Factoids - useless but interesting snippets

[Bill W]

57 minutes ago, Zombie said:

I recalled there was a big court battle over this, involving Universal Studios and copyright claims - this is the legal version…  

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-court-of-appeal/1849267.html

It just goes to show that for every action there's someone waiting in the wings to take you to court.  

[Bill W]

1 hour ago, Ron said:

According to a quick internet search Dracula was quite the shape-shifter in Stoker's novel.

Thank you for that information.  It makes me appear lazy for not looking it up on the internet myself.  

[Leslie Lofton]

On 5/12/2022 at 9:36 AM, Zombie said:

This gif is from the movie "The General", starring Buster Keaton, a silent comedy loosely based on the Andrews Raid of 1862. US military spies hijacked a northbound locomotive -- The General -- in Big Shanty (present-day Kennesaw) Georgia, and drove it toward Chattanooga, destroying tracks and telegraph lines along the way, while Confederate troops gave chase on foot and aboard other locomotives. Watch the movie.

 

[Leslie Lofton]

About the Western and Atlantic Railroad, speaking of The General (note the W&ARR on the locomotive's tender):

A defining feature of the middle latitudes of North American, dominated by the USA is the massive, nearly flat Mississippi River valley, whose navigable waterways penetrate deep into the country's interior. It's a perfect situation for the bulk transportation  of raw materials, with which the USA is loaded. However, all those rivers go drain into the ocean in only one place: New Orleans.

Another defining feature is the Appalachian mountain range, which separates the colonial ports on the Atlantic from the Mississippi valley. Masses of capital were expended  trying to get canals and later railroads through the rugged folds to take shipping away from New Orleans and enrich the eastern states. The state of New York just happens to have natural passes that connect the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. Projects like the Erie Canal were the first successful passages, fueling New York City's modern commercial dominance.

The state of Georgia took up the challenge of connecting its ports -- Macon, Savannah, and Augusta -- to the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, once they got the Creek and Cherokee evicted and shipped off to Oklahoma. The state chose a site by the upper Chattahoochee River to connect up all the railroads before routing them north through the mountains on the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

The site was called "Terminus", then to emphasize the cross-continental nature of the new city, it was renamed Atlantica-Pacifica, later shortened to Atlanta. (If you read "Gone with the Wind" you knew this already) It's still a massive transportation hub, and the biggest city in the southeast USA.

Edited April 18 by Leslie Lofton

[Bill W]

16 minutes ago, Leslie Lofton said:

This gif is from the movie "The General", starring Buster Keaton, a silent comedy loosely based on the Andrews Raid of 1862. US military spies hijacked a northbound locomotive -- The General -- in Big Shanty (present-day Kennesaw) Georgia, and drove it toward Chattanooga, destroying tracks and telegraph lines along the way, while Confederate troops gave chase on foot and aboard other locomotives. Watch the movie.

 

For those that don't know this part of history, some of the raiders were quickly captured and executed (by hanging) as spies, including Andrews, who was a civilian and whom the raid was named after.  Eight of the raiders managed to escape, and although the 1862  raid was exciting, it had little effect on the war.  The General survived and is now in a museum at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History Kennesaw, Georgia.  

Another train, The Texas, was chasing the General and trying to stop it, and although The Texas never caught up to it, The General ran out of fuel 18 miles short of its destination, Chattanooga, Tennessee.  The Texas is now located in the Atlanta History Center.  This same raid was also the inspiration for the 1956 film, The Great Locomotive Chase, a Disney production.   

[Zombie]

The Sound of Music

#1 60 years ago (March-July 1964) this famous* movie was being filmed

#2 It’s the biggest worldwide grossing musical of all time (inflation adjusted)

#3 Christopher Plummer’s singing was dubbed

#4 Set in Austria, all the location filming was done in Austria

#5 In Austria *virtually no-one’s heard of the movie  

[Bill W]

6 hours ago, Zombie said:

The Sound of Music

#1 60 years ago (March-July 1964) this famous* movie was being filmed

#2 It’s the biggest worldwide grossing musical of all time (inflation adjusted)

#3 Christopher Plummer’s singing was dubbed

#4 Set in Austria, all the location filming was done in Austria

#5 In Austria *virtually no-one’s heard of the movie  

My family would watch this movie every time it was on, as well as The Wizard of Oz.  They're both burned deeply into my brain.  

