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100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-live-you-learn dept.

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."

7 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. #65: Incorrect by jvalenzu · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:#65: Incorrect by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 5, Funny

      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....%*&@!

    2. Re:#65: Incorrect by cashman73 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. Qapla! by kyouteki · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  3. I dont think this guy was born in the 1600s by Tezkah · · Score: 5, Funny

    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"

  4. I like this one by Kohath · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    That must be a pretty sturdy bed.

  5. Re:Hmmph. by EvanED · · Score: 5, Informative
    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