Fact O' The Day

[Colorado700R]

he was just here

[Krandall]

f*ckin ninjas

[Peelz]

California has issued at least 6 drivers licenses to people named . 

[Krandall]

'Only one space vehicle has ever featured a fridge and a freezer. '


One might imagine that this space vehicle would be one of the space shuttles or maybe the International Space Station, but the only one to have a fridge and a freezer was NASA's Skylab, which was in orbit during the 1970s. In fact, Skylab forever changed the how NASA astronauts ate in space. It featured an area for a dining room and a table so astronauts could actually sit down and eat like they normally would. Skylab's fridge and freezer also offered its crew a massive menu of 72 different food items.

[Krandall]

'The 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded for the development of a procedure many consider barbaric today. '

Antonio Egas Moniz was a Portuguese neurologist who developed the prefrontal lobotomy, in which connections to and from the pre-frontal cortex are cut. From the 1930s on, such surgeries, known as psychosurgery, were gaining in popularity, but even before Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize -- and after tens of thousands of patients had undergone the debilitating procedure -- there was already a growing minority of doctors who saw the procedure as brutal and inhumane. Today it is performed sparingly, if ever.

[Krandall]

'Jason Bateman was the youngest person ever to join the Director's Guild.'

According to the August 2009 issue of Details magazine, actor Jason Bateman, known for Arrested Development and Juno among a host of credits, became the youngest member of the Director's Guild of America (DGA) when, at age 18, he directed an episode of The Hogan Family, one of the many sitcoms he's been a part of throughout his career.

[Krandall]

'One in five Americans admits to "going" in the pool.'


A 2009 survey conducted by the Water Quality and Health Council found that some adults exhibit less-than-hygienic behavior when spending time in pools. Almost one in five (17%) admit to urinating when they go in the pool, while almost four of five adults think that others are doing it (78%). Contributing to any pool water's lack of cleanliness, one in three people don't shower before diving in -- all the more reason to rinse or shower on getting out.

[Krandall]

'Two of every 1000 people will experience dissociative fugue in their lifetimes. '

Dissociative fugue is a temporary form of amnesia and can involve more than one episode in which the sufferer suddenly takes off from home, forgets their identity and past life, and often assumes a new identity. The episodes themselves are called fugues; they tend not to last more than a few hours or a couple days, and are typically triggered by some past traumatic event or events. More often than not, these fugues resolve on their own.

[Krandall]

Times Beach, Missouri, was the first town to be bought out and evacuated by the U.S. Federal government. '
The town of Times Beach was founded in the 1920s and by the early 1980s had a modest population of under 2,500 residents. The town suffered from a dust problem until it decided to pave the roads. First, however, the roads were sprayed with waste oil, some of which was provided by the Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company (NEPACCO). As it turned out, much of the waste used contained extraordinarily high levels of dioxin -- thousands of times higher than the defoliant used in Vietnam, Agent Orange. The EPA, along with President Reagan, declared the town unsafe and in 1983 spent over $30 million to buy out the town and evacuate it.

[Krandall]

'2009 is the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the minivan. '

When Lee Iacocca came over from Ford to Chrysler, he brought with him an idea that Ford had rejected -- an idea that amounted to the minivan. Chrysler consequently invented and produced the first minivans in the fall of 1983 for the 1984 model year. These vehicles included the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, the latter a vehicle that was launched in the 1970s as a van and rebranded in 1984 as a minivan. Since 1984, the company has sold over 12 million minivans and they retain in excess of 40% of the U.S. minivan market.

[Colorado700R]

'2009 is the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the minivan. '

When Lee Iacocca came over from Ford to Chrysler, he brought with him an idea that Ford had rejected -- an idea that amounted to the minivan. Chrysler consequently invented and produced the first minivans in the fall of 1983 for the 1984 model year. These vehicles included the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, the latter a vehicle that was launched in the 1970s as a van and rebranded in 1984 as a minivan. Since 1984, the company has sold over 12 million minivans and they retain in excess of 40% of the U.S. minivan market.

My folks bought a 1984 dodge caravan 2.2 liter 4 cylinder, with a 5 speed manual.  COMPLETELY gutless.

My mom came home with a speeding ticket one day and showed my dad.  It said she was doing 72 in a 55mph zone.  My dad said "BS...there's no fricken way that van can do 72mph"  and he was complete serious, becuase when he drove it, he had all 5 of us in the van and it would NOT do over 65mph.  With mom alone though, she would rap out at 72mph.

My dad wanted to fight the ticket, because in order to have witness in the viechle, they wouldn't be able to make the van achieve that speed.

[Krandall]

  Awesome!

[russ-russ]

russ is a lurkin' sumbitch lately

[Krandall]

'An estimated 250,000 people are killed by AK-47s every year. '

Invented during World War II by tank mechanic Mikhail Kalashnikov, who hoped to arm his fellow Soviets with a reliable weapon against Nazi invaders, the AK-47 assault rifle is by some estimates the most prolific killer in the history of weaponry. It took Kalashnikov six years to develop, but when finished he'd created a weapon that was easy to put together, easy to fix and tough as nails in any weather. The only thing he didn't worry much about was accuracy, but when you can fire off 600 rounds a minute, accuracy's not that important.

[Krandall]

'Most of our sense of taste is determined by our nose. '

People often plug their nose before consuming something utterly distasteful, and the reason this works is because, despite having extremely poor olfactory senses compared to much of the animal world, as much as three-quarters of our sense of taste comes from what we smell. According to the authors of Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?, the odor molecules given off by food are picked up by our nose and recognized by our brain.