“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy” .
Yes, apparently gray and white matters as you will find out in one of today’s selection of unusual facts.
Hope you enjoy the others as well. .
. During the production of the video game Deus Ex,
one of the artists forgot to add
the Twin Towers to New York City.
His mistake was explained by
way of a terrorist attack.
The year was 2000.
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Switzerland has
208 mountains over 3,000 meters high
and 24 over 4,000 meters.
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The male brain contains more gray matter
whereas the female brain contains more white matter.
White matter basically increases the speed
of transmission of all nerve signals,
which ultimately allows women to process thoughts
more rapidly than their male counterparts.
Don’t fret guys, you’ll get this
in another nano second or two.
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Genghis Kahn wanted the location
of his grave to be unknown
(somewhere in present day Mongolia)
so his funeral escort killed everyone they met
along the way and he even demanded that
a river be diverted to run across his grave
so it could never be disturbed.
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Although their civilization has declined and been conquered,
in many rural parts of Mexico and Guatemala
Mayan language and culture perseveres.
In fact, there are an estimated 7 million Maya
still living in and around the Yucatan Peninsula.
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The modern chainsaw was invented by Scottish
doctors to help with Symphysiotomy.
This is a surgical procedure that widens the
pelvis in order to assist in childbirth.
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China is among the countries with
the highest air pollution in the world.
Breathing air in Beijing, the country´s capital,
increases the risk of lung cancer in the same way
as smoking 21 cigarettes a day.
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In 1883 Sir Hiram Maxim created the Maxim gun.
The world’s first machine gun would go on to
revolutionize warfare and was used in both World Wars.
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Some rich people in Moscow buy
ambulances and use them to drive around
because the traffic is so bad.
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Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign
begun in the 1950s by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
to influence media.
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After being frustrated by the service
he was receiving at Bank of America,
Dalton Chiscolm sued them
for $1.7 billion trillion.
During the trial a professor of mathematics
was even called in to testify about
how big the number was.
To give you an idea,
Earth’s total combined GDP was $60 trillion that year.
It seems there is no end to the political hypocrisy that has taken over our well surveilled world.
I wrote a post a few days ago about the Belgian government wanting Skype to hand over confidential customer data. I called it ‘Taking A Swipe At Skype’ (if you want to read it click here )
In a previous post called, ‘What Is The German Word For Hypocrite?’ (if you want to read that one click here) I had a bit of rant against the hypocrisy of Germen Chancellor Angela Merkel who professed great anxiety publicly about the Americans snooping in on her phone calls while she and her intelligence agencies were in cahoots with the US to spy on other European countries.
Now a week or so later the two stories have merged with yet another piece of hypocrisy, this time by the Belgians who have announced that they are starting an official investigation into allegations that Belgium’s telecommunications networks were spied on by a consortium of German and American intelligence agencies.
In other words, it is okay for the Belgians to snoop on Skype users, but not okay when someone else wants to snoop on the Belgians.
If that’s not another good example of hypocrisy I don’t know what is.
Specifically the targets in Belgian sights are the United States National Security Agency and Germany’s Bundesnach-richtendienst (BND) and an operation that they referred to as ‘EIKONAL’.
The Belgians found out about the snooping when Austrian politician Peter Pilz blew his whistle at a press conference in Bern, Switzerland, saying that EIKONAL had targeted European telecommunications carriers for at least four years, from 2005 to 2008.
Spokesmen for the Belgian government have said that if the alleged espionage is confirmed, it would have “not only legal implications, but will also affect relations between Belgium, Germany and the US”. It also threatened to “take appropriate action” but didn’t specify what that would be – they probably don’t know yet.
Needless to say, the governments of Switzerland and the Netherlands were not amused by the revelations either and immediately launched their own investigations into this thing called ‘EIKONAL’.
It’s all turning into what they call “a right old mess”.
It seems that after a mysterious disappearance from public view for the past eleven days or so, Vladimir Putin has re-emerged.
