Something New Learned Everyday

Harold Shipman

2010-12-31T23:59:00.003-06:00

Harold Shipman was an Englishman who killed more people than possibly any other serial killer in recorded history: 218 confirmed victims, although that number is probably more than 250. How'd he do it? He was a doctor who ended his patients' lives with lethal injections. Most of them were elderly women; in fact, his youngest victim was a 41 year-old man.

No one knows for sure why Shipman did what he did, although there might be a confusing reason as to why, involving his wife and the National Health Service.

"MDMA got you feeling like a champion"

2010-12-30T23:59:00.002-06:00

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is the chemical name for ecstasy.

Skip to 3:15.

In the next line, Jay-Z says: "The city never sleeps, better slip you an Ambien." Ambien is a drug used to treat insomnia. Now it all makes sense to me what the hell he was saying.

Are bars of soap self-cleaning?

2010-12-29T23:59:00.001-06:00

No, but it might not matter anyway.

Tuesday Night Football

2010-12-28T23:59:00.003-06:00

Since the blizzard in Philly canceled Sunday's game pitting the Eagles and Vikings, the league moved it to today. On a Tuesday. The last time an NFL game was played on a Tuesday was October 1, 1946.

Thundersnow

2010-12-27T23:59:00.002-06:00

It's thunder, lightning, and... snow.

Press Complaints Commission

2010-12-26T23:59:00.003-06:00

The Press Complaints Commission is a self-regulatory body for British magazines and newspapers (and their websites). The members of this commission include representatives of the major publishers. Because of its self-regulatory nature, taxpayers do not fund the PCC; its revenue comes from the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines. However, it has no legal powers. The commission focuses mostly on the accuracy of reports, as well as invasion of privacy by the press. There is no parallel to the PCC in the United States.

Website
BBC report on the 10-year anniversary of the PCC

History of mistletoe and kissing

2010-12-25T23:59:00.004-06:00

In the first century AD, the Druids believed that "mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart fecundity to all animals that are barren." But it wasn't until the 18th or 19th centuries that the British incorporated mistletoe for their Christmas celebrations. Washington Irving and Charles Dickens wrote stories in which men kissed young and pretty women under the mistletoe.

Why is Facebook blue and white?

2010-12-24T23:59:00.003-06:00

Because Mark Zuckerberg can't see red or green.

Tokyo Tower

2010-12-23T23:59:00.003-06:00

During the postwar boom of the 1950s, Japan searched for a monument that represented its rise to a global economic force. They built the Tokyo Tower, which was inspired by the architecture of the Eiffel Tower. It opened on this day in 1958.

Denisovans

2010-12-22T23:59:00.003-06:00

The Denisovans are the new human group that scientists have discovered. They are a Neanderthal sister group, living in the same time period and inhabiting eastern Eurasia. (Neanderthals ruled western Eurasia.) The big thing about Denisovans: they most likely mated with modern humans, and perhaps even mated with Neanderthals.

Which other countries have the right to bear arms?

2010-12-21T23:59:00.004-06:00

Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala.

Caliginous

2010-12-20T23:59:00.002-06:00

Caliginous is an archaic term that means "misty; dim; dark."

Origin of Fig Newton

2010-12-19T23:59:00.001-06:00

Fig Newtons were named after the town of Newton, MA.

Indian burn

2010-12-18T23:59:00.004-06:00

Yeah, I think I may have had one or two of these in school. It's when you grab someone's forearm with both hands and twist both hands in opposite directions.

Schrodinger's cat

2010-12-17T23:59:00.003-06:00

I've been really getting into The Big Bang Theory lately. I can't explain Schrodinger's cat any better than Sheldon.

Click here for more information.

Miscarriage statistics

2010-12-16T23:59:00.006-06:00

15%-20% of pregnancies result in miscarriage.
74% of women say that the miscarriage was "partly their fault."
22% said they would hide a miscarriage from their spouse.

Skip to 8:55.

Bobby soxer

2010-12-15T23:59:00.004-06:00

A bobby soxer was a teenage girl in the 1940s, usually a fan of Frank Sinatra. (Sinatra is considered the first teen idol.) By the 1950s, high schoolers often used their basketball gyms as dance floors, and girls were required to remove their shoes and dance in their bobby socks.

How to spot a conspiracy theory

2010-12-14T23:59:00.002-06:00

A good summary of how to discredit a conspiracy theory.

