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

707 = LOL ?

In that case LOL + LOL = hihi (1414)

Not 707.

I know what the sum of 1 to 36 is.

707 was an attempt at gematria.

0?

Fiorello LaGuardia, former mayor of New York City, is directly responsible for the invention of thong underwear.


LaGuardia was cracking down on vice in NYC before the upcoming World's Fair and decreed that strippers had to wear underwear. So, the strippers came up with thongs to get around the new rule while exposing as much flesh as legally allowed.

And I thought he only read the funny papers aloud.

Wow... I've been Jonesing for some Useless Facts.

I spotted this one on Boofcake and thought I'd share as a good way to this thread back to the top of the list.


When Monty Python's _Life of Brian_ was released, it was banned in Norway (BLASPHEMERS! STONE THEM!)

So in Sweden, it was marketed as "The film that is so funny that it was banned in Norway!"

In Norway I saw t-shirts with a map of Europe without Sweden. They replaced it with water. Good neighbours I guess...

Sounds like them. I used to work for a gaming company that was based in Norway. One day, I had to translate an email they got from Sweden. It read, 'Give me back my money, you Norwegian crooks!'

Wayne and Brent Gretzky hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers: 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent.

The number 99 of Wayne Gretzky is off limits to honour him.

A deep sea octopus was observed by remote submersible as she brooded her 160 eggs over a period of FOUR AND A HALF YEARS!

When octopuses brood, they slowly starve to death. Octopuses from shallower waters were known to do this over periods measured in weeks, not years.


http://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/octomom

Dog's don't get scurvy. They produce their own vitamin C.


Source: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/actually

Speaking of dogs (and bad seques)...


Edgar Allen Poe's death was not from alcoholism as widely accepted. His doctor, a staunch temperance advocate lied about his death to make Poe's death an object lesson. Poe was an alcoholic earlier in life but became acutely sensitive and would become violently ill after a single glass of wine. Poe's case was presented anonymized to a conference for clinical pathology and his death was clearly a case of rabies.

http://cvm.missouri.edu/quoth-the-raven-it-was-actually-rabies/

That is an amazing find! I knew about his alcohol sensitivity, but I never heard the rabies theory.

Here's a classic.

Only one pirate ever buried his treasure, despite the ubiquity of tales of buried pirate treasure.

In 1699, Scottish privateer William Kidd was facing charges for piracy and buried some treasure on a small privately owned island off Long Island, NY. It wasn't even a secret as Kidd asked the owner (John Gardiner) for permission.

This one tale of buried pirate treasure inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write _Treasure Island_ and thus was born the trope of pirates burying treasure on every isle and shore.

A meme was born!

Today is my 24th hootooversary!


But that's not the kind of Useless Fact we deal in here.

The "MEEP-MEEP!" sound of the Road Runner cartoon character was inspired and voiced by Warner Brothers background artist Paul Julian who would imitate a car horn as he carried large paintings around the studio. While almost everyone quotes the sound as "meep-meep", Warner Brothers Studio, the owner of the character, insists on refering to the sound as "beep-beep", but Julian spelled it either "hmeep-hmeep" or "mweep-mweep".