Bill's posts with tag: fairly useless facts
 Candlelight dinners are thought to be romantic because dim light causes the pupils of the eyes to dilate. So? Well, sexual excitement also causes the pupils to dilate, and when one notices one's significant other with dilated pupils, one subconsciously makes the connection with sexual excitement.
As for the restaurants which use "mood lighting" - meaning so dim one can hardly see what one's eating - they benefit, too. The patrons are all wrapped up in each other's eyes and in any case the light is so poor they can scarcely see the rubbish on their plates.
Some other day I'll tell you about how on one such occasion I discovered I was eating small cooked caterpillars along with my chop suey...
 I'm in Jaipur now...
World War One pilots referred to the control column, positioned between their legs, which they used to steer their aircraft, as "joysticks". The name referred to their penises, which were right next to the column. Kind of explains the fascination some people have for computer games.
I'm a coffee lover, but there are limits I wouldn't cross.
The world's most expensive coffee is Kopi Luwak, made from coffee beans eaten and excreted whole by palm civets in Indonesia. After the civet has obligingly done its job, the bean allegedly emerges intact and one doesn't even have to scrabble for it in dung; so I wonder if the civet eats it just for the benefit of Japanese connoisseurs.
It's supposed to have a unique musty flavour and that is attributed to its journey through the civet.
Thanks, but I'll stick to instant, or cappuccino if I'm feeling gourmetish.
Back in the Middle Ages, if you were a candidate for a civil servant's post in China (if you wanted to be a Mandarin, that is) you had to pass a pretty stiff examination. Obviously, since a mandarin had it all - pay, perks, respect - there was a lot of competition and lots of chances for corruption.
The Chinese were well aware of this and in order to minimise the chances of examiners being bribed or otherwise induced to favour certain candidates they would not just use the equivalent of roll numbers in order to hide the candidates' identities - someone would actually copy the candidate's answers so the examiner couldn't even recognise the candidate by his handwriting.
Of course, if they tried something like that in India these days the answer copiers would be able to retire in great luxury after a year on the job.
There's an old saw that lighting three cigarettes from the same matchstick is unlucky.
This one dated back to the trenches of World War One. At night, in the blacked out trenches, the flame of a match lighting a cigarette would draw the attention of an enemy sniper; the flame lighting another would give him a chance to take aim; and the third guy lighting up from the same match would end up stopping the sniper's bullet, the stupid git.
Well, today I doubt one would find three smokers getting together too often, and if they do I think lung cancer is a greater threat than bad luck, but still...
We have those functionless buttons on our coat sleeves as a relic of military uniforms of the early nineteenth century. Why did military uniforms of the early nineteenth century have sleeve buttons? Because Napoleon wanted to stop his soldiers wiping their noses on their sleeves, a most disgusting habit, you'll agree. Big hard brass buttons would discourage the most runny of noses. I guess we ought to be grateful he did not try to stop them scratching their genitals as well.
In the days of sail, one punishment for delinquent sailors was keel-hauling: to be thrown off the bow of the ship, a rope tied to each arm, and dragged along the bottom (keel) of the ship till he was pulled back aboard at the stern. Since the bottoms of the ships of those days were usually crusted with barnacles, it was not exactly comfortable for the sailor, not to speak of the sensation - and danger - of drowning.
I think I'd prefer to be tied to the mast and whipped.
(And, oh : it isn't practicable to throw a certain someone of Mission Accomplished fame off the bow of an aircraft carrier and drag him back along the hull, more's the pity.)
The largest known volcano, and the highest known mountain, is Olympus Mons on Mars. It's a giant shield volcano about the size of one of the American midwest states (I forget which, but I think it is Utah) in area and three times the height of Chomolungma ("Mount Everest"). This means of course that the slopes are very gentle and this is more like an upturned saucer than a mountain. It's so high because of Mars' low gravity.
Another demotion of Earth from the favoured centre of the Universe.
Apart from the Germans, and they only in the last year of the war, World War One combatant countries did not provide their pilots parachutes. They thought it would encourage their pilots to abandon ship rather too quickly in an emergency.
Rather the same principle as the deliberately burning your brides, oops, bridges, behind you...
I assume that pilot training then was really cheap and really basic.
In ancient Athens, anyone who
could give sufficient cause for wanting to end his or her own life was handed a
cup of hemlock by the public magistrate.
Now that’s the most intelligent suicide law
I have ever come across.
Japanese Samurai warriors used to burn incense in their helmets before going into battle. The idea was that if the enemy took their heads, they should not be offended by unpleasant odours.
Got to get the message to today's militaries.
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