That Really Rather Random (Interesting) Fact Thread

[Wolf]

Hello all, and welcome to "That Really Rather Random (Interesting) Fact Thread" thread! This is that thread you might've heard about where different people tell you different Really Rather Random (Interesting) facts, and perhaps you tell others a (Really) Rather Interesting fact!

As I, myself, am a collecter and connoiseur of generalized, trivial, Really Rather Random (Interesting) facts, I thought I'd open the floor to all your plethoric knowledge of Really Rather Random (Intersesting) facts! I hope you all enjoy this thread, and I hope we can collect quite a collection of Really Rather Random (Interesting) facts!



There is one teensy rule, though. You're limited to sharing one Really Rather Random (Interesting) fact a day, as we don't want numerous Really Rather Random (Interesting) facts clogging up the system all at once. We also don't want people to exhaust themselves of all their knowledge of Really Rather Random (Interesting) facts within just a few minutes, so be sure that you come armed with only one Really Rather Random (Interesting) fact a day! Thank you!


I'll start out:

The word "Nerd" is actually an invention of Dr. Seuss.

[Dragour]

We had another thread like this once didn't we? Ahwell


An interesting fact is that the Camelid specie actually came from North America, yup, the camels, impas, lamas, all of them originated from North America during the thawing of the [instert name here] land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska during the ice age

[Wolf]

Beringia, named for the Bering Straight.

I did not know that. Thank you for sharing!

[r]

When the RAF engineers were developing the Spitfire, they built their prototypes using flat-headed rivets. However, they knew that the factories building the plane would be using cheaper dome-headed rivets, so to examine the effects this would have on the plane's aerodynamics, the engineers glued peas to the heads of all the flat-headed rivets. This has to be the most British example of ingenuity I have ever heard.

Also, the Dacia Sandero has electronic brake-force distribution.

[Mattbott]

waves (on the sea) arrive in groups, you get a big wave or two and a load of smaller waves making up a cycle

the average number of waves in each cycle all around the world, is seven

[The Tom]

The sound of the TIE fighters in Star Wars was made by combining the sound of an elephant's trumpet and a car driving through a puddle.

[leroybrown]

The sound of the TIE fighters in Star Wars was made by combining the sound of an elephant's trumpet and a car driving through a puddle.

That is actually pretty cool.

[randomfrog]

The voice actor of Eric Cartman is a middle-age man by the name of Trey Parker who looks something like this.

[Dlarsh]

Continuing the Star Wars theme, in the origional release of episode IV, vasoline was applied to the bottom of the camera to create the illusion that the sand speeder on Tatooine was hovering.

[Dogmantra]

The sound of the TIE fighters in Star Wars was made by combining the sound of an elephant's trumpet and a car driving through a puddle.

That is actually pretty cool.

And the TARDIS noise is the sound of a key being scraped down a piano string, that was sped up then slowed down again, in a lossy way.

[Dragour]

The primary reason the English signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the native Maoris of New Zealand is because the French were eyeing up our lands and preparing to send their own army here because NZ was still considered 'native' soil, so when the english signed the treaty it became English soil.

[RobotNixon]

I'll throw my lot in with the Star Wars facts.
Maybe more historical facts will pop up later.

When filming the Sarlaac scene,
in Return of The Jedi,
Billy Dee King (Lando Calrissian) was injured.

In the part where the Sarlaac grabs Lando's leg
with one of it's feeding tendrils,
the part of the prop that gave it rigidity,
a metal wire, went partially through his leg,
causing the yelp of pain in the shot to be
more realistic than anticipated.

It wasn't until after the shot was over
that they realized that his pain was actually real.

Lesser men would have called it off,
but Billy Dee King just went with it.

[r]

David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, was not allowed to do the voice because he's from the West Country and probably wouldn't have commanded the same authority.

"Oo-arr, the force is strarrrng in this'un!"

This may not necessarily be true, so here's something that is - there is an off-road version of the Dacia Sandero.

[Jpot]

The sound of Darth Vader's breathing is actually recorded from a radiatior of some sort.

[Kestral]

The sound of Darth Vader's breathing is actually recorded from a radiatior of some sort.

It was a diver's mask I believe.

Ferns have over 1,000 chromosomes, compared to our 46.

[scribbane]

David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, was not allowed to do the voice because he's from the West Country and probably wouldn't have commanded the same authority.

"Oo-arr, the force is strarrrng in this'un!"

This may not necessarily be true, so here's something that is - there is an off-road version of the Dacia Sandero.

it actually is true, and to build on that, 4 actors have played vader in either body or voice. David Prowse as mentioned, James Earl Jones as voice, Hayden Christensen in Episode 3, and Sebastian Shaw at the end of episode 6. This goes for at least the 6 movies, i dont know about the rest of the portrayals because they dont count in my mind lol.

[Coulsonji]

In your life, you spend around 3 years sitting on the toilet. Hot damn!

[Dragour]

The country exactly opposite New Zealand is actually Portugal? Which is close to England, where out ancestors came from!

[dag71]

during the scene in the wizard of oz where the witch appears in a burst of flame, the actress was badly burned when her green facial paint caught on fire

[Dark Lord Cam]

George Romero hates the word "Zombie"

[Dark Spark]

David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, was not allowed to do the voice because he's from the West Country and probably wouldn't have commanded the same authority.

"Oo-arr, the force is strarrrng in this'un!"

That's not the end of it, kids. As you know, from the end of Episode 3, Darth Vader's voice is purely the work of a modulator built into his facemask. What does that mean? Whenever Darth Vader spoke, everyone else heard James Earl Jones' voice but it was Hayden Christensen's tepid whine echoing around inside his helmet.

Try imagining, every time Vader said something, as he himself must have heard it...

"Don't act so surprised, Your Highness! You weren't on any mercy mission this time!"

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!"

"No! I am your father!"

[Mattbott]

more supplementary David Prowse info:
David Prowse (Darth Vader) was also Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the BBC tv version of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and is also the manservant/personal assistant of the 'rich bloke' in Kubrick's film version of A Clockwork Orange (that's the 'rich bloke' who captures Malcolm MacDowell near the end of the movie and tortures him with music, in revenge).






the moon is moving away from the earth at the rate of 1 inch per year and if you look at the moon and the sun in the sky, they appear virtually identical in size because the sun is 400 times bigger in apparent size than the moon but is 400 times further away. Coincidence?

[r]

more supplementary David Prowse info:
David Prowse (Darth Vader) was also Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the BBC tv version of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and is also the manservant/personal assistant of the 'rich bloke' in Kubrick's film version of A Clockwork Orange (that's the 'rich bloke' who captures Malcolm MacDowell near the end of the movie and tortures him with music, in revenge).

He was the Green Cross Code man as well.


Matter is composed almost entirely of empty space - if an atom was the size of the Earth, the nucleus would be about the size of a small town in Hertfordshire and on an atomic scale the gaps between the particles of molecules are vast, yawning chasms. If the space was taken out of the matter making up every single person in the world, what you'd be left with would be the size of a sugar cube.

[Dogmantra]

Matter is composed almost entirely of empty space - if an atom was the size of the Earth, the nucleus would be about the size of a small town in Hertfordshire and on an atomic scale the gaps between the particles of molecules are vast, yawning chasms. If the space was taken out of the matter making up every single person in the world, what you'd be left with would be the size of a sugar cube.

Somone's been watching BBC's How Long is a Piece of String? with Alan Davies.

[r]

No, I knew it before then, but that was such an awesome programme. Alan Davies should present every episode of Horizon, or split it between him and Dr Brian Cox.