cute factoids/trivia that you used to accept as truth but (oops) later found to be 100% false and a little bonkers: post them here

the number of people alive today exceeds the number of people who have ever died since the beginning of time

did you know that we only use about 10% of our brains? makes you think, huh?

(bafflingly enough, I heard this from a philosophy professor, of all people, years after I learned what utter crock it was)

you only have a 1 in 10,000 chance of living to the age of 100

it takes you 10,000 hours of practice to learn a skill/it takes 10 years to learn a skill

(heard from my english professor)

the number of people alive today exceeds the number of people who have ever died since the beginning of time

wait...I thought this was true. *looks up*

it takes you 10,000 hours of practice to learn a skill/it takes 10 years to learn a skill

this is more or less the inverse of what my middle school "life studies" teacher taught me: "it takes 10 days to develop new habit but 100 days to unlearn it" (I forget the actual numbers). also hogwash.

SNOPES

Ah...roughly 6 billion have died since pyramids were built ~5000 years ago, but another several dozen billion lived before that, depending on when you want to start "time", or your definition of "people".

I am RONG as usual!

that you shouldn't go in the pool after eating (physical activity is actually recommended)
Janet Leigh wasn't in the shower scene in Psycho, it was a double (she was!)
the world is 6,000 years old (I was a fundie for 5 minutes)
Wesley Snipes was in Major League II but his face just got thinner and unexplainably looked different

xpost - to be fair, I, personally, would not grant person/human status to anyone born before Coney Island was built. disgusting f'ing savages, all of them.

that you shouldn't go in the pool after eating

We were just talking about this one over the easter weekend, the kids wanted to go swimming after lunch and everyone was like "you know, I only recently found out you DONT get cramps if you swim after a meal". I didnt know that but then again, I'd never really thought that hard about it and it doesnt make any sense, to be honest. Its just one of those things I accepted without thinking, like "Captain Pugwash had loads of rude character names".

Girls have cooties. (not true!)

xpost yea i mean they used to tell us we were gonna puke in the pool if we did it....yet this heavyset friend of mine told us we were 'morons' and would always do it and he never spewed...it's a wive's tale!

little manhattan was a remake of manhattan starring children

$2 bill is no longer in circulation

My aunt always enforced that "no swimming immediately after eating" rule at her pool. I remember many summer afternoons that featured an agonizing wait with my cousins at poolside before we were allowed to jump in.

$2 bill is no longer in circulation

the $2 note was retired in 1988, duh

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/Australian_Two_Dollar_Rev.jpg

I wonder if anyone ever goes to Spearmint Rhino and throws $2 coins at the ladies.

that you shouldn't go in the pool after eating

Fuck, I thought that was true!

What I want to know with that one is where did it come from? I mean I cant say Ive ever had a cramp while swimming, eating or no.

Janet Leigh wasn't in the shower scene in Psycho, it was a double (she was!)

I read an article in a reputable publication saying that this was 100% true.

only, like, two weeks ago.

the rule of thumb comes from men being allowed to beat their wives with an instrument as long as it was not thicker than a thumb

did you learn that from boondock saints

that my best mate in primary school starred in the movie 'monster squad'. huge disappointment upon viewing.

I read an article in a reputable publication saying that this was 100% true.

Lol I wonder who their fact checker is. It's funny cuz Leigh herself had gone on...I think Regis and Kathy Lee years after the fact to defend that she was in the scene, and I think she mentioned it in a book. She said she had to wear mold skin in the shower to avoid showing off her, um....ya know.

Jamie Lee Curtis was born a hermaphrodite.

I thought the penis just grew in over time

"carrots are good for your eyesight"

not bonkers i guess, nor 100% false, but still, an article of faith demolished

eh carrots are high in beta carotene and other antioxidants, which in the long term are good for your eyesight.

"lemmings are suicidal" - I recently had someone refuse to believe that this was not the case. BUT I SAWED IT I DID.

eh carrots are high in beta carotene and other antioxidants, which in the long term are good for your eyesight.

