Trivia Factoids

First book on traveling was written in 1357

2010-03-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Tourism is a $4 trillion-a-year industry, affecting more than 200 million jobs, or 1 in 10 workers. But tourism actually is an old industry, dating back to the first Olympics in 776BC. Even in ancient Rome it was popular to travel up the Nile to Thebes to view the statues.

The first book on travel, called “Travel” was published by Jehan de Mandeville (anglicized to Sir John Mandeville) in 1357. It became a best seller and was translated into 9 languages.

Trips used to be organized by individuals or small groups who accompanied their guests. In 1758, Cox & Kings became the world's first travel agency - not necessarily escorting the travelers to their destination. Thomas Cook (1808 - 1892) also took large groups on tour and then founded his company in the1860s. The first travel agency in the United States was founded in 1887 by Walter T. Brownell.

Tourism is the biggest industry in most countries - except the United States, where entertainment is the biggest industry.

Songs that were once banned

2010-03-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Dean Martin’s “Wham bam, thank you Ma’am” was banned in 1951. Bob Dylan’s 1976 album Hard Rain was banned in many countries because of the track “Lay Lady Lay.” In the 80s, Frank Zappa’s “I don’t wanna get drafted” was held back. Some TV stations banned Cher’s video “If I could turn back time.” Garth Brooks’s “The Thunder Rolls” was banned temporarily in 1991 and in 1995, after protests, Michael Jackson changed the lyrics of “They don’t care about us” because it was considered anti-Semitic.

Guitarists electrocuted by their guitars

2010-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

The band of the Titanic weren’t the only ones to die playing. Many guitarists have been electrocuted by faulty wires. In 1972, Leslie Harvey of Stone the Crows died after being electrocuted on stage in England. In 1976, Keith Relf, who used to play for The Yardbirds, was electrocuted by his guitar while playing in his basement.

During a mid-performance in 1994 Ramon Barrero, a Mexican musician famous for playing the world’s smallest harmonica, inhaled the harmonica and choked to death.

Egyptian sphinx represents a man but the Greek sphinx a woman

2010-02-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

The head of ancient Egyptian sphinxes portrayed the reigning pharaoh but also represented the sky-god Horus. When the Greeks adopted the sphinx, it became a female monster. According to legend the sphinx put a riddle to all who passed by and devoured those who failed to guess it. Getting it right meant the death of the monster, a claim to the throne and the hand of Queen Jocasta. After many had died, one got it right: Oedipus.

What was the riddle that Oedipus solved?

The riddle that the sphinx put: What animal walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?
Oedipus’s answer: Man, for in the morning, the infancy of his life, he creeps on all fours; at noon, in his prime, he walks on two feet; and, when the darkness of old age comes over him, he uses a stick for better support as a third foot.

Oedipus was the son of Queen Jocasta and therefore had to marry his mother.

The sexiest languages

2010-02-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

French may be known as the sexiest language but it actually is just one of five Romance languages. Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish also are called Romance languages. They derived from Latin dialects spoken in the Roman Empire. Modern Italian emerged in the 13th century. Spanish first appeared during the 10th century and was standardized in the 16th century after the Moors had been driven out of Spain. The first French document, the Strasbourg Oaths, is dated to 842. French became the official language of France in 1539.

The man who invented peanut butter

2010-02-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Bless him, the man who invented peanut butter. No-one knows his (or her) name simply because although the making of peanut butter can be traced back to almost 1000 BC, there is no mention of the name of who made it first.

Claims to the modern recipe are easier to follow: New Yorker Rose Davis made peanut butter in 1840, Canadian Marcellus Edson gained a patent for it in 1884, George A. Bayle made peanut butter in 1890, John Harvey Kellogg - he of the famous Kelloggs cereals - received a patent for suchlike product in 1897, and Ambrose Straub from St Louis, Missouri patented a peanut butter making machine in the 1903, the same year George Washington Carver introduced his peanut butter recipe. The next year, C H Sumner introduced peanut butter commercially at the Universal Exposition in St Louis but it would be Joseph L. Rosenfield who would take it big time from 1922 onward. Rosenfield licensed his churning process for smooth peanut butter to the Peter Pan brand in 1928 but in 1932 introduced his own Skippy brand.

