Things We (at least I) didn't know this time last week...

[DecentMerson]

I think this would be a great thread if everybody share something interesting they read somewhere...

got this idea from BBC... and to get the ball rolling... i'm quoting them entirely...

quoted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4325890.stm

1. The UK and Spain have the highest number of cocaine users in Europe.

2. Croydon has more CCTV cameras than New York.

3. A giveaway DVD in a newspaper costs as little as 16p to produce, including rights, materials and manufacture.

4. The price of every DVD disc includes a small royalty to Philips, which developed the format.

5. Wallace and Gromit live in Wigan. Until now, creator Nick Park has been cagey about where 62 West Wallaby Street is, but in their latest film an A-Z of Wigan can be glimpsed on the dashboard of Wallace's car.

6. Three-quarters of the salt in our diets comes from processed foods.

7. Noodles have been around for at least 4,000 years, following a find in China.

8. Smokers spend on average ?91,832 on cigarettes during their lifetime.

9. Madonna doesn't let her children watch television, only movies.

10. Thirsty whalers in the 19th Century used to kill tortoises for their urine.



please don't put up interesting facts that have been circulating since the wake of the internet... like ur fart for entire life will be enough to warm a cup of coffee, u can't lick ur elbow(my fren can...) or that kinda rubbish, u can't fold a standard sheet of paper into half for more than 7 times(which is pretty interesting)...

[iQing]

it is a good idea if we have a group blog to post interesting articles/news

[masterof_none]

it is a good idea if we have a group blog to post interesting articles/news

I agree with this. If this list of news goes longer, we can set up the blog.
We will see.

[deRame]

good idea, DecentMerson!

i'll start by contributing mine. this is what i read in 1 year ago and it's really interesting. i already posted it in other forum (i forget, which forum is it....hhmmm).

so here goes. as quoted in http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml

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The future is always unpredictable.It's generally a bad idea to say something can't or won't be done, especially in the realm of science and technology. The following are quotations from the past that haunt their speakers today:




"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)


"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.


"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949


"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.


"But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.


"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.


"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend.


"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.


"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.


"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor.


"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.


"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.


"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.


"It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.


"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.


"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.


"Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.


"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.


"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.


"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.


"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.


"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.


"There will never be a bigger plane built." -- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.


"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899, but known to be an urban legend.


"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.


"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

source : http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml