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

Ah. And here I thought a 'factoid' was simply a bite-sized fact. Shows what I know.

But I'm definitely a humanoid.

From the wikipedia entry:

~~~~~~~
Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper",[3] and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same". The Washington Times described Mailer's new word as referring to "something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact".[4]
~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, the term seems to have undergone almost instantaneous definition drift, like so many others.

It isn't unreasonable to think Mailer may have been thinking a little along the lines of 'a tree falling in the woods' relative to noise, i.e. that it is only possibly true to the outside world because of publication. Anyway, the de facto second definition of being a true but trivial (or at least tersely stated) item is out there in regular usage, regardless of what Norman meant.

On another note, [it could be called a factoid that] the first palindromic prime whose index differs from the closest palindrome by at least 10 does so by 42. I don't happen to have the number and its index among the primes with me, but I doubt it will be missed.

A mole (Avogadro's number) of hens eggs or golf balls is about the size of the moon.

A mole of Max Planck's elementary quanta is the elementary quantum equivalency of the electron (or anti-electron) times the spin and momentum ratio (4 to 1, it taking one unit of momentum to make a unit of spin) of the graviton more than the rest mass of the neutron.

The 'missing' rest mass is probably bound up in internal bonding energies, the same way bonding energies of nucleons make deviations from the poly-hydrogen ideal with isotopes of the chemical elements.

... android isn't actually r

Whoops, another, post 59/66

The earliest known depiction of Jesus' crucifixion is an insulting and satirical bit of graffiti.

Go on...

I want a link.

Fruit of the Loom (makers of underwear/pants/skivvies...) commercials in the 1976 featured a young Denzel Washington in the role of Grapes.

I saw the guy who played Grapes on a more recent FotL commercial in a bit part in last night's episode of The Big Bang Theory. He hasn't done as well as Denzel.

Apparently, Academy Award-winner F Murray Abraham at one time played the Fig Leaf.

The "couple" in the painting American Gothic are not a husband and wife, but rather a father and his spinster daughter.

While in custody of the US Marines, Saddam Hussain was forced to repeatedly watch the film South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/09/south-park-creators-trey_n_185306.html

How cruel and unusual.

There oughta be a law against inflicting culture.



Nice phrase though... culture infliction.
In the first degree.


~jwf~

Baron Grim, you neglected to mention that the man in the American Gothic painting was also the dentist of the painter.

Soda drinkers have more CO2 in their... bottom burps... than non soda drinkers.

Hmm, I wonder if that goes for drinkers too?