book depository. the rcmp took them & the negatives but then they got "lost"

-- in Canada the correct way to address a mayor is "your worship"

-- the town of niagara-on-the-lake doesn't have a mayor, it has a lord mayor

-- "screech" (flavoured jamaican rum made in st. john's nfld) comes from the scottish word "screigh" which means 'whiskey"
 
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  • #42
Safe ice thicknesses, in inches:

Single person on skis 1.5"
Single person on foot 2.5"
Groups in single file 3"
Snowmobile 3"
Small car 7.5"
Large car, small truck 9"
7 tonnes 10"
25 tonnes 20"
70 tonnes 30"








Don't walk on ice kids, it's dangerous.
 
  • #43
fourier jr said:
-- simultaneous translation in Canada's House of Commons was introduced by Dief the cheif early in 1959.
You blacken this site with mention of that treasonous bastard? If he were alive today, I would cheerfully assassinate him in the most hideous manner imaginable for what he did to the Arrow. :mad:

fourier jr said:
-- "screech" (flavoured jamaican rum made in st. john's nfld) comes from the scottish word "screigh" which means 'whiskey"
I always thought that the name came from the sound you make when you first taste it. :-p
 
  • #44
brewnog said:
Safe ice thicknesses, in inches:
So that'd be about 4" for you and your armload of Guinness? :-p
 
  • #45
The worlds record for rope quoit throwing is an unbroken sequence of 4,002 pegs by Bill Irby, Sr., of Australia, in 1968.
 
  • #46
Plimsoll Line markings:

TF Tropical Fresh Water
F Fresh Water
T Tropical Sea Water
S Summer Sea Water
W Winter Sea Water
WNA Winter North Atlantic

There are also apparently different markings for vessels on the Great American Lakes, and for Timber Load Lines etc.
 
  • #47
Longest midget toss was by an English truck driver named Jimmy Leonard. He tossed Lenny the Giant (4'4'' , 98 lbs.) 11 feet, 5 inches.

All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in 1930.

Elvis Presley was not a King and his manager Col. Tom Parker was not an actual Colonel

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

Pop Tarts actually taste better chilled in a refrigerator than heated in a toaster.

The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as 300 AD, Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827

Adolf Hilter liked to dump sauerkraut on his ice cream as a snack before bedtime.
 
  • #48
There's an interesting religion from Vietnam called Caodaism. It's formed from a fusion of secular and religious philosophies of the East and West and is based on messages received in seances to Ngo Minh Chieu, the group's founder, from various historical figures such as Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Lenin and Elvis. There are three saints, Viatnamese peot and prophet Trang Trinh, Chinese revolutionary Dr Sun Yatesen and Victor Hugo. The main temple in Tay Ninh is really gaudy and there's a big globe covered in stars in the centre with a big creepy eye painted on it.
 
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  • #49
Gerald Ford once had a job as a male model. He was also the only President to have two women attempt to assisinate him.

He was the only person to serve as both Vice-President and President without being elected to either position.

He not only pardoned Nixon and draft dodgers, but also pardoned Robert E Lee of all charges of treason (post-humously, of course).

His name at birth was Leslie Lynch King, Jr.

Daniel Webster's biggest desire was to become President of the United States. The closest he came was when first William Henry Harrison asked Webster to be his running mate and, again, when Zachary Taylor asked him to be his running mate. Webster turned them down both times. Both candidates won the election and then died in office. However, Webster did include the words "misjudgement, blunder, error, fault, flub, fumble, goof, miscue, misstep, slipup, stumble; foul-up, muff; miscalculation" in his dictionary.
 
  • #50
The German word for nightmare, Albtraum, means "elf dream". The archaic form Albdruck means "elf pressure"; it was believed that nightmares are a result of an elf sitting on the dreamer's chest.
 
  • #51
The word 'tragedy' comes from the Greek word tragoidia which means 'goat's song'. I don't know why though. The song 'Tragedy', by the Bee Gees, comes from hell.
 
  • #52
More people are killed by jellyfish each year than by sharks.

The volume of the quotes in Ivan Seeking's posts now exceeds the volume of his posts 82.35% of the time.
 
  • #53
The word 'Zoobyshoe' comes from the San Diegan word Zooby, which translates directly as "bigfoot"; hence "shoe of the bigfoot". However, it has been suggested that a Zooby is properly called the surviving-neanderthal/homo erectus/cro-magnon. So in the future, please refer to Zoobyshoe as surviving-neanderthal/homo erectus/cro-magnon-shoe.
 
  • #54
Skepticism and Debunking mentor, Ivan Seeking, has posted more accurate and detailed information on the subject of farm animal genitalia than any Biology mentor at PF.
 
  • #56
Ivan Seeking said:
Sing it Artman!
Artman said:
Rhino hooker pimp.

I now believe in demonic possession.
 
  • #57
I know I have a copy of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned around here somewhere...
 
  • #58
Ivan Seeking said:
The German word for nightmare, Albtraum, means "elf dream". The archaic form Albdruck means "elf pressure"; it was believed that nightmares are a result of an elf sitting on the dreamer's chest.
The Norwegian name for the nightmare, "mareritt" means the "mare's ride", i.e, it refers to a mythological creature,the "mare", who was supposed to straddle the dreamer's chest, and literally ride him into the world of "nightmares".

Thus, the English, German and Norwegian words really refers to the same basic idea, that nightmares were caused by a malevolent being which sat upon the dreamer's chest and made him suffer.
 
  • #59
Interesting, it sounds like both ideas come from sleep paralysis.
 
  • #60
If you take a "green leafy" branch and place it inside a bottle (like a plastic soda bottle) and seal it closed, by the end of a hot sunny day it'll produce as much as 1/3 cup of water.
 

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