The Useless Facts Thread

[Stormwatch]

Erin Pizzey, founder of the first modern refuge for battered women, was target of death threats and defamation campaigns from feminists because her studies revealed that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and women are as violent and likely to sexually abuse children as men are.

[BIL]

2015 is the destined year for Chris Chan to realise one of his most ambitious prophecies: the creation of his "HOMO VACCINE."

Also, he is in court next week. :[

[Stormwatch]

The distinctive box art for the original Macintosh computer, designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado, is popularly known as "Mac Picasso", as it was assumed to be inspired by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. That is a mistake, however: Casado says the actual inspiration was French artist Henri Matisse -- who was a close friend and inspiration to Picasso himself.



sauce

[Stormwatch]

Even most metalheads don't know that Iron Maiden's only UK hit single, "Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter", is in fact a cover song. It was originally recorded solo by Bruce Dickinson for the soundtrack of the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.

[Specineff]

2015 is the destined year for Chris Chan to realise one of his most ambitious prophecies: the creation of his "HOMO VACCINE."

Also, he is in court next week. :[

Didn't he get yet another delay in the case?

[BIL]

Ya, now it's October or some shit. Meh. CWC lost his balls, now he's just another spergy, deluded chump!

Leonard F. Shaner Jr is where it's at for lolcow voyeurism ATM.

Iron Maiden's only UK hit single, "Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter"

It's their only #1, but they've had a handful of top five/three/twos since then. "Be Quick Or Be Dead" was blasting on the radio in Subway the other day, regaling me and some old granny with Bruce's awful early 90s laryngitis.

[Stormwatch]

Wikipedia's list of longest novels ever has 25 novels longer than half a million words.

Meanwhile, FIMFiction.net's list of longest My Little Pony fan fictions has 59 stories longer than half a million words.

[Stormwatch]

Akumajō Dracula, "Devil's Castle Dracula", did not get the tamer title Castlevania in the West due to Nintendo-imposed censorship. The decision to get rid of the devil came from Emil Heidkamp, a born-again Christian, and senior vice-president at Konami of America at the time.

[BIL]

Oh NES-era Konami localisers. You sucked, but always memorably so. Archie comics 4 life.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Contra/Jackal one is a classic :O I can almost smell that crummy ol' comic paperstock *snif snif*

I've grown to like the title "Castlevania" in recent years. AFAIK it would roughly equate to "the castle beyond the forest" ? (someone non-monolingual pls do correct) Nice elegant and accurate. I do mostly call the games by their JP titles these days, but that's because I almost invariably own and play the JP versions.

---

1 YEAR LATER: anyone remember those ol HOW 2 WIN @ NINTENDO VHS tapes from bitd? Lord how I'd rewatch them longing to play some of those games. Anyway Donn Nauert (team captain!)'s daughter grew up to do hairy pussy fetish porn. 3: When I saw her name in the news today I thought "oh lawd no, that surname, it cannot be" and wouldn't you know, it was! :O I think she kinda cute! She got socked in the mouth by a Hitler and is now making good cash @ gofundme. Sure beats making shitty VG tapes! ^_~

[PC Engine Fan X!]

It's been said author J.K. Rowling was turned down a whopping 25 times before her current book publisher published her first Harry Potter book. She's mentioned to others "to not be discouraged and keep at it".

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[miso]

Deer like to eat bananas.

[Stormwatch]

Soleil Moon Frye (star of "Punky Brewster") and Meeno Peluce (star of "Voyagers!") are half-siblings.

[BrianC]

In River Raid, you can't fly over land because the original design had the player controlling a boat instead of a plane.

The Intellivision version is the only version that lets you fly over land.

[Stormwatch]

If John Lennon hadn't been murdered, he would have played Professor Falken, the mysterious computer scientist in the film WarGames.

[Stormwatch]

The initials of J.C. Denton, the hero of Deus Ex, truly stand for Jesus Christ. But that's not necessarily religious symbolism. Producer Warren Spector is friends with science fiction writer Bradley Denton, who is an extremely nice and helpful guy. So Spector often found himself saying: "Jesus Christ, Denton, don't be so helpful."

sauce

[egg_sanwich]

GG Allin's real name was also Jesus Christ. When they were kids his brother couldn't pronounce it yet, and just called him "jee jee", hence GG.

[Stormwatch]

Retrogaming youtuber David Murray, aka The 8-Bit Guy, is second-cousin to late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

[BIL]

Neat coincidence, Dave Murray is also the name of Iron Maiden's longest-serving guitarist.

[FinalBaton]

Retrogaming youtuber David Murray, aka The 8-Bit Guy, is second-cousin to late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

lol, yes.

