100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a BBC list of 100 topical pieces of information that they've reported on over the course of 2005. While some of them are very Brit-specific ("16. The London borough of Westminster has an average of 20 pieces of chewing gum for every square metre of pavement."), there are some interesting, touching, and humorous stories in there. "20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood. 32. 'Restaurant' is the most mis-spelled word in search engines. 65. Actor James Doohan, who played Scotty, had a hand in creating the Klingon language that was used in the movies, and which Shakespeare plays were subsequently translated into."

#65: Incorrect

[jvalenzu]

Uh, 65 is incorrect. I think we all remember Star Trek VI where Chancellor Gorkon mentions that Shakespeare was originally written in Klingon. I can't believe they let this one through.

99. chokuegambo

[megrims]

Why didn't we know the japanese word "chokuegambo" last year?
Is it a new word? Or are they assuming that nobody here speaks japanese?

101.

[Anonymous Coward]

32% of all Slashdot stories are duplicates :)

I dont think this guy was born in the 1600s

[Tezkah]

19. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".


16th Century? I'm pretty sure that guy posts on slashdot regularly. "oi got frist psot"

Re:#65: Incorrect

[ZachPruckowski]

Dude, it's New Year's Eve, one of the biggest party nights of the year, and you're correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds. That's so geeky and nonsocial that I have to say... wait a second....%*&@!

Gee...

[setirw]

Bill Gates does not own an iPod. That's odd... Number 101: Steve Jobs does not run Windows!

bah...

[FooAtWFU]

bah, Neatorama [neatorama.com] had this many days ago, and they had the sense to hilight No. #78, "One in 18 people has a third nipple".

Re:99. chokuegambo

[LordHatrus]

Clearly, you haven't been playing Japanese games like Final Fantasy. I spent years inbreeding my chokuegambos until I got the illustrious Golden Chokuegambo!

I like this one

[Kohath]

One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

That must be a pretty sturdy bed.

Step 4. ??????

[matt21811]

32. 'Restaurant' is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.

There is a lot of money to be made if you could get the top list of mispelled words in search engines.

Re:#65: Incorrect

[Ruff_ilb]

And, uh, you're correcting someone correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds.

And I'm correcting someone someone correcting some news story about Klingons and Star Trek on a website for nerds.

I think that the geekiness is about to make my modem explo

*No Carrier*

Re:Topical?

[Rellik66]

Under what resolution?

umm, 1024x768?

Gates/iPod

[kitzilla]

Actually, I believe Gates has been a major iPod fanboy [ipoditude.com] for a long time ... going back, it would seem, to the days of the 5-1/4" floppy. Talk about an early adopter!

A bunch of hot air.....

[jakebluez]

66. The hotter it is, the more difficult it is for aeroplanes to take off. Air passengers in Nevada, where temperatures have reached 120F, have been told they can't fly.

Funny. I was sure my flight instructor told me this the first day of flight school. I guess this explains the success of the European aerospace industry.

Do you take... cash? Cha-Ching!

[James_G]

100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance".

No Stairway? Denied!

Re:Hmmph.

[kfg]

. . .what do I get once my win has been confirmed?

Cremated.

KFG

20 is obvious

[twitter]

20. The Queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood.

Obviously. Had she ever used his software, she would have cut off his head.

Re:#65: Incorrect

[cashman73]

And I just impressed a couple of chicks by showing them that I'm one out of 18 people,... :-)

Re:I like this one

[Anonymous Coward]

One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

That must be a pretty sturdy bed.

It's clear that Europeans are taking socialism a bit too far.

Re:#65: Incorrect

[Ruff_ilb]

They can if you're part borg like me.

"Is that an .iso in your hard drive, or are you just happy to see me?"

Re:#39

[gshirley]

Voting is not compulsory. Turning up to get your name ticked off is.

Number 11

[AndreiK]

"11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed." I wonder if Ikea can take claims to those children as prior art?

Re:Hmmm...

[Derling Whirvish]

Here are some real-life examples:

One Hundred & Ninety-Nine Barrels of Whiskey v. United States, 94 U.S. 86 [justia.us]

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. ONE 1988 PREVOST LIBERTY MOTOR HOME, Measuring 40 Feet in Length, also known by Vehicle Identification Number 2P9M33403J, and Bearing Oregon License Plate H998173, Defendant

7 Fifths Old Grand-Dad Whiskey v. U.S., 158 F.2d 34

Pennsylvania v. $7,000 in U.S. Currency, 742 A.2d 711

Mayo v. Satan and His Staff 54 F.R.D. 282 [exogenous.org] This one is interesting because the judge threw out the case based on the fact that the plaintiff could not prove he served notice to the defendent (that being the aforenamed Mr. Satan and his staff in Hell).

Re:Hmmph.

[Tordek]

Duh, it disguises as a coconut to be carried by swallows. It even includes the string.

#1. First mobile phone call

[haydon4]

FTA: The UK's first mobile phone call was made 20 years ago this year, when Ernie Wise rang the Vodafone head office, which was then above a curry shop in Newbury.

Was the guy on the other end named Watson by any chance?

Last year this time?

[ultramk]

Personally, I didn't know where my pants were.

Long story.

m-

Re:First-born

[game kid]

A mix of all three. In fact, let's take it bit by bit...

more promiscuous

Hot whores...

less creative

...who make music that's not worth buying...

but more stable

...and yet own mansions.


So they grow up to become professional pop stars! w00t! (My apologies, I'm just jealous since I'm a last child...)

Re:I like this one

[trewornan]

Hard to even imagine the size of the wet spot in that bed.

Re:Do you take... cash? Cha-Ching!

[Howzer]

The best guitar shop in Sydney, Australia has a sign:

"Play 'Stairway' or 'Classical Gas' and we'll staple your elbows together."

They're letting people off _way_ too easy IMO.

Re:Hmmph.

[loserface]

I'll agree with that, as I call the Clue characters by their original names.

Re:Number 11

[Guppy06]

Depends. Does the child arrive requiring assembly and packaged with an Allen wrench?

The universally understood equal sign

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked this one:

19. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".

I've still never understood why programming languages use the ugly == sign to mean "is equal to" when the universally understood = has been around for over 400 years. I still cringe when people use == in everyday writing to mean equal. Neither have I come across a single convincing explanation as to why programming language designers felt the need to redefine what = means in a language (laziness in typing, convenience or expediency are not convincing reasons IMO)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:#65: Incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's just fragmentation, his filesystem hasn't been FSCKed since it was installed.