100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a BBC list of 100 topical pieces of information that they've reported on over the course of 2005. While some of them are very Brit-specific ("16. The London borough of Westminster has an average of 20 pieces of chewing gum for every square metre of pavement."), there are some interesting, touching, and humorous stories in there. "20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood. 32. 'Restaurant' is the most mis-spelled word in search engines. 65. Actor James Doohan, who played Scotty, had a hand in creating the Klingon language that was used in the movies, and which Shakespeare plays were subsequently translated into."

Comments

#65: Incorrect

[jvalenzu]

Uh, 65 is incorrect. I think we all remember Star Trek VI where Chancellor Gorkon mentions that Shakespeare was originally written in Klingon. I can't believe they let this one through.

Re:#65: Incorrect

[ZachPruckowski]

Dude, it's New Year's Eve, one of the biggest party nights of the year, and you're correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds. That's so geeky and nonsocial that I have to say... wait a second....%*&@!

Re:#65: Incorrect

[Ruff_ilb]

And, uh, you're correcting someone correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds.

And I'm correcting someone someone correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds.

I think that the geekiness is about to make my modem explo

*No Carrier*

Re:#65: Incorrect

[cashman73]

And I just impressed a couple of chicks by showing them that I'm one out of 18 people,... :-)

Qapla!

[kyouteki]

It's been well known for a very long time that Jimmy Doohan helped create the Klingon language. He created the Klingon dialogue for Star Trek 1, which Marc Okrand developed into the tlhIngan'Hol we know today.

99. chokuegambo

[megrims]

Why didn't we know the japanese word "chokuegambo" last year?
Is it a new word? Or are they assuming that nobody here speaks japanese?

Re:99. chokuegambo

[LordHatrus]

Clearly, you haven't been playing Japanese games like Final Fantasy. I spent years inbreeding my chokuegambos until I got the illustrious Golden Chokuegambo!

101.

[Anonymous Coward]

32% of all Slashdot stories are duplicates :)

I dont think this guy was born in the 1600s

[Tezkah]

19. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".


16th Century? I'm pretty sure that guy posts on slashdot regularly. "oi got frist psot"

Re:I dont think this guy was born in the 1600s

[TekPolitik]

Everyone knows the Welsh language has no vowels and is impossible to understand even to Welsh people

Welsh has more vowels than English ('w' is a vowel in Celtic languages, equivalent to "oo" as in "spook")*, but it is true that it is impossible to pronounce. Especially the sound corresponding to "LL".

* - There is a tiny street in a suburb of Sydney called "Clwdyn Place". If you are "clued in" you know how to pronounce it.

Gee...

[setirw]

Bill Gates does not own an iPod. That's odd... Number 101: Steve Jobs does not run Windows!

#39

[Sarcastic Assassin]

I think if #39 was true in America we wouldn't need such a controversial/ineffective/(insert your own adjective here) president to get people to vote more often.

39. Australians host barbecues at polling stations on general election days.

Re:#39

[LordLucless]

Actually, we have em to make money. Polling stations are usually setup at schools. The school gets a couple of parents to come down and organize a barbecue. You get a good couple of thousand people through even a small polling station, that's a pretty darn big market for the cost of gas and a few sausages.

For what it's worth, the one I go to sells lamingtons.

Re:#39

[gshirley]

Voting is not compulsory. Turning up to get your name ticked off is.

Re:#39

[matt21811]

Actually, by the letter of the law, voting is compulsary.
Interestingly, advising people to vote "informally" is also illegal in Australia.
That isnt saying much as 99.9% of iPod use in Autralia is also illegal and no-one seems to have been arrested for that either.

Re:#39

[mino]

No, in australia it counts as a vote for whomever is in power.

Erm... no. Did you just make that up?

In Australia (at least, at a Commonwealth level, but certainly also at every state level I'm familiar with) informal (invalid) votes are tallied separately, and do not count as a vote at all. The 50% + 1 requirement to achieve a victory (after distribution of preferences, if required) is a 50% of the formal (valid) votes. The same applies to the Senate, where the quota (e.g. for a typical 6-seat half-senate ballot, 1/7th + 1) is based on formal votes only.

Obviously, a donkey vote (as mentioned upthread) - numbering the candidates 1..n in the order they appear on the paper - isn't informal, and doesn't count towards the party in power, unless they happen to be high enough on the ballot paper that they end up with the vote/preference anyway. As the position on the ballot paper is determined randomly, that's hardly automatic.

bah...

[FooAtWFU]

bah, Neatorama had this many days ago, and they had the sense to hilight No. #78, "One in 18 people has a third nipple".