Today, peanut butter is a billion dollar industry. Thanks to that guy or girl whose name we don't know

She had only two baths in her life

2010-02-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

Queen Isabella of Castile, who dispatched Christopher Columbus to find the Americas, boasted that she had only two baths in her life - at her birth and before she got married. She was not the only one in history to ignore health risks. Accounts from Holland and Spain suggest that during the 1500s and 1600s urine was commonly used as a tooth-cleaning agent. In the 18th century, Europeans still simply dumped their pots out the window. Only those who could afford it had systems to remove their wastes and odors. King Louis XIV had 264 "close stools," a box with a padded seat over a pot that servants would quickly whisk away. Cleanliness in Europe was, indeed, a problem. English evangelist John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, declared in the late 1700s in his Sermon 93 that "slovenliness is no part of religion. ... Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness."

The shortest music concert ever

2010-01-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

In 1952, American composer John Milton Cage presented his most famous piece: 4'33". It is a musical composition in three movements; the first movement is 30 seconds long, the second 2 minutes and 23 seconds and the third 1 minute 40 seconds. All done in silence. 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The idea is that the concert goer will listen to the sound of the environment in which it is "performed." Cage considered it his most important work.

If 4'33" is too long for you, consider the world's shortest music concert. In July 2007, The White Stripes made history by playing the shortest concert ever when Jack White played only one note. They played a full show later that night at the Mile One Center in downtown St. John's, Newfoundland.

Record for the most passengers in an airplane

2010-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

It is not clear who was the first to fly an aeroplane: Richard Pearse, Gustave Whitehead or Orville Wright. Whoever it may have been, the distances of their flights were only about the length of the wingspan of a Boeing 747. They probably did not imagine the amount of people aircraft will be able to carry one day. The most passengers ever carried on one flight was in 1991 during the Operation Solomon evacuation of Ethiopian Jews during Operation Solomon. 1086 people boarded a 747 in Addis Ababa. When they landed in Jerusalem, there were 1089. Three babies were born during the flight.

Operation Solomon 1991

How much waste is recycled?

2010-01-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

Although Athens, in 500 BC, was the first city to control waste (garbage, rubbish and trash), Europeans heaved garbage out their windows until the 1300's, usually just shouting "Garde a l'eau!" (from which we get the word "loo" for toilet). Plagues in the 14th century encouraged tidier behaviour. But the Industrial Revolution brought factory and transport waste. Horses, the way to get around, each produced 22 pounds (10 kg) of manure and several gallons of urine a day. In the 1920s, the burying of waste was introduced. The emphasis changed to recycling in the 1980s, and today about 27% of general waste and up to 50% of aluminium cans and paper is recycled.

Garbage generally is the word for waste from the kitchen while rubbish or trash is other household waste or anything that is disposed of. Junk is the remains of stuff that has been broken up or destroyed.

You can find recycling tips and recycle centers near you easily through Earth911.

The real Uncle Sam

2010-01-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

The US nickname Uncle Sam was derived from Uncle Sam Wilson, a meat packer in Troy, New York. According to Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, Sam Wilson stamped the letters “US” on meat barrels he prepared for the US Army during the War of 1812. Some workmen interpreted the US for “Uncle Sam” and so the legend grew. The Uncle Sam figure took on the image of Abraham Lincoln in newspaper cartoons during the American Civil War.

Uncle Sam is the personification of the United States government. The original Uncle Sam poster was designed by James Montgomery Flagg in 1916, using his own face. The design was based on the Lord Kitchener poster of three years earlier which also called men to arms. The Uncle Sam poster is considered to be the world's most famous poster.

How many babies are born on Christmas day?

2009-12-25T04:19:00.000-08:00

A baby is born in the United States every 8 seconds. Worldwide, 3 babies are born every second. More babies are born on a Tuesday than any other day - except if Tuesday falls on Christmas day because fewer babies are born on Christmas day making a Christmas birthday a very special birthday indeed. Usually, on average about 220 000 babies are born each day but on Christmas day only about 172 000 babies are born. But the Christmas holiday is special for another reason: most babies are born in August and September meaning that more babies are conceived during Christmas season than any time.

The most famous Christmas baby is, of course, Jesus Christ. Needless to say, Christmas is the day the birth of Jesus is celebrated... even though Jesus was probably born in March. The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ," later shortened to "Christ-Mass." The even shorter form "Xmas" - first used in Europe in the 1500s - is derived from the Greek alphabet, in which X is the first letter of Christ's name: Xristos, therefore "X-Mass."

