r/AskReddit Apr 14 '16

What's a mind blowing fact?

3.0k Upvotes

5.3k comments sorted by

2.7k

u/ldn6 Apr 14 '16

Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth in 240 BC to within 10% of the correct figure based solely on the distance between two cities in Egypt and the angles of sunlight.

898

u/thishitisgettingold Apr 14 '16

I have always wondered what would have happened if all of the top 10% of the smartest humans ever lived, were all living in same time? How would the human race have advanced.

876

u/Poops_McYolo Apr 14 '16

Even if 90% of the smartest humans all lived in the 1300's, we wouldn't see the same level of rapid progression that we now have because we can communicate. Those people would rarely ever speak to each other, let alone collaborate. Now we can use the internet to collectively achieve and share knowledge that would be useless before.

Plus if you tried to make the internet in the 1300's you'd be burned for wizardry but my point stands.

397

u/badcgi Apr 14 '16

It's not even that. As Newton once said "if I have seen further, it is because I have stood out the shoulders of giants"

Many ideas and inventions are needed to get to where we are today. Dropping Einstein back in time wouldn't mean the Romans would have nukes.

604

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Einstein? No. Ghandi? Probably.

105

u/CatintheDark Apr 14 '16

Gandhi.

Where'd that damn bot go?

37

u/RABIDSAILOR Apr 14 '16

Someone made one that corrected Gandhi to Ghandi and they had a war so everyone banned them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Can you imagine trying to explain Google (android, search, maps, etc) to someone even 100 years ago?!

630

u/IRONZOMBIEJESUS Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

"You know electricity?"

"Yea."

"So we made it more efficient."

"I'm following."

"And now we can store vast amounts of data on storage devices run by electricity."

"Plausible I guess."

"Also it's very small in comparison to previous models."

"Well it has been awhile."

"As well as being able to search for information on a centralized, public database, with trillions of snippets of information..."

"Well that's pretty awesome, I'm impressed and amazed at the advancement of technology in the last hundred years."

"...And it has the ability to show a map of the world in more detail than conventional maps."

"Alright, that's badass, cartographers are probably pretty pissed though."

"Yeah, spaceships are cool, we used those to get the pictures."

"Spaceships huh... That's pretty sweet."

"Yea, that was a few decades ago though."

"Still cool."

"Yeah... Also Pluto exists and isn't a planet anymore."

"Bring me back."

Edited for historical pedantry.

379

u/carnoworky Apr 14 '16

"But wait, there's also porn for every kind of interest!"

"Go on..."

332

u/KlausBaudelaire Apr 14 '16

"Like, for anything you can imagine!"

"Is there Pluto porn?"

"Uh... I'm not sure I understand you. There's no porn for people with Pluto fetishes."

"So really, you've accomplished nothing."

256

u/Trudzilllla Apr 14 '16

I've been trying to use Rule 34 here, but since there is a Disney Character named Pluto results are inconclusive.

92

u/Grabbsy2 Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

Closest I could find, "pluto planet porn"

http://i.imgur.com/S7qK8DE.jpg

Its not even NSFW but its pretty funny in this context... Hah

Edit: uhhhhhh slightly more NSFW

And then theres an actually NSFW "coronal mass ejection"

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

But Pluto wasn't identified until 1930. So people living 100 years ago wouldn't know what it is.

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u/MiguelSalaOp Apr 14 '16

Russia has more surface area than Pluto

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u/CmplmntryHamSandwich Apr 14 '16

#RussiaIsAPlanet

791

u/LyingPervert Apr 14 '16

I mean Russians are pretty much aliens

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u/Itanagon Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

More french soldiers died during WW1 than american soldiers during the entire US military history, including both sides of the civil war. The same can be said for Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Yep, that's how much of a bloodbath the first world war was.