[Page Scrawler]

A Japanese research study has indicated: writing down your feelings of anger, and then throwing away the paper, can significantly reduce frustration and stress.

[Bill W]

22 minutes ago, Page Scrawler said:

A Japanese research study has indicated: writing down your feelings of anger, and then throwing away the paper, can significantly reduce frustration and stress.

But it kills a lot of trees in the process and some employers have complained that workers are becoming less productive because their always writing on on sheets of paper and then throwing them away!  lol   

[Zombie]

14 hours ago, Page Scrawler said:

A Japanese research study has indicated: writing down your feelings of anger, and then throwing away the paper, can significantly reduce frustration and stress.

Yup, works for me

altho’ I’m more environmentally friendly

venting my rage on my computer 

 

 

Edited May 4 by Zombie

[Zombie]

classic car owners - why they buy

 

 

[Bill W]

19 minutes ago, Zombie said:

classic car owners - why they buy

 

All roads don't led to Rome.  The lead to buying an MG.  

[Ron]

@Zombie I recently watched a short video of Brian May (Queen) test driving a new electric MG. It was all new from the ground up and only cost $90,000.00!

That may skew the chart a bit.

Edited May 6 by Ron

[Ron]

From our friends at Sound & Vision magazine once again, more Dracula information.

Spanish Version

Follow the link for a free and informative article. I learned something new!

[Page Scrawler]

In 2018, an unidentified 9-year-old girl sold 300 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in just 6 hours. She'd set up shop outside of a weed dispensary.

[Bill W]

3 hours ago, Page Scrawler said:

In 2018, an unidentified 9-year-old girl sold 300 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in just 6 hours. She'd set up shop outside of a weed dispensary.

Ah, yes, cannabis does give one the munchies.  

[Drew Espinosa]

 

[Bill W]

1 hour ago, Drew Espinosa said:

 

So if we lived on Mercury we'd get to celebrate a birthday twice a day.  

[Zombie]

5 hours ago, Drew Espinosa said:

 

this is a really interesting factoid!  
The reason is because of Mercury’s highly eccentric orbit - the most eccentric in the solar system (which means its distance from the Sun varies proportionally the most of all the planets)

This causes “spin-orbit resonance” locking Mercury’s sidereal year to its sidereal day in a 3:2 ratio (sidereal is planet rotation/orbit in relation to a fixed point) and its solar year to its solar day in a 2:1 ratio (for the Earth both are pretty much the same because its orbit is much closer to a circle)

This YT makes it all clear  *runs and hides  *

 

[Zombie]

Gone With The Wind My Love - Rita & The Tiaras

one of the greatest 60s Motown love songs of loss

except:

- it wasn’t a Motown release

- it never charted

- it’s by a group no-one’s heard of

- it’s only known now because of a north England 70s dance club scene (“Northern Soul”) which sought out the most obscure 60s US releases from US s/hand record shops (before the internet!) and imported them at great expense, then danced to them 🕺 🕺 

oh and, yeah, it really is a great song  

 

 

[Mikiesboy]

Wow, she has a great voice and it is a great song. Thanks for sharing this!

[Leslie Lofton]

The technique of standing a board up perpendicular to another board and shooting a nail or screw diagonally through them to connect them is called toenailing. I learned this over the weekend (aged 42), and now I'm going to trot it out every chance I get as if I knew it all along.

Edited July 30 by Leslie Lofton

[Leslie Lofton]

Ceorl and villein are English and French terms, respectively, for free, rent-paying peasant farmers. In medieval social rank, they stood above serfs, but below the least nobleman. 

They weren't very popular among the literate classes. The terms are the ancestors of modern English's churlish and villainous.

[Page Scrawler]

I had to do some research while watching the eponymous 3 Body Problem on Netflix.

Spoiler

In the series, a race of aliens lived on a planet within a tertiary star system (meaning there were three suns). According to the physical laws described in the video, the aliens' home world would have a very chaotic, unstable orbit. This resulted in climate conditions that would make it very difficult for life---and civilization---to prosper and advance. So, they now advance towards Earth...

 

 

[Ron]

In the 6th episode (1975) of Space 1999, Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) says at the 32:40 mark 'And heading back into future time. It's an interesting thought.'. 

Back to the Future was released ten years later. 

Coincidence?  Or was somebody watching space-opera television? 

Inquiring minds want to know!