this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Does anyone else find themselves recalling random facts for no apparent reason? Like,

Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and lost

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (5 children)

White green, green, white blue, orange, white orange, blue, white brown, brown.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

T568A White green, Green, White orange, Blue, White blue, Orange, White brown, Brown

T568B White orange, Orange, White green, Blue, White blue, Green, White brown, Brown

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

California Cows Don't Dance the Fandango

Steps for laser printing:

Cleaning, Charging, Drawing, Developing, Transferring, Fusing

I've known this for over 20 years and never used it. Thanks catchy mnemonics!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Are you making a crossover cable or installing it for the government? Those are the only places that I know of that A is used regularly. Nearly everywhere else uses B in my experience.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

I managed to memorize it for a test in networking class. The teacher was surprised someone actually managed to get it right.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (3 children)

A kangaroo's testicles are ON TOP of its penis rather than below.

This is basically what I say whenever someone asks me for a fun fact too roflmao

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Laser is an acronym and doesn’t have a god damned Z in it.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Laser is no longer an acronym. It's now an anacronym, which means it's its own word (despite originally being an acronym)

Source: Wikipedia

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

TIL - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

That reminds me, so is SCUBA, RADAR and MODEM...I miss the old History Channel shows, especially Modern Marvels

SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (Blew my mind for some reason when I learned that)
RADAR: Radio Detection and Ranging (I've watched alot of WWII documentaries)
MODEM: Modulation Demodulation (I've worked in tech)

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

So is Tuba: Terrible Underwater Breathing Apparatus

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (5 children)

The little piece of plastic at the end of a shoe lace is called an aglet.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I learned that from Phineas and Ferb.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago

Seth McFarlane slept in one morning and missed his plane home. Little did he know that this exact plane hit the World Trade Center.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Orcas are a natural predator of the moose

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Orcas are a natural predator of everything that his the ocean. Fun fact, orcas have been known to toy with seals by catapulting them with their tails. I believe I remember seeing at least one baby seal got seventy feet in the air before returning to the sea (and its inevitable death).

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ohio is the only state that doesn't share any letters with mackerel

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

Sharks have existed on earth longer than trees have.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

2 facts about the CMOS battery on a motherboard: CMOS stands for "complimentary metal oxide semiconductor". Its a 2032 watch battery.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Also, the 2032 numbering indicates its physical size: it's 20mm x 3.2mm. There are for example 2025's (like in my car remote) that are 20mm x 2.5mm.

And CMOS refers to what the battery was powering on the motherboard (a small amount of CMOS static RAM) rather than anything about the battery itself. I don't know if motherboards still use any static RAM, the batteries might only be there to power the clock these days, making the name just a historical convention.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

-All of the planets in the solar system can fit between the earth and the moon -Stoplights detect your presence with an electromagnetic field using wires and not pressure -There is a receiver above stoplights that EMS vehicles can trigger to change the light red for everyone -We left astronaut poop on the moon -The numbers on a toaster are not always in minutes -Most common mold is not dangerous when ingested or inhaled unless you are allergic -Celeste Tea was founded and made by a cult, maybe still is -Christian Science had laws passed in the majority of states in the 80s that prevented prosecution of child abuse due to religious practices -The statistical value of a human life in the US is 10 million at dollars -Jellyfish reproduce and are birthed as polyps on the ocean floor -The chiral version of the sugar molecule would taste identical to sugar but is indigestible, we have no practical ways to produce it though afaik -Only one president has failed to release his tax documents -There are multiple US presidents who were likely gay

I’ll stop there, and yes these facts do rotate through my head for no real reason, they’re just fun!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How to get all kremkoins in Donkey Kong Country 2, through a cheat:

  • Enter the cabin with the map and the life balloon. Leave without touching anything.
  • Collect the banana bunch over the pirate crocodile. Go back to the cabin, now pick the life.
  • Repeat the above. You'll see a kremkoin over the map. Pick it and you got 75 kremkoins.

In no moment you can touch the two lone bananas close to the entrance of the cabin.

...it has been decades since I played this game, and I almost never used the cheat above (it's less fun than finding all bonus stages). Why do I still remember this?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Karl Marx got drunk one night and, after being kicked out of a bar in London where he got drunk, went around London and almost got arrested sabotaging the lamp posts with rocks with his colleagues who were also drunk.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Male bedbugs have a knife-like penis. To have sex, they stab the females in the thorax with it because the females don't have genitalia. The semen is then injected directly into the female's main body cavity for insemination

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are approximately π x 10^7 seconds in a year. It differs by less than 0.4%).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

If I was able to remember them on cue I would probably be a lot more interesting of a person.

The topic has to seed first and then all of the information I know about it rushes in.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The buttons on suit jackets are a holdover from a time that buttons were new, and therefore fashionable. Well to do sorts had buttons all over their suits, even in places that would be considered silly these days.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When buttons were new and therefore fashionable? I feel like buttons predate suits by a wide margin.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras. No idea where I learned that

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

About 30-some years ago I borrowed a book of facts from the library, and the two I remember are:

  • There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  • Pound for pound, grasshoppers are 3x as nutritious as steak.

I have no idea if they're true, but they're burned into my brain.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Stanislav Petrov's name, for some weird reason. Lots of people can tell the story but just refer to him as 'a radar operator'.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (5 children)

The Moon is moving away from the Earth by approximately one inch per year. Which also means that millions of years ago it was much bigger in our sky.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I believe it's closer to 1,5cm per year.

And if you reverse extrapolate that some 65 million years, you'll see that the real reason why the dinosaurs ied out was because they all got hit in the head with moon!

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Bananas are 4011 when buying them.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

The solar system is ~~99.98%~~ 99.86% (see thread) sun. The rest is comparable to a blood draw from a human.

The earth is a blood smear on a slide.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Aibohphobia is the (unofficial) fear of palindromes

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Platypuses hunt underwater using bioelectric sensors in their bills. Also, you cannot beat the final boss in X-Men for Sega Gamegear unless you are using Iceman.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

The USS Texas in WW2 partially sunk itself (flooded watertight compartments, if I remember correctly) to gain a higher elevation to shoot fortified bunkers farther inland than it could reach otherwise. I learned this on Reddit and never forgot it, oddly enough.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Bicycle wheels with quick release axles have 9.525mm diameter, rounded up to 10mm. This is because the sizing is not actually metric, but 3/8 inch so imperial.

This is why it's most commonly called 9mm qr (quick release) /facepalm

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