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Sun 7 Nov, 2004 05:32 pm
Edit (Moderator): Moved from Reference to Humor.
Some random facts about pencils for you:
- The average pencil will draw a continuous line for about 35 miles, or 45,000 words.
- Bread crumbs were used as erasers until 1770, when the first rubber eraser was made.
- Erasers were attached to the ends of pencils for the first time in 1858.
(I won't post the source as it is from a commercial pencil manufacturer's site, but a quick Google should back me up.)
Please feel free to comment, or add more random facts on any subject that you would like to share with the rest of us. Really, anything that is true, please just add it in. Maybe by working together we can increase the amount of useless information in all of our heads. Thanks.
I was in bed this morning, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, when the thought entered my head... Why hasn't anyone ever started a pencil thread on A2K?
Excitedly, I climbed out of bed and began preparation for the great A2K pencil thread. After hours of preparation I jump on the computer, ready to start the thread, and, dammit! -- Duke has foiled me again!
Why, Duke, oh why, do you always come up with these ideas before me?
I am crushed.
The human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap and enough iron to make a single one inch nail.
The sentence, Madam, I'm Adam, is a palindrome.
The UK is slightly smaller in area than Oregon.
The average pencil will draw a continuous line for about 35 miles, or 45,000 words.
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That can't be so. Suppose you had thirty five miles of paper and a pencil.
Well, okay, you start your continuous line but before you get twenty feet down your driveway the thing is worn down to a nub and you have to get our your barlow knife and sharpen the point. My point is then the line wouldn't be so continuous, will it?
Now if you want to make a 35 mile continuous line I recommend a piece of anthracite coal about the size of a grown man's fist. That thing will draw and draw all down the sidewalks of your town out past the dairy and Bigg'un's Bar-B-Q, down Farm Road South to the fertilizer plant and on the edge of the damsite.
And yes, that a damsite farther than your goddammed pencil.
Joe
Joe - maybe the definition of "continuous" has to stretched somewhat, but I still thought it was a cool fact.
Someone mentioned to me today that they wanted to buy some paper to fold and cut into snowflake designs. I blurted out that it was impossible to fold paper in half, regardless of size or thickness, more than a certain number of times (6, I believe). People stared blankly and then began snickering. But, try it..with a piece of typing paper or the front page of your newspaper.
Falcons have been estimated to reach speeds between 100 and 200 mph when swooping on their prey.
Some dinosaurs were the size of chickens.
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Wally Peeples.
When the Titanic sank, it was loaded with (amongst other things) 40 tons of potatoes, 36,000 oranges, 25,000 lbs of poultry & game, and 7,000 heads of lettuce.
On average, an adult laughs about 15 times a day; a child laughs 400 times.
The elephants' four teeth are molars. About every four years, the molars fall out and are replaced by new ones. The molars of an adult elephant can be up to ten inches long!
Barney Fife once did Aunt Bea.
Opie walked in on the two and was severely traumatized.
The Top Ten Baby Names for Girls in the US in 2003 are:
Emily
Emma
Madison
Hannah
Hailey
Sarah
Kaitlyn
Isabella
Olivia
Abigail
For boys, they are:
Jacob
Aidan
Ethan
Matthew
Nicholas
Joshua
Ryan
Michael
Zachary
Tyler
The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F
The Top Ten Baby Names for Girls in the UK in 2003 are:
Emily
Ellie
Chloe
Jessica
Sophie
Megan
Lucy
Olivia
Charlotte
Hannah
For boys, they are:
Jack
Joshua
Thomas
James
Daniel
Oliver
Benjamin
Samuel
William
Joseph
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