I like this one

[Kohath]

One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

That must be a pretty sturdy bed.

Re:I like this one

[Anonymous Coward]

One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

That must be a pretty sturdy bed.

It's clear that Europeans are taking socialism a bit too far.

Re:I like this one

[trewornan]

Hard to even imagine the size of the wet spot in that bed.

Step 4. ??????

[matt21811]

32. 'Restaurant' is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.

There is a lot of money to be made if you could get the top list of mispelled words in search engines.

Hmmph.

[Ruff_ilb]

Interesting list, but some of the stuff is either bogus or filler. For example:

"41. Tactically, the best Monopoly properties to buy are the orange ones: Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street."

I believe they're called New York, Tennessee Avenue and St. James Place. And this is just common sense - their relationship with jail, and the fact that they're on the end of a row (More bang for buck, house/hotel wise, and a 6,8, or 9 after jail yields a hit), makes them ideal.

"43. The spiciness of sauces is measured in Scoville Units."

What does this have to do with '05? I've known that for a long time.

"61. You can bet on your own death."

That's a safe bet - but what do I get once my win has been confirmed?

Meanwhile, others are just best LEFT OUT:

"67. Giant squid eat each other - especially during sex."
"11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed."
"78. One in 18 people has a third nipple."

Thanks for the list, BBC.

Re:Hmmph.

[EoinOL]

"41. Tactically, the best Monopoly properties to buy are the orange ones: Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street."

I believe they're called New York, Tennessee Avenue and St. James Place. And this is just common sense - their relationship with jail, and the fact that they're on the end of a row (More bang for buck, house/hotel wise, and a 6,8, or 9 after jail yields a hit), makes them ideal.

It seems to have escaped your notice, but there are about a million different versions of Monopoly, including localised ones for lots of countries. The BBC are obviously using the (main) UK one.

Re:Hmmph.

[kfg]

. . .what do I get once my win has been confirmed?

Cremated.

KFG

Re:Hmmph.

[EvanED]

BTW, if you're curious, here's the rank of the different color groups based upon the average rate of return of that group with hotels. What that means is that every time someone completes a circuit of the board, a player that owns that color group with hotels will make back that percentage of their initial investment. I've also included the dollar amount that translates to. (I tried to space this nicely, but neither tt nor ecode kept whitespace; sorry.)

# Group %ret $ret
1 Orange 23.5 484.10
2 Lite Blue 20.7 221.49
3 Red 17.8 521.54
4 Lt Purple 17.7 343.38
5 Dark Blue 17.3 475.75
6 Yellow 17.2 524.60
7 Railroads 16.0 128.00
8 Green 15.1 591.92
9 Dk Purple 13.6 84.32
A Utilities 7.5 22.50

You can also see from this list that oranges are only best if you're using % return. The way to interpret this is that if you're reasonably early in the game, and people are just building, you want oranges because they are cheap to develop, and you need to get three houses up ASAP. However, if you're late in the game and hotels are already up, you should look to the absolute income for the best property, and there the rank changes:

1. Green
2. Yellow
3. Red
4. Orange
5. Dark Blue

Re:Hmmph.

[LordLucless]

I believe they're called New York, Tennessee Avenue and St. James Place.

No, they're called Vine Street, Marlborough Street and Bow Street. The BBC is, funnily enough, British. Why should they use the American version of the game for their list?

And personally my biggest WTF is #29. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.

How the hell do they know it was trying to pretned to be a coconut shell? Were these research scientists cast members of Monty Python's Flying Circus by any chance?

Re:Hmmph.

[Tordek]

Duh, it disguises as a coconut to be carried by swallows. It even includes the string.

Re:Hmmph.

[loserface]

I'll agree with that, as I call the Clue characters by their original names.

Re:Hmmph.

[lisaparratt]

British news for British people.

If you want news that caters to your particular foibles, why don't you browse one of the many high quality American news web sites? *snigger*

Re:Hmmph.

[EvanED]

Actually, most commonly hit property is Illinois, because of it's placement two sevens away from jail and a chance card leading right to it. And actually, the most commonly hit space is jail; Illinois is 2. The square seven spaces from Go, the first chance, is actually the LEAST likely square to finish your turn on in the entire game. (Landing on would be higher quite a bit higher because of the 'go to' cards, but not enough to compensate.)

Interesting how well that "common sense" works out, huh?

This site has all the long-term probabilities (I've always thought it would be an interesting exercise to come up with the markov chain representing the board and try to duplicate the results myself, but haven't yet done it) and a number of other statistics. If you really want to play Monopoly well, instead of just for fun, you should study these charts. They can help guide you in how much and where you should invest.