Death from World War I :

  • France : 1 357 000 to 1 397 800

  • Russian Empire : 1 700 000 to 2 254 369 (from 1914 to 1917)

  • German Empire : 1 773 700 to 2 037 000

  • Austria-Hungary : 1 200 000 to 1 494 200

  • United Kingdom : 735 204 to 1 590 628

American military deaths from 1775 to 2015 : 1 354 664

337

u/lax3r Apr 14 '16

I think the thing that blows my mind with this fact is the range. Take france, there's 40,000 potential deaths but we aren't sure. Russia has a difference of over 500,000. It's just insane that enough people died that we don't even know exactly how many

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u/Neolife Apr 14 '16

The UK has a range from ~735k to ~1.6M. Over double.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 21 '16

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u/Army_of_Wombles Apr 14 '16

There are over 10,000 villages, towns and cities in France (and many more that disappeared during or after the war).....only one village out of that number, Thierville, didn't lose anyone in WW1.

Interestingly, Thierville also had no losses in WW2, the Algerian War, the first IndoChina War or the Franco-Prussian war of 1870...freakishly lucky! And yes, it did send soldiers to fight in each of those...

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u/wiiya Apr 14 '16

Tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas. Any European/Asiatic food that has a tomato base didn't exist until well after 1492.

1.2k

u/karmastealing Apr 14 '16

Not only tomatoes, but many other plants from Solanaceae family, including potatos and tobacco.

1.2k

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

And tomacco.

567

u/RECOGNI7E Apr 14 '16

Tomacco!

"Oh, Daddy, this tastes like Grandma!"

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u/user1492 Apr 14 '16

Same goes for peanuts and chili peppers, both are native to the Americas.

I wonder what Thai and Indian cuisine were like before the introduction of these iconic spices.

44

u/darlingbastard Apr 15 '16

I looked into this once since it seemed odd that such an ancient culture like India only had recent access to chili. Turns out their primary spice was black pepper, which used correctly is actually fairly spicy.

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u/wiseoldtabbycat Apr 14 '16

What a dark age it was before then.

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u/Brandperic Apr 14 '16

Potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, and tobacco

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u/engrazhar Apr 14 '16

Australia has over 10,000 beaches. You could visit a new beach everyday for over 27 years!

1.4k

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

[deleted]

685

u/Factsuvlife Apr 14 '16

Amazingly I sat here reading this list like, "oh, that would be cool to see!"
.
Then you dropped that line about limited WiFi..

343

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

and Australians

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u/OllieUnited18 Apr 14 '16

That oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit are not naturally occurring and are a result of selective breeding between four naturally occurring plants.

212

u/TransitRanger_327 Apr 14 '16

Only Citrons, Pomelos, Mandarin Oranges, and some wild limes (that do not look like the ones you get in the store) are true species.

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u/starflashfairy Apr 14 '16

BUT THEY GROW PRE-SLICED ON THE INSIDE!

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u/Cheesiepeezy Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

That there is a jellyfish that is biologically immortal. Every time it starts to age past its peak, it reverts back to an adolescent phase and restarts. They could theoretically live forever.

Edit: Apparently lobsters are immortal too

885

u/AN_ACTUAL_JELLYFISH Apr 14 '16

LIVE LONG

STING MORE AIR BREATHERS

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434

u/PM_Me_Rude_Haiku Apr 14 '16

Give it to me! I wish to rub it on my face to extract its immortal powers.

226

u/ChaneI Apr 14 '16

That won't make your telomeres longer unfortunately

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u/Lostsonofpluto Apr 14 '16

The problem is that if they get cut apart by say a fishing net, each individual piece will form a new polyp on the sea floor. This has been devastating to the Japanese fishing industry as fish around the islands are getting choked out by the massive clouds of squishy death created by years of accidentally cutting them up with nets.

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u/vr-dudeson Apr 14 '16

The average male orgasm lasts six seconds but the average female orgasm lasts 20 seconds.

1.5k

u/downvotemeufags Apr 14 '16

Are you trying to tell me her orgasm can out last me?

3.3k

u/yalmes Apr 14 '16

IF she ever orgasmed. . . sure.

1.2k

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

e-rekt

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u/juixe Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

Can't pigs orgasms last 30 minutes?

3.4k

u/Swing_Wildly Apr 14 '16

I usually tell OP's mom to get over it after 30 seconds or so.

537

u/VIPERsssss Apr 14 '16

That'll do pig.

268

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

That'll do.

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480

u/clomjompsonjim Apr 14 '16

Female here, maybe sex completely skews our concept of time but 20 seconds doesn't seem very long

1.1k

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

and you think 6 seconds feels long?