― armando white (dyao), Wednesday, April 7, 2010 1:47 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

sure, same as drinking water is good for your skin... but they aren't the silver eyesight-impriving bullet

wait what, drinking water is good for your skin??

I brought up the "no swimming after eating" myth at work and everyone around me also thought it was true. No longer!

ILXors doin' good deeds '10.

wait what, drinking water is good for your skin??

― armando white (dyao), Wednesday, April 7, 2010 1:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

stop drinking water and see what happens

so you're saying if I stop drinking water only my skin will be affected?

it's a thing:

http://www.healthy-skincare.com/benefit-of-drinking-water.html

the rule of thumb comes from men being allowed to beat their wives with an instrument as long as it was not thicker than a thumb

woe to the society that adopts the rule of neck or the rule of thigh as its wife-beating standard

xp lol did you actually read that site?

However, many experts are now refuting the above-mentioned benefits. Unless the individual is severely dehydrated, drinking large quantities of water will not prevent dry skin. Basically the moisture level of skin is not determined by internal factors. Instead, it is external factors such as skin cleansing, the environment, the number of oil glands, and the functioning of these oil-producing glands that determines how dry the skin is or will become. The water that is consumed internally will not reach the epidermis. In fact, the water moves through the body system rather quickly. If the skin is dry, the best solution is to treat the skin from the outside with a suitable and dry skin moisturizer or dry skin lotion. This forms an effective barrier to water loss from the skin.

I'm gonna be laughin' hard when everybody comes back to this thread with vomited-in-the-pool stories.

that's me lawyered

where I come from it's the rule of redwood xxxp

but it's actually for husband beating

Elephant and Castle comes from Infanta de Castille, Spanish princess who stayed in the area in them middle ages.

http://i43.tinypic.com/30rtaf5.jpg

dyao, gettin ready to whip sum ass

I don't have a husband :o

you'l;l find someone some day, don't worry. enjoy ur youth

eh carrots are high in beta carotene and other antioxidants, which in the long term are good for your eyesight

Carrots contain lots of beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A, which is required to produce the substance required for night vision. But plenty of other foods contain vitamin A too. Blindness due to vitamin A deficiency is still a problem in developing countries, but I don't think extra carrots will make any difference to, well, anyone alive now who was ever told that carrots would help them see in the dark.

(not a nutritionist)

from my understanding the area in your eyeball responsible for converting light into electrical signals contains a lot of free radicals as a byproduct of the conversion process (makes sense, as light = energy). over time these free radicals wear down the receptors in your eye, which leads to gradual blindness. so eat your vegetables, kids.

n e way the carrot thing was wartime propaganda, im told by snopes

Janet Leigh wasn't in the shower scene in Psycho, it was a double (she was!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/29/psycho-body-double-marli-renfro says otherwise

my chemistry teacher told us that you don't grow any new brain cells but i have recently discovered that this was a lie.

(or at least a misconception)

the shower scene includes hecka shots (70?) and leigh was in some of them, maybe not all of them

'"eskimos" have over 100 words for snow'

if you could somehow collect all the gold ever mined since the beginning of time, it would form a cube 40 feet on a side

(wikipedia says the cube would be 66-½ feet on a side, but I'm still not buying it)

The US military take all possible actions to avoid civilian casualties

The way I heard it was "the cube would fit underneath the Eiffel Tower"

I'd always believed the swimming after eating advice is because your body is doing more work after a meal, so you are more likely (although not that much) to get too tired to continue swimming/stay afloat, and end up drowning. This is going to be a bigger problem if you are swimming in a large body of water – like a sea or a lake – and are a long way from shore.

But I could be wrong.

I thought it was to stop you getting cramp and drowning.

Some people say that those supposed "cramps" were actually heart attacks.

SMOKING A CIGARETTE TAKES X MINUTES OFF YOUR LIFE, WHERE ( 3 < X < 15 )

Ponies are horse children.

still argue with my gf about that

Chicago was nicknamed the Windy City due to all the "hot air" its politicians blow.

When I was maybe 21 or 22, a friend of mine mentioned in a pub conversation that she only found as an adult that ponies aren't the children of horses, and I was like, "They aren't?!".

When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

Ponies are horse children.

