21-25 Useless Information
21. Flashlights are so-called because the very early ones had such a short battery life that you used one by ‘flashing’ it on momentarily to get your bearings. They didn’t even have an on-off switch but rather a simple push button.
22. In the early days of sail there wasn’t any way to know the longitude and if it was cloudy and they couldn’t see the stars, they couldn’t even know their latitude.
So to keep track of their location they would tie a rope to a log and there would be knots in the rope. They would throw the log into the water and count the number of knots that passed in a certain time frame to determine their speed. They would then record the number of knots and direction they were traveling in a book. This book was called a log book and this is why ship speeds are measured in knots.
23. During the Paralympics this year, the top four blind runners all ran faster than the person who placed gold this year in the 1500 meter run in the regular Olympics.
There’s a specific reason why. In the regular Olympics, all the runners are running strategically, and are deliberately holding back to see who makes a break for it, then run that person down. Usually, second place is the best position to be until near the end.
Blind runners can’t use this strategy because they obviously have no idea who is up front. They’re simply giving it their all until the end.
24. Butyric Acid makes beer taste like a dirty diaper. This is useless to most non-brewers/judges. Enjoy this knowledge. Also, Hershey deliberately adds this to their chocolate to give it that sour tang (and to stabilize the milk). It is why Europeans think it tastes like vomit.
25. Get a list of 10,000,000 newborns. 1 year later, count how many of them are still alive. Then divide it by the original 10,000,000. This is the probability that a 0-year-old will live to be a 1-year-old.
Repeat for all consecutive ages until 120 years or so, or until you run out of those 10,000,000 babies.
This is (loosely) how life insurance companies figure out how much you pay each month.
#16. Isn’t Longyearbyen, Svalbard the most northern/coldest capital?
Svalbard is not a proper country
#6 – And the horseshoe crabs are not harmed in the process. They are bled and then returned to a habitat a good distance away from the collection site to avoid rebleeding the same animal.