Can anyone help with odd facts or trivia?

[dogsrspcl]

Example: A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

[Dharma- nator]

It's a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) or interrupt request (IRQ) interval timer which is usually based on the 50 or 60Hz mains frequency used around the world.

The term "Jiffy Clock" was used extensively by scene demo programmers on the Commodore 64 microcomputer and mastery of scheduling the clock made such wonderful effects such as the tech-tech, DYCP, side-borders and multi-sprites possible.

I hope that helped.

[ebmid2]

There is a lot of trivia at http://freewebs.com/demirisamir/didyouknow.htm

Here are the highlights:

The tune for the "A-B-C" song is the same as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

There are only three animals with blue tongues, the Black Bear, the Chow Chow dog and the blue-tongued lizard.

All swans and all sturgeons in England are property of the Queen. Messing with them is a serious offense.

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties in climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.

Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at 0.08988 g/cc
Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance in the world, at 70.6 g/cc

If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times, but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.

The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.

Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before oxygen deprivation.

Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning.

Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realise what is occuring, relax and correct itself. At about that height it hits maximum speed and when it hits the ground it's rib cage absorbs most of the impact.

Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.

Almost half the bones in your body are in your hands and feet.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.

There are more beetles than any other kind of creature in the world.

Polar bears camouflage themselves more completely during a hunt by covering their black noses with their paws.

Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%.
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

[*Alisha*]

Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The Statue of Liberty's tablet is two feet thick..
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free or Die'. These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.
The straw was probably invented by Egyptian brewers to taste in-process beer without removing the fermenting ingredients which floated on the top of the container.
David Prowse, was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY
There are only thirteen blimps in the world.
Nine of the thirteen blimps are in the United States.
The existing biggest blimp is the Fuji Film blimp.
Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
The Swiss flag is square.
The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales'. The abbreviation for the British Pound Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' for Libra/Lb. with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation.
Sames goes for the Italian lira which uses the same abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as "pounds/shillings/pence", abbreviated "L/s/d" (libra/solidus/denarius).
The three largest land-owners in England are the Queen, the Church of England and Trinity College, Cambridge.
The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
If you come from Manchester, you are a Mancunian.
No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.
The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
Madrid is the only European capital city not situated on a river.
The name for fungal remains found in coal is sclerotinite.
The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
Emus cannot walk backwards.
It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written.. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.
The shopping mall in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada has the largest water clock in North America.
Both writer Edgar Allen Poe and LSD advocate Timothy Leary were kicked out of West Point.
The word posh, which denotes luxurious rooms or accomodations, originated when ticket agents in England marked the tickets of travelers going by ship to the Orient. Since there was no air conditioning in those days, it was always better to have a cabin on the shady side of the ship as it passed through the Mediterranean and Suez area. Since the sun is in the south, those with money paid extra to get cabin's on the left, or port, traveling to the Asia, and on the right, or starboard, when returning to Europe. Hence their tickets were marked with the initials for Port Outbound Starboard Homebound, or POSH.
The top layer of a wedding cake, known as the groom's cake, traditionally is a fruit cake. That way it will save until the first anniversery.
The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.
The forward pass was created by the football team at Saint Louis University.
In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) wrote, there is at least one song about rain.
A kind of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands has an upturned shell at its neck so it can reach its head up to eat cactus branches.
The only city whose name can be spelled completely with vowels is Aiea, Hawaii, located approximately twelve miles west of Honolulu.
Parthenogenesis is the term used to describe the process by which certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in successive female generations without intervention of a male of the species. At least one species of lizard is known to do so.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat", which means "the king is dead".
The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
"Quisling" is the only word in the English language to start with "quis."
All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets in New York were originally weighting stones put in the hulls of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.
Nepal is the only country without a rectangular flag (it looks like two pennants glued on on top of the other)
Libya has the only flag which is all one color with no writing or decoration on it
The only borough of New York City that isn't an island (or part of an island) is the Bronx.
The 1957 Milwaukee Braves were the first baseball team to win the World Series after being relocated.
The tune for the "A-B-C" song is the same as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield it's first consumable fruit.
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
Linn's Stamp News is the world's largest weekly newspaper for stamp collectors.
Tennessee is bordered by more states than any other. The eight states are Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
Des Moines has the highest per capita Jello consumption in the U.S
The Western-most point in the contiguous United States is Cape Alava, Washington.
There are only three animals with blue tongues, the Black Bear, the Chow Chow dog and the blue-tongued lizard.
The first fossilized specimen of Austalopithecus afarenisis was named Lucy after the palentologists' favorite song, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, by the Beatles.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
The geographical center of North America is near Rugby, North Dakota.
The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.
Hacky-sack was invented in Turkey.
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
There are six five words in the English language with the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate and duumvir, residuum.
The "Calabash" pipe, most often associated with Sherlock Holmes, was not used by him until William Gillette (an American) portrayed Holmes onstage. Gillette needed a pipe he could keep in his mouth while he spoke his lines.
Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
Dirty Harry's badge number is 2211.
The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.
The shortest French word with all five vowels is "oiseau" meaning bird.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
"Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.
The ball on top of a flagpole is called the truck.
A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan; this is the only palindromic nationality.
The word "modem" is a contraction of the words "modulate, demodulate."
Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years after he had died.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any other state.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Hamsters love to eat crickets.
The only "real" food that U.S. Astronauts are allowed to take into space is pecan nuts.
The word "queueing" is the only English word with five consecutive vowels.
The first Eagle Scout west of the Mississippi is buried in San Marcos, Texas.
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
Roberta Flack wrote "Killing Me Softly" about singer Don McLean.
The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint.
Spencer Eldon was the name of the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's album
All three major 1996 Presidential candidates, Clinton, Dole and Perot, are left-handed.
The Madagascan Hissing Cockroach is one of the few insects who give birth to live young, rather than laying eggs.
The book of Esther in the Bible is the only book which does not mention the name of God.
Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of feudal rule in England, each shire had a reeve who was the law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United States it was shortned to Sheriff.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
Dracula is the most filmed story of all time, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is second and Oliver Twist is third.
The silhouette on the NBA logo is Jerry West.
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purp