Weekly Randoms

Information Dump!

According to the disney channel then followed up by some google. I have been made aware that October is Hispanic Cultural month.  So pay respect to my cultural and eat something  stereotypical .

Also October 11th is coming out day. Making October LGBT History Month too.  I question the history part tho. But anyway I was made aware of this because of my friends. I will share that story another time.

The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase...'Goodnight , sleep tight.'

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled 'Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden'... and thus, the word GOLF entered into the English language.

In December, police in Genoa, N.Y., shot and killed farmer Rolf Rahn, 37, who had shot a plumber during an argument and then holed up for 16 hours. Rahn claimed that he was an alien and the plumber an android, and demanded that police provide him with a spaceship for his getaway. Later, investigators discovered the remains of 50 cats in Rahn's freezer, some in plastic bags with labels indicating that their cause of death was "because of a demon."

Manhattanhenge (sometimes referred to as the Manhattan Solstice) is a semiannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns with the east-west streets of the main street grid in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. The term is derived from Stonehenge, at which the sun aligns with the stones on the solstices. At sunset, a traveler along one of the north-south avenues on the West Side looking east can observe the phenomenon indirectly, being struck by the reflected light of the many windows which are aligned with the grid. An observer on the East Side can look west and see the sun shining down a canyon-like street. The dates of Manhattanhenge are usually May 28 and July 12 or July 13 (spaced evenly around Summer Solstice). The two corresponding mornings of sunrise right on the center lines of the Manhattan grid are approximately December 5 and January 8 (spaced evenly around Winter Solstice). The same phenomenon occurs in other cities with a uniform street grid; in Chicago, Illinois, for instance, the setting sun lines up with the grid system on September 25, a phenomenon known similarly as Chicagohenge.

In the ninth century B.C., the Greek stoic philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter, after giving his donkey wine then seeing it attempt to feed on figs. On March 24, 1975, Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King’s Lynn, England, died laughing while watching an episode of the televisionseries The Goodies. After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell’s final moments of life so pleasant. In 1989, a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died laughing while watching the film A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beaten at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest.

The first company to offer UFO abduction insurance was the St. Lawrence Agency, in Altamonte Springs, Florida. The company pays the claimant $1 per year until their death, or for 1 million years, whichever comes first. The company says that it has paid out at least two claims, and over 20,000 people have purchased the insurance. Simon Burgess, former Managing Director of British Insurance, well known for being involved in the bizarre end of insurance, said “Of course, the burden of proof lies with the claimant. Let’s face it—insurance is so tedious that if I can enlighten my dreary life with a bit of humor every now and again, I will.” The insurance is normally purchased by the “feeble-minded,” according to Burgess. A policy normally costs around $150 per $1.5 million in coverage, as of 1998. Some companies offer policies for alien pregnancy, alien examinations and death caused by aliens.

Lal Bihari (or Lal Bihari Mritak, born 1961) is a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, India, who was officially dead between 1976 and 1994. When Lal Bihari tried to apply for a bank loan in 1976, he found out that he was officially dead: his uncle had bribed a government official to register him as dead, so that he would get the ownership of Bihari’s land. Bihari discovered at least 100 other people in a similar situation. He and many others were in danger of being killed by those who had appropriated their property. Over the years, Bihari tried to attract attention to his situation by various means. He organized his own funeral and demanded widow’s compensation for his wife. In 1980, he added the word “mritak” (“dead”) to his name, and signed his letters “late Lal Bihari.” In 1994, he managed to have his official death annulled. In 2004, he ran for a seat in the parliament of Lal Ganj. Bihari continues to support other people in similar situations.

Where is the highest mountain?

It’s on mars. The super-giant volcano called Olympus Mons (Latin for mount Olympus) is the largest single mountain in the solar system and, at the moment, the know universe. At 14 miles (22 km) high and 388 miles (624 km) across, it is almost three times as high as mount Everest, and so wide it’s base would cover Arizona, or the whole of Britain. The crater is easily large enough to swallow London. However Olympos mons doesn’t conform to people’s idea of a mountain; its sides are so slightly inclined, you wouldn’t even break a sweat if you climbed it.

How many nostrils have you got?

Four. Two you can see, two you can’t. This discovery came from watching how fish breathe. Fish get their oxygen from water, most of them have two pair of nostrils, a forward facing set for letting water in and two ‘exhaust pipes’ for letting water out. So, since humans evolved from fish, where did the other nostrils go? The answer is, they migrated inward, towards the back of the head, to become internal nostrils called ‘choannae’ – Greek for ‘funnels’. They connect to the throat and are what allow us to breathe through our noses. Some recent research on noses shows that we may use each nostril to detect different kinds of smells.

How long can a chicken live without its head?

About 4 years, but that’s just the one chicken, so far. On 10th September, 1945, a young cockerel/rooster in Fruita, Colorado, had it’s head chopped off and lived. Incredibly, the axe left the jugular vein intact, and left enough of the brain stem to, apparently, keep the rooster chirping. Mike, as he came to be known, was something of a national celebrity in his time, featuring in Time magazine. His owner, Lloyd Olsen, charged twenty-five cents to see ‘Mike the headless wonder chicken’ in sideshows across the USA. At the height of his career, Mike was making around $4,500 a week, and was valued at $10,000. Mike was fed and watered using an eyedropper, but tragedy struck one night when Mike’s owner had left his eyedropper at a previous show. Unable to clear his airways, Mike choked to death.

What was the first invention to break the sound barrier?

The whip. Whips were invented in China 7,000 years ago, but it wasn’t until the Invention of high speed photography, in 1927, that the ‘crack’ of the whip was shown to be a mini sonic boom, and not the leather hitting the handle/floor. The sound is caused by the small loop that forms in the whipping action of the leather, as the loop travels along the loop, it builds in speed, until, at the end of the whip, it breaks the sounds barrier at about 742 mph! The first aircraft to break the sound barrier was the Bell XI, piloted by Chuck Yeager, in 1947.

This is what happens when i google, I'm all over the place. Look up the artists Roberto Bernardi, Eric Christensen, and Steve Mills. All their stuff looks like photos but they're paitings its awesome. Anyway I have to go to class. 5 more hours