Thomas Nast

2010-12-13T23:59:00.005-06:00

Thomas Nast is known as the "Father of the American Cartoon." He worked for Harper's Weekly, and created the modern version of Santa Claus, the Democratic Party donkey and the Republican Party elephant, and the Tammany Hall tiger. Read what he did to Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall in the early 1870s.

Oakland Señors

2010-12-12T23:59:00.001-06:00

The Oakland Raiders were initially known as the Oakland Señors. The Oakland Tribune held a "name the team" contest, and Señors won. After being made fun of and being accused that the results were fixed, the organization changed its name to the Raiders, which placed third in the contest.

Pearl snap shirts

2010-12-11T23:59:00.001-06:00

This is what a pearl snap is. I guess it has two pockets in the front.

Honey trap

2010-12-10T23:59:00.004-06:00

A honey trap is a woman planted by the government in order to seduce a sexual molester. Defenders of Julian Assange claim that a honey trap got him.

Pinckney Pinchback

2010-12-09T23:59:00.005-06:00

Pinckney Pinchback was the first black governor of a U.S. state (Louisiana). Actually, he was the first non-white governor. He took office on this day in 1872, after the incumbent governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, was forced to step aside because of impeachment charges. After the charges on Warmoth were dropped, Pinchback stepped aside on January 13, 1873 (35 days).

Guyliner

2010-12-08T23:59:00.002-06:00

It's eyeliner...for dudes. Rock stars wear it and shit. So does Johnny Depp.

whoever this guy is

Tiger stripes

2010-12-07T20:43:00.000-06:00

National Geographic is celebrating Big Cat Week this week (still not as badass as Discovery's Shark Week). Did you know that no two tigers can have the same pattern of stripes?

"When I get sad...

2010-12-06T23:59:00.004-06:00

...I stop being sad and be awesome instead."

Somehow people love stupid shit like this. I found this quote floating around a couple of my friends' Facebook profiles so I decided to look it up. It's from some show called How I Met Your Mother, or something.

I don't understand how a quote can be so great when it received almost no laughter from the audience.

Winnow

2010-12-05T23:59:00.002-06:00

Winnow means "to separate or distinguish (valuable from worthless parts)."

Cartoon characters for your Facebook profile picture

2010-12-04T23:59:00.007-06:00

I'm pretty new to Facebook (2 months), so I'm not privy to the hip memes that happen every so often. I noticed that one of my friends changed his profile picture to a scene in Tom and Jerry. Badass cartoon, but dumb choice for a profile pic. Call me old school, or lame, but I believe everyone has a right to know what the hell you look like on a social networking website like Facebook. My pic is the best.

I commented on his pic that it was a dumb choice. He must have agreed, or something, because the next day he took it down and replaced it with a normal image of himself. But then I noticed everyone doing the cartoon thing. Turns out that I made my friend go against the grain, because last week Facebook users listened to the meme gods and did the cartoon thing. Something about stopping child abuse, or something.

If I have the power to make one person disobey the meme gods, imagine what else I can do....

Krampus

2010-12-03T23:59:00.004-06:00

Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies St. Nicholas during Christmas, warning and punishing bad children. He is popular in some European countries, especially Austria and Hungary.

This is from The Colbert Report, dated December 9, 2009.

You can put symbols in a URL

2010-12-02T23:59:00.001-06:00

Apparently.

Our Lady of the Angels School fire

2010-12-01T23:59:00.002-06:00

The Our Lady of the Angels School fire (elementary school in Chicago, IL) happened on this day in 1958. Shortly before students were dismissed for the day, a fire broke out at the foot of a stairway, eventually killing 92 students and 3 nuns. This tragedy generated sweeping school fire safety regulations.

No one has been prosecuted for it, but it's suspected that a fifth grader, who had been excused to go to the restroom at around the same time, set the fire. He confessed to the police in 1962 but later recanted.

The day produced this photograph, published in Life magazine, of a boy named John Jajkowski, Jr. being carried out by a firefighter. John, like most of the victims, died from suffocation of the black and oily smoke.

Pollyanna principle

2010-11-30T23:50:00.002-06:00

The Pollyanna principle "describes the tendency for people to agree with positive statements describing themselves." Basically, we subconsciously focus on the positive, while consciously we look at the negative. The term refers to a young girl named Pollyanna in a 1913 novel of the same name, who displayed a limitless amount of optimism.

