KIPPAGE: Fun Facts and Useless Information 17

Jazzsoda's Note: Alas, it's that time of year again when I travel for the holidays slash month of December and leave you to ponder KIP's musings in my absence. Think about these fun facts and useless information as you reminisce about the past year... scratch that, just think about these fun facts and useless information. I'll be away from December 9th to January 2nd, and back to capping on January 7th. While I'm away I've given the chimps paintball guns and told them that WEIRD badly wants their banana stash in the breakroom fridge. Also, they've all been wearing headdresses ever since our visit to Standing Rock, so try not to get too freaked out by their coordinated raids. It's all in good fu-PUT THAT HATCHET DOWN MR CHIMPLETON! Oh, I can't stay mad at you. Happy Holidays everyone! Take it away, KIP...

Welcome to this year's Fun Facts, and Useless Information, #17.

I would like to Thank My Wonderful Wife, Amorosa for making this possible, helping me out, correcting the prose, making sure that I eat, and sleep while putting together this once a year effort to entertain and inform. She does the Brain work, and I do the Ape work, on, and in just about everything we do, which makes us a Great Team!

And a Great Big Thanks to Jazz for allowing me to put this on his blog, along with his continued efforts to keep us all on HCC, instead of the streets with our imaginations, which in a lot of cases would probably get us locked up.

So, here are some vignettes that will amaze, confound, disgust, and give you fuel for thought. Enjoy!


SPACE ODDITIES, AND THEN SOME.

It's been said that the more we learn about space, the more questions pop up as to why it is that way. Here are a few things to consider:

Space is not a total vacuum, it contains all of the elements we have on Earth, both solid and gaseous. 

Nor is it all totally absolute zero, due to that any object or mass in space will radiate heat, although minuscule in its output.

If you could hold a dice shaped piece of the center of the sun in your hand, it would weight 100,000,000 million tons.

Some scientists speculate that it rains diamonds in Jupiter's atmosphere.

Holst's "The Planets" aside, each planet in our solar system makes a signature noise.

When a comet comes close to the Earth, temperatures usually drop ten degrees when particles of the comet's tail touches the Earth.

Several of the small moons around Jupiter, and Saturn contain enough gasses to fuel, and power space craft for hundreds of years.

Without a space / pressure suit, the human body in space would first explode and then freeze solid in less than three seconds after being exposed to the extremely low temperature of space. You have one ton of air pressing down on you at any one time, which keeps you from exploding here on Earth.

Nebulous gasses attract each other, and slowly coalesce into new stars, sort of a birthing place of suns, and then when the suns reach enough mass either push each other away, or collide with each other, sometimes forming huge masses of heat and debris, which eventually form new solar systems.

Every so often, the sky darkens during the daytime, in the past this was thought to be God being angry at his children for something they did wrong. It has been determined that there are huge groups of small dust particles traveling through the void of space, and every so often they cross in between the sun and Earth, and block out some, or all of the light, during the day, and making a false eclipse for a few minutes, or hours.

There is an asteroid belt between Mars, and Jupiter, it is hypothesized that if these small planetoids were massed together, they would form a planet about the size of Venus. Which leads to another possibility that the asteroid belt was either once a planet that came apart, or never really formed.

The human body, if left in the weightlessness of space, would slowly degenerate, or maybe accelerate into something like an Octopus. Gravity is mainly what keeps our bones solid, that is why astronauts need to exercise vigorously while in space, to keep their muscles, and bones intact. Isometric exercises are one factor, along with taking supplements of calcium, and other vitamins while floating along out there to stay in human form.

Rotating the space craft also helps by creating a form of gravity, all of these factors now play into a person's survival in space.

It has been said that 75% of the Universe is missing. When the Big Bang happened, and scattered the stars into the void, 75% of of it vanished, to where, no one has been able to determine that yet. What we have left is beyond what the human mind is capable of understanding, let alone another 75% that isn't there anymore. Until we make something of ourselves, and go out and explore space, all we will ever know is what we can find out with telescopes, robots, and the few footsteps that have been made on the moon so far. What is space?  A name on something we know hardly anything about, for a reference point.


String 'em along.

String might seem a strange thing to put into an FFUI vignette, however consider these tidbits:

A string is a flexible piece of twine which ties, hangs or binds something. A rope is made up of six twines, while a string is made up of less than 6 twines. So you could have a thick piece of string that wouldn't be considered a rope if it had less than six twines, but still look like a rope.