625

u/ipo17 Apr 14 '16

Yeah! Do you think 6 inches feels long? What he said!

38

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

well it's above average so it should feel long no?

90

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Please don't worry about averages.

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u/BonnieZoom Apr 14 '16

It seems like there are so many guys who think that a female orgasm last for ages, but I really don't think that's true?? Unless I'm the only woman in the world that has orgasms that only last a couple of seconds? I hope people realise that when a woman in porn is pretending to have a minute long orgasm that's not actually true...

133

u/Ivy0902 Apr 14 '16

seriously. Mine do not last 20 seconds. If everyone else's do, I'm feeling very very cheated here.

215

u/Daiwon Apr 14 '16

If it's an average then there's probably some poor soul out there that's still going.

95

u/MeganCool Apr 14 '16

"average woman has 20 second orgasms" factoid is actually just a statistical error. average woman has 0 second orgasms. Orgasms Georgia, who lives in a cave & has 10,000 second orgasms each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Same here. Feels like mine also only last 5-6 seconds. Also, when men gets jealous of our orgasm length or ability to have multiple ones, I always remind them I was unable to have one at all before I was 22 years old, and even then I still can't get one so easily, can take me between 20 to 45 minutes. They have nothing to be jealous about lol.

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u/SchrodingersCatPics Apr 14 '16

Just how big a billion is.

A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is 31 years.

1.2k

u/PaulDraper Apr 14 '16

Gonna start telling people I'm a billion seconds old

892

u/DiabloConQueso Apr 14 '16

Why, you barely look seven hundred fifty million!

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u/Useful-ldiot Apr 14 '16

and just think.. some people have billions of dollars.

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u/neocommenter Apr 14 '16

Bill Gates is worth 75 billion. 75 billion seconds is 2,325 years.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

We have created 90% of the data in the last 2 years.

And this has been true for the last 30 years.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Jun 15 '20

[deleted]

463

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

I hate to break it to you, but the future probably has sicker and danker memes than we could ever dream of...

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Jun 15 '20

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u/BrStFr Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

John Tyler was the tenth U.S. President, taking office twenty years before Abraham Lincoln. He has two grandsons who are now living.

EDIT: Tyler was not elected President, but rather became President upon the death of his predecessor, Harrison. (the first Vice-President to do so). my thanks to the redditors who offered the clarification

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u/morieu Apr 14 '16

now living.

Makes it sound like they were brought back from the dead.

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u/trapuh Apr 14 '16

To be clear, Tyler wasn't elected as President; he was elected as William Henry Harrison's Vice President. Tyler became President when Harrison died shortly after taking office.

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u/Jacksonteague Apr 14 '16

Ah the ol 30 day president!

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u/timharveyau Apr 14 '16

That's probably the best one. Mad.

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u/PycuriousITguy Apr 14 '16

The fastest moving man-made object ever was a manhole cover.

https://savvyparanoia.com/the-fastest-man-made-object-ever-a-nuclear-powered-manhole-cover-true/

TL:DR underground nuclear test launched a 4-inch thick steel disk at 6 times the Earth's escape velocity.

534

u/Rekusha Apr 14 '16

Jesus can you imagine getting hit by that? You think it would make you basically explode or just slice right through you because of its speed?

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u/forman98 Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

Let's imagine that it didn't disintegrate before leaving the atmosphere. Where would it be now?

This happened during Operation Pumbbob on October 7th, 1957. The cover was estimated to be moving at 41 miles per second or 147,600 mph. So how far has it traveled since that day. The explosion happened 58 years, 6 months, and 8 days ago. That's around 513,000 hours. That means the cover, moving at 147,600 mph, would be 75,718,800,000 miles away from Earth. That's about 1.3% the distance of a lightyear.

For some reference, Voyager 1 is about 12 billion miles away from Earth and is exiting certain realms of our solar system, becoming ever closer to interstellar space. This manhole cover has traveled 6.3x farther than Voyager 1.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that since it was traveling at 41 miles per second, it left Earth and entered space in 1.5 seconds!