I fucking love this sentence.

what foal doesn't know that

nag nag nag

Ponies are horse children.

My Little Horse Child

"it takes you 10,000 hours of practice to learn a skill/it takes 10 years to learn a skill"

this is true! at least in the sense in that it hasn't been systematically proven false yet.

I don't know how they decided on "10,000 hours", but I guess it's snappier than "a long period of concentrated effort".

thread title makes it sound like one particular ilxor is responsible for calling bs on all of these. what a servant to humanity.

Until you have a better descriptor than 'oh it just takes some time', 10k hrs/10 yrs is as good a rule of thumb as any, and even if it is mythical by some measure, it's a myth worth propagating.

Mount Everest is in England

getting zinged by a 7 year-old is cute, but they can't pull Bobby Fischer-level zings till 5th grade or so, and that's assuming they've been zinging from the womb.

skills i learned in <10 years:

walking wanking

― The Toxic C@v3nger Part IIIJJJ: The Last Temptation of Toxie (history mayne), Thursday, April 8, 2010 1:41 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah um don't most trade apprenticeships take 5 years or less?

You want your Zelda swords made by a master craftsman or some drifter straight out of forging academy who's applying to law school next semester?

you need more practice trolling imo

the ponies (non-)fact has blown my mind.

not trolling; this zelda sword i got from etsy was really cruddy.

i thought it was to 'become an expert' rather than to just 'learn' something

that's what it said in expert journalist malcolm gladwell new book

gladwell has certainly put in the required 10k hours to become an expert in spurious factoids.

right -- it's expertise. still fuzzy, but in that book and others there's all sorts of surveys where they noticed that even child prodigies ended up spending about 10 years worth of time getting to jedi-level, which is a very encouraging thing -- you don't have to be 'blessed' or 'gifted'; you just have to be willing to put in the time. (which is now weirdly the opposite lesson Lucas gives with midiclorians and everything)

wiki:

Some characteristics of the development of an expert have been found to include:

At a minimum usually 10 years of consistent practice, sometimes more for certain fields[citation needed]

In fairness to Gladwell, that 10-year thing was in some of our psych texts long before he started evangelizing.

I just learned the ponies thing just now, on this very thread. In fact, I was at the Cleveland Zoo this weekend, and overheard a guy say to his wife, "Oh, there are the ponies," and I nearly said, "Oh, those aren't ponies, they're really small horses." Boy, would I have felt stupid.

what do you call small horses if not ponies?

Someone who takes seven hits or more of LSD is considered "legally insane."

I don't know how much I ever really believed this, but I never really thought to research/argue it and just kind of went along with the crowd. And now that I think about it, I never really found out it wasn't true. I just stopped taking acid and realized how stupid it sounded and decided that it must be false.

I thought ponies were immature horses.

ponies are small horses, just not baby horses.

I mean, not all small horses are ponies, ponies are a variant of the horse - you can get different breeds of pony, and you can get small horses that aren't ponies. But they are small, and horses.

someone please bust out a venn diagram because i thought i had this pony thing licked but now not so sure.

Licking pony things is a little weird.

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff28/beatonna/pony2.jpg

That is one chunky pony!

BTW, google charts is amazing!
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=v&chs=200x100&chd=t:100,30,60,100,30,50,100&chco=FF6342,ADDE63,63C6DE&chdl=horses|ponies|small

(I think it's a little off, but you can change the overlap values and sizes by renaming the image URL)

Haha, I didn't imagine my pony factoid would come as revelation to anyone else!

Just in case it's unclear to someone:

foal = baby horse
pony = small-sized horse breed

Thinking ponies are baby horses is kinda like thinking dwarves are baby humans.

Tuomas, please, only one mind-blowing factoid per day.

i always love it when tuomas brings content

Tuomas PWNied us.
(sorry)

i have a old old book at home entitled "PONIES and All About Them" at home that explains all of this... and more!

pony = generaly a horse breed under 14.2 hands

this is a great thread.