This concept is similar to the Barnum effect.

Great Migration

2010-11-29T23:22:00.002-06:00

The Great Migration lasted from 1910 to 1930, when 2 million black Americans migrated from the south to the northeast, midwest, and west in search of jobs and an escape from discrimination. Another period, the Second Great Migration, stretched from 1940 to 1970 and involved 5 million blacks. As a result of both movements, 80% of black people resided in the cities.

But there has been another migration called the New Great Migration, which began around 1965, in which black people have been moving back south. This is because of improved racial relations and the de-industrialization of the northeast and midwest.

Why do birds have wattles?

2010-11-28T22:59:00.002-06:00

To dissipate heat. Plus, it's an ego thing for the male birds.

Why do we eat turkey for the holidays?

2010-11-27T23:59:00.003-06:00

Basically, Americans found them easy to slaughter and big enough to feed crowd, at a relatively cheap price. We also brought the custom of eating turkey from Britain. It wasn't until 1863 that Thanksgiving was officially declared a national holiday.

Our fellow... subjects?

2010-11-26T23:59:00.003-06:00

From the Library of Congress:

Recent hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence has clearly confirmed past speculation that Jefferson made an interesting word correction during his writing of the document, according to scientists in the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD). Jefferson originally had written the phrase "our fellow-subjects." But he apparently changed his mind. Over the word “subjects” he inked an alternative, the word "citizens."

The correction seems to illuminate an important moment for Jefferson and for a nation on the eve of breaking from monarchical rule: a moment when he reconsidered his choice of words and articulated the recognition that the people of the fledgling United States of America were no longer subjects of any nation, but citizens of an emerging democracy.

This was discovered this past July.

Small Business Saturday

2010-11-25T23:59:00.003-06:00

The first ever Small Business Saturday will be held this Saturday. It's a day to support your local small businesses, a day after you give most of your money away to the big businesses.

Paradise tree snake

2010-11-24T23:59:00.002-06:00

Did you even know these things existed? They fucking glide in the air!

Thatcher effect

2010-11-23T23:59:00.002-06:00

The Thatcher effect is "a phenomenon where it becomes difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face."

Daniella Tobar

2010-11-22T22:49:00.005-06:00

In January 2000, a 21 year-old Chilean actress by the name of Daniella Tobar decided to prove an artistic point, or something, and live in a 20 ft. by 7 ft. glass house right in the middle of Santiago. The best moments were when she stood naked in the shower.

Video.

"Pet peeve" origin

2010-11-21T23:11:00.002-06:00

The first usage of the term pet peeve was around 1919. The word peeve is a back-formation of the word peevish, which means "ill-tempered." Pet, in this case, means "favorite" (as in a teacher's pet).

Armoire

2010-11-20T23:59:00.003-06:00

An armoire is a standing closet used for storing clothes.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2010-11-19T23:59:00.005-06:00

What exactly is that? I've been hearing it a lot the past several days, sort of like a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. HHGTTG is a science fiction comedy series from England that originally came out on radio in 1978. It later got adapted to books, TV, computer games, comic books, and the big screen.

King George VI

2010-11-18T23:59:00.003-06:00

King George VI of the United Kingdom, who reigned during WWII, suffered from a speech impediment for which he began seeing a speech therapist in 1925 (when he was Duke of York, before ascending to the throne). In 1939, at the start of the war, he made a speech to the British people. Despite some pauses he managed to finish it without stuttering.

The relationship between the king and his speech therapist is being brought to life in the new movie The King's Speech.

Ex gratia

2010-11-17T23:59:00.001-06:00

Ex gratia means "as a favor or gesture of goodwill, rather than from any legal requirement."

How do people in wheelchairs take showers?

2010-11-16T23:59:00.003-06:00

With shower wheelchairs.

What's a pick 6?

2010-11-15T23:55:00.002-06:00

This is pretty embarrassing for me to admit because I've been watching football my whole life. A pick 6 is an interception returned for a touchdown.

But what's not embarrassing is Dimitri Patterson's pick 6 in tonight's Monday Night Football game. As well as the general ass whooping that Philly put on Washington.

Project Titan?

2010-11-14T23:59:00.004-06:00

Why didn't I hear about this earlier? Maybe because I just recently joined Facebook. Facebook is coming out with this thing called Project Titan, which is supposed to kill Gmail, because Facebook will give us a personal @facebook.com email address. Will this be the beginning of the end of traditional email?