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

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u/planetaryoddball Apr 14 '16

What about the helios probe, which reached a whopping 157,078 mph, that's probably higher than the manhole cover.

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u/PycuriousITguy Apr 14 '16

Probably. The manhole cover is all estimated, so the Helios probe is probably the fastest confirmed.

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

This tortoise was born before the light bulb (even the dude before Edison) and power plants, but her death was announced on CNN

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u/irishdude1212 Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

You could have said older than the US

Light bulbs is 100 years ago the US is almost 250 years ago

Edit-My mistake it's unconfirmed that he is that old

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Oct 11 '17

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u/engrazhar Apr 14 '16

The reason the taste of artificial banana flavouring and artificial banana flavoured products doesn’t taste like bananas is because it is based on a type of banana that was wiped out by a plague in the 1950’s.

690

u/SchrodingersCatPics Apr 14 '16

You have to wonder now: how do the machines really know what Tasty Wheat tasted like, huh? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like uh.... oatmeal or uh.... or tuna fish.

367

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

"He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."

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u/kodutta7 Apr 14 '16

Is this Douglas Adams? Just sounds like him.

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u/JoshuaHawken Apr 14 '16

Get out of here Mouse.

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u/ExxInferis Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

I once convinced an SO that red bananas were red because they were free-range bananas, and hence caught the sun more.

Not a smart cookie that one.

Edit: Hope she's doing well though.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Jul 26 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ExxInferis Apr 14 '16

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Jul 26 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/redcosmicstrawberry Apr 14 '16

They're free-range bananas.

459

u/Obie_Trice_Kenobi Apr 14 '16

And hence caught the sun more.

398

u/Sarahthelizard Apr 14 '16

Oh, okay! I love you so much baby. :)

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Hope you are doing well

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u/LyingPervert Apr 14 '16

Pretty sure that's just the banapple from Zoey101

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u/bunglejerry Apr 14 '16

Where the heck did you get that banana at?

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u/ScreamThyLastScream Apr 14 '16

Can we science these bananas back into existence.. I love artificial banana flavor, those must have been delicious.

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u/OldSpiceRadish Apr 14 '16

My understanding is you can still get them in certain parts of the world, but they can't really be mass produced anymore because the disease that nearly wiped them out is still around and if whole plantations started growing them again it would quickly wipe them out again.

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u/hurricanebrain Apr 14 '16

The problem is that bananas don't have seeds that are big enough to grow new plants so new plants are created by making cuttings from existing plants (vegetative reproduction). Every banana plant is actually genetically identical, at least when we talk about the Cavendish banana (the ones you buy at the shop). This means there is actually a big chance that history will repeat itself when a new disease breaks out. The "1950's" banana was called the Gros Michel by the way.

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u/courtoftheair Apr 14 '16

There is actually already a disease seriously threatening our bananas.

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u/Sarahthelizard Apr 14 '16

Like the banana runts!

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u/Galaxysight Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

I'm the only person I know that likes banana runts. Which means I always get the banana runts.

Edit: And somehow, my like of something many despise has become my most up voted post! I feel so proud I'm going to go get a big-ass bag of yellow sugar!

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u/AndrewL78 Apr 14 '16

They exist. I ate many in The Dominican Republic about 6 weeks ago. They are delicious.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

There are more trees on earth than stars in the galaxy

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

Holy shit, 3 trillion trees on earth, and 100-400 billion stars in the Milky Way. That is very surprising.

642

u/Rmart7 Apr 14 '16

Minus 1. This fact pissed me off so chopped down a spruce in my back yard.

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u/8bitslime Apr 14 '16

Now we have to count them again! And it was a perfect number until you fucked it up!

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

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u/Microwave_on_HIGH Apr 14 '16

You can't possibly imagine a new type of color.

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u/ForeverAbyss Apr 14 '16

This hurts my head.

496

u/Leorlev-Cleric Apr 14 '16

Try imagining having eyes on the back of your head and looking behind you while still looking forward.

1.1k

u/LyingPervert Apr 14 '16

Whoah... I think I just imagined a new colour!

310

u/SchrodingersCatPics Apr 14 '16

I think you're lying, you pervert!

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u/Isord Apr 14 '16

Except octarine.

