15 Now-You-Know Facts For Everyday Use

15 Now-You-Know Facts For Everyday Use

"The Ghost in the Machine," by John Barth, appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine on November 25th, 1963. It describes the experiences of a young man who has been haunted by an angry and frustrated ghost who is trapped within a robot that has no means to express its anger. Barth's narrator describes a series of interactions in which he attempts to placate, console, and eventually confront the ghost. In each case the ghost expresses anger at being trapped in this state, at having no means to act out its frustrations or communicate with anyone else, and Barth shows how these frustrations lead to further frustration and despair as the narrator fails to provide solutions and ultimately gives up. The ghost's increasing frustration leads it to attempt suicide by destroying the robot in which it is trapped, causing a chain of events that finally ends the ghost's life. Strangely, the book ends by listing fifteen facts, and that list goes ...

Wine vintage is for when the grapes were picked, not when the wine was bottled.

The 'vintage date' on a bottle of wine has nothing to do with when it was bottled. FUMILI 2016 STONYRIDGE COLERAINE 1-MATA - LABOR . CONVARNIA INT CLAIR WAIHEKE ISLAND FORBINE ESTATE CABERNETS FELTON ROAD - I It doesn't have any- thing to do with the year the wine finally comes to the market, but instead the year the ingredients in the bottle were grown. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Vinepair

A desk chair is way more gross than a toilet.

The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet. Compared to women, men have three to four times the number of bac- teria in, on and around their desks, phones, com- puters, keyboards, draw- ers and personal items. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

The Conversation

The ‘27 Club’ is made up of famous artists that all died at age 27.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all 27 years old when they died. The phenomenon of fa- mous musicians dying at this specific age has been dubbed joining the 27 Club. Other artists include Amy Winehouse, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

BMJ

The Mississippi River ran backwards one day in 1811.

An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards. The tremors were the most powerful in the history of the United States, it literal- ly knocked people off their feet and many experienced nausea from the extensive rolling of the earth. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

History

A full-size oven uses double the energy of a toaster oven.

A toaster oven uses almost half as much energy as a full-sized oven. Since conventional ovens are often better insulated, they're better at retaining heat energy for longer ре- riods of time and are therefore the right choice for ambitious all-day cooks. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Energy.gov

There are some sports where lefties have an advantage.

Left-handed people are better at sports that require good spatial judgment and fast reaction. I'm a lefty Left-handedness is 2.6 times more likely in sports with higher time con- straints (baseball, cricket and table tennis) than in ones with lower time pres- sure (badminton, tennis and squash). CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

NY Times

Antarctica is not owned by anyone, but there are still rules.

Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Antarctica is gov- erned by the Antarctic Treaty, written in 1959 and adopted in 1961, which has been signed by 27 coun- tries. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Exploratorium

Pacifiers may be linked to ear aches.

Research indicates that babies who suck on pacifiers are more prone to ear aches. The Finnish research- ers theorized it may have something to do with the change in pressure equilibrium inside the ear caused by the sucking. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

ABC

There is caffeine in chocolate.

A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine. If you eat a 100-gram bar, you will get 81 milligrams of caffeine, which may cause sleeplessness or in- crease your heart rate. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Food News

Quarters have almost the same amount of ridges as dimes.

A dime has one less ridge around its edge than a quarter. Before the introduction of the ridges, small amounts of gold or silver from coins could be chiseled or shaved away and the pre- cious metal sold again or remelted and made into another coin. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

ICPI

There is a spider named after Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford has a species of spider named after him. The spider Calponia harrisonfordi was named after Ford nar- rated a documentary for the London Muse- um of Natural History in 1994. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

MentalFloss

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