Almost spit my drink when he mentionned that in that episode

Neat coincidence, Dave Murray is also the name of Iron Maiden's longest-serving guitarist.

you know it DAMN WELL bud

[Jonny2x4]

Akumajō Dracula, "Devil's Castle Dracula", did not get the tamer title Castlevania in the West due to Nintendo-imposed censorship. The decision to get rid of the devil came from Emil Heidkamp, a born-again Christian, and senior vice-president at Konami of America at the time.

They would had changed the title anyway for the overseas release anyway, considering the Japanese title was, well, in Japanese. And it's not like like Konami weren't already changing the titles for their arcade games prior to Castlevania (e.g. Hyper Olympic to Track 'n Field, Green Beret to Rush 'n Attack, Gradius to Nemesis, Jackal to Top Gunner). Interesting that Mr. Heidkamp (someone from Konami of America) was the one who came up with the title though. I always wondered why they didn't went with the more edgy VAMPIRE KILLER name used for the MSX2 version.

[PFG 9000]

I've grown to like the title "Castlevania" in recent years. AFAIK it would roughly equate to "the castle beyond the forest" ? (someone non-monolingual pls do correct) Nice elegant and accurate. I do mostly call the games by their JP titles these days, but that's because I almost invariably own and play the JP versions.

Kind of. Castlevania is just Castle + Transylvania. Transylvania itself is a combination of "Trans" (Latin for across) and "Sylva" (Latin for forest). When you substitute "castle" for "trans," it doesn't really have any meaning since you're combining English and Latin in an awkward mishmash, but it does sound cool. And that's probably all Konami was going for.

[guigui]

There is no Nobel Prices for mathematicians, supposedly because Alfred Nobel's wife had an affair with a mathematician. When he created his prices, Mr Nobel so decided to punish all the mathematicians.
The Medal Fields has since been created, and is only delivered every 4 years.

[Xyga]

Finland is now officially the happiest country on Earth.

Is it because France finally gets its shit together and will (soon?) finalize the fucking nuclear money pit that came close to ruin Finland's economy?
Because Lennu is so cute?
Or did marq's OSSC shot up the GDP by two figures?

Anyway my own country is now about as happy as Mexico, probably because we've become more serious about raping and selling drugs lately *transatlantic brofist*

Ok that strange list is the work of Canadian and Chinese researchers, who might as well apply their method to other animals and why not other planets...

edit; does it work with gaming communities?

[Stormwatch]

IBM's famous 'ThinkPad' notebook line has this name because the very first model was not a notebook at all, but a tablet.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:700T

[Stormwatch]

The cliché that rabbits love carrots comes from Bugs Bunny, which in turn was just making a reference to a scene in the 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable eats carrots while talking quickly with his mouth full. In fact, rabbits do like carrots, but that's somewhat unhealthy due to their high amount of sugar, and must be given only as an occasional treat.

[Weak Boson]

There is no Nobel Prices for mathematicians, supposedly because Alfred Nobel's wife had an affair with a mathematician. When he created his prices, Mr Nobel so decided to punish all the mathematicians.
The Medal Fields has since been created, and is only delivered every 4 years.

In addition to being awarded only once every four years, in order to be eligible you also have to be young (defined by mathematicians as less than 40 years old) which arguably makes it even more even harder to obtain.

Sadposting: The first female awardee Maryam Mirzakhani died of cancer aged 40 : (

[BIL]

IRL Death Adder. I always assumed it was just a name Sega cooked up for Golden Axe.

Sega always stealin' shit for Golden Axe!

[Jonny2x4]

The other enemy characters in Golden Axe are all named after alcoholic drinks. Like the Hammer-swinging twin giants are the Bud Brothers and the armored knight is General Heineken.

[BIL]

On a certain level it wouldn't surprise me if Death Adder was their more distinctive stand-in for Cobra, although the beer and game's release dates are a bit too close together for that. NIGHT TRAIN and THUNDERBIRD would make cracking brawler enemy names too!

edit: this page encompasses a full three years' worth of posts! I'm feelin' old! Between the top of the page and now, somebody convinced Chris Chan they have a laser on the moon trained on CWCville, and extorted six grand from him not to fire it and blow up Sonichu's house! We are truly a long way from the ambitious days of the HOMO VACCINE.

[Stevens]

Sega always stealin' shit for Golden Axe!

Funny you should mention that -

https://hg101.kontek.net/tracing/tracing2.htm

Alllllllll the way down at the bottom of the page there is an interesting story about Sega, Boris Vallejo, and the cover art for GA III.

Not the first time I've posted that link round' these parts. If you haven't read it yet the entire article is very much worth the time.