The " Did You Know.......?" Game

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

... recently german post is selling stamps with some green waves painted on it and white letters at the bottom saying "Gravitation Waves." So today I went to the local post office and said: "I'd like to purchase 10 gravitation waves." And guess what? With a smile from the clerk I got 10 gravitation waves for 7 Euros!
Now I can perform the part of the bad guy in some science fiction movie with 10 gravitation waves in my pocket!

[fantozzi]

Did you know...

...2018 formular one world championship consists of 21 races taking place on 5 continents which makes it necessary to travel 160.000 Kilometers in 9 month. For all teams having the same conditions and no one gains advantage not only every single screw and screwdriver but also the race cars themselves must be shipped alltogether (in a time frame less than 9 hours). Which means in total 600 tons of material packed in 100 containers on 100 trucks must be moved by 240 employees in less than half a day. Those trucks sometimes are loaded on 6 Boeing 747 cargo planes or - if there's enough time between two races - on two over sea cargo ships.

(source: DHL)

[PaPa-J]

 

[fantozzi]

Did you know...

there is a small island in northern Netherlands called Texel, 29 km long, 9 km wide, carring 12.000 habitants and 14.000 sheeps. It's a special race, the famous Texel-Sheep. Well it's not so famous for its wool, maybe a little fame is for the delicious meet, but mostly it's known for the very special shape. Because of the rough and windy weather it is very squat, with an almost flat back.

Now, quite often it happens, f.e. when those Texel-Sheeps fall asleep, they fall on their back. But because of their anatomy they can't get back on their feet by themselves. And if nobody helps they will die within half a day because of a circulary shock.

Therefore every tourist coming to the isle of Texel gets a brochure and a short instruction how to roll over sheeps. And this way - thanks to the many tourist coming to this little island well educated in first aid for sheeps - thousand of those animals can be safed each year.


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This video is on pregnant sheeps, having the same problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0iJQD7B6DQ

[fantozzi]

Did you know
the Red Baron, Baron von Richthofen, a good looking young guy, was the most hunted bachelor of the german empire? Every young woman wanted to meet him. But from the writing they left we know that he was a real superbore sitting with them on the couch always talking about his shootings and killings and aviation adventures. From the many women meeting him never ever was reported a single erotic experience - they all told the same about him: only talking about shooting and weapons. This might explain why he was some kind of sex symbol by his time but never got married.

[huzman]

Did you know that the word "short" is longer than the word "long"? 

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

... the Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman-Landaulet - this is the convertible version of the famous Mercedes Pullman - was based on a custom made Pullman exclusevely for Pope Paul VI. and was developed closely according his demands?



Not only the roof on the back could be removed but also the middle part of the coach and the last doors, the 'pope doors' became 25 cm longer by his demand. Also the whole roof part was liften by 7 cm.



So the very first Pullman-Landaulet had only 4 doors  - and to my knowledge it is the only Pullman-Landaulet that exists having only four door without the middle part(of in total 57 built).


This very first exemplar of the Pullman-Landaulet was devliered on september 10. 1965 to the pope.



8 days later, on september 18. 1965, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, Queen of England, landed on the airport of Köln/Bonn, visting Germany. She was taken by a second version of the Pullmann-Landaulet from the airport to the hotel, seems the developers of Mercedes Benz had built parallel without the 'pope stuff' so with a more regular cabin. You can see the shorter. regular back doors and the space between front and back doors, also regular baack seats:



So this was the first time the Mercedes Pullman-Landaulet was seen in public and many well known people phoned like Elvis Presley, Leonid Breschnew and Elizabeth Taylor the next day to order a Pullman-Landaulet too.
So many people today believe it was the German State first with Queen Elizabeth to be the first to be transported in this brand new car. This isn't entirely true. The first owner was Pope Paul VI. who even gave some ideas to build it.

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

... about the Tatra 16x8 truck with 6 steerable axles and powered by a 1100 hp caterpillar engine?

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...
The "Aletschgletscher" in Switzerland is the biggest glacier of the Alps and therefore very closely observed by scientists. Therefore it's known the glacier shortens 23 meters each year.
But since summer 2017 local authorities warn to visit the whole area at all. Those scientist observing the glacier discovered that with the disappearing of the ice it seems also pressure against the hillside is lost that used to stabilize the mountains. The whole mountain range declined by several degrees, deep chasms showed up in the last years and great parts of the whole valley is in danger to colapse.

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

first scientists investigating the naked mole in late 19th century called this animal "saber-tooth sausage".

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

according to UBS there are living 2158 Billionaires on this planet. The amount of billionaires in China grew from 318 to 373 in 2017. In the year 2000 there was recorded the first chinese billionaire.

But no one wants to be upper class. If you ask millionaires and billionaires most of them believe they are middle class people. A survey in austria amongst the 10 percent most rich people living there uncoverd that actually not a single one agreed to be rich. Instead 100 percent believed they are some kind of "well situated middle class".

