Fact O' The Day

[Krandall]

'Homeland Security's color-coded Threat Advisory System has yet to go lower than Yellow. '


In March of 2002, President Bush signed Homeland Security Presidential Directive 3, creating the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) and the five-color National Threat Advisory to signify the risk of a terrorist attack: Green (low), Blue (guarded), Yellow (elevated), Orange (high), and Red (severe). When launched it was at Yellow and although it has been changed 16 times in 7 years, it has never gone below Yellow.

[Krandall]

'El Paso, Texas, was the first U.S. city to pass laws making marijuana illegal. '


According to a story by William Martin in Texas Monthly, marijuana first came under the scrutiny of El Paso civic leaders in 1914, having chiefly arrived in Texas by way of Mexican immigrants settling in the state. That year, El Paso passed the first known law banning the drug in the United States, a drug that until that time had been "legally and widely used for at least 5,000 years."

[Krandall]

'In the average oil field, only one-third of the oil is recovered. '


That's generally about how much oil in a typical field is relatively easy to recover. The other two-thirds of the oil might, for example, be locked into rock and very, very difficult to recover. Oil fields almost always produce substantially more oil than is initially predicted, because those predictions are based on the current drilling and recovering technology. As technology advances over many years, the predictions about oil yield tend to skyrocket.

[Krandall]

Contrary to popular opinion, Spike Jonze is not heir to a German catalog fortune. '


Video and film director Spike Jonze was born Adam Spiegel, and many -- including New York Magazine and The New York Times -- have made the mistake of believing he is heir to the $3 billion Spiegel catalog fortune. Although his family does have some distant relation with the original Spiegel family, neither Jonze himself nor anyone in his family is an heir to the catalog fortune.

[Krandall]

'It's legal to make and sell copies of CDs or DVDs thanks to the First-Sale Doctrine. '



Acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 and expanded by the Copyright Act of 1976, this aspect of U.S. copyright law is a reason why a company like Netflix has been able to do so well, since all they really did was buy DVDs of movies, like anyone else, then they made an extraordinary number of copies of them. The studios were helpless to stop them.

Pretty interesting read.

Application to DVDs and NEBG v Weinstein

No special new copyright protection was given to movies on video and DVD by the two above amendments, and consequently buyers of retail DVDs in the United States are free to sell or exchange them, and rent and lend them to others.

This right was underlined by the US courts in the case of NEBG v Weinstein[4], in which a film-industry defendant accepted that it had no right to restrict buyers of DVDs from renting them to third parties.

Copyright owners sometimes affix warning notices to packaged DVDs, or display notices on screen before showing the content, which purport to list uses of the DVD that are forbidden under copyright law. Such notices do not always fairly reflect the buyer's legal rights established by the first-sale doctrine.

[Colorado700R]

INTERESTING BIT OF INFO......CANNON BALLS!!! DID YOU KNOW THIS?

 

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on
old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the
problem.. The storage method devised was to stack them as a square based
pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which
rested on sixteen.

 

Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right
next to the cannon. There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom
layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.

 

The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for
reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron
balls would quickly rust to it.. The solution to the rusting problem was to
make them of brass - hence,Brass Monkeys.

 

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than
iron when chilled..


Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations
would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the
monkey.

 

 

Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass
monkey.. And all this time, folks thought that was just a vulgar expression?

[Peelz]

the funky monkey!

[Krandall]

'The human brain runs on just 20 watts of power. '


The brain has as many as 100 billion neurons (nerve cells), and they -- along with their thousands of connections to other neurons -- are very good at generating electrical impulses, and it doesn't much matter what time of day it is or what the person is doing, this electrical activity -- powered by food, mostly sugar -- in the blood, amounts to about 20 watts of power, or about the equivalent of the little light bulb in one's refrigerator.

[Peelz]

Preddy's runs on 5w max. two aaa batteries

[dragonz]

Preddy's runs on 5w max. two aaa batteries

Pity that the bulb has blown!

[Krandall]

'In the United States, at least 200 chimpanzees are privately owned. '


This, despite the fact that few experts think it's a good idea. Chimps not only live for decades -- sometimes 50 years, sometimes longer -- they also lack a history of domestication like dogs and cats, meaning that chimps can turn on their "owners" at any time. When they do, the results are horrifying, as chimps use excessive force and the strength of five grown men to tear and bite off body parts -- facts supported by recent maulings by chimps in the news.

[Krandall]

'No one received more federal bailout money than Citigroup. '


Enormous financial institution Citigroup was the top recipient of federal bailout money, receiving an astonishing $397.9 billion, and as of August 2009, they had not repaid a dime of it. Compare that to much-maligned AIG, which received over $250 billion in bailout money but had, by August, at least managed to pay back $72.8 billion of that amount.

[Krandall]

Adipocere is a post-mortem product also known as "grave wax." '

Adipocere is a substance that forms during the decay, following death, of body fat by way of anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis -- meaning it generally occurs most efficiently when the body is in a cold place with water or humidity (hydrolysis) and without oxygen (anaerobic). Under the right conditions, this crumbly, wax-like and water-insoluble substance can persist for a century or more.

[dragonz]

Adipocere is a post-mortem product also known as "grave wax." '

Adipocere is a substance that forms during the decay, following death, of body fat by way of anaerobic bacterial hydrolysis -- meaning it generally occurs most efficiently when the body is in a cold place with water or humidity (hydrolysis) and without oxygen (anaerobic). Under the right conditions, this crumbly, wax-like and water-insoluble substance can persist for a century or more.

so how come Peelz has it all over his back?

[Krandall]

'Michael Jackson was not the first person to perform the moonwalk on television. '.



MJ's iconic performance on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special in 1983 is legendary for many reasons, among them, his backward slide dance move The moonwalk during "Billie Jean". A TV audience of 47 million witnessed it, and the move swept the nation. However, recorded versions of the move at least date back to tap dancer Bill Bailey, and Jeffrey Daniel -- the man who taught the move to Jackson -- performed it in 1982 on the BBC's Top of the Pops.