String is made from many different sources, Hemp, cotton, wood, metal, just about any fibrous material, organic, or non, can be made into string.

Hemp, is used for making rope, which is in effect thousands of small strings tightly wound and twisted into the familiar rope shape, sometimes with an adhesive added, other times just by its strength as a fiber alone. Hemp can also be made into a fuel, clothing, a tofu like substance, durable soles for shoes, and many other uses that employ strings for their underlying structures. String has even been used as body armor in the warring past, along with leather and lacquer making a formidable shield which is hard to penetrate even with bullets, although bullets during the feudal times did not have the velocity that present ones do.

Cotton string has held many a kite for hundreds of years, however before cotton string, plant fibers of different kinds were used, along with tree bark to hold primitive kite like objects in the air. Examples of these have been found in ancient tombs in many different countries over the years.

An interesting side note kind of related to this : A Black Widow's web / string has a very high tension and strength, you can drop a dime on their web, and it will not go through the web in a lot of cases. Humming birds steal a black widows web string to make their nests with. The web strength is so strong and durable, that humming bird nests hundreds of years old have been found intact because of this.

Metal strings? Of course, one of the basic metal strings, are on the guitar, or just about any string instrument, unless catgut, or a similar flexible fiber or nylon is used. 

Then there are metal cable strings which we use in everyday life. Does your car have steel belted radials? If so, you are using a metal string when you drive. Bridges use flexible metal cables in a lot of cases for expansion, and contraction purposes, as well as holding up the bridge in key places. Even though bridges have expansion joints, those cables are an important part of the bridge's stability and life.

If all of the string now present in the world were wrapped up in a ball, the ball would be one third the size of the moon.

Then there is the String Theory, but, we're not going to go into that.


JOE KAFFE

Coffee goes by many names: Joe, Mud, Java, Melange, Red eye, Black eye, Green eye, Irish coffee, Latte', Kaffee, Espresso, Ubuntu, etc.

It's what a good amount of people drink in the morning to ground (coffee) them to the planet when they wake up in the morning, or whatever time of day it is. Here are a few drops to think on.

Americans drink right around 350 million cups of coffee per day, were all that energy from the caffeine bundled up and used, it could theoretically send the Space Shuttle to the moon and back.

Caffeine is a drug, a legal one, and one of the worlds most popular mood altering substances.

According to archeologists, humans have been brewing beverages from caffeine based plants since the stone age, from evidence found in archeological digs.

What caffeine does for your body, it doesn't keep you awake, but stimulates your nervous system making your body, and mind think it either isn't tired, or is fully charged ready to go. That is one of the reasons it is classified as a drug. 

Once your body figures this out, then it will produce more of the chemical 'Adenosine' which promotes sleep, and the receptor cells in your brain will then determine the difference between caffeine and adenosine and coffee won't keep you awake anymore unless you imbibe more coffee than usual. Then the circle starts all over again.

After drinking this much coffee, and re-adjusting the chemical processes of your brain, should you all of a sudden quit drinking coffee, you have the big let down of course. Your brain will have too many receptor cells for the caffeine, and not enough for the adenosine, and a Curmudgeon is born, headaches, lethargy, fatigue, muscle pain, flu like symptoms etc. So, it would be best if you are going to quit drinking coffee, to do it gradually if possible.

The good effects of coffee are increased awareness, being alert, better memory, able to learn things easier, increased ability in mathematics, and concentration on things.

The not so good effects are: Tremors of the hands, loss of co-ordination, appetite decreases, insomnia, and though not totally proven, heart palpitations, and respiratory distress.

The average American drinks 2-3 cups of coffee per day. How the coffee is made depends on its strength level of caffeine, instant coffee has less caffeine in it than brewed coffee; Brewed coffee takes a little longer to make, and thus releases more caffeine in the process.

Who gets the most caffeine, adults, or kids? According to several studies, kids do, from chocolate, and soda pop drinks, or at least as much as adults who consume the 2-3 cups per day. So, that's why they bounce off the walls and become little hellions sometimes.

So, the best part of waking up, is not so much that cup of coffee, but comprehending what planet you're on after a good night's sleep, with that cup of coffee. Enjoy.


BOYS IN THE BAND (and Girls).

