Fun facts!

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Cheerlead-in-Chief said:
In Germany, using too many flags is illegal except for sports events
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That's true for the better half of Europe as well.

Trivia:
English is one of the few Western European languages that doesn't derive its words for "read" and "write" from Latin legere and scribere. "Read" comes from Old English rædan meaning "to advise, or interpret something difficult or written." It's related to the German raten (advice) as in Rathaus (town hall) and also "ready" and the rare word "rede" (counsel, advice). "Write" comes from Old English writan, from the Indo-European root *wreid- which means "to cut, tear, scratch." This root exists in other Indo-European languages, but only in English was it used to refer to writing.
 
The ending shots in the original theatrical ending of blade runner uses leftover unused footage from the shining.
 
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The Empirical Bogey said:
That's true for the better half of Europe as well.

Trivia:
English is one of the few Western European languages that doesn't derive its words for "read" and "write" from Latin legere and scribere. "Read" comes from Old English rædan meaning "to advise, or interpret something difficult or written." It's related to the German raten (advice) as in Rathaus (town hall) and also "ready" and the rare word "rede" (counsel, advice). "Write" comes from Old English writan, from the Indo-European root *wreid- which means "to cut, tear, scratch." This root exists in other Indo-European languages, but only in English was it used to refer to writing.
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Speaking of English...Shakespearean English's closest relatives are the ones in North Carolina due to the y'all bit.
And flicking the thumb with your teeth was the equivalent of the middle finger in Shakespeare's time.
 
The Empirical Bogey said:
It's related to the German raten (advice) as in Rathaus (town hall) and also "ready" and the rare word "rede" (counsel, advice).
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If you do know it, it's probably from the expression in Hamlet "recks not his own rede," that is, takes not his own advice.
 
Fun fact: everything bad that happens to you is directly the result of something you chose to do!

Other fun fact: the previous fun fact is a lie!

Actual fun fact: even though the first fun fact is a lie, you will reap benefits by immediately assuming anything bad that happened to you was in fact your fault and immediately figure out tactics to avoid it happening again!
 
I posted this in the Random Pics thread, but I would like to share it on this thread as well. In the Atari Jaguar port of the first Rayman game, the first boss Moskito looks like this:
RedMoskitoArtwork.png

Note the above is his correct color scheme. However, in other ports such as the PlayStation (during the chase scene), Sega Saturn (chase scene) and PC (both chase and boss battle) versions Moskito is miscolored to look like Bzzit, an unrelated Mosquito who is the mini boss of Dream Forest and then helps Rayman cross the Anguish Lagoon after he is defeated.
20211210_080701.jpg

Rayman comforting Bzzit.
As a result of the coloring glitch, Bzzit and Moskito are often mistaken for being one and the same.
 
Some guy in 2004 decided to call every area code in North America by dialing 867-5309 after


here's the results


A few notable calls actually had a Jenny, another called the person who dialed the number a fucking idiot for dialing the number, another was a plumbing service that specifically bought number just as a knock to advertise their service.
 
There was a real person, a French writer of vulgar, poorly written, though not pornographic literature, with the unfortunate/hilarious name Paul de Kock, in the 1800s.

James Joyce knew this and in his classic modernist novel Ulysses (consistently considered one of the greatest novels if not the greatest of the twentieth century) frequently mentions this to comic effect, ultimately having the protagonist's extremely slutty, extremely adulterous wife muse to herself:

Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his tube from one woman to another
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But in fact this extremely successful (after his death, extremely obscure) writer had the actual name Paul de Kock and never wrote under a pseudonym.
 
Frank D'arbo said:
Some guy in 2004 decided to call every area code in North America by dialing 867-5309 after


here's the results


A few notable calls actually had a Jenny, another called the person who dialed the number a fucking idiot for dialing the number, another was a plumbing service that specifically bought number just as a knock to advertise their service.
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this is why the 2000s was the best decade, the internet was just advanced enough that those cliques and subcultures and weirdos that used to get beaten into the emergency room back in the 90s now had forums to congregate in and weirdos could make one off websites like this or Black People Like Us for funny bits/research like this,

fun fact about that 2nd website i named. the founder of buzzfeed created it. even the jews/italians weren't that annoying in the 2000s!
 
If for whatever reason you were able to break a Tonka toy through normal play (ie not exploding it, machine pressing it, playing it like an actual toy) and you actually tell Tonka/Hasbro about it, send it in the mail to them. They'll give you a lifetime supply of Tonka merch.

The catch being, of course, those fucking things are tough as shit. Only 7 people ever have had this happened to them.
 
Frank D'arbo said:
If for whatever reason you were able to break a Tonka toy through normal play (ie not exploding it, machine pressing it, playing it like an actual toy) and you actually tell Tonka/Hasbro about it, send it in the mail to them. They'll give you a lifetime supply of Tonka merch.

The catch being, of course, those fucking things are tough as shit. Only 7 people ever have had this happened to them.
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Tonka used to be their own company instead of a brand. Toys are interesting!
 
Frank D'arbo said:
If for whatever reason you were able to break a Tonka toy through normal play (ie not exploding it, machine pressing it, playing it like an actual toy) and you actually tell Tonka/Hasbro about it, send it in the mail to them. They'll give you a lifetime supply of Tonka merch.

The catch being, of course, those fucking things are tough as shit. Only 7 people ever have had this happened to them.
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I remember reading an old newspaper article (late 60’s or early 70’s) when I was a kid that had a photograph of a Tonka dump truck that was underneath the front wheel of a car. The owner had car trouble and didn’t have a spare tire so he used his kid’s toy and drove it to his local garage mechanic.
 
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