139

Does anyone else find themselves recalling random facts for no apparent reason? Like,

Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and lost

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 47 points 11 months ago

White green, green, white blue, orange, white orange, blue, white brown, brown.

[-] MonsterMonster@lemmy.world 21 points 11 months ago

T568A White green, Green, White orange, Blue, White blue, Orange, White brown, Brown

T568B White orange, Orange, White green, Blue, White blue, Green, White brown, Brown

[-] mangaskahn@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Are you making a crossover cable or installing it for the government? Those are the only places that I know of that A is used regularly. Nearly everywhere else uses B in my experience.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

California Cows Don't Dance the Fandango

Steps for laser printing:

Cleaning, Charging, Drawing, Developing, Transferring, Fusing

I've known this for over 20 years and never used it. Thanks catchy mnemonics!

[-] magic_lobster_party@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

I managed to memorize it for a test in networking class. The teacher was surprised someone actually managed to get it right.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] AngelJamie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 11 months ago

A kangaroo's testicles are ON TOP of its penis rather than below.

This is basically what I say whenever someone asks me for a fun fact too roflmao

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] brap@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago

Laser is an acronym and doesn’t have a god damned Z in it.

[-] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 40 points 11 months ago

Laser is no longer an acronym. It's now an anacronym, which means it's its own word (despite originally being an acronym)

Source: Wikipedia

[-] brap@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago
[-] wallybeavis@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

TIL - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

That reminds me, so is SCUBA, RADAR and MODEM...I miss the old History Channel shows, especially Modern Marvels

SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (Blew my mind for some reason when I learned that)
RADAR: Radio Detection and Ranging (I've watched alot of WWII documentaries)
MODEM: Modulation Demodulation (I've worked in tech)

[-] BA834024112@lemmy.zip 32 points 11 months ago

So is Tuba: Terrible Underwater Breathing Apparatus

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 39 points 11 months ago

The little piece of plastic at the end of a shoe lace is called an aglet.

[-] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 17 points 11 months ago

I learned that from Phineas and Ferb.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Resol@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago

Seth McFarlane slept in one morning and missed his plane home. Little did he know that this exact plane hit the World Trade Center.

[-] finalarbiter@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago

Orcas are a natural predator of the moose

[-] Followupquestion@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

Orcas are a natural predator of everything that his the ocean. Fun fact, orcas have been known to toy with seals by catapulting them with their tails. I believe I remember seeing at least one baby seal got seventy feet in the air before returning to the sea (and its inevitable death).

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] hactar42@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

Ohio is the only state that doesn't share any letters with mackerel

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] triptrapper@lemmy.world 21 points 11 months ago

Sharks have existed on earth longer than trees have.

[-] AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com 20 points 11 months ago

2 facts about the CMOS battery on a motherboard: CMOS stands for "complimentary metal oxide semiconductor". Its a 2032 watch battery.

[-] indepndnt@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Also, the 2032 numbering indicates its physical size: it's 20mm x 3.2mm. There are for example 2025's (like in my car remote) that are 20mm x 2.5mm.

And CMOS refers to what the battery was powering on the motherboard (a small amount of CMOS static RAM) rather than anything about the battery itself. I don't know if motherboards still use any static RAM, the batteries might only be there to power the clock these days, making the name just a historical convention.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 17 points 11 months ago

How to get all kremkoins in Donkey Kong Country 2, through a cheat:

  • Enter the cabin with the map and the life balloon. Leave without touching anything.
  • Collect the banana bunch over the pirate crocodile. Go back to the cabin, now pick the life.
  • Repeat the above. You'll see a kremkoin over the map. Pick it and you got 75 kremkoins.

In no moment you can touch the two lone bananas close to the entrance of the cabin.

...it has been decades since I played this game, and I almost never used the cheat above (it's less fun than finding all bonus stages). Why do I still remember this?

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

-All of the planets in the solar system can fit between the earth and the moon -Stoplights detect your presence with an electromagnetic field using wires and not pressure -There is a receiver above stoplights that EMS vehicles can trigger to change the light red for everyone -We left astronaut poop on the moon -The numbers on a toaster are not always in minutes -Most common mold is not dangerous when ingested or inhaled unless you are allergic -Celeste Tea was founded and made by a cult, maybe still is -Christian Science had laws passed in the majority of states in the 80s that prevented prosecution of child abuse due to religious practices -The statistical value of a human life in the US is 10 million at dollars -Jellyfish reproduce and are birthed as polyps on the ocean floor -The chiral version of the sugar molecule would taste identical to sugar but is indigestible, we have no practical ways to produce it though afaik -Only one president has failed to release his tax documents -There are multiple US presidents who were likely gay

I’ll stop there, and yes these facts do rotate through my head for no real reason, they’re just fun!

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Male bedbugs have a knife-like penis. To have sex, they stab the females in the thorax with it because the females don't have genitalia. The semen is then injected directly into the female's main body cavity for insemination

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

Karl Marx got drunk one night and, after being kicked out of a bar in London where he got drunk, went around London and almost got arrested sabotaging the lamp posts with rocks with his colleagues who were also drunk.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] el_twitto@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

There are approximately π x 10^7 seconds in a year. It differs by less than 0.4%).

[-] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

If I was able to remember them on cue I would probably be a lot more interesting of a person.

The topic has to seed first and then all of the information I know about it rushes in.

[-] CopernicusQwark@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

The buttons on suit jackets are a holdover from a time that buttons were new, and therefore fashionable. Well to do sorts had buttons all over their suits, even in places that would be considered silly these days.

[-] sploosh@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

When buttons were new and therefore fashionable? I feel like buttons predate suits by a wide margin.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] wallybeavis@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras. No idea where I learned that

[-] mwproductions@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

About 30-some years ago I borrowed a book of facts from the library, and the two I remember are:

  • There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  • Pound for pound, grasshoppers are 3x as nutritious as steak.

I have no idea if they're true, but they're burned into my brain.

[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

The Moon is moving away from the Earth by approximately one inch per year. Which also means that millions of years ago it was much bigger in our sky.

[-] PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

I believe it's closer to 1,5cm per year.

And if you reverse extrapolate that some 65 million years, you'll see that the real reason why the dinosaurs ied out was because they all got hit in the head with moon!

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Stanislav Petrov's name, for some weird reason. Lots of people can tell the story but just refer to him as 'a radar operator'.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] nikosey@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

Platypuses hunt underwater using bioelectric sensors in their bills. Also, you cannot beat the final boss in X-Men for Sega Gamegear unless you are using Iceman.

[-] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Bananas are 4011 when buying them.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] eatthecake@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

[-] covert_czar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago

Aibohphobia is the (unofficial) fear of palindromes

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The solar system is ~~99.98%~~ 99.86% (see thread) sun. The rest is comparable to a blood draw from a human.

The earth is a blood smear on a slide.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Rosco@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] smorgishborg@toast.ooo 8 points 11 months ago

The USS Texas in WW2 partially sunk itself (flooded watertight compartments, if I remember correctly) to gain a higher elevation to shoot fortified bunkers farther inland than it could reach otherwise. I learned this on Reddit and never forgot it, oddly enough.

[-] IronicDeadPan@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
139 points (98.6% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27277 readers
1960 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS