Random Facts - Page 17

[Reverend Jim]

Deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 80% since 2004. Source

[ddanbe]

A conventional deck of 52 playing cards can be arranged in 52! different ways wich is equal to:
80 658 175 170 943 878 571 660 636 856 403 766 975 289 505 440 883 277 824 000 000 000 000
Source: "Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers" (Jan Gullberg)

[Reverend Jim]

In other words, every time you shuffle a deck of cards you almost certainly have created an ordering which has never existed in the universe before.

[vegaseat]

About the size of the National Debt of the United States in another 20.7 years.

[Agilemind]

About the size of the National Debt of the United States in another 20.7 years.

Except that national debt doesn't and has never grown exponentially. Largely because part of the budget is always spent on debt payments (thus reducing the debt) even when countries run deficits -> eg. the UK paid off its WW1 war debt in 2015 while running a budget deficit of 4% of GDP.

[Reverend Jim]

Ben Carson (a man who would be president) appears to have no understanding of that either . Source

[lambsshines]

thank you to all

[vegaseat]

Asylum seekers in Germany complaints:
The free food is bad.
Not enough free spending money.
The bathrooms stink.
The free rooms are cold.

German complaints about their guests:
Most don't know how to use a toilet.

Picked up from various news sources (mostly BBC).

[Reverend Jim]

There have been 1000 mass shootings in the US since Sandy Hook. Source

[vegaseat]

Maybe this keeps mass shootings away from Kentucky ...

From January 1 to September 30, 2015, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted more than 2.3 million background checks on Kentuckians buying guns, along with nearly 1.2 million checks in California and roughly 1.1 million in Texas. Kentucky’s population currently numbers 4.4 million, which means the FBI carried out one firearms background check for roughly every two Kentucky residents. Just to remind you, background checks are supposed to keep guns and idiots apart.

Source ...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/republic3-0/2015/10/which_states_have_the_most_gun057962.php

[ddanbe]

The first excel version 1.0 appeared on a Macintosh in 1985. Thirthy year ago!
It was about two years later that Excel appeared on Windows.

This is a link to a wikipedia page in Dutch, where this is mentioned. If you change to the English version this fact is suddenly forgotten.
What is the value of an encyclopedia when the information given depends on the language you use?

[Agilemind]

What is the value of an encyclopedia when the information given depends on the language you use?

I'd bet printed encyclopedia's vary a ton by country/language too, history textbooks certainly do. But then again relatively little knowledge is definitive, it's usually just our current best guess. See: Half-life of knowledge

[ddanbe]

It was just a small random fact I was reading. I usually read the English version because most of the time it contains more info. Here I was wondering. But thanks both, for enlightning my mind. :-)

[ddanbe]

Simula was developed in 1960. It was the first object oriented language.
It lead Stroustrup to develop C++. Source.

[Agilemind]

Despite being the fastest land animals in the world cheetahs are only successful 40-50% of hunting attempts, but are often more stressed after the kill than during the chase: Source

[Reverend Jim]

US police seized $4.5 billion in cash and property through civil forfeiture in 2014. In the same period $3.9 billion worth of property was stolen in burglaries. Under civil forfeiture, police do not have to provide any proof of criminal activity. You must show proof of innocence in order to get your assets returned.

[Stuugie]

Wanted to give you a thumbs down on that one RJ! :)

[Agilemind]

In honor of the anniversary of Rosa Parks & the bus protest:
The first person arrested for refusing the move to the back of a bus in Montgomery Alabama was actually Claudette Colvin who was just 16 years old at the time. She preceeded Rosa Parks by ~ 9months but was not widely publicized by the NAACP because of her young age and the fact that she was pregnant & unmarried at the time of the event. However, she testified along with Rosa Parks and 3 others in the Browder v. Gayle case which overturned bus segregation laws. She's now a retired nurse living in New York City.

[Reverend Jim]

In the last 43 years, more Americans have been shot by another American - shot and killed by another American - than all of America’s soldiers killed in wars in the last 240 years.

[Stuugie]

In Arkansas there still exists a law that was instated in the 1800s that states a husband is allowed to beat his wife, but only once a month.

[Agilemind]

Up until 1993 it was legal to rape your spouse (usually wife) in North Carolina and Oklahoma

[Reverend Jim]

There is a trilobite genus designated "Han". It contains only one species named "Han Solo". Source

[Reverend Jim]

When Hugh Hefner wanted to start Playboy, his father refused to lend him the money. However, his mother was more open-minded and provided him with the seed money. Source

[Nutster]

Agilemind said:

Up until 1993 it was legal to rape your spouse (usually wife) in North Carolina and Oklahoma.

Legally, it wasn't even considered rape. The argument was that you consented to any and all sexual activity with the person you were marrying during the wedding ceremony. You might be able to get him (or her) charged with assault, but not rape.

[Reverend Jim]

In 2007, Missouri repealed a number of gun control laws including one requiring universal background checks. Since then that state's gun homicide rate has increased by 16%. [Source]{http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/health/in-missouri-fewer-gun-restrictions-and-more-gun-killings.html}

[Reverend Jim]

71 - number of Americans killed by terrorists in the last decade.
301,797 - number of Americans killed by guns in the last decade (as of Oct 1, 2015).

Source

[Nutster]

Reverend Jim said:

71 - number of Americans killed by terrorists in the last decade.
301,797 - number of Americans killed by guns in the last decade

Even if you expand that another decade, so you can include trucks loaded with ANFO and some transcontinental airplanes as weapons, the terrorist-kill number is still less than 4000 and the gun violence numbers pretty much double. Yet another reason for this Canadian not to move to the States; the right to bear arms is not in the constitution.

[Nutster]

In the United States, the right to bear arms is a result of the wording in the constitution. The wording of the clause in the document says the reason is to support a strong militia. Somehow, I do not think that most of the gang-bangers and mass-shooters are supporting a militia.

In Canada, the right to bear breasts is a result of wording in the constitution. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that the government shall make no law that discriminates on a list of things, including gender. So if it is reasonable for a man to be topless in a given situation, then the law says a woman can be topless as well.

Charter: Part I - 15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

[Reverend Jim]

Number of deaths in the US in 2013 according to the CDC

1. Heart disease: 611,105
2. Cancer: 584,881
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205
4. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557
5. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978
6. Alzheimer's disease: 84,767
7. Diabetes: 75,578
8. Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,979
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 47,112
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide): 41,149

Total for the above is 1,910,311. In comparison, since 9/11, 93 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on US soil, the majority by white, conservative terrorists.

[Reverend Jim]

When the 2002 Euro banknotes were designed they created fictitious bridges to not favour any one country. Then a Dutch designer went ahead and built the bridges for real.

Source