Over the past week and more there was a frenzy of speculation as to why he was nowhere to be seen and what had happened to him. His absence was significant, that much was agreed, but nobody knew why he had disappeared.
One of Putin’s former advisors, Andrei Illarionov, who has become one of his strongest critics of late, was quick off the mark to say Putin had been toppled in a backstage coup.
Many, well-connected in Russian matters, speculated that there was a full-scale Kremlin power struggle under way.
Other rumors quickly followed.
General Viktor Zolotov, Putin’s long-time bodyguard, was said to be dead. This was confirmed and denied and confirmed and denied, etc.,
Another of Putin’s top allies, Vladislav Surkov, was speculated to have fled to Hong Kong with his family.
The questions from the media and on the internet were also many and varied.
Had there been some kind of retaliation for the recent murder of opposition leader and former first deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov?
Would there be more bloodshed?
Was a coup under way in Russia?
Was Putin finished?
Was he perhaps unwell, which I suppose could be taken as a sign of weakness and spur on those who wished to topple him?
Was he in Switzerland celebrating the birth of a child by his secret lover, the gymnast Alina Kabaeva?
Would he re-appear soon, shirtless, macho and galloping on a horse to show everyone he is still a force to be reckoned with?
Or was the whole thing just a distraction from the murder of Nemtsov and the war in Ukraine?
The Kremlin, on the other hand, wasn’t asking any questions. It dismissed all such rumors and insisted that nothing was wrong with either Putin or his regime, apart from maybe a dose of the flu.
There is no doubt that, for all his political savvy, Putin has managed to get himself stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He made his reputation by winning the war in Chechnya, and he cannot afford to cross the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. At the same time he cannot side against the politicians from the security or military services, often the officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, and all that, who came into power with him.
As usual, of course, most commentators missed the main question, which was apart from all the usual faffing around, ‘how should we react if such a thing were really to happen’?
Here in the West we, (including those in the intelligence community who are supposed to know about these things and brief world leaders like President Obama), don’t have much of a clue about Kremlin politics. You can be almost certain therefore that, if anything were ever to really happen to Putin, the danger is that the West would respond in entirely the wrong way.
A new Russian leader would be greeted by America and its allies as a more predictable and easier to deal with partner than Putin. But that is forgetting one crucial element. All Russian leaders are tough. Not just Putin. And the person who had the steel to oust someone of Putin’s caliber would have to himself be a very hard man and a shrewd operator.
More significantly, he would have to quickly stamp his authority and hold on power in Russia. The quickest and easiest way of doing that would be with more repression of opposition factions in Russia itself and with more flexing of Russia’s considerable muscles abroad, particularly in the Crimea and the Ukraine.
That would be a real puzzler for Obama, were it to happen during his last few months in office. And a defining moment for his successor.
Sometimes the devil you know is easier to deal with than one you don’t.
Scores don’t matter though, as long as you enjoy doing the quizzes.
Usual format today, general knowledge, geography, history, science, nature and even a little music.
Varying degrees of difficulty, but if you get stuck you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: What city is known as the ‘Peace Capital’ of the world?
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Q. 2: What is the only gemstone to be composed of one single element?
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Q. 3: What type of monkey possesses a blood factor that is shared with humans and was the first type of monkey launched into space?
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Q. 4: If the ‘DC’ in Washington DC was actually Roman Numerals, what number would it represent?
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Q. 5: What term is given to a territory which is part of a country but is surrounded by other countries so it is physically separate from the rest of the country?
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Q. 6: The ‘First Battle of Bull Run’ and the ‘Battle of Edgehill’ were the first battles of which wars? (A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if you answer both correctly.)
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Q. 7: What is the title of the head of the Church of England?
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Q. 8: What is the home of a Beaver called?
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Q. 9: Which famous action painter was nicknamed ‘Jack the Dripper’ ?
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Q. 10: Orbiting 35,900km above the equator, what term is given to satellites that remain above the same point on the Earth’s surface in their orbit?