Remember the reason for the season and have a very merry Christmas!

The great global climate change quick guide

2009-12-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

Did the earth get hotter? Yes. Is it common? Yes. Since 1900, the average temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. Over the past 300 years, the temperature has risen by about 0.6 °C. Of course, we didn't have cars and electricity for most of this time. So the great climate debate is not if the earth is getting hot or not but if or how we earthlings are having an impact on the global climate.

The first person to suggest climate change due to human activities was made by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, in 1896. However, American geophysicist Roger Revelle is credited for making the first high-level global warming predictions, in 1965. Now, everyone from grandma to the United Nations is in on the debate. The only ones sitting out are the bookies, perhaps because long term predictions about the climate are too risky.

Hot and cold cycles of earth:

65 million years ago the earth was hotter than now. 15,000 years ago there was the Ice Age, with temperatures about 7 °C colder than today. From 800 to 1300 AD it was hotter again, melting the sea ice, allowing Vikings and other groups to cross oceans and colonize lands; it is referred to as the Medieval Warm Period. But from 1300 to 1900 it was colder again, that period dubbed the Little Ice Age. And then, as said, it got hotter again.

2006 was the warmest year on (recent accurate) record with an average temperature of 12°C (55°F) which is 1.2°C (2.2°F) above the 20th Century mean. But 2007 was the coldest in much of the Southern Hemisphere with Australia and South America recording record low temperatures. Europe and North America experienced cold waves during 2009 with record rainfalls in many areas.

Between 1870 and 1993, global sea levels rose at an average rate of 1.7 mm per year. Between 1993 and 2003, they rose by 3.33 mm per year. This is mainly due to the polar ice caps melting - they have shrunk by one third over the past 150 years. Yet, in October 2009 the sea ice extent in the Southern Hemisphere was 2% above averages of the past decade.

The human factor:

So, compared with solar activity and the general climate cycles of earth the rise in temperature should be halting about now and turn toward another little ice age. But here is the problem: according to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) the impact of human activities is some ten times that of natural and solar factors. The fear is that our influence will cause irreversible catastrophes.

The world's oceans are believed to absorb about half of the total carbon emissions from human activities and those from cows. The world's tropical forests absorb the equivalent of the total carbon dioxide emissions from the United States. Fortunately we do not drink seawater - not even fish do, they get their water intake by eating other fish - but we massively can reduce the chopping down of trees by buying less luxury wooden items, we can also drive less and walk more, and we can throw our weight against the great global warming finance swindle.

People did not have last names in the old times

2009-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

The Old English word "eke" - "e, k, e" - (pronounced "eek") meant "in addition to." In the old days people did not have last names (family name or surnames) so to avoid confusion a person would add an eke name, an addition to his or her name. For instance, John the Blacksmith, John the Baker, John from Jerusalem, John the son of Peter, and so on. [In Hebrew, it would have been something like Joseph ben (son of) Jacob.] Through time, an eke became pronounced as "neke" - "n e k e" which in turn became "nick" name. These nicknames often became last names.

Napoleon is the reason for some awkward last names. When he invaded neighboring countries he passed a law that everyone there should have a registered last name. In an attempt to make a mockery of Napoleon's new law some people registered funny last names. Translated to English, there are family names such are "Cat's elbow," "Not today," and "In my navel." They still have those names.

It is time to put up the Christmas tree

2009-11-30T13:09:00.000-08:00

Modern tradition is to put up a Christmas tree the day or weekend after Thanksgiving (after the fourth Thursday in November). In some communities it is tradition to put up the Christmas tree on the 6th of December in honor on Saint Nicholas. The classic tradition is to put up the Christmas tree 12 days before Christmas day, on the 13th of December. In Catholic tradition the Christmas tree is put up after noon on Christmas eve.

Which Christmas tree to buy:

All Christmas trees are cute - the sight of any should bring a smile to your face. And there are many types: from the small prepackaged collapsible artificial trees which you can pick up for a dollar or two to the 9.5 ft high Chesapeake Christmas tree, pictured, that comes with 1500 pre-lit clear lights and a $500 price tag. If you feel even splashier this season you may consider the famous 20 ft Soo Kee Christmas tree that could be yours for $1 million - you may keep the decorations that consist of 3,762 beads and 21,798 diamonds. If you'd prefer something smaller in the same price range, consider the 24k gold Ginza Tinaka Christmas tree. All of the above are, of course, non-drop trees.