Firefoxes are actual animals

2010-11-13T23:59:00.003-06:00

They're also known as the red panda. They're found mostly in the Himalayan region, and the species is classified as vulnerable in its conservation status.

See more pictures here.

What the hell's a forensic musicologist?

2010-11-12T23:54:00.002-06:00

Someone who listens to music really, really closely.

Leonardo da Vinci syndrome

2010-11-11T23:59:00.000-06:00

"When a highly creative person gets new ideas and visions faster than they can implement them, or even possibly fully record/describe them, leading to a state where someone is constantly starting new projects without finishing the old ones."

Kwanzaa

2010-11-10T22:27:00.002-06:00

I always thought that Kwanzaa was an old African holiday celebrated by Africans. Nope. Turns out that it was invented in the 1960s by an American black nationalist.

Overwhelming exception

2010-11-09T21:50:00.002-06:00

An overwhelming exception is a "generalization that is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications that eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led one to assume."

Here are some examples:

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
- From Monty Python's Life of Brian

"Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
- What an idiot would ask Mrs. Lincoln after her husband gets assassinated in the theater

Mocap suit

2010-11-08T23:59:00.001-06:00

A mocap suit is a suit used for motion capture (hence, the name). It's those things you see actors wear on TV for video games and stuff.

Blue Book value for cars

2010-11-07T23:28:00.004-06:00

It's what car insurance companies refer to when someone gets involved in an accident, as I did today when the woman admitted that it was her fault for ramming into me. The cop said the cost of damage to my car will probably exceed the vehicle's price, which means the insurance company will just pay me the few thousand dollars the car's worth. There are a couple of companies that give blue book estimates, but the one I've been researching is Kelley Blue Book.

Stressed...

2010-11-06T23:59:00.002-05:00

...is desserts spelled backwards. Heard it on a Sonic Drive-In radio commercial.

Buttle

2010-11-05T23:59:00.003-05:00

Buttle means "to do a butler's work."

Gojira

2010-11-04T22:19:00.002-05:00

The word Gojira is the Man'yogana version of the word Godzilla (Man'yogana is an ancient writing system that employs Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language). It's a combination of gorira, which means "gorilla," and kujira, which means "whale."

Doc Powers

2010-11-03T17:22:00.003-05:00

In 1909, Doc Powers was the first major league baseball player to die as a result of an on-field injury. (The only other one was Ray Chapman in 1920.) On April 12, Powers chased a foul pop-up and crashed into the wall. He had to get three intestinal surgeries to try to repair the internal injuries, but died of complications two weeks after the game.

Johnny Campbell

2010-11-02T21:57:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1898, Johnny Campbell became the world's first cheerleader. He was a student at the University of Minnesota, and directed a crowd by cheering "Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!" Actually, cheerleading started as an all guys thing. Females didn't start taking part until 1923, when the fellas were being drafted for war.

Comminate

2010-11-01T23:59:00.001-05:00

Comminate means "to threaten with divine punishment; to curse."

Mange

2010-10-31T23:35:00.002-05:00

Mange is a skin disease caused by parasitic mites, most often found in canines. It leads to fur loss and can cause the animal's skin to shrivel. Coyotes with mange are the most likely explanation to the chupacabra fallacy.

GTL

2010-10-30T23:55:00.003-05:00

I've been watching Jersey Shore a lot lately. I never thought I'd come to this, but the Jersey Shore episode of South Park inspired me to watch the whole first season (and will finish watching the second season soon).

And what did I learn? GTL. It stands for gym, tan, laundry. Every fucking day.

Pale Blue Dot

2010-10-29T23:59:00.004-05:00

In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 took a picture of our planet from a record distance of 3.7 million miles. This picture became to be known as the Pale Blue Dot.

In his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan makes us take a step back and realize that we are virtually nothing in the universe. Here is a famous passage:

Ipecac

2010-10-28T23:59:00.004-05:00

Ipecac is a syrup derived from a Brazilian plant that is commonly used to induce vomiting. Too much use might damage the heart and lead to death.

Have we exhausted any natural resources?

2010-10-27T23:59:00.003-05:00

Kinda, but not totally.

Double standards

2010-10-26T23:59:00.002-05:00

Chris Rock talks about two double standards that I hadn't thought about before:

Shared psychotic disorder

2010-10-25T23:59:00.002-05:00

It's when one crazy person can make other people crazy just by being crazy.