^ statement of fact; not fake-fact.

generally but not exclusively. Now I am going to stop being a pony-bore

xpost

cauliflower is just broccoli that has been deprived of sun while growing

broccoli is a modern cross of cauliflower and spinach, named for the james bond producer

One can catch a cold simply by being under-dressed in cold weather.

^ my mutha still tries to convince me of this.

I worked with a guy who agreed that cold weather does not cause colds, but then insisted that the real culprit was wind.

And the corollary, one can catch cold by going outside in cold weather with your hair still wet.

i kind of grew up believing the old miasma/proximity sickness line, not transmission through fluid/contact/etc. i suspect a lot of people i work with still feel this way.

if you swallow a watermelon seed it will grow in your stomach.

One can catch a cold simply by being under-dressed in cold weather.

― musicfanatic, Thursday, April 8, 2010 6:15 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

tbf I do notice a 'correlation' between when I'm underdressed for cold weather and when I catch a cold...I think cold weather lowers my immune system.

I used to believe that earaches were caused by some builtup earwax or water in your ears or something else ear-related. Wrong! The sensory organs for your ears are actually in your throat! That's why you always get an earache when you have a cold: because your poor throat is trying to deal with all the dripping snot and it irritates your ear-sensors!!

if you swallow a watermelon seed it will grow in your stomach.

― armando white (dyao), Thursday, 8 April 2010 01:57 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rugrats episode once upon a time taught me this was true and i refuse to believe otherwise.

^ Yeah, I've read that the reason cold/flu season correlates with cold weather is because cold weather makes people stay indoors more, thereby causing one to be in contact with infected people.

Kind of like how the correlation between ice cream consumption and the number of deaths by drowning are positively correlated. Eating ice cream doesn't cause an increase in drownings, both events just occur more frequently in the summer months. Yada yada.

If you swallow fingernails or chewing gum, they will stay in your stomach for over a year. Wrong!

"There are plenty more fish in the sea"- I checked and there aren't, it's actually a really big problem

cauliflower is just broccoli that has been deprived of sun while growing

While thats not the case, you do deprive cauli of sun when it is growing to ensure it is nice and white (the leaves are grown up and covered over the cauli florets). If you dont do this it grows kind of a brown or greyish colour I think.

bond fans: you shouldn't order your martini "shaken not stirred" if it's made with gin. shaken gin gets bruised. vodka is ok.

it takes you 10,000 hours of practice to learn a skill/it takes 10 years to learn a skill

From what I remember I'm pretty sure one or both of those is supposed to be mastering a skill, not just learning it. Obviously it takes less time to learn a skill.

that drinking Kool Aid makes your cock bigger

shaken gin gets bruised

Did not know this (not that ive ever asked for a shaken martini)

how can you bruise a liquid?

I, for one, have gotten cramps/upset stomach from swimming after eating.

I knew that cold+dry weather didn't cause colds but still believed until recently that getting drenched + wearing wet clothes was a bad idea

actually I still sorta believe this even though I have now been berated for clinging on to this old wives' tale, cz being rain-soaked and not having a chance to dry off is not nice and makes you feel shitty and headcoldy IME, can't quite convince myself that in fact you may as well just tell yrself you're perfectly comfortable because there's nothing wrong with staying like that all day

that drinking Kool Aid makes your cock bigger

― Phoenix in Flight (Cattle Grind), Thursday, April 8, 2010 6:13 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that drinking Kool Aid doesn't make your cock bigger

how can you bruise a liquid? Yeah I did wonder.

http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hourwait.asp

my dad used to tell me that I shouldn't take showers after eating, because it was bad for digestion.

the swimming after food thing, i thought it was true that any intense form of physical activity after a meal would give you cramp?

so many respectable people have told me this, christ now i don't know who i should believe ever EVER

resurrection of a messiah

"You know, a dog's mouth is cleaner than a person's mouth."

I do not know how many times in my life I have been told this, by people who were utterly sincere in their belief in its truth. Somehow, in my heart, I never fully accepted this as a fact, no matter how often I am told.

on "bruising" gin:

http://www.ardenstone.com/2007/08/27/please-dont-bruise-the-gin/

iiijjjj preys on ilx posts for ideas for his lucrative domain-squatting biz

"You know, a dog's mouth is cleaner than a person's mouth."

