12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Even the Pope can’t escape income taxes.
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A Guy Bought a Hard Drive and Found It Stuffed With Fishing Weights
A man couldn’t figure out why his new 20-terabyte hard drive didn’t work, so he asked his son to inspect it. When he took it apart, he found six iron weights glued to mimic the weight distribution of a real hard drive.
Two Estranged Sisters Met for the First Time Ever, and Accidentally Wore the Same Dress
Two women aged 51 and 63 met for the first time after learning about their relationship from 23andMe, and found that they had a lot in common: They immigrated from Russia to the U.S. decades ago, their houses are strikingly similar and they have identical taste in fashion.
Two Train Execs Embezzled Funds to Build Their Own Apartments in Abandoned Train Stations
After his buddy told him he’d embezzled $8,000 and flipped it into a private “crash pad,” a Caltrain executive took the grift too far and syphoned off $38,000 to build his own secret apartment.
The Multi-Billion Dollar Mom Industry
Americans spent an average of $259 per household on Mother’s Day, working out to $34.1 billion total. We peaked in 2023 at $274 per household.
Betting Markets Gave the New Pope Less Than One Percent Odds of Winning His New Hat
People bet over $40 million on the new Pope’s identity on one betting market alone, and those who believed in Cardinal Robert Prevost made out like bandits. One person put down $526 and walked away with $52,641.
The Pope’s Taxes Just Got More Complicated
Prevost’s taxes were already pretty funky, as both a clergy member and a dual citizen. But the Washington Post has reported that his new title as the head of a foreign government doesn’t exempt him from U.S. taxes, even though the home countries of other recent Popes have given them a pass.
Which Countries Have the Most Bunkers?
Sweden, Finland and Switzerland have the most bunkers per capita — the latter can house its entire population of nine million in a pinch, including the nuclear-ready Sonnenberg that was designed to house 20,000.
Chimps Have Different Rhythmic Languages
A study of different communities and subspecies of chimpanzee found that not only do they have the ability to drum on tree trunks to specific rhythms, those rhythms vary across different regions the same way human language does.
An American Impaled Himself at the Colosseum
An American tourist hopped a fence at the Colosseum and full-on impaled himself. Witnesses describe a legitimately gruesome spectacle. He was sedated, removed and stitched up at a hospital, where police waited patiently for him to regain the power of speech to begin interrogating him.
Exercise Makes You Experience Time Nine Percent Slower
A study asked participants to count out 30 seconds before, during and after physical activity, and found that “the perception of time was significantly slowed during exercise.”
Stanford’s Stage Four Cancer Patient Class
Professor and physician Bryant Lin was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and took the opportunity to teach his students how to treat patients with similar prognoses, both in the professional sense and the human sense.
Rodrigo Duterte Was Elected Mayor From the Hague
Even though he’s currently imprisoned in the Hague over his brutal war on drugs, the disgraced former dictator was elected mayor of his hometown.