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Q. 11: In which city are the Petronas Towers, formerly the world’s highest building?
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Q. 12: What name is given to the condition created by too much bile in the bloodstream that causes a distinct yellowing of the skin?
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Q. 13: What do 1,000 ‘gigabytes’ make?
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Q. 14: Where was a speed record of 11.2mph set in 1972?
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Q. 15: Of which republic are ‘English’, ‘Malay’, ‘Mandarin Chinese’ and ‘Tamil’ the four official languages?
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Q. 16: Which Ray Bradbury novel, also made into a famous movie, opens “It was a pleasure to burn”?
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Q. 17: The name of the human-like inhabitants of the land of the Houyhnhnms, discovered by Captain Lemuel Gulliver in 1711, has become one of the best known names in the modern business world, what is it?
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Q. 18: Among other meanings this word as a noun can mean a large wading bird, or a device for lifting and moving heavy weights, and as a verb it can mean to stretch out one’s neck, especially to see better – what is the word?
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Q. 19: ‘JAT’ airways is the national carrier of which country?
a) Switzerland b) Serbia c) Senegal d) Somalia
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Q. 20: Who sang about an ‘Uptown Girl’ in 1983?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: What city is known as the ‘Peace Capital’ of the world?
A. 1: Geneva, Switzerland.
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Q. 2: What is the only gemstone to be composed of one single element?
A. 2: Diamond.
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Q. 3: What type of monkey possesses a blood factor that is shared with humans and was the first type of monkey launched into space?
A. 3: The Rhesus monkey.
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Q. 4: If the ‘DC’ in Washington DC was actually Roman Numerals, what number would it represent?
A. 4: DC in Roman Numerals is 600.
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Q. 5: What term is given to a territory which is part of a country but is surrounded by other countries so it is physically separate from the rest of the country?
A. 5: An Exclave.
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Q. 6: The ‘First Battle of Bull Run’ and the ‘Battle of Edgehill’ were the first battles of which wars? (A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if you answer both correctly.)
A. 6: The American and English Civil Wars respectively.
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Q. 7: What is the title of the head of the Church of England?
A. 7: He is called the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’.
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Q. 8: What is the home of a Beaver called?
A. 8: A ‘Lodge’.
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Q. 9: Which famous action painter was nicknamed ‘Jack the Dripper’ ?
A. 9: Jackson Pollock.
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Q. 10: Orbiting 35,900km above the equator, what term is given to satellites that remain above the same point on the Earth’s surface in their orbit?
A. 10: Geostationary.
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Q. 11: In which city are the Petronas Towers, formerly the world’s highest building?
A. 11: Kuala Lumpur.
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Q. 12: What name is given to the condition created by too much bile in the bloodstream that causes a distinct yellowing of the skin?
A. 12: Jaundice.
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Q. 13: What do 1,000 ‘gigabytes’ make?
A. 13: A ‘Terabyte’.
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Q. 14: Where was a speed record of 11.2mph set in 1972?
A. 14: On the Moon (by John Young of Apollo 16 driving the Lunar Rover!)
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Q. 15: Of which republic are ‘English’, ‘Malay’, ‘Mandarin Chinese’ and ‘Tamil’ the four official languages?
A. 15: Singapore.
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Q. 16: Which Ray Bradbury novel, also made into a famous movie, opens “It was a pleasure to burn” ?
A. 16: Fahrenheit 451.
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Q. 17: The name of the human-like inhabitants of the land of the Houyhnhnms, discovered by Captain Lemuel Gulliver in 1711, has become one of the best known names in the business world, what is it?
A. 17: They were called Yahoos.
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Q. 18: Among other meanings this word as a noun can mean a large wading bird, or a device for lifting and moving heavy weights, and as a verb it can mean to stretch out one’s neck, especially to see better – what is the word?
A. 18: The word is ‘crane’.
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Q. 19: ‘JAT’ airways is the national carrier of which country?