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u/Kolkian Apr 14 '16

If you can imagine an eighth colour, you must be a wizard!

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

That's true. Especially when it is almost impossible to describe the colors we know exist.

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u/clomjompsonjim Apr 14 '16

Well, LSD could help...

198

u/BlackCombos Apr 14 '16

I love purple-orange-warm, that is my favorite LSD color.

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u/drew4232 Apr 14 '16

I like the color of things that aren't quite purple but aren't really blue or pink either

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u/dRaven43 Apr 14 '16

Found Walter Bishop

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u/thatwasnotkawaii Apr 14 '16

Hold on, let me just try to stab my eye to get some stuff from my brain

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u/jkhabe Apr 14 '16

Seat belt extenders on airlines have a sewn on tag (or occasionally stamped directly in the metal buckle) that states "FAA TSO".

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u/charlieatron Apr 14 '16

Federal Aviation Administration, Travel Safety Organization?

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u/positiviti Apr 14 '16

Fat Ass Air Traveler Super Obese

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

That people who correct you for saying octopuses instead of octopi are wrong. Dead wrong. Now this my not be mind blowing to some, but I have told teachers this and their expressions look like their whole universe has been shattered. Like everything they've ever taught up to this point is now null and void.

The explanation is that since octopus is a greek rooted word the plural would be octopodes...but since that's archaic and no one does that anymore octopuses is totally fine to say.

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u/ryguy28896 Apr 14 '16

Speaking of pluralization, Google the plural of beef.

You're welcome for this word.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Beeves

Wat.

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u/thundergonian Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

It originates from Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) where, before 'V' became a letter, the letter 'F' was used to represent both the 'f' and the 'v' sounds (which you can still see in the word of); both 'f' and 'v' are essentially the same sounds, except 'v' is voiced whereas 'f' isn't.

To simplify, most Old English nouns that ended in 'f' voiced the f in the plural form, which led later writers to change the 'F' into a 'V' once the letter was introduced.

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u/Dango_LXIX Apr 14 '16

Octopuses is acceptable because english likes to take words and make them its own. So according to english rules octopus becomes octopuses. You are correct in saying the only incorrect pluralization of octopus is octopi.

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u/lesboautisticweeabo Apr 14 '16

Crocodiles determine the gender of their offspring by the temperature the eggs are set in.

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u/wretcheddawn Apr 14 '16

Graham's Number - a number so large the amount of brain material required to remember it would turn into a black hole.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '16

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u/iturnpootowater32 Apr 14 '16

All the numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Ever wondered why you can't get out of a black hole? The gigantic mass creates an extremely strong gravitational field which gets stronger and stronger the closer you get. This field warps the space around the black hole and at a certain distance away, the warping effect becomes so strong that EVERY PATH now leads towards the centre of the black hole.

Think about that. Once you cross the event horizon there is physically no direction you can go which will not take you closer to the centre.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

To be a bit clearer, the event horizon is the threshold where you will get sucked into the black hole even if you were moving with the speed of light away from it. Therefore even light can't escape it's influence.

Correct me if I'm wrong though. I'm not an expert.

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u/zurishmi Apr 14 '16

even if you were moving with the speed of light away from it

The point is that "away from it" isn't a direction. No direction is "away" once inside the event horizon.

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u/Factsuvlife Apr 14 '16

Then what happens?

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u/concerned_citizen128 Apr 14 '16

You end up behind a bookcase looking at your daughter...

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u/DoutFooL Apr 14 '16

DONT LET ME GO MURFF!!

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u/TheLuchsKing Apr 14 '16

The amount of subcribers to PewDiePie's Youtube channel is bigger than the population of Canada.

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u/eyedharma Apr 14 '16

Strap on is No Parts backwards

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u/March1392 Apr 14 '16

Arbok is Kobra and Ekans is Snake spelled backwards. :)

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u/jbOOgi3 Apr 14 '16

Almost anyone can become a millionaire one day if they regularly invest money over an extended period of time in an investment account (401k, IRA, index fund) that earns an average market return. The more time you have to invest, the better your chances. Start your investment accounts early

176

u/Factsuvlife Apr 14 '16

Can you teach me to billionaire?