Non-drop - meaning the needles are retained by the tree - real Christmas trees are the Douglas Fir, Fraser Fir or Nordman Fir spruce tree varieties with the Scots Pine said to be the best retaining spruce tree with its long needles and fresh pine smell. The Blue Spruce is a low-drop tree.

If you do not mind a bit of extra excitement with spruce fir needles among the gifts you can choose between the so-called Traditional Christmas trees: the Norway Spruce or the Omorica Spruce. The National Christmas Tree Association has all the tree facts.

When to take a Christmas tree down:

Indeed, what goes up must come down. Traditionally Christmas trees are taken down 12 days after Christmas but some take it down on Epiphany, January 6th.

Whichever tree you choose and whenever you put it up it is important to remember the reason for the season.

The most watched program on TV

2009-11-12T11:43:00.000-08:00

What is the world's most popular sports? Football, baseball, motor racing? Nope. Angling (fishing) is the most popular sports in the world with more active participants than any other sports. But you'll hardly see it on TV. The most watched sports worldwide accumulatively (all the televised games in all the countries) on TV is soccer but the most watched televised single series of sports throughout the year is F1, pipped to the post in viewership only occasionally by Idol, Eurovision, national election results and suchlike broadcasts. The most watched televised event on any given single occasion is the marvelous Summer Olympics.

Now, let's talk about the weather. After all, the weather is the most watched program on TV anywhere anytime. Yep, not only is talking about the weather an easy way to break the ice it also grabs more eyeballs than any sitcoms, soapie, sports event or aspiring singer.

But of course, the weather often is more interesting than news or politics... even without having to start the debate about global warming; strange, since our lovely little planet is actually now going through one of it's cold spells. Talking of which, Oymyakon, Siberia is the coldest inhabited community on earth. The 500 or so inhabitants brave winter temperatures that fall to -67° C (- 89° F). The highest temperature ever recorded was 58 degrees centigrade (136 degrees F) at Al'Aziziyah in Libya, on September 13, 1922. The longest lasting rainbow occurred on August 14, 1979 on the coast of Gwynedd, North Wales - it lasted for 3 hours. What was weather like there by you today?

Hair transplants and famous bald people

2009-10-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

Transplanting hair is a grafting procedure that takes 4 to 5 hours, with the patient under local anaesthesia. A strip of scalp is removed from the back of the head, then cut up into grafts of hair. Hundreds of tiny slits are made in bald areas, and the hair is transplanted one or two follicles at a time. More than one procedure is usually necessary, and some patients have temporary swelling in the forehead or numbness in the scalp. It takes about 3 months for the transplanted hair to start growing again. Each procedure costs several thousand dollars.

There is an alternative to grafting. In a transplant procedure called “the flap” a flap of skin with hair is lifted from the scalp and rotated into the place of the bald spot and then stitched at the hairline. The flap is done in 4 or 5 surgical procedures over a period of a few weeks. Because it is never completely severed from the scalp, as is the case in grafting, the flap doesn't lose its blood supply. As a result, the patient heals faster and the hair never stops growing.

However, even though the option of having hair is there, many famous persons never bother with transplants. Famous bald people include: Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley, Phil Collins, Andre Agassi, Marvin Hagler, Graham Gooch, Michael Jordan, Montel Williams, Bruce Willis, Vin Diesel, and many others - and not forgetting Homer Simpson. If the list seems long it's because male pattern baldness - resulting in partial or complete baldness - affects some 40% of western men.

"There's one thing about baldness, it's neat," said American humorist Don Herold. After all, "God only made so many perfect heads; the rest He covered in hair."

The computer rat vs the computer mouse

2009-10-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Douglas Engelbart invented a large foot-operated control called a rat for the computer in the late 1950s but it never caught on. What did catch on 20 years after he invented it was the computer mouse.

