15 Trivia Tidbits for Saturday, July 27, 2024
The Office had a famous scene where Michael Scott follows GPS instructions and drives into a lake, his way of proving that advanced tech isn’t so great after all. There really have been cases of people following automated driving instructions into lakes or even the ocean. But if you stick exclusively to safe roads, going to where GPS tells you can still have some disastrous consequences.
Find out about some of these possible consequences below, along with news about what will happen when snakes get cigarettes.
Tiger Dad
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In 2003, a man in France whose kids played tennis kept drugging other tennis players, to give his kids an advantage. It was harmless enough, until his son played the tennis instructor. The dad drugged this guy, who then got behind the wheel of a car and crashed.
Giving Them the Runaround
Airports assign runways numbers based on what direction each points toward. For example, a runway that points 14 degrees away from north will be called runway 14. However, the magnetic north continually moves, so airports have to keep changing the runways’ numbers.
The Mystery Spot
Gravity isn’t the same everywhere on Earth. Near Sri Lanka, for example, gravity is weaker. This leads the sea level there to be 100 meters lower than in other spots of the ocean.
Just Paying for Conversation
You’ve surely heard about the long Japanese tradition of geishas. Until 1750, all geishas were men. Men served in the role for some 500 years, far longer than women have.
Hipster Pandas
Red pandas aren’t named after panda bears. They were called pandas decades before anyone called the bear by that same name. Then we named the bears “giant pandas,” and we started calling the smaller animal “lesser pandas,” and only later called them “red pandas.”
Shots Fired
In 2013, police charged a man with assault when two bystanders were shot in Times Square. The bystanders were shot by police, who freely admitted doing so, and who also shot the man, but they argued they wouldn’t have had to shoot anyone if the man wasn’t acting so weird.
One of Your French Songs
When scoring Titanic, composer James Horner sent James Cameron a track that he labeled “sketch.” He meant that it was just a sketch of what could become a more elaborate piece. Cameron mistook this to mean it should play during the scene where Jack sketches Rose, and it turned out to fit very well.
Hot and Bubbly
Orville Redenbacher, the popcorn magnate, died as he lived: being changed by intense heat. That is, he died in his hot tub at the age of 88.
When Pigs Fly
Brazil used to have a phrase, “a snake will smoke,” that people would say to mean something would never happen. Ahead of World War II, people said a snake would smoke before Brazil entered the fray. But then Brazil did, so the expression changed meaning, to “if that happens, bad stuff will follow.”
Perils of Technology
A man was caught with 181 kilos of cannabis crossing the border last year into Canada. Weird thing was, he wasn’t even trying to get into Canada. He was in New York, entered the wrong coordinates into his GPS and found himself in the border crossing line, without a passport.
With Arms Wide Open
Four wolves approached a 13-year-old Norwegian boy in 2011 as he walked home from school. The boy got them to leave by taking out his phone and blasting the song “Overcome” by Creed.
Should Have Called
In 2008, a man texted his wife, in Turkish, “Whenever you can’t answer an argument, you change the subject.” The wife’s phone, lacking Turkish localization, displayed one letter wrong, rendering it as, “Whenever they’re fucking you, you change the subject.” This resulted in some bad consequences, including the deaths of all involved.
It Seemed Simpler That Way
A company named Ninebot in China was infringing on patents on owned by Segway in 2014, and Segway sued to stop them. Ninebot got around this by acquiring the entire Segway company.
Why Not Alfredo?
Mac and cheese is considered a casual side dish or a food suitable for kids, unlike most other kinds of pasta. That’s only because it happened to have been one the first kinds of pasta to come to America, popularized by Thomas Jefferson.
Shame Is a Virtue
Local news did a story in 2019 about five-year-old Delaware boy who lost out on a present because thieves swiped the delivery from his porch. After seeing the report, the thieves returned the package to the home, along with an apology note.