There was some comedian or author I encountered long ago who pointed out that the truth of this statement is belied by the fact that dogs often have actual dirt on their tongues.

lol zvookster

That "Kool-Ade makes your dick bigger" thing sounds like a veiled racial slur, given that KA is supposedly popular with black people.

huh, I've never heard of the kool-aid/black people thing, and I thought I had a good working knowledge of racial food stereotypes.

white ppl drink koolaid too

ah

I've heard that connection a number of places.

I tried googling "kool aid penis bigger" but was left with more questions than answers. also this:

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3102/koolaid.png

Incredible.

^ Yeah, I've read that the reason cold/flu season correlates with cold weather is because cold weather makes people stay indoors more, thereby causing one to be in contact with infected people.

I remember reading that this was once thought to be true, but nowadays scientists aren't so sure about it anymore, so there's no definite theory on the correlation between winter and flu. The idea that staying indoors more causes flu to spread during winter wouldn't make a lot of sense in an urban environment, where people spend most of their time indoors throughout the year.

hahaha barely 24 hrs ago I watched "Barry Lyndon", and when the kid tells Barry that he liked his pony just fine but what he REALLY wanted was a horse of his own, I was like "WTF, just wait for the pony to grow, you little brat!"

pwni3d

Umm..."horse throat from laughter"

Re: the cold and cold weather thing. I always thought it was because viruses are able to survive longer in colder weather. Can't remember where I read/heard that though.

daddy longlegs are some of the most venomous spiders in the world but their fangs aren't strong enough to pierce human skin

An urban legend states that Pholcidae are the most venomous spiders in the world, but because their fangs are unable to penetrate human skin, they are harmless to humans. However, recent research has shown that pholcid venom has a relatively weak effect on insects. In the MythBusters episode "Daddy Long-Legs" it was shown that the spider's fangs (0.25mm) could penetrate human skin (0.1mm) but that only a very mild burning feeling was felt for a few seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWASwBWyUXI&feature=fvw

"to this day, it's illegal to carve Benedict Arnold's name into stone or metal bcuz of what he did to our country" ~ my 8th grade history teacher

where did this rumor come from!? I found a couple people repeating it online:

jamisonshuck answered 7 years ago
he is known as the most infamous traitor in the history of the United States and everybody hates him. It is actually illegal to carve his name into stone or metal because he is so disgraced.

yahoo answers

What happens if you live in the US and you carve Benedict Arnold's name into wood or metal?

wiki answers

and this teacher guide:

. Although a stone memorial at Saratoga pays tribute to Benedict Arnold’s wounded leg and "the most gallant warrior in the Continental Army," a law mandates that Arnold’s name cannot be chiseled or molded into metal, therefore a lonely wooden plaque marks that the memorial is in honor of Benedict Arnold.

www.alleytheatre.org/images/alley/GENERAL TG.pdf

and this travel guide:

There is a marker in front of a patriotically decorated home behind the marker. The marker is on a metal plate embedded in stone and is very close to violating a supposed Federal Law. The law forbids the etching of Arnold's name in stone. This, of course, is due to Arnold's traitorous acts.

http://revolutionaryday.com/usroute7/castleton/default.htm

and this sermon:

After Arnold betrayed the continentals, it was determined that his name should not be engraved in stone or cast in metal because of his traitorous acts during the Revolutionary War. George Washington even decreed that his name should “never be mentioned again” in connection with our country or our military. The U.S. Congress passed a law stating that his name should never again be “chiseled or engraved” on any plaque or monument. As a matter of fact, a large monument erected at Saratoga is glaringly devoid of any mention of Arnold and his gallant efforts in the battle. Benedict Arnold was so disliked that his father and brother’s headstones were removed from their final resting places in Old Norwich Town cemetery. Every effort was made to remove his name from the face of the Earth.

http://www.sycamorechapelcoc.org/11152013.html

The bit about the headstones is apparently true, and efforts were indeed made to keep Benedict Arnold's name off of records and monuments, but I can't find any sources that substantiate the blatantly unconstitutional federal law.

