My Goddess

Trivia is the Roman goddess of sorcery, hounds and the crossroads.

...and this blog...of course.

Blockbuster buster

If you adjust for inflation the most expensive film ever made was "Cleopatra" in 1963. It was made with a budget of $44 million which is the equivalent to $250 million in todays money.

T not black

Henry Ford, commenting on his new Model T cars, is commonly believed to have coined the phrase "any colour you like, as long as it's black". In aactual fact there's absolutely no evidence that he ever said this and when the Model T was first released it wasn't available in black at all. You could however get them in silver, blue, red or green.

Those drunken party pranksters!

The Mona Lisa doesn't have any eyebrows, at the time it was painted, shaved eyebrows were the fashion!

Kermit the Frock

Muppets inventer Jim Henson first created Kermit in 1955 as a lizard. He was made from Henson's mother's coat and two halves of a ping-pong ball.

Weapon of mass confusion

Silverware botherer Uri Geller served in the Israeli army. Hopefully not with that same haircut though.

Them clever ancient Greeks

The first person to accurately measure the circumference of the Earth was an ancient Greek astronomer called Eratosthenes.
He calculated it at 25,000 miles which is extrodinarily close to the modern accepted measurement of 24,859 miles. That's only 141 miles out!

Happy snappers

The East Alligator River in Australia's Northern Territory doesn't actually contain any alligators.
it has plenty of crocodiles though.
There's nothing like being pedantic.

Where's your data?

Until hard drive technology becomes small enough to be used in mobile phones (not as far away as you may think by the way) it is completely impossible to recover data deleted from a mobile phone.

However, It's similarly impossible to remove data stored on a computer hard drive. People who know a little bit about hard-drive technology believe that "writing zeros" to a hard drive removes the old data, however it can still be recovered using modern forensic methods. So what's the solution? Maybe writing random characters? Sorry folks, that's no more effective than writing zero's. If you draw a picture in pencil on a piece of paper, then rub that picture out and draw a different picture on instead, it's still possible to see the original picture from indentations on the page. Hard drive data recovery works on the same principle.
The only real way to truly wipe data from a hard drive is to take it apart and emerse the plates in a strong acid until the magnetic surface is COMPLETELY dissolved. So remember folks, if you're into dodgy things - you will eventually get caught!

Damn that Hoover (my carpets are mucky!)

The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years! In fact, the concrete in it will not be fully set for around another 500 years.

Bonus ball of the day, a handy hint. When you wallpaper a room, make a note of the number of rolls you actually used and write it on the top of the door. It's out of sight but next time you need to paper the room you'll know exactly how many rolls to buy saving time and money.

A disperate imagination.

The comic book character wonder woman was created by William Moulton Marston who also invented the lie detector.

The Photophobic french monument... and electricity

Due to the effects of heat expansion the Eiffel tower always leans slightly away from the sun. (well during daylight hours that is).

Actually on todays I want to correct something which was shown to me recently presented as fact in the back of a "Nuts" magazine (of all places) from August last year. The "fact" states that electricity doesn't pass through a wire but rather in a field around the wire. This is utter rubbish. An electrical current is made up of moving electrons through a conductive media (ie a wire). The field around the wire is a magnetic field which is present as a result of the flowing electrons. Electricity is generated by moving a magnetic field around coils of wire but you tend to get electricity and magnetism together in some way shape or form. I know I haven't gone into any specifics (for any physicists reading this) but if you want a fact about electricity that most people dont know...

Many people believe that electricity flows from the positive to the negative but the electrons themselves actually flow from the negative to the positive. Electrons carry a negative charge. (the main reason for this common misconception comes down to terminology like "conventional current" which is used for certain applications fo electricity.)

Wierd Love

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

Those Windsor's...or are they?

The Royal Family's surname was actually made up by George V's private secretary in 1917, when it changed from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor as a gesture to ease anti-German feeling.

The Seventh Day

This one's themed for the day and feel free to check it out for yourself.

Did you know...
The word "Sunday" doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible!

Music

This one made me chuckle and could be filed under music or blagging.

In June 1988 James Brown's wife tried to get her traffic tickets dismissed using "diplomatic immunity" as her defence.
She claimed that her husband was the official "Ambassador of Soul".
Needless to say she lost the case.

This first one had better be good...

Well hopefully this won't dissapoint.
It's widely believed that statues of millitary folk on horseback show how the rider died by the number of hooves the horse has in the air. This is completely false. I won't bore you with the full explanation and proof but you can find it by following this link
http://www.snopes.com/military/statue.htm

Since this is the first day I'll give you two for the price of one.
Captain Pugwash, an innocent children's cartoon with hugely sexually suggestive characters? Many think so but....no, sorry it's not true. The REAL crew of the Black Pig were cabin boy Tom, pirates Willy and Barnabas, and Master Mate.
This urban legend even lead to the auther, John Ryan, successfully sueing The Guardian newspaper in 1991 for reporting the popular myth as fact.
See... it's been proven in a court of law.
For more info go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Pugwash

More tomorrow!

In The Beginning...

It's time for...................(drumroll).........TRIVIA OF THE DAY!!(fanfare)
Every single day I'll be posting a new piece of trivia on this blog.
Let's see how long it lasts!