h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
2. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas would be produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
3. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes. (Sow or hog wasn't specified.)
4. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out of the body to squirt blood 10 metres.
5. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.


6. A cockroach will live 9 days without its head before it starves to death.
7. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
8. Stewardesses is the longest word that is formally typed with only the left hand.
9. Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump.
10. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.


11. Some lions mate 30 or more times a day.
12. Los Angeles' full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Fornciuncula.
13. If colouring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.
14. The US interstate highway system requires that 1 mile in every 5 be straight. These straight sections function as airstrips in times of war and other emergencies.
15. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.


16. Cats have over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs have only about 10.
17. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
18. February 1965 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
19. The cruise liner, Queen Elisabeth II, moves only 6 inches for every gallon of diesel fuel burned. (Our boat, Lady Fair, went 6 miles.)
20. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.


21. Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book published in every major Dewey Decimal category.
22. Columbia University is the 2nd largest land owner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
23. Cat urine glows under a black light.
24. In the mid-80s, a computer wasn't considered 100% IBM-compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
25. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.


26. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
27. Kneecaps are not formed until a child is 2-6 years old.
28. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
29. No word in English rhymes with month, orange or silver.
30. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.


31. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
32. In the Great Fire of London in 1666, half of the city was burned down but only 6 people were injured.
33. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers whom they saw as competitors.
34. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
35. The microwave was invented when a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.



36. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 years old.
37. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan".
38. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.
39. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up: he throws up his stomach first, to dangle out of his mouth. He then uses his forearms to dig out all the stomach contents, then swallows the stomach back down again.
40. Armoured knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.


41. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

42. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
43. Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
44. There are more chickens than people in the world.
45. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.


46. To escape the jaws of a crocodile, push your thumbs into its eyes and it will release you instantly.
47. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will come up heads approximately 4,950 times; the heads picture weighs slightly more than the tails side, so it ends up on the bottom slightly more often.
48. Barbie's last name is Roberts.
49. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
50. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.


51. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
52. Armadillos have 4 babies at a time; they are always the same sex.
53. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
54. The Ramses brand condom is named after the great Pharaoh Ramses II, who fathered over 160 children.
55. If NASA sent birds into space, they would soon die because birds need gravity to swallow.


56. Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
57. The computer term "byte" is a contraction of "by eight."
58. The average ear of corn has 800 kernels arranged in 16 rows.
59. The famous split-fingered Vulcan salute is actually intended to represent the first letter ("shin", pronounced "sheen") of the word "shalom". As a boy, Leonard Nimoy observed his rabbi using it in a benediction and never forgot it; he was eventually able to add it to Star Trek lore.
60. Our eyes stay the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.


61. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
62. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
63. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
64. A 3-year-old's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
65. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a superman cape. (It is strong enough, however, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20X20 foot room.)


66. You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using the ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
67. The glass in windows (even double pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
68. When you hear the toilet flush and the words "Uh-oh", it's already too late.
69. Brake fluid mixed with bleach makes smoke, and lots of it.
70. A 6-year-old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year-old man says they can only do it in the movies. A magnifying glass can start a fire even on an overcast day.


71. Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence.
72. Super glue is forever.
73. No matter how much gelatin you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water.
74. Pool filters do not like gelatin.
75. VCRs do not eject peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.


76. Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
77. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.
78. You probably do not want to know what that odour is.
79. Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Plastic toys do not like ovens.
80.

81. The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earth worms dizzy. It will however make cats dizzy; cats throw up twice their body weight.
82. No matter how hard you try, you can't baptise cats.
83. When your Mum is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
84. If your sister hits you, don't hit her back - they always catch the 2nd person.
85. Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.


86. You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
87. Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.
88. Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
89. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
90. Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.


91. A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
92. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
93. All the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.

chilver rhymes with silver.....
BCNU - Crescent

dragonfly has a life span of between several weeks and a few months in its adult form, and several years in its larval (I think). A mayfly has an adult form that lasts only a day....
BCNU - Crescent

I hate pooh-pooing these things, just in case the poster thinks I'm getting at them. I'm not. Just correcting inaccuracies which otherwise people may repeat as truth.

So.

57. The computer term "byte" is a contraction of "by eight."

Wrong. Originally bytes weren't even 8 bits, so that etymology goes right out the window. 6, 7, 9 and various other oddities were used.
For the truth, see the Jargon file:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/frames.html
"The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 ...The word was coined by mutating the word ‘bite’ so it would not be accidentally misspelled as bit."

I wasn't trying to get at Eccentrica, just that I was watching QI last night and the chilver/silver one came up - now if Mr Steven Fry says it is so, then it must be so Then I saw the dragonfly one, and thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound' I was going to do the scissors as well, but then work came along But hometime now Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Didn't mean to imply you were

And I'll add aq fact of my own to this, which I only learned last night:

Mr. Salman Rushdie (yep, the writer) was responsible for the 'Naughty....but nice' advertising tagline inn the UK! I think they said it was one of his first jobs, if not his first.

QI was on last night? Ooh . Where, when, how?

Thanks for the corrections.

A lot of these are not facts, so it is impossible to know them. For example, number 88 is a piece of useful advice.

37. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan".

The name existed before then.

38. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life

Probably just a coincedence:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/trivia

Ooh...dissection of nonsense.

"18. February 1965 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon."

Clearly nonsense. The moon must be full somewhere on the planet.

" 20. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated."

Rubbish. Take a short course of polymer thermodynamics and prove it right.

" 25. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.

Seems unlikely: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blscissors.htm

" 26. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." "

So is 'strenghts'. Or 'Schweppes'

" 45. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds."

Not if you throw one out of a plane

" 46. To escape the jaws of a crocodile, push your thumbs into its eyes and it will release you instantly."

Not much use if it's got you by the hands, I would suggest.

"47. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will come up heads approximately 4,950 times; the heads picture weighs slightly more than the tails side, so it ends up on the bottom slightly more often."

What utter cobblers. Air turbulence and the consistency of the surface will have far more effect.

" 61. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10."

Not for digital watches.

At this point the list just starts to get silly, so I'll stop.

B

>>18. February 1965 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon."

>>Clearly nonsense. The moon must be full somewhere on the planet.

Not so. The moon is the same phase every on the earth. The phase of the moon is nothing to do with where on the earth you are, but where the earth is relative to the earth and the sun. The full moon is when the sun, earth and moon are lined up in that order, and it happens every 29.5 days, so every so often there will be a 28-day February which does not include one of these alignments.

..where the moon is relative to the earth and the sun...

What happened to number 80?

Erm, yes. I was talking cobblers there, wasn't I?

What I meant to do was provide a link to this page instead.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/fullmoon.htm#03

B

OK, so Feb 1965 did have a full moon. So the fact was wrong. But I'm sure you noticed that Feb 1915 did not have a full moon.

Presumably it was torpedoed by the Germans.

B

Never mind the pedants !

I was laughing my head off at the silly ones

more please !

>> " 20. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated."

Rubbish. Take a short course of polymer thermodynamics and prove it right.<<

Well they certainly last longer in the freezer than in the pot on the kitchen shelf.

By 'eck bonny lads, t'were all joost a bit o' foon lyek. Don't tha get het oop easily!

"What happened to number 80?"

I ate it *burp*
By 'eck, it were tasty