Ever wonder how some of the rock n roll, and other bands got their names, here are a few noshes:

Cream: Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker, were called the cream of the blues musicians by many people, and they decided to take on that name for their band.

Elton John: He was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, and joined Long John Baldry's band (Don't try to lay no boogie woogie on the king of rock n roll). He chose his name from John Baldry's first name, and Elton Dean, the saxophonist's first name.

David Bowie: Was born David Robert Jones, he changed his name so that he would not be mistaken for Davy Jones of the Monkees. He chose Bowie after the famous Texas toothpick of Jim Bowie, the Bowie Knife.

The B52s: Named after the famous air force jet bomber.


IT IS SAID:

Some sayings we have now, were originated by circumstances not totally in our control:

FLY OFF THE HANDLE:
Means to get angry very fast. 
In the past before axe heads were produced en masse, along with handles that didn't fit all that well, the head of the axe would come loose and go flying, sometimes hitting other objects, and people and doing damage. Which would piss off either the axe wielder, or the object / person on the receiving end.

EATING HIGH ON THE HOG:
Means to live a life of decadence, having only the best of everything.
Also denotes getting the hog's brain, which is a delicacy in many cultures.

PULLING THE WOOL OVER SOMEONE'S EYES:
Fooling someone into thinking that something is so, when it isn't. 
This is from the time when men wore powdered wigs, similar to what the judges in England still wear. The term came from the actual pulling of the hairpiece over a man's eyes so he couldn't see what was going on in front of him, such as a highway man robbing a coach of a nobleman, and the highway man pulling his wig down so he couldn't identify him to the authorities.

LETTING THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG:
The hidden truth, or secret is made known. 
In county fairs during the 17-1800s, a practice of selling baby pigs, or other meat bearing creatures was that the animal was in a burlap bag, unseen, and the unwary buyer might think they were buying such a creature at a bargain, when, in truth, there was a cat, or cats in the bag instead. Thus, if the buyer wanted to see the baby pig, or whatever, the bag had to be opened, and "The cat was let out of the bag".


FOOD IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER, AND OTHER MEALS.

WHY DOES MEAT BROWN WHEN YOU BAKE, FRY, OR COOK IT?
Heat causes the meat to brown because it breaks down the proteins, and sugars and separates them into the elements they are made from. Then it slowly reforms into a lesser combination of those proteins and sugars, which are by then changed into a different substance that mildly charcoals, causing the brownish color. (Or if you prefer, you can cook it till it's like leather).

WHY DO EGGS TURN WHITE WHEN YOU FRY, HARD-BOIL, OR COOK THEM?
Heat again is the culprit, breaking down the proteins and sugars, and reforming the molecules into a slightly different structure, causing the opaqueness, or white color of the clear amniotic fluid around the yolk.

BREAD AND CIRCUSES.
What causes bread to rise, yeast you say? Yes, but it's actually what the yeast does that causes bread to rise. Once yeast is added and mixed into the bread dough, it is allowed to sit in a warm spot. While this is happening, the yeast eats the sugars in the bread making a by product of carbon dioxide, which form tiny bubbles in the bread making it swell up like the Zeppelin airships of the past. It also ferments a little bit leaving behind a slight alcoholic flavor, which mostly evaporates as the bread is baked. You could actually make a bread wine if you were to put it in a vat, and kept adding pure water, and more sugar to this mix. You can make wine out of just about anything, then you could have a circus in your head from "Sampling" the mixture.

Here is a recipe for anyone who would care to try it:

Honey & Lime Game Hen.

This is a per person recipe, and can be changed to suit the Chef's tastes, it doesn't work so well with chicken though. I think the bird has to have a little "Wild" in it, for that gamey taste. Will probably work with duck and pheasant.

Take one Rock Cornish game hen, stuffed or not.

Start it baking at 350* and bake it at this temperature for the whole time.

Take a tall microwave safe glass, put an good shot of your favorite lime juice in the bottom, add a nice big tablespoon of honey, a shot of Tequila, add butter salt, pepper, garlic to your taste preference, then fill the glass up with water, and microwave the mixture until it is juiced.

When the bird is just over halfway done, take a fork and poke the bejabbers out of it with a fork all over. Then add some of the Honey & Lime juice mixture to it. Do this every so often as the bird cooks, keep turning the bird, and adding more of the mixture every so often until the juice is used up. Then keep basting the bird with the collected juice in the pan until the meat is brown and falling off of the bones. Serve the bird, and save the juice in the pan for dipping sauce served in small bowls for each guest.

