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

1. Yoghurt freezes at -4 celsius.

2. If the thousands of tiny filtering capiliaries in your kidneys were stretched out flat on a tennis court, you'd die.

Unfortunately, all of the facts so far mentioned are useful in answering the question 'Give me an example of a useless fact?'... and therefore not useless.

On the other hand, my suggestion... 'this fact is useless'... might still work. After all, if it isn't true, then it isn't a fact at all... and therefore useless... which makes it true, in any case... er...

Also very confusing

I'm not sure I've got that quite right... *is* there a fact which is *never* useful, even in answering a question about useless facts?

26199

*) If a Mouse grew to Elephant size, it's legs wouldn't be able to support it's weight and they would instantly breake.

*) The same should be true with spiders.

This reminds me of the statement "Everything I say is a lie" which, of course, can never be true. If it were true, it wouldn't be. I think.

Cement particles are so fine that if you was lay them side by side, one bag of cement would cover the area of a football pitch.
Again this cannot be backed up as I haven't actually done the experiment, and if there is anyone who has... Get out more!!!

How about the statement 'this statement is false', which can never be either true or false?

Even better... how about 'JHP cannot consistantly assert this sentence'. It's true, but only people other than you (JHP) can claim it's true without being inconsistant (and therefore meaningless)

Hmmm... I think the statement 'this fact is never useful' is, in fact, never useful - if it was, it wouldn't be a fact, at least.

*grin*

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I would say that there is no such thing as a 'useless fact' as all facts have a use to somebody - even if it is just to prove the truth in the statement, therefore it is untrue?!?!
So all facts are, in fact useful!

'G'

A Fact is useless -even as example for an useless Fact- if nobody knows it's a Fact.
Thus, if something was written down by, lets say, the members of an Culture that no longer exists in a Language now one can read today:

This fact would be useless.

- no one can read it, so no one can use it.
- it cannot be used as example of a useless fact, because it is not
sure if it is a Fact or just a drug trip description or something...

Variations of this type of Facts are:
- A Fact that was found out by one Person but this person had forgotten it before writing it down.
- A Fact that has not yet been found out.

... (I guess there are some more )

I've just been watching a programme and there was a hedgehog eating a snail. I was a little stuck on where to post this entry, "do I post under 'hedgehogs' or 'useless facts’?" I think it more of a useless piece of information and not very much to do with hedgehogs except that there was one eating one ..... Confused?
ANYWAY!!
1) All snails are hermaphrodites (they are both male and female)
2) They exchange sperm when mating with another snail and BOTH go off to lay eggs (I'd say contraception would be much stricter amongst men if this were the case with humans!)
3) Once hatched it takes anything from one to three years to become a full sized adult (And approximately seconds to be squished under somebody’s shoe when crawling across a patio)

And not much longer to be thrashed out of its shell by a hungry thrush!
'G'

My favourite is that London Cabbies are still required by law to carry hay for the horse.

Here are a few useless or maybe useful facts. You decide.

1. Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
2. Pearls melt in vinegar
3. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
4. Thirty-Five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
5. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: MARLBORO, COCA-COLA, and BUDWEISER, in that order.
6. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs. . .but not downstairs.
7. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
8. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from
the sale of vodka.
9. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Uses every letter in the alphabet.
10. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
letter is uncopyrightable.
11. Stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
12. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
13. "I am" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
14. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
15. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
16. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
17. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (thus the name of the Don McLean song)
18. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king
> from history.
> Spades - King David
> Clubs - Alexander the Great
> Hearts - Charlemagne
> Diamonds - Julius Caesar
19. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
20. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "To get fired."
21. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
22. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like its kissing the conveyor belt.
23. An Ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
24. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
25. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
26. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
27. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
28. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
29. No NFL team which play its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
30. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
31. The mask use by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" movie was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
32. If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
33. Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
34. Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president AL Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
35. The fingerprints of Koala Bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
36. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
37. James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (Scotty) on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger on his right hand (lost it on D-Day).
38. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
39. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

I've posted this somewhere else, but in my idiolect (personal dialect) orange rhymes with binge, cringe, dinge,fringe,hinge, minge,impinge,singe,tinge and winge

You can add to this selection: Humans are the only animal with the ability to blush (or the need to!)
'G'

Pygmies cannot swim (for the same reason that most of the other great apes cannot)
If you take the DNA from one human cell and strech it out it, it will strech to five times the height of Everest
There are whales in the Atlantic which are considered dangerous because of the amounts of pollution accumulating in their blubber
The Illuminatus Trilogy is an excellent set of books, and should be read by all
Cannabis actually makes you a more cautious driver, and so safer, even considering loss of reaction times
BCNU - Crescent

Oh and in the past 50 years the US has used more natural resources than the rest of the world put together, through out the whole of human existance
BCNU - Crescent

George Washington, the first President of the USA, used to grow marijuana. However, in his day they called it 'hemp' and it was used for making ropes.

You can't develop/debug an application in a meeting.
This may seem obvious to anyone outside this building but it hasn't occured to our muddle management yet

A few more facts.

Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.

The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

The king of diamonds is the only king with just one eye visible. (It may be the only court card with just one eye visible, but I'm not sure on that one.)

Mercury is the only planet in our solar system that has a day (period of rotation on its axis) longer than its year (period of rotation around the sun). (Mostly Harmless's fact on Venus should also have included the words 'in our solar system'. We can't possibly know about planets' rotation around other stars.)