Slashdot Mirror
100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year
gollum123 writes "The BBC news magazine is running a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know. some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast 'rap style' of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first."
They say that last year we didn't know that... Panspermia is the theory that life came from other planets???
I scanned down the list for a bit, but when I saw that, I just had to reread it in surprise, then close that browser tab. I knew that a long, long time ago, as did a lot of other science or science-fiction fans. The wikipedia article on panspermia cites its usage as early as 2000.
I was kind of disappointed.
This isn't "100 things no-one knew last year", it's "100 things we didn't know last year". The "we" doesn't refer to the human race, it refers at the very most to "the average person in the street", and quite possibly only to the person(s) who pick the things that go in the articles.
This isn't meant to be a list of 100 new discoveries, so can everyone stop commenting on it as though it is?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
*I* find it funny\ironic\interesting because, when Rummy was just rooting around trying to find a way to dodge a reporter's question, he accidentally made a profoundly poetic, even zen, philosophical statement. When properly spaced out like parent did, I truly believe that could stand alongside the great insights of the great writers of the world. In terms of form, composition, and truth, it is nearly perfect.
Which means just about the LAST place you'd expect it to come from is the mouth of the man whose job otherwise was to blow up as much of the known world as he could.
And that's what makes it funny.
And just for the record, the A.C. parent posted no commentary. Just the moment of zen. And others modded it as funny (and insightful!). Why did you automatically assume he was ridiculing it?
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.