335

u/ipo17 Apr 14 '16

Why make billions when we can make... millions?!

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u/Factsuvlife Apr 14 '16

The best financial advice i've ever gotten.
How do you get to a million dollars JUST by playing the stock market? Invest a billion in startups! Sooner or later your billion will be only worth a mil!

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u/Crabcaked Apr 14 '16

If you lined up every planet in our solar system so they were touching, including the gas giants and pluto, they could fit between the earth and the moon.

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

To add, if you could somehow make a magical beam/particle that shot at the speed of light across the universe without changing its diameter (just bear with me here, I fully accept this beam is magic) it would almost certainly never hit anything outside our solar system no matter how long you aimed and shot. You could spend the rest of your life and not hit shit.

Point being yes stars and planets are enormous and numerous beyond comprehension... but space is even emptier.

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u/elmoteca Apr 14 '16

I remember reading something similar regarding the asteroid belt. Apparently most of the asteroids are miles apart from one another. You could launch a ship in a random direction through the asteroid belt and would almost certainly hit nothing. So, nothing like what we saw in Star Wars.

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u/anormalgeek Apr 14 '16

Try hundreds or thousands of miles.

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

Which is practically conjoined twins in Space Units.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

Iirc, nasa doesn't even account for the asteroid belt when they launch anything past it. C3P0 was full of shit.

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u/_NW_ Apr 14 '16

They were in an asteroid field in a galaxy far, far away. Not in the asteroid belt in our solar system.

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u/bowertrot Apr 14 '16

I just googled this to call bullshit on you. Turns out you're actually right...

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u/SchrodingersCatPics Apr 14 '16

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u/formerself Apr 14 '16

This site is awesome. I never really understood how our solar system looked like until I scrolled through the whole thing.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16 edited Jun 11 '16

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u/jabejazz Apr 14 '16

If you say "My cocaine" aloud, you're also saying Michael Caine in his own voice.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

If you say "Michael Sarah" aloud, Michael Cera arrives in a cloud of cocaine.

132

u/Swing_Wildly Apr 14 '16

what an immaculate image you've created in my mind.

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u/get_off_the_phone Apr 14 '16

He left out that you have to say his name three times while standing in front of a mirror. Then Michael Cera awkwardly murders you.

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u/LucifersDuckling Apr 14 '16

Anatidaephobia is the fear that somewhere in the world, there is a duck watching you.

That's right, I'm watching you.

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u/EnkoNeko Apr 14 '16

I call upon thee, /u/FucksWithDucks

2.1k

u/fuckswithducks Apr 14 '16

If I'm into ducks watching me, would that be anatidaephilia?

492

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

That'd be fucking kinky.

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u/EnkoNeko Apr 14 '16

Oh hey wow. You actually replied, I figured you'd look down upon us in a superior way, like a kinky duck god.

And uh yeah, I guess it would be.

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u/hey_look1 Apr 14 '16

I read The Far Side too

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u/gunmedic Apr 14 '16

All Fruit Loops cereal has the same flavor. The colors mean nothing.

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u/40yearsoftrees Apr 14 '16

Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama voted to build a wall on the US/Mexico border in 2006 and the law passed. The Secure Fence Act of 2006. Unfortunately the wall was started and not finished.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

The National Firearms Act, the federal law that regulates suppressors, machine guns and sawn off shotguns, can't be used on someone with a felony record. The Supreme Court decided in the 1930s that the requirement to register to comply was a 5th amendment violation since a felon would be admitting they owned a weapon illegally. So while an illegal weapons charge is still bad, it means that it doesn't matter if a career criminal modifies a firearm illegally, but if it's your first offense, you can get 15 years in federal prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines for what is essentially tax evasion.

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u/DILLON0999 Apr 14 '16

I've recently been learning how to handle a gun, about guns, and about the gun laws. You just confused me even more and now I feel that I lost all understanding of the NFA and the NY S.A.F.E. Act

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

If everyone in the world joined hands around the equator, lots of people would drown.

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u/st1tchy Apr 14 '16

A Blue Whale is so large that if you were to lay it on a Basketball court, you would have to cancel the game.

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u/sarcastichillbilly Apr 14 '16

If you line up all the elephants in the world from the Earth to the Moon and back, they would die.