Another actual example is the german politician Friedrich Merz, who wants to be next head of the CDU, following cancelor Angela Merkel. In a recent interview he was asked if he is upper class or middle class. And he said, he's just a normal middle class guy. Later in the interview he was asked if he's a millionaire. First he said, that isn't important. When the journalist insisted he had to confess that he is.

[jeffryfisher]

Did you know that if you're a seasoned citizen, then a transfusion of "young blood" may rejuvenate your mental health? At least that's what's implied by experiments in mice.
Now that I've satisfied the thread rule, some comments on earlier posts...
If you want to learn geography, make a map for Railroad Tycoon.
I wonder what happened to all of those out-of-work farmers... If robots of the future replace people in some of today's jobs, will the same thing happen?

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

.. if trees walk too slowly on the zebra crossing they become arrested. But don't worry, most trees are much slower than elderly humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ev3iVuC4Bs

[PaPa-J]

 

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

isotope dating shows the age of diamonds can vary from 100 million years up to 4,25 billion years.

In 1755 german philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote a "Theory about Heaven" an said the planets of our solar system did originate from a giant rotating cloud of dust. This is still the actuall and scientific explanation for the origin of our solar siystem. In 2010 the age of our solar system was proved by isotope dating to be 4,5682 billion years old.

Funny thing: the most valuable, most interesting diamonds regarding "eternalness" aren't used for jewelry. They have enclosures and are called impure.
But exactly those impure diamonds are the best storytellers. As they keep things inside and did carry information from the beginning of our world. An information memory of an age of 4,25 billion years. And still working. That's a world record, I guess?

[mattb325]

Der Spiegel has sacked an award winning journalist over claims he has fabricated stories, invented characters and quotes, for a number of years.

You can read the full article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46624297

The name of this journalist? Claas Relotius. *

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction 

*Disclaimer, I just thought this was a "funny coincidence"based on the surname and obvious parallels with sim-city custom content creation, this in no way is meant to represent my views on lot makers, or Germans, or German lot makers, or who people who make things up, or journalists, or anyone else who might take offence at anything and everything I say 

[fantozzi]

Relotius did give back all the prizes he won in his career and he was fired. Now he wouks have time to spend finally on SC4.




But did you know ...

... the most successfull projects of nature conservancy in Germany in 2018 was the re-establishment of the "Waldrapp" (hermit ibis). For many years captive breeding had the disadvantage that those stupid birds ...



... didn't know how to fly to south in winter times and so - when they were released to the wild the next winter they all died because of this knowledge missing.

This changed in 2018 when two fearless women, who have raised a bunch of european hermit ibis climbed a light plane and showed their birds how to evitate dangers and to arrive sane in southern europe.




Actually the birds followed them for  more than 1000 kilometers and learned the missing knowledge from humans.

Still we have to see if they manage to travel alone next winter or if they will need aerial escort on a regular basis.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo

[fantozzi]

So you can't stand classical music?


But did you know ...

.... "Where is the love" by the Black Eyed Peas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc) and "Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GER396B6M7w) sounds so similar because both did simply use the harmonies from the same source, Pachelbel's Canon:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmmiZ4Lk-tA.

And the famous ballad "Questions" by the Manfred Mann's Earthband (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvvstrKLvts) is a cover of Franz Schubert's Impromptu  Op.3, III.Movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_z9oSn-eIM).

And how funny to know when Radiohead is performing "Exit Music For a Film" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FavvK7La8) it's nothing else than a cover of Chopin's Prelude No. 4 (Chopin - Prelude No. 4 in E Minor).

No surprise it may be that Queen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHP-qgzUVLM) used famous melodies from opera (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxonfpfuTY).

But did you know that a large part of "Grace Kelly" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CGVgAYJyjk)by Mika was composed by Gioachino Rossini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWFmXFFjJfw).

[fantozzi]

Did you know...

The first blind person ever to win the german title "goal of the month" (soccer) was Serdal Celebi from blind footballers club FC St. Pauli in august 2018. The title "goal of the month" is presented by public TV amongst all goals in all regular leagues in germany and everybody can vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=U6O36O-XBWQ 

[fantozzi]

Did you know ...

the oldest letter of application that still exists today dates back to the year 1487 and was written by nobody less than Leonardo da Vinci. By this time Leonardo was living in Florence and after big success with sculptures, architecture and paintings he got monetary problems because there was rumors and gouvernal investigation about his homosexuality and everybody was afraid to engange him as by this (dark) times homosexuality was a terrible crime.

So he wrote a letter of application to the Duke of Milan but as he knew there was no big interest for artists he wrote that he was a very experienced engineer of military machinery - which was a complete lie. He even painted some of this machinery which today are quite famous but most probably he only copied these strange medieval tanks and catapults from other peoples books.

But his letter of application had success and soon he could do art again.

So if you ever wrote a letter of application not entirely true about your skills you shouldn't be too much worried about. Even a genius like Leonardo da Vinci did fib about his skills in the very first application letter we know about.