If you don't want to look, the first few most common squares for finishing your turn are:
1. In Jail (this is separate from just visiting, so really there are 41 squares on the board)
2. Illinois
3. Go

Now here's where things start to get messy, and change depending on whether you try to stay in jail for as long as possible (good late in the game) or pay immediately (good eanly in the game). So the ranks are expressed as short term rank/long term rank

4. New York Ave/B&O RR
5. B&O RR/Free Parking

(If you stay in jail for as long as possible, your chances of landing on NY diminish drastically because it's 9 spaces from jail, so if you get out through doubles you can't land on it except by geting boxcars then the move back three chance card.)

6. Reading RR/Tenessee Ave
7. Tenessee Ave/New York Ave
8. Pennsylvania RR/Reading RR

(I find it interesting that reading is less-commonly landed on than B&O in either starategy despite the chance card leading right to it. I think the explanation is B&O's location 15 spaces from jail, plus the location of the chance card 12 spaces from jail and the go to nearest railroad card. The go to nearest railroad card doesn't help Reading much because to get it to advance to Reading you need to hit the chance after short line, which is soon after go to jail and has nothing going in its favor except the advance to nearest utility to go to Water Works then getting an 8. (But there is only one chance square that will send you to WW as opposed to 2 that will send you to electric company.)

9. Free Parking/St. James Place
10. Kentucky/Water Works

(Though WW being higher than EC here seems to contradict my earlier analysis.)

Bananas too

[4D6963]

"12. Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable. It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten."

Funny, but pretty much the same goes for bananas. They are considered fruits, as they really are vegetables (and africans consider them as such, according to what I heard)

Re:Bananas too

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm no. Fruits contain seeds, vegetables are any other part of a plant.
Tomatoes are fruit, bananas are fruit, rhubarb is a vegetable. Bananas
are a staple in many parts of the world, though we don't normally think
of fruits as staples. More often it's tubers or grains...

Re:Bananas too

[CthulhuDreamer]

Tomatoes are vegetables, according to the U.S. Supreme Court (Nix vs Hedden, 1893). Vegetables are served with dinner, fruits are eaten for dessert. (This also allowed schools to count hamburger ketchup as a vegetable serving in school lunches.)

"Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert."

Re:Topical?

[Rellik66]

Under what resolution?

umm, 1024x768?

Gates/iPod

[kitzilla]

Actually, I believe Gates has been a major iPod fanboy for a long time ... going back, it would seem, to the days of the 5-1/4" floppy. Talk about an early adopter!

A bunch of hot air.....

[jakebluez]

66. The hotter it is, the more difficult it is for aeroplanes to take off. Air passengers in Nevada, where temperatures have reached 120F, have been told they can't fly.

Funny. I was sure my flight instructor told me this the first day of flight school. I guess this explains the success of the European aerospace industry.

Re:A bunch of hot air.....

[jakebluez]

No the density of the air changes at higher heat. Normal aircraft performance is calculated for ISA (International Standard Atmosphere) as 1atm (29.92 in of Mercury) and about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius, just to keep the Europeans happy).

When air heats up the density decreases, and changes the pressure at sea level. A plane will perform worse at lower altitudes. In affect you are taking off at a lower altitude. Your wings have less mass to push against. Most people think that Bernoulli's Principal is what makes a plane fly, and while it plays a major role, more lift is created by the angle of attack angle of attack of the wing.

Do you take... cash? Cha-Ching!

[James_G]

100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance".

No Stairway? Denied!

Re:Do you take... cash? Cha-Ching!

[Howzer]

The best guitar shop in Sydney, Australia has a sign:

"Play 'Stairway' or 'Classical Gas' and we'll staple your elbows together."

They're letting people off _way_ too easy IMO.

20 is obvious

[twitter]

20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood.

Obviously. Had she ever used his software, she would have cut off his head.

In Soviet Russia...

[Ruff_ilb]

Russian translates YOU!

Seriously though:

Does this have anything to do with the Adlai Stevenson incident?