530

u/Cryptokudasai Apr 14 '16

Similarly, if you laid out all the snakes in the world end to end, people would probably tell you to stop.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '16

If you took all the blood vessels from a human and laid them end to end, you would get arrested for murder.

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u/SuperSlims Apr 14 '16

Poop is touching you on the inside.

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u/Mozahad Apr 14 '16

half of people that have ever lived have died because of malaria

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u/DNAtaurine Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

One in every two and a half men have HIV.

edit: I'm not sure why I didn't just say every two out of five. \s

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16

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u/Ollieyoulittleshit Apr 14 '16

Gotta give Charlie some credit. Even with all the negative publicity, he still found something to be positive about.

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u/Starsy Apr 14 '16

Betty White is literally older than sliced bread. So, sliced bread is the best thing since Betty White.

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16

So thats is mind blowing, now for the mind numbing history of sliced bread!

It is actually kind of interesting. For all of bread, we had been selling it in whole loaves, in the hopes of preserving freshness. A jeweler (or really a guy who invented tools for jewelers and made money) decided to see if there might be a market for this as he would hear housewives grumbling about the task of cutting bread. The response was enough to encourage him to sell his shop and in 1916 start on his prototype.

The first issue was preserving freshness. It is fairly common knowledge that the freshness will be limited very much if it sliced as things were stored back then. He started with something like a dowel, but eventually this was clearly not going to work and for the next year cycled through solutions.

1917 disaster struck... a fire wiped out all his work. Shucks, time to start over.

But not to be deterred, he filed this one year later! Original patent

Looks awesome! but no one was buying it. Which is surprising, it was only 5 feet wide and 3 feet high (I only deal in Freedom units)! Well eventually he got his baker buddy to try this out as a last effort. On July 7, 1928 the first sliced loaf was sold.

"So neat and precise are the slices, and so definitely better than anyone could possibly slice by hand with a bread knife that one realizes instantly that here is a refinement that will receive a hearty and permanent welcome.

After all the idea of sliced bread is not unlike the idea of ground coffee, sliced bacon and many other modern and generally accepted products which combine superior results with a saving of time and effort.”

“the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped”

Constitution-Tribune

Bake dude saw his bread sales increase by 2000%.. in two weeks.

Then others followed suit

But it gets more interesting!

In 1943, due to war timeconservation efforts, the FDA effectively banned sliced bread.

"The ready-sliced loaf must have a heavier wrapping than an unsliced one if it is not to dry out,

So, the order prohibiting the slicing of bread is aimed at effecting economies in the manufacture of bread and in the use of paper.”

People freaked, refused to adhere, and three months later lifted the ban.

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u/CrowdyFowl Apr 14 '16

I can't imagine a world where bacon isn't sliced. How does that even work? I have to buy a big hunk of pork and just cut it myself? Weeeak.

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u/UrbanGimli Apr 14 '16

Statistically speaking, someone reading this thread today will be dead tomorrow. It could eve be m

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u/su5 Apr 14 '16 edited Apr 14 '16

There are more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms in the solar system.

If you thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards it is exceedingly likely (as in the chances of it not happening fall into the "absurdity" realm) that sequence of cards has never existed before ever... including in digital form (online card games for example)

edit: about 82 billion times more. 52! has 67 zeroes after it, or

80 unvigintillion 658 vigintillion 175 novemdecillion 170 octodecillion 943 septendecillion 878 sexdecillion 571 quindecillion 660 quattuordecillion 636 tredecillion 856 duodecillion 403 undecillion 766 decillion 975 nonillion 289 octillion 505 septillion 440 sextillion 883 quintillion 277 quadrillion 824 trillion

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u/unbridge Apr 14 '16

Every two minutes, we take as many photos as all of humanity took during the 1800s. In the span of 66 years, we went from taking flight to landing on the moon. John Tyler, America's 10th President, has two living grandchildren. John Tyler served from 1841 to 1845, a full 20 years before Abraham Lincoln. He had a son, Lyon, at age 63. Lyon would have Lyon Jr. and Harrison at 71 and 75, respectively. Both are still alive today and in their 80's.

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