The Economics of Stripping. According to researchers at University of New Mexico strippers make more money when they're ovulating, because it's at the time when men find them most attractive: "Surprisingly, Miller found that strippers who were in the estrus phase made $354 per shift compared to $90 during the luteal phase and $170 more than during the menstrual phase. The use of birth-control pills didn't help results, with woman on oral contraception earning about $80 less per shift."
Sunday, January 14, 2007
To calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the observable universe to a precision of one proton, you would only need 50 digits of pi. Regardless, mathematicians have so far calculated it to 1.2 trillion decimal places.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The Barenaked Ladies record one track of every studio album while nude.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Whilst HeardSaid is taking a sabbatical, we recommend UsedFAQs which posts random answers from Frequently Asked Questions on a variety of subjects. [via]
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Did you know every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury? [Nope, we didn't Fran, thanks!]
Sunday, July 16, 2006
The first 4 bytes (the so-called "Magic number") of any Java class file are, in hexadecimal, 0xCAFEBABE.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
In Texas, the State Troopers of the Highway Patrol wear cowboy hats.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Clark county, Nevada (Las Vegas, everybody) is the only county in the country where it's illegal to own and operate your own taxi. "The cab companies own this town," said our cabbie on the way from the airport, although that might be a bit of a hyperbole.
Monday, March 20, 2006
In California, it's illegal to drive barefoot unless you're going to, or coming from, the beach.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Website that's similar to HeardSaid, and to be honest they're posting more often. [via]
Monday, January 30, 2006
The word "wharf" stands for "Ware House At River Front".
Friday, December 02, 2005
- The first electrical dildo was sold in 1911.
- A town in Newfoundland is named Dildo. Allegedly the name originates from the town's earlier industry in the 19th century -- carving dildos from whalebone.
- The band Steely Dan is named after a giant dildo.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
When Ronald Reagan was given his first tour of the White House after being made president of the US he demanded a visit the war room he'd seen in Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove. He was somewhat annoyed to discover it had been built on a soundstage.
A combination of an exclamation point and an question mark, called an interrobang, was used as a brief fad in the 60s to communicate disbelief or emphasis of a printed question.
You're what‽
It has a home in Unicode U+203D, but not much else anymore besides the Partnership for A Drug-Free America (of all places).
Saturday, September 24, 2005
UPS trucks are painted white on the top in an effort to reflect sunlight, and keep the cabin cool.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The cheapest car ever made was the Red Bug Buckboard, made by Briggs & Stratton in the 1920s. It sold for $125 (about $1300 today) and weighed about 250 pounds.
The most interesting part: it was electric.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Leafcutter ants are the only species on the planet, apart from humans, to cultivate their own food. The ants, usually found in the rainforests and other tropical areas of America, grow a special fungus in their nests.
They get their name because they cut pieces of leaves which they harvest in the fungus gardens. The fungus is then used for food.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
You might already know about Eleanor Roosevelt's affair with another woman (or, you might not), but what you probably hadn't heard was that Eleanor was FDR's first cousin (which is convenient with respect to names and all).
Read all about it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Armadillos can contract syphilis. In fact, they are the only animal (apart from humans) that can.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Ringo didn't play on one single Beatles album. Paul laid all the studio percussion tracks.
Friday, June 24, 2005
If a human being were to eat black pudding followed by king prawns and washed down with a glass of milk, due to the un-stable chemical mixture now sitting in his or hers gut, the poor individual's stomache would literally explode within a matter of minutes ! [Ugh -- thanks Franchesca]
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
In the Steven Spielberg film 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' during the scene when we've discovered that Roy has built a scale model of Devil's Point in his living room, the television is on and we can hear the sound of a postman calling at a front door. He says: "I have a package for Gillian Anderson."
The actress Gillian Anderson would later play Dana Scully for nine years on 'The X-Files'.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
A new Franchesca fact. Did you know that a human being can safely live on a diet of one packet of regular crisps a day because of their high fat and water content.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Alexander Graham Bell's wife was deaf.
Monday, May 30, 2005
While the London Metropolitan Police have free transport on the trains, buses and underground systems of London - the same is not true of the British Transport Police (who enforce the law on those same systems).
Saturday, May 28, 2005
A great example from Music Thing of how sometimes it's vitally important to keep your copyright. The man who composed the four notes which used to appear on Channel Four's logo (Daaa-daaa-da-daaaa) became very rich indeed. "Every time that sequence was played, David Dundas was paid £3.50. Every week, for ten years, Dundas received a cheque for £1,000 from Channel Four. "
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Here is a scene from the shooting script of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith which explains the one thing many fans had been dying to know. Why do some Jedi's burn up whilst others just fade away?
