The Useless Facts Thread

[Ed Oscuro]

after many fevered nights trolling /r/ and /e/ with a bottle of scotch dangling from my shaking left arm, my one good eye fixed on the pages like a spider running around a hot light bulb

[Ruldra]

When did I write that?

[Ed Oscuro]

When you were finding Elfhantae's avatarthingy ;D

[Ruldra]

Oh, that...

[Stormwatch]

[John Hodgman] wrote a book that may have the longest title ever:

"An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of "Were You Aware of It?", John Hodgman's Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre"

Which is usually called simply "The Areas of My Expertise".

Correcting myself now. The book with the longest title is actually Davide Ciliberti's "Per favore dite a mia madre che faccio il pubblicitario lei pensa chesono un pierre e che quindi regalo manciate di free entry e consumazioni gratis a chi mi pare, rido coi vip, i calciatori leveline e le giornaliste, leggo Novella e mi fotografano i paparazzi, entro nei privé saltando la coda, bevo senza pagare,sono ghiotto di tartine e gin tonic, ho la casa piena di oggetti di design, conosco Paris Hilton, Tom Ford ed Emilio Fede, guido lo Z4 nero, ho tante fidanzate, parlo coi giornalisti e ho l'ombrellone fisso a Saint Tropez. Per non fare torti anessuno vesto Armani, D&G, YSL, Ferrè e Moschino, indosso scarpe inglesi, ho la carta di credito corporate che fa moltoboss, l'auto aziendale coi sedili in pelle che fa molto chic. In verità invece lavoro alla luce del neon, col computer che siimpalla, colleghe “stressate” con piglio da manager, nota spese a pie' di lista, contratto a tre mesi senzabuoni pasto..."

[Stormwatch]

The current king of Thailand was born in the USA.

[Stormwatch]

Abbey Road is actually The Beatles' last studio album; the recording sessions for Let It Be were so tense that they decided to do a whole new album rather than coming back to finish work on that material.

[Stormwatch]

And this just in... Generalíssimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

[lgb]

Oddly enough, Pokémon Colosseum has support for Pokémon Emerald. I guess the code is just similar enough to allow it through.

[lgb]

This just in! Michael Jackson is still dead. Looks like he couldn't beat it.

[neorichieb1971]

According to my work friend the universe is trumpet shaped.

Well, you learn something new everyday

[Stormwatch]

If you say the name "Candlejack" out loud, it is very likely that you will disapp

[Specineff]

According to my work friend the universe is trumpet shaped.

Well, you learn something new everyday

I knew it: Louie Armstrong IS God!

[ED-057]

At the danger of posting non-useless info here, Newegg currently has a cardbus parallel port card for sale that works with PPJoy. Now I can finally live my dream of playing shmups at work using my SNES pad attached to my Fujitsu Lifebook B6110D.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839328010

[Ed Oscuro]

Nigel Tomm created a 2,087,214 letter-long word, and used it in his "The Blah Story" - the longest novel ever published.

Fuck that guy.

[ROBOTRON]

One can of SPAM luncheon meat makes old worn out bodies look like new. It does a body good. It brightens teeth and cures swine flu. It also grows hair on bald heads!!!

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Assuming you use the three letter initials for high scores, your combination is 1 out of 17,576 possible.

[antron]

Frank Zappa named his son Ahmet after that guy who discovered Ray Charles.

[damakable]

if you put a drop of whisky onto a scorpion it will sting itself to death

Videoooo prooooooof xDDD

Here you go.

Wait, there's more.

I can't believe I went and looked that up.

[Ruldra]

Remember the green power ranger?



Well he's a MMA fighter now.

[Stormwatch]

The term "vaporware" was coined in 1983 by Mark Ursino of Microsoft, in reference to the delays of VisiCorp's graphical interface, Visi On.


Visi On, the original vaporware.

[Stormwatch]

Mr. Paul Cole (1911-2008), an American tourist, only learned that he was in the famous Abbey Road cover months after the pic was taken.

The white Volkswagen Beetle across the street (the infamous LMW 28IF from the "Paul is dead" hoax / conspiracy theory) is currently on display at the Volkswagen museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.

[RoninBuddha]

CPS3 games ran in 4:3 Aspect Ratio. but many don't know (i just found out about it myself) that 2nd Impact has an anamorphic widescreen option (5:3)

Take note its is not similar to the way SFIV adapts to 4:3 or xbla/psn MvC2 into 16:9 wherein it just adds 'ghost' screen real estate. 2I's widescreen gave you more actual physical room, space, playing field... it affects small things like lifebar meter measurements, sprite size, and GUI sizes to major things like gameplay aspects such as distances and moves that depend on walls (e.x. RYU's EX hcf+KK)

here's the images:







the bigger distance greatly affects things like projectiles and whatnot, obviously, giving you more time to guard/parry things like hadoukens...

another thing to note is that this mode is not present in the Dreamcast W Impact port. 3rd Strike didn't have widescreen options.

[Stormwatch]

The Beatles' song "Because" was inspired by Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" played backwards.

[Stormwatch]

Fashion designer Pierre Cardin owns the ruins of the castle in Lacoste once inhabited by the Marquis de Sade.

[elfhentaifan]

http://cgi.ebay.de/PS3-60GB-60-GB-HDD-C ... 27ac92ba6e
all inclusive!

[lgb]

"Illmatic" is not just a very strange (and predominantly reference-geared) name for another one of Milestone's crazy shooters (Illmatic Envelope), but is also the name of a highly influential hip hop album.

Actually breaking down the "word" into 'ill' and 'matic' may produce something along the lines of "ill will". I wonder how 'envelope' fits into that.

Perhaps it's also a sly reference to a particular Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms deity or even a Finnish god.

[TLB]

Fun Fact: LGB spelled hip hop as hip hip, what a fuckin' retard.

EDIT: News Flash: He also edited it like a faggenheimer!

[Damocles]

Perhaps it's also a sly reference to a particular Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms deity or even a Finnish god.

Ill 'Mater?

[Stormwatch]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has the longest-running theatrical release in film history: in fact, it's still playing -- it has never been pulled from its original 1975 release.