12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, October 29, 2024
What’s spookier than not being ashamed of brand loyalty during late-stage capitalism?
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An Australian City Fears for the Life of Its Mascot Bird
A cockatoo named Mickey has refused to leave a supermarket in Sydney for a month, with a store manager who “grew very fond of the bird” feeding it brioche every night. Rumors of a “kill order” have sprung up, and local government officials have had to clarify that “we don’t want to shoot wildlife.”
There’s a Lot of Water in Humid Air, and We’re Starting to Develop Good Ways to Extract It
There’s a newly developed device that harvests H2O from the air, does so using 50 percent less energy than any previous such contraptions and is portable.
The World Forklift Operating Championship
Germany’s annual Stapler Cup held in Aschaffenburg promises “breathtaking action, dramatic head-to-head duels and thrill until the very end.” Viewers can tune in live on YouTube or, of course, Sportdeutschland.TV.
The Scariest Movie, According to Science
A study that measured audiences’ heart rates found that 2012’s Sinister is empirically the scariest horror movie of all time.
Want to Be a Corporate Shill for Halloween?
Chipotle is selling $40 burrito costumes, Dunkin’ is selling ugly branded clothes for $45 and Target will graciously allow you to dress up as a shopping basket for $35 or just a Target employee for $10.
The National Bat Beauty Contest
The Bureau of Land Management began a yearly contest in 2019 to educate the public on the environmental significance of bats. The week leading up to Halloween, people vote on bats from around the country, like Utah’s Sir Flaps-A-Lot and Oregon’s TERF bat, Hoarry Potter.
The U.S. Copyright Office Has Stepped in to Save the McFlurry
McDonald’s McFlurry machines are famously persnickety, constantly breaking and taking a long time to fix because a single company has a monopoly on providing the parts and labor. The U.S. Copyright Office just exempted McDonald’s from a specific act that barred them from hiring a third-party company.
What Do Ventilators and the McFlurry Have in Common?
The exemption applies to a wide array of commercial devices with digital (as opposed to physical) locks, from McFlurry machines to hospital ventilators.
Is Your Local McFlurry Machine Down Right Now?
McBroken.com is a website that tracks the status of the machines across North America and Europe. As of press time, 14.7 percent of all machines were currently broken.
Where Does Kissing Come From?
It seems to date back, evolutionarily, to great apes. Theories include caregivers mouth-feeding pre-chewed food to infants, testing a potential mate’s saliva for health issues and the “groomer’s final kiss hypothesis,” which says that kissing resembles a grooming habit, and a li’l peck on the mouth may have indicated the grooming was complete.
After the U.S. Bought Alaska, the Armed Forces Couldn’t Quit Attacking Its Native Population
The U.S. Navy just apologized for an 1882 attack on the village of Angoon that killed several kids, and starved several more people to death after their food stores were destroyed. The Department of the Interior did chuck them $90k in 1973, but that apparently didn’t heal the wounds. The Navy also apologized for a similar attack in Kake, and the Army may soon apologize for an attack on Wrangell.
Some Pompeian Was Stockpiling Smut
A recent excavation of a Pompeian tiny home uncovered a trove of frescoes of satyrs, nymphs and other mythological creatures gettin’ it on.