The medium is the message

2010-10-24T23:59:00.005-05:00

The term The medium is the message basically means that people are more interested in a product itself than what it does. For example, one might want the latest gadget just because it's the newest thing out there, instead of using it for its features.

MILF

2010-10-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

The term MILF first appeared around 1995 on the internet, then was popularized in the movie American Pie.

How loud can a cicada get?

2010-10-22T23:59:00.001-05:00

As loud as a rock concert--120 decibels.

Flipping YouTube videos to avoid copyright infringement

2010-10-21T23:59:00.002-05:00

You can flip a copyrighted video--mirror it horizontally--and post it on YouTube without fear of it getting taken down (although there's no absolute guarantee that someone out there won't). YouTube has some kind of loophole in their terms or something that doesn't include flipped videos.

Johnny Bright Incident

2010-10-20T23:42:00.007-05:00

The Johnny Bright Incident took place on this day in 1951 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Two college football players were involved: the white player Wilbanks Smith of Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), and the black player Johnny Bright of Drake University. Long story short: The white guy, at the behest of one of his coaches, beats up the black guy for no reason other than race. Smith ends up breaking Bright's jaw.

Two Des Moines Register photographers captured a sequence of six pictures showing the incident. The sequence won the photographers the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, then made the cover of Life Magazine.

Ezail

2010-10-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

Allen Iverson's (of Philadelphia 76ers fame) middle name is Ezail.

Amalia Rodrigues

2010-10-18T23:04:00.003-05:00

Amalia Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer in the 1950s to '70s who was part of the genre known as fado (the Portuguese blues). In fact, you could say that she was the ambassador of fado; she became its most influential international star, earning the nickname "Rainha de Fado" (Queen of Fado).

Rain check

2010-10-17T23:59:00.002-05:00

A rain check is "an offered or requested postponement of an invitation until a more convenient, usually unspecified time."

Teach Me How to Dougie

2010-10-16T23:59:00.000-05:00

Apparently it's some dance. Or something. It started in Texas. Or something.

Flauta

2010-10-15T23:59:00.003-05:00

A flauta is basically a taquito made with a flour tortilla. Had this today, deep fried.

Roundhay Garden Scene

2010-10-14T23:08:00.004-05:00

Roundhay Garden Scene is the oldest surviving motion picture. It was released on this day in 1888, was shot at 12 frames per second, and is literally two seconds long. Yep, two seconds.

Carlos the Jackal

2010-10-13T22:44:00.002-05:00

Before Osama bin Laden, Carlos the Jackal (real name: Illich Ramirez Sanchez) was the world's most famous terrorist. In 1970 he joined the leftist Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and in 1975 he took over the OPEC headquarters in Vienna and seized 11 hostages. He was convicted in 1997 and is still sitting in prison.

Now they're making a 5 and a half hour movie about him.

The Most Interesting (Ly)Man in the World

2010-10-12T21:48:00.002-05:00

The guy who narrates the PBS Frontline episodes, Will Lyman, also narrates the Dos Equis series of commercials, The Most Interesting Man in the World (not the actual man himself, just the voice).

Dashes, and Parentheses, and Commas, Oh My!

2010-10-11T22:35:00.003-05:00

A guide of when to use each in your writing.

Rod of Asclepius

2010-10-10T23:34:00.002-05:00

The Rod of Asclepius is the name of the medical symbol, with the snake on the staff. It's associated with the ancient Greek god Asclepius, who was the god of medicine and healing.

Difference between "further" and "farther"

2010-10-09T21:32:00.002-05:00

Rule of thumb: use farther when talking about physical distance, and use further when talking about a metaphorical distance.

Ramiro!

2010-10-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo's middle name is Ramiro.

Duke

2010-10-07T23:59:00.003-05:00

Duke is the name of the Java mascot.

Earlobe stretching

2010-10-06T23:59:00.002-05:00

Why the fuck are people doing this nowadays? At least I've seen it only recently. They stretch their earlobes to fit some retarded version of an earring. A plug or something. Here's a guy doing it:

You know who stretches their ears? These people:

Pretty soon we'll be doing this...

...and this:

Home wrecker

2010-10-05T23:01:00.003-05:00

A home wrecker is a jealous female who tries to break up her admirer's relationship.