Inspired by Vannevar Bush's call to make knowledge widely and freely available, Engelbart drew on his experience as a radar technician during World War II where he saw computer pointing devices that roughly resembled the mouse and designed the X-Y position indicator for a display system, for which he earned U.S. patent number #3,541,541 in 1970. He nicknamed it the mouse because of the tail that came out of at the end. (In the picture, Engelbart holds the first computer mouse, demonstrated on December 9, 1968.) The Xerox Star was the first home computer (in the 1970s) to feature a mouse but it was only with the launch of the Apple Lisa in 1983 when the computer mouse started catching on.

Douglas Engelbart invented or contributed to a number of products, including email, windows and video conferencing. He never received a royalty for his computer mouse invention but did receive something money can't buy and a computer can't calculate: international respect and honor.

All the gold ever mined still exists today

2009-10-14T05:20:00.000-07:00

Gold is virtually indestructible; almost all the gold ever mined still exists today... all 165,000 tonnes of it, only enough gold to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. All it would neatly fit under the Eiffel Tower. That is not a lot. That is because you'll have to drill through 250 tonnes of rock, then pulverize it, then chemically treat it to get enough gold for only a single wedding ring. Gold also simply is beautiful to look at. These are the qualities that has always made gold one of the most sought-after precious metals with the price of an ounce trading for $1000 and more (see the history of gold prices).

Gold is extremely malleable and pliable. A one-ounce piece of gold can be beaten down to 5 micrometers thick - that is 1/10 the diameter of a human hair - and laid out into 50 miles of wire. It can also be made so thin that it becomes a translucent sheet; in fact, astronaut's visors are covered in a thin gold film to protect their eyes from glare. Gold also has anti-inflammatory and other medicinal properties.

Ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iran and Iraq) were the first, at around 5,000 BC (some sources indicate 4,000 BC), to use gold for ornaments. The Egyptians would soon fall in love with the precious metal too. But gold was mostly use for personal adornment; the first gold coins were issued by Egyptian pharaohs only at around 2,700 BC. Large scale gold coinage for the monetary purpose was introduced in by King Croesus during his reign (560 - 546 BC) of Lydia (modern-day western Turkey). Croesus became one of the wealthiest persons ever.

How banks make money - or do they?

2009-10-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Banks operate through credit multipliers. When Depositor A places 100,000 USD with Bank A, the Bank puts aside about 20% of the money. This is labeled a reserve and is intended to serve as an insurance policy cum a liquidity cushion. The implicit assumption is that no more than 20% of the total number of depositors will claim their money at any given moment.

In times of panic, when ALL the depositors want their money back - the bank is rendered illiquid having locked away in its reserves only 20% of the funds. Commercial banks hold their reserves with the Central Bank or with a third party institution, explicitly and exclusively set up for this purpose.

What does the bank do with the other 80% of Depositor A's money ($80,000)? It lends it to Borrower B. The Borrower pays Bank A interest on the loan. The difference between the interest that Bank A pays to Depositor A on his deposit - and the interest that he charges Borrower B - is the bank's income from these operations.

In the meantime, Borrower B deposits the money that he received from Bank A (as a loan) in his own bank, Bank B. Bank B puts aside, as a reserve, 20% of this money - and lends 80% (=$64,000) to Borrower C, who promptly deposits it in Bank C.

At this stage, Depositor A's money ($100,000) has multiplied and become $244,000. Depositor A has $100,000 in his account with Bank A, Borrower B has $80,000 in his account in Bank B, and Borrower C has $64,000 in his account in Bank C. This process is called credit multiplication. The Western Credit multiplier is 9. This means that every $100,000 deposited with Bank A could, theoretically, become $900,000: $400,000 in credits and $500,000 in deposits.

For every $900,000 in the banks' books - there are only 100,000 in physical dollars. Banks are the most heavily leveraged businesses in the world.

But this is only part of the problem. Another part is that the profit margins of banks are limited. The hemorrhaging consumers of bank services would probably beg to differ - but banking profits are mostly optical illusions. We can safely say that banks are losing money throughout most of their existence.

The SPREAD is the difference between interest paid to depositors and interest collected on credits. This spread is supposed to cover all the bank's expenses and leave its shareholders with a profit. But this is a shaky proposition. To understand why, we have to analyze the very concept of interest rates.

Virtually every major religion forbids the charging of interest on credits and loans. To charge interest is considered to be part usury and part blackmail. People who lent money and charged interest for it were ill-regarded - remember Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"?