"
"Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba?... Don't wait for the translation! Yes or no?" Zorin responded, "I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and I do not wish to answer a question put to me in the manner in which a prosecutor does-" Then Stevenson interrupted and said, "You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist, and I want to know whether I have understood you correctly.... I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room."
"

(Hilarious site: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/world_language s/36160)

Queen's Computer

[rapidweather]

20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood.
I take her word for it, no computer in Buckingham Palace.
Grandmotherly types (like the Queen) tend to say things like that. Basically, they want to make you look good. I'll bet Bill Gates felt 10 feet tall after she said that.
In this day and age of new discoveries, etc. grandmothers have lots of material. Anyone ever had their grandmother say, "Who would ever have thought of such a thing!" concerning some new technology.
Having said that, here is a link to a report that says the Queen apparently knows how to email school children, having set a record for the largest group email the Queen has ever sent.
The Queen does not really touch the computer though, she has it done...
But, did anyone see that picture of Pope John Paul II on his laptop?
They took it down after he died, but he was supposedly answering email when the picture was taken. The top of the laptop had the papal crest, if that is what it is called.
Here is a link to a statement from 1989 by John Paul II that has some sections concerning computers. What a great guy he was, we all miss him. Goodbye, 2005!

Number 11

[AndreiK]

"11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed." I wonder if Ikea can take claims to those children as prior art?

Re:Number 11

[Guppy06]

Depends. Does the child arrive requiring assembly and packaged with an Allen wrench?

All on one page!

[Infe]

Wow! I can't believe all 100 things were on a single page, not even separated by giant ads! Just shows you can make a decent news site if you really want to...

Re:Hmmm...

[Derling Whirvish]

Here are some real-life examples:

One Hundred & Ninety-Nine Barrels of Whiskey v. United States, 94 U.S. 86

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. ONE 1988 PREVOST LIBERTY MOTOR HOME, Measuring 40 Feet in Length, also known by Vehicle Identification Number 2P9M33403J, and Bearing Oregon License Plate H998173, Defendant

7 Fifths Old Grand-Dad Whiskey v. U.S., 158 F.2d 34

Pennsylvania v. $7,000 in U.S. Currency, 742 A.2d 711

Mayo v. Satan and His Staff 54 F.R.D. 282 This one is interesting because the judge threw out the case based on the fact that the plaintiff could not prove he served notice to the defendent (that being the aforenamed Mr. Satan and his staff in Hell).

#1. First mobile phone call

[haydon4]

FTA: The UK's first mobile phone call was made 20 years ago this year, when Ernie Wise rang the Vodafone head office, which was then above a curry shop in Newbury.

Was the guy on the other end named Watson by any chance?

Last year this time?

[ultramk]

Personally, I didn't know where my pants were.

Long story.

m-

The Queen's story doesn't add up

[johnny99]

She tells Bill Gates she's never used a computer, but according to a number of internet history sources, for instance this one she was the first head of state to send email, back in 1976.

The fact that freaked me out most is that british members of parliament share communal hairbrushes. That's just so very very strange.

Re:First-born

[game kid]

A mix of all three. In fact, let's take it bit by bit...

more promiscuous

Hot whores...

less creative

...who make music that's not worth buying...

but more stable

...and yet own mansions.


So they grow up to become professional pop stars! w00t! (My apologies, I'm just jealous since I'm a last child...)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

A guy blows up the Alfred P. Murrah building, his name's Mohammed too!

  Please. That's like pointing out that "John" is a really common name then rattling off "John Dillinger, John Wayne Gacy, and John Hinckley Junior! Booga-booga!" (Except those guys are white, so they're not all scary and arabiac.) Try stepping back and getting a broad view once and a while.

There is a London monopoly edition

[Master Of Ninja]

Having a look at the Wikipedia Monopoly article, you can easily see that the London edition was the 2nd edition made, and came out the year after the Atlantic City edition. The London edition (which is also apparently the standard UK and Commonwealth edition) is the one the BBC uses so the street names are correct. Forgetting the localised editions, the 'London" edition would probably be competing with the Atlantic City version in worldwide numbers.

Re:There is a London monopoly edition

[Staplerh]

Having a look at the Wikipedia Monopoly article, you can easily see that the London edition was the 2nd edition made, and came out the year after the Atlantic City edition. The London edition (which is also apparently the standard UK and Commonwealth edition) is the one the BBC uses so the street names are correct.

Not all the Commonwealth countries use the UK edition. I know in Canada, we use the American version.

#7 = Duh

[rikkards]

Same with Dogs. My wife had taken in a stray at one point and couldn't get it to sit by saying "Sit" so she said it in French; the dog sat.

Re:The universally understood equal sign

[KDR_11k]

If it's in a condition, it's not an assignment, or if it is, it's non-sensical.

Those languages don't allow for context-dependent meanings. That may be important for some parsers (the language is no longer context free) and it increases readability. Plus it's harder to handle if you have an interactive mode since you really no longer know what the user wants.

Who wants to have an assignment prior to a condition for equality?

Because then

If (A = B) Then
  C = True
Else
  C = False
Fi

can be turned into

C = A == B

which is both faster to write and easier to understand (C is now equivalent to the expression A == B). Plus it's easier to prove.