to be fair, the same history teacher marked me wrong on a quiz when I answered that the state of Massachusetts was named after the Massachusett Indian tribe (she thought it was named after Chief Massasoit: I called bullshit and got the points back)

We continued our tour through the large park, stopping at various monuments including one to Ten Broeck and the Albany militia, before finally reaching what I really wanted to see ­ The Boot Monument. The Boot Monument is a marble monument to Benedict Arnold. The interesting thing about this monument is that is doesn't mention Arnold by name. There is a law in the U.S. that prohibits carving the name "Benedict Arnold" in stone or casting it in metal. So instead, there is a painted sign nearby that basically says, "that monument over there is for Benedict Arnold."

http://www.outwatersmilitia.com/news2.html

huh, I found this in a biography of Arnold published in 2001 (right around the time my teacher repeated the factoid):

In modern-day Showhagen, a papermill town in the midst of rugged terrain, there is a radical piece of historical record. The United States is almost devoid of references to Benedict Arnold by name. At one time, any such references were forbidden by law. The gravestones of the four preceeding Benedict Arnolds were destroyed two centuries ago by citizens angry at the memory of the traitor, Benedict [the fifth]. Yet in one pub in the middle of town, there is a painting celebrating the fact that Arnold had passed through.

Benedict Arnold: A Traitor in Our Midst

it doesn't provide a source for the information, nor does it get into greater detail about the supposed law. it seems like this rumor is strongly attached to tourist attractions (the pub painting, The Boot Monument, and the memorial in Saratoga) so maybe it's something tour guides repeat to gullible tourists to keep them interested. but I still wonder where the idea comes from and how long it's been around.

Historical sites associated with Arnold have many monuments and markers but none have Arnold's name: Continental Congress was so disgusted by Arnold's treachery that it made it illegal to engrave his name. The law still stands.

more yahoo answers

Americans showed contempt for Arnold by trashing his family's grave stones. Washington ordered that the words never be said again. A law was passed making it illegal to have his name in rock or in metal.

American Revolution slideshow, Port Clinton (Ohio) City Schools, 2001

Banana answered 2 years ago
Yes. I've heard that it's even illegal today to name a child Benedict Arnold in the United States

yahoo answers

feel like fucking Snopes here

My daughter is quite a history buff, and in particular a fan of the Arnolds. [...] She tells me that there is an old Federal law which prohibits the the name of Benedict Arnold from being 'cut in stone or cast in iron'. Benedict Arnold was actually Benedict Arnold V and the graves of his father and grandfather were razed in response to this law. This is also, in part, why monuments to Arnold's victories do not bear his name. The only citation to the law she could give me was from an A & E documentary though. Perhaps someone with a legal background, or access to a legal database could check to see if this fellow is in violation of the law.
16 posted on 4/1/2004, 12:38:05 PM by cephalopod

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1109343/posts

There are few names as reviled in American history as that of General Benedict Arnold. However, through much of the Revolutionary War, Arnold was considered one of the fledgling country's greatest heroes, with a number of successful campaigns against the British under his belt and the unparalleled devotion of his men to his credit. This biopic takes a look at what caused this man to betray his country in such a brazen manner that Congress ordered that his name never be carved in stone or metal.

from a review of the A&E biopic Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor (2003)

Smoking marijuana seeds will leave you sterile, unable to have children. I remember when I high school friend and I wouldn't take the time to clean the seeds out, we would both feel a little stress out after smoking.

did you know that we only use about 10% of our brains? makes you think, huh?

(bafflingly enough, I heard this from a philosophy professor, of all people, years after I learned what utter crock it was)

― broa super (unregistered), Wednesday, April 7, 2010 3:48 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Obviousy Luc Bresson believes it or he'd have no story for Lucy.
Bet I'm not the first person to say that.

I think one fits here..

I read one time (I feel sure) that in rape trials, the judge is obliged to say that female defendants 'may lie'. I mentioned this many years ago here on ILX, but it seems it's complete bol.

.. The judge is obliged during summing up to the jury, to say (etc)

A law was passed making it illegal to have his name in rock or in metal.

lazy ilm zing here