Originally, interest was charged on money lent was meant to compensate for the risks associated with the provision of credit in a specific market. There were four such hazards:

First, there are the operational costs of money lending itself. Money lenders are engaged in arbitrage and the brokering of funds. In other words, they borrow the money that they then lend on. There are costs of transportation and communications as well as business overhead.

The second risk is that of inflation. It erodes the value of money used to repay credits. In quotidian terms: as time passes, the Lender can buy progressively less with the money repaid by the Borrower. The purchasing power of the money diminishes. The measure of this erosion is called inflation.

And there is a risk of scarcity. Money is a rare and valued object. Once lent it is out of the Lender's hands, exchanged for mere promises and oft-illiquid collateral. If, for instance, a Bank lends money at a fixed interest rate - it gives up the opportunity to lend it anew, at higher rates.

The last - and most obvious risk is default: when the Borrower cannot or would not pay back the credit that he has taken.

All these risks have to be offset by the bank's relatively minor profit margin. Hence the bank's much decried propensity to pay their depositors as symbolically as they can - and charge their borrowers the highest interest rates they can get away with.

But banks face a few problems in adopting this seemingly straightforward business strategy.

Interest rates are an instrument of monetary policy. As such, they are centrally dictated. They are used to control the money supply and the monetary aggregates and through them to fine tune economic activity.

Governors of Central Banks (where central banks are autonomous) and Ministers of Finance (where central banks are more subservient) raise interest rates in order to contain economic activity and its inflationary effects. They cut interest rates to prevent an economic slowdown and to facilitate the soft landing of a booming economy. Despite the fact that banks (and credit card companies, which are really banks) print their own money (remember the multiplier) - they do not control the money supply or the interest rates that they charge their clients.

This creates paradoxes.

The higher the interest rates - the higher the costs of financing payable by businesses and households. They, in turn, increase the prices of their products and services to reflect the new cost of money. We can say that, to some extent, rather than prevent it, higher interest rates contribute to inflation - i.e., to the readjustment of the general price level.

Also, the higher the interest rates, the more money earned by the banks. They lend this extra money to Borrowers and multiply it through the credit multiplier.

High interest rates encourage inflation from another angle altogether:

They sustain an unrealistic exchange rate between the domestic and foreign currencies. People would rather hold the currency which yields higher interest (=the domestic one). They buy it and sell all other currencies.

Conversions of foreign exchange into local currency are net contributors to inflation. On the other hand, a high exchange rate also increases the prices of imported products. Still, all in all, higher interest rates contribute to the very inflation that are intended to suppress.

Another interesting phenomenon:

High interest rates are supposed to ameliorate the effects of soaring default rates. In a country like Macedonia - where the payments morale is low and default rates are stratospheric - the banks charge incredibly high interest rates to compensate for this specific risk.

But high interest rates make it difficult to repay one's loans and may tip certain obligations from performing to non-performing. Even debtors who pay small amounts of interest in a timely fashion - often find it impossible to defray larger interest charges.

Thus, high interest rates increase the risk of default rather than reduce it. Not only are interest rates a blunt and inefficient instrument - but they are also not set by the banks, nor do they reflect the micro-economic realities with which they are forced to cope.

Should interest rates be determined by each bank separately (perhaps according to the composition and risk profile of its portfolio)? Should banks have the authority to print money notes (as they did throughout the 18th and 19th centuries)? The advent of virtual cash and electronic banking may bring about these outcomes even without the complicity of the state.

Article by Sam Vaknin, Ph. D. Reposted by kind permission. Read the complete article: Danger - Banks Ahead!

Lose a lot of weight at the center of the earth

2009-09-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

You will lose a lot of weight if you dig to the center of earth! First, you’ll dig 18 miles (30km) through earth’s crust, then 1800 miles (3000km) through the rock mantle, then through 1200 miles (2000km) of molten iron and nickel, then 600 miles (1000km) through solid rock to reach the center, where the heat is 8132°F (4500°C). By the time you reach your destination you would already have lost a few pounds. But there's a bonus; at the center of earth the forces of gravity will be equal on all sides of you, canceling each other, meaning you’ll weigh nothing. Good luck.