222 INT. POLIS MASSA-OBSERVATION DOME-NIGHTConsidering the big long list of things which aren't explained it's odd that this couldn't be worked in somehow. Then again, check out of that exposition... [via Amygdala via Sore Eyes]
On the isolated asteroid of Polis Massa, YODA meditates.
YODA: Failed to stop the Sith Lord, I have. Still much to learn, there is ...
QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.
YODA: Eternal consciousness.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) The ability to defy oblivion can be achieved, but only for oneself. It was accomplished by a Shaman of the Whills. It is a state acquired through compassion, not greed.
YODA: . . . to become one with the Force, and influence still have . . . A power greater than all, it is.
QUI-GON: (V.O.) You will learn to let go of everything. No attachment, no thought of self. No physical self.
YODA: A great Jedi Master, you have become, Qui-Gon Jinn. Your apprentice I gratefully become.
YODA thinks about this for a minute, then BAIL ORGANA enters the room and breaks his meditation.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Should you find yourself at the top of Machu Picchu and suddenly worried about whether you left the gas on, don't fret. You can call home on your mobile phone. Yes, that's right, there's a signal.
Which is more than I can say for the train route from Bournemouth to Derby. (Thanks Dave!)
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Damselflies can fly 15m in a single second from a standing start, and can reach a top speed of 40 mph.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Naked mole rats are fossorial (live underground) and have a fairly consistent temperature.
They have no circadian rhythm and sleep/wake when it suits them. This occurs on no particular schedule at all.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
The Globe Theatre, the original in the 1600s, had a capacity crowd of three thousand. There were only two hundred thousand people in London at the time so it would take just seventy-five performances before everyone in the city had seen one of Shakepeare's newest.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
The Welsh Assembly is the only elected body in the Western world, if not the world, to have a 50/50 split between men and women members.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
The use of 'mayday' as a distress call originated with the French m'aidez (help me) or m'aider (to render help to me), and has nothing to do with the ancient spring festival or the international working class holiday.
Although if you want to dance around a big pole whilst your ship sinks, that's up to you.
When pigeons mate, the female lays two eggs - one male and one female. When the eggs hatch, the chicks grow up together and, eventually, mate to produce two eggs - one male and one female.
Which explains why pigeons are so stupid. They've got to the bottom of the gene pool and have started drilling.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Richard Belzer plays Detective John Munch on the series "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". The character originated as a regular cast member of "Homicide: Life on the Street". Two cop shows, two colons, one Munch. A character from one show landing a prime spot on another show that's not a spin-off is unusual in an of itself.
Belzer as Munch has recently become the most prolific character in prime time TV history, having appeared on six different series: Homicide, SVU, the original Law & Order, The X Files, the short-lived The Beat and most recently in an episode of Law & Order's newest franchisee, Trial by Jury.
Self pimp - Crossover Grid and Live Journal community to discuss Crossover Grid.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Franchesca writes: "Whilst realizing I have no money, for some reason I decided to add up each demomination of coins and notes in the UK to see how much I would have if I had one of each. Oddly enough it works out at £88.88p . Try it urself if you dont believe me ... and don't forget like most people do, the £2 coin!"
In 1967 at the height of the foot and mouth epidemic, horse racing was banned. The authorities resorted to electronic races with imaginary horses, but to give an extra level of authenticity on BBC's Grandstand, Peter O'Sullivan was drafted in to commentate on these unreal events. Footage exists of him getting excited over a close finish between two horses which didn't exist.
It is estimated that one in two hundred modern Mongol men can trace their genetic heritage back to Ghengis Khan. Now that is what I call putting it about a bit.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
The carrot is not a vegetable, but a herb. Carrots used to be purple in colour, until someone decided that the orange ones tasted better (a fact that anyone who has eaten Opal Fruits/Starburst knows to be 100% true). Carrots do not improve your night vision - that's propaganda spread by the British government during WWII to 'explain' why their pilots were able to fly at night. In actual fact, it was down to the invention of radar, something the govmint and the RAF wanted to keep secret.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
There is a house in Liverpool which has its own postcode. When postcodes were being handed out, the doctor who lived there ascerted what authority he had at the time and they gave him one. Its stayed that way ever since.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The Welsh Rugby Team only seem to win the Grand Slam in a year the Pope dies. They won it this year the same year Pope John Paul II dies, and the last time they did was in 1978 , the same year as the death of Pope John Paul I. [Thanks Fred!]
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