The baffling and shocking things you've learned.

[SilverUchiha]

What's something that you've discovered, learned, found out, etc. that just completely baffled you? Anything at all, really. Maybe you can shock someone else with your knowledge in this thread. xD

For me, it'd be the fact that I discovered that "The Lion King" was based off/paralleled with Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Someone in my English class said it (we're reading Hamlet now) and it pretty much floored the entire class.
...I still can't get over it...

Now, it's your turn. :3

I'd have to hope that is some other version of Lion King and not Disney's version. I only see a similarity in basic plot. Aside from that, the whole cast of Lion King is alive while just about everyone dies in Hamlet.

OT: Joking aside, AMAZING fact I've learned is that more people online dislike Halo and Final Fantasy than I thought.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Smart people, but in a democracy they're so severely outnumbered that it's a hopeless cause.

I hear that intelligent and well-educated politicians are actually distrusted far more in America. That kind of thing would be inconceivable here. We distrust our politicians as a rule of thumb certainly, but we'd distrust them far more, and would be scared of giving them power, if they weren't excellently educated.

Ever seen Idiocracy? Yeah. It's kind of like that. Long before that movie came out, I was using the word to describe America and its politics in my blog.

Not seen, but I definitely know of it, and what it's about. My greatest fear is that most of the population will end up like that.

 

[feather240]

That in community college, teachers' performance evaluations are partially based on how many students drop or don't drop the class, so they have an incentive to dumb the material way down so the stupid people stick with it.

Then again, in a stroke of Fridge Brilliance, I thought "no wonder the average wage for an associate's degree is only about a nickel on the dollar higher than for a high school education only!" Those same idiots transfer to the full university as juniors...and flunk out.

I prefer my high school's way of doing it - those that take the test are the ones we judge the teacher on. Those that drop out - basically fuck them.

American high schools can't do that because of our asinine No Child Left Behind law, that basically codifies "dumb it down for the most retarded student" as the law of the land.

I'd love to see the state that basically tells the US Department of Education to take its school-funding extortion and shove it up its ass.

On the bright side, the smarter students would probably completely destroy those tests, wouldn't they?

Except the smart students get cheated out of an education because the teachers just teach to the standardized test because if it's not on the test, it's not something schools want to acknowledge even exists. Total race to the bottom---explains why America's getting dumber.

Thankfully, private schools aren't held to this requirement, but then again, that only increases the rich-poor divide because the rich can afford to send their kids to schools that don't suck.

...but then you go to a private school and learn that some people are very aware that they won't be kicked out because they have money.

 

[Wardnath]

I learned that absolutely everything is composed of mostly empty space. (Due to the spacing of electrons from the nucleus of an atom.) And if you took all 6Billion of us, took away the empty space and compressed us down. We would be the size of A Single Sugar Cube

Conversely, if you removed all of someone's blood vessels, that is to say, veins, arteries and capillaries, and laid them out, they would wrap around the earth at least twice over.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Squirrel habitats are called dreys.

 

[Tharwen]

Nothing matters! Not one thing in this entire Universe matters! It's incredible!

!

 

[Quaxar]

I learned that absolutely everything is composed of mostly empty space. (Due to the spacing of electrons from the nucleus of an atom.) And if you took all 6Billion of us, took away the empty space and compressed us down. We would be the size of A Single Sugar Cube

Conversely, if you removed all of someone's blood vessels, that is to say, veins, arteries and capillaries, and laid them out, they would wrap around the earth at least twice over.

That looks like a thing some scientists should test practically.

OT: polar bears are left-pawed and James Bond is actually a pussy version of the actual Ian Fleming.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Nothing matters! Not one thing in this entire Universe matters! It's incredible!

!

Now is that a hilarious joke about matter, or are you being a tiresome nihilist?

That looks like a thing some scientists should test practically.

OT: polar bears are left-pawed and James Bond is actually a pussy version of the actual Ian Fleming.

I'd donate my body to science just for it. In fact, everyone should donate their body to science, because what a waste of flesh otherwise, and because it's fun to say, "to science!"

James Bond, when he orders a Vodka Martini, "shaken, not stirred", is actually ordering a watered-down version of it, as when you stir it, it's so the ice doesn't get chipped. Bond is not as manly as first thought, though I guess he wouldn't get anything done if he went through his missions blind drunk.

 

[omega 616]

Don't try this at home kids.

You can throw a cat out of 7 (plus a few) story window and it will live, out of the 6th it will die.

 

[Warchiefwill]

Pepsi and coke are the same!!!!!!!!! O_O

 

[Warchiefwill]

Pepsi and cola are the same thing!!!!!!!!!!!!! O_O

 

[Tharwen]

Nothing matters! Not one thing in this entire Universe matters! It's incredible!

!

Now is that a hilarious joke about matter, or are you being a tiresome nihilist?

It can be whatever you want it to be, my friend.

[sub]I meant that there is absolutely no purpose to anything except what humans assign to it.[/sub]

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Don't try this at home kids.

You can throw a cat out of 7 (plus a few) story window and it will live, out of the 6th it will die.

I would love to know how that was figured out.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Nothing matters! Not one thing in this entire Universe matters! It's incredible!

!

Now is that a hilarious joke about matter, or are you being a tiresome nihilist?

It can be whatever you want it to be, my friend.

[sub]I meant that there is absolutely no purpose to anything except what humans assign to it.[/sub]

As in, we could assign a different purpose to our toasters, and designate them as weapons of war?

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Pixar's "A Bug's Life" is actually yet another version of Kurosawa's "7 Samurai". The first time I noticed that I laughed.

I recently found out that my boss keeps about 70% of what the contractors get paid for a given sale and only hands them 30%. Of course, none of them know that and that 30% is still a decent amount of $.

House cats have scent glands right next to their anus. If they don't have the opportunity to use them on bushes and such out doors the glands can become impacted/infected. Vets recommend you stick your finger up the cat's bum and squeeze the glands on a somewhat regular basis to prevent this. The fluid in the glands smells terrible.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Broccoli has 12 essential vitamins and minerals all lovingly packed into tiny, green trees. It's a miracle.

Who gets the reference?

 

[Jeff Nims]

That the crane fly is dangerously venomous is actually a common misconception. There is no evidence for it, or for similar misconceptions like the daddy long legs spider being venomous

 

[Omikron009]

Broccoli has 12 essential vitamins and minerals all lovingly packed into tiny, green trees. It's a miracle.

Who gets the reference?

It's from one of those stupid eat broccoli PSAs on TV. They also forget to mention that it literally tastes bad enough to make me retch.

 

[omega 616]

Don't try this at home kids.

You can throw a cat out of 7 (plus a few) story window and it will live, out of the 6th it will die.

I would love to know how that was figured out.

A cats terminal velocity is about 70 MPH (if I remember right) and when they reach it they spread out and kind of glide to safety, I think it's were those two cat saying comes from. (9 lives and always lands on it's feet)

 

[CounterAttack]

Red Bull was originally marketed as a hangover cure, and sold in medicinal vending machines.