Pigs eat world's most expensive food

2009-09-15T03:42:00.000-07:00

At $1,000 or more per pound, black truffles are one of the world's most expensive foods. Found mainly in the woods on the border of France and Switzerland, truffle hunters follow the sensitive noses of trained pigs, called truffle hogs, to lead them to the buried treasure buried about a foot deep. Female pigs are used because of their natural attraction to a compound in the truffle that is similar to the pheromone of boar saliva. But since pigs can easily gobble up the delicacy, some hunters prefer using specially trained dogs. Poodles are the favorite truffle dogs.

Truffles do not reproduce and while they can be cultivated the best quality, most sought-after truffles are found in the wild. Fungi use the carbohydrates and other nutrients in the roots of truffle trees to produce the roundish brown truffle. Hunted in December and January, truffles are rushed to the big truffle markets in Richerenches and Lalbenque, France from where they are rushed to the most expensive restaurants in the world. Truffles are also sold canned or bottled, and are usually served lightly grated over other food.

Oldest clock in the world

2009-08-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Sumerians of Mesopotamia, who is thought to have invented writing in the 4th century BC, based their numerical system on powers of 60 (instead of 100) subdivided into multiples of 10. It was from this system that Sumero-Babylonians developed the time system that we use today: each hour divided into 60 minutes, which are divided into 60 seconds. By the way, there are 31 556 926 seconds in a year.

In olden days time was told mostly by sundials. The first timepiece was a clepsydra, a water clock, introduced at about 1500 BC. Time was measured by the regulated flow of water. Later developments of the clepsydra would drop a metal ball into a bowl upon the hour.

The first mechanical clock is thought to have been designed by an Italian monk around 1275. The clock was driven by the slow pull of a falling weight, basically like a very big hour hand. The world's oldest working clock (pictured) was built in 1386 and is still ticking away at Salisbury Cathedral, UK. Like all clocks of that time it has no face but strikes the hour on a bell.

Today, the International Atomic Time, kept by 300 atomic clocks around the world, keeps earth's time to within microseconds of accuracy of solar time. However, since the rotation of earth is slightly irregular and slowing down slowly, a leap second has to be added occasionally, giving us the world standard time known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

If all of the above left you scared, you probably suffer from chronophobia, the phobia of time. If you don't mind the time but suffer from chronomentrophobia, the fear of clocks, head out to Las Vegas: there are no clocks in the gambling casinos.

Which words in the English language end with "gry"?

2009-08-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

Have you been asked which words end with “gry”? It is an age-old trick question that people often get wrong. The full question goes like this:

"Think of words ending in 'gry.' 'Hungry' and 'angry' are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something everyone uses every day. If you've listened carefully, I've already told you what that word is."

Answer: The third word was "language", being the third word in "the English language."

The idea of the question is to draw attention from the main facts - much like a magician draws your attention away from his trick. The first two sentences are to be disregarded - they don't matter. Therefore, the true trick of the question is, 'there are three words in 'the English language'... what is the 3rd word?' The 3rd word is 'language.'

This is the concept of concentration shift also used by advertising agencies and politicians. For instance, the ugly habit of smoking is dressed up by placing it with beautiful models. Another example: "Low fat milk - only 2½ fat" while full cream milk is about 3% fat (the lower fat content is mostly due to more added water, therefor the end product costs the supplier much cheaper). Or a politician would answer a question with a question to try to take your mind off the issue (or the truth). But the question is: do you know which words in the English language end with "gry"?

Stick 'em up! In a nice way

2009-08-04T12:36:00.001-07:00

Some of the most famous criminals in the world were known to be quite courteous. John Dillinger (1903-1934) being one - graciously tipping his hat to the female bank tellers he was about to rob. In the 17th century, the French-born highwayman Claude Duval (1643-1670) is said to have been very charming during hold-ups on the English country roads: he would dance with the ladies before making off with their money and jewelery. Going a step further was John Clavell (1601-1643), who published a leaflet on the habits of criminals - after all, he also was a author, playwright and poet. He advised people not to be on the road on Sundays, it being the most popular day for hold-ups - including his own best day for business.

Nowadays, the most popular day for bank robberies is Friday... while every day of the week appears to be popular for bankers to rob people of their money. These banker robbers are mostly old gray men in funny suits but notice that the fashionable highwaymen hardly had bonus days.

Four Banks Highway Robbery by Peter Nicholson, witty cartoonist with The Australian.