Togo's fake soccer teams

2010-10-04T23:59:00.002-05:00

Apparently, some guys in the West African country of Togo love secretly sending out a fake soccer team to play against other national teams. And "Togo" gets its ass kicked badly. And the conspirators love getting caught.

Thomas Fuller

2010-10-03T22:54:00.002-05:00

Thomas Fuller was a Virginian slave who was a mathematical genius. He did calculations in his head that often took him less time than most people with a pencil and paper. His case was used as an example by the abolitionists that blacks were not intellectually inferior to whites. Others remarked that he was nothing more than a savant.

Alligator-on-a-stick...

2010-10-02T23:59:00.003-05:00

...is actually pretty damn good. Had it today at the State Fair of Texas, where Oklahoma kicked the shit out of the Longhorns.

LA Times bombing

2010-10-01T22:00:00.004-05:00

The bombing of the Los Angeles Times building happened on this day in 1910. Two brothers who were union members--John J. and James B. McNamara--were mad at the newspaper for publishing anti-union editorials, so they, uh, bombed the building. James B. admitted to setting the explosive and was sentenced to life in prison. John J. was sentenced to 15 years for bombing something else, then returned as a union organizer.

The bombing left 21 newspaper employees dead and 100 injured.

How to calculate QB passer rating

2010-09-30T22:49:00.003-05:00

There are actually two methods: one for the NFL and one for the NCAA. The college one is even more irrational and confusing, but what do you expect from a league that refuses to adopt a playoff system, like every other normal sport on earth?

The passer rating was started by three NFL guys in the 1970s.

How successful was Jimmy Carter?

2010-09-29T13:53:00.004-05:00

60 Minutes recently had an interview with Jimmy Carter, who is regarded by many, particularly conservatives, as one of the most unsuccessful presidents in history. But did you know that he "normalized relations with China; brokered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt [I already knew that]; [and] deregulated railroads, trucking, airlines, and telephones"? And his "energy conservation programs resulted in a 50% cut in imported oil, down to just 4.3 million barrels a day." (He actually installed solar panels on the roof of the White House, which Ronald Reagan later removed.) Carter had more of his programs passed than Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Clinton, and both Bushes.

So why, then, do people generally think his presidency was a failure? See what he says in the interview:

Renting vs. buying

2010-09-28T22:54:00.004-05:00

On the NewsHour today, a guy named Jack Hough laid out why it's dumb to give tax credits to new homebuyers, and why it would be better in general to rent as opposed to buying. This point, especially, really stuck with me:

If the three of us decided to go in together on a real estate investment and I said, gentlemen, I have a plan, we will build a 3,000-square-foot house that will fit only one family, you would say to me, that's not a very good plan. We should build a building where we can maximize the amount of rent that flows through it, and have people with just as much living space as they need.

The single-family house in America is almost a poor investment by design. Go back 30 years, and you had houses that were 1,700 square feet. Today, they have come down over the past year a little bit, but they're still 2,400 square feet, even though the size of the average American family has gotten smaller over that time.

Watch the whole damn video:

Stewardesses...

2010-09-27T23:59:00.003-05:00

...is the longest word you can type on a keyboard with your left hand.

Kevin Kolb

2010-09-26T21:57:00.003-05:00

Kevin Kolb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, "became the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for 300 yards in each of his first two career starts." Doesn't matter now since Michael Vick seems to be doing very well.

I'm a huge Eagles fan, by the way. And I live in Dallas.

George Washington invented coffee

2010-09-25T23:59:00.004-05:00

Not that George Washington. This one was a Belgian who was living in Guatemala at the time he invented the first mass-produced instant coffee in 1906. It helped WWI soldiers kill enemies better.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

2010-09-24T23:59:00.002-05:00

The Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is an actual cemetery. It was called Tarrytown Cemetery at first, but after Washington Irving died it was named after the poet's most notable work. The cemetery, which is located in Sleepy Hollow, NY (also a real place, located just a short drive north of NYC, and also originally called North Tarrytown until 1996), houses the dead bodies of Irving, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, and William Rockefeller, among many other important people.

Colorado is the least obese state

2010-09-23T22:42:00.002-05:00

Yep, at least for this year. It's probably because of their outdoors lifestyle. For some reason a lot of people I know, almost all of whom have no connection to each other, all vacationed there this past summer and hiked the mountains. One person said it's the perfect time to be there, I guess because of the low off-season lodging rates.