This recipe can be changed to suit the person's tastes. Enjoy.


IT'S THE (INTERNATIONAL) LAW.

These are some laws that may or may not be on the books, but they are interesting.

In several countries, the speed limit for a tricycle is ten miles per hour.

In some countries, it is against the law to operate a vehicle from the back seat. (I would think that applies anywhere).

In some countries, it is okay for a Policeman to bite a dog if they think it will make the dog calm down.

In some states, it is illegal to take a lion to the movies.

In some states, it is against the law to sell erotic literature, or adult toys, any closer than 1000 feet from any highway, roadway, or freeway.

In some states, it is against the law to tickle a woman in public.

In some states, Bingo games cannot last over five hours.

In some states, and countries, it is illegal to drive with a monkey in your back seat. (Jazz, pay attention to this).

In some states, you cannot have more than one alcoholic drink in front of you at any one time.

In some states, it is against the law to catch fish with your bare hands.

In some states, and countries, it is against the law to hold your breath for more than a minute.

In some states, and countries, you can be fined for harassing Bigfoot, Sasquatch, The Abominable Snowman, or related creatures.


MONEY, MONEY MONEY, MONNNNEY ... MONEY!!!

A few facts about paper and metal currency.

President Roosevelt's image is on our dime because he was one of the founders of the March of Dimes foundation. He had polio, and helped to start one of the foundation's first hospitals for the disease.

In the distant past, humans began using flat cow shaped bronze ingots as currency, each ingot weighed anywhere from a few pounds, to over a hundred pounds each, and were used to exchange different sized ingots, for the weight of cows as to what they were worth at the time. That is to say, three or four one hundred pound ingots would equal the worth of one of their types of cows. Lesser ingots would buy goats, and chickens, and pigs. The bronze was then combined / alloyed with tin, and used for tools, weapons, farm implements / plows, and armor.

Silver coins are probably the oldest stamped coin used, and have been used by many cultures and countries since the Greeks began with their silver Drachma's. The ancient Persians also used silver coins between 612-330 B.C. Before 1797, British pennies were made from silver. The United States began using silver in the early 1700s, and used them as currency up to 1964, when they were discontinued for less expensive, more durable alloys.

The director of the mint, and the Treasury secretary get to choose which president's image appear on our coins, and paper money. Changes on any of the monetary units, bills, coins, etc. cannot be made for twenty five years after they have been approved, and minted.

Now, that the way everything is changing to plastic, it appears our paper, and metal money will soon disappear into history. Coin, and money collections in the near to distant future will no doubt be worth quite a few credits, or whatever monetary value we adopt in that forthcoming era.


UFOS IN THE 1890s?

What were those strange "Airships" in the sky during 1896-97-98?

Perhaps "Steampunk" came about earlier than we thought .. However, it is thought that some inventor, or inventors, were fooling around with helium, or hydrogen, and were behind these Airships that flew over California, Oregon, and Washington State, with also a few sightings in the Eastern United States.

Some of the reports said the airships were the classic saucer shaped Alien piloted vehicle, while others claimed they were cigar shaped vessels over one hundred feet long. Other reports said that they saw people waving at them from portholes in the crafts.

One report stated that a crashed airship was found, and had the frame, and makings of a dirigible, a bicycle like apparatus which turned a propeller in back of the craft, and also containing hot air balloon like fabric for containing the "Lifting gas" which held the craft aloft.

Before this time, claims are made that several individuals had already been operating flying machines, some even electrically powered.

There were more sightings of strange airships from 1900-1913, but by then Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin had been flying his airships "Zeppelins" for almost ten years, and the fervor of seeing strange flying craft soon died out.

Since that time we have all seen things in the sky, some that we can explain, others, well, either E.T., or perhaps something more Earthbound is the cause of such sightings.

Read or Google "Mystery Airships" for further information.


THE DICKENS YOU SAY?

Christmas might not have come about, or renewed such as it is, were it not for Charles Dickens' famous story, "A Christmas Carol".

In 1843, a book was being sold in London bookstores, by the name "A Christmas Carol". During that year, no one celebrated Christmas, or a lot of people were not aware of the once gone holiday, which had been abolished by a certain religious sect that had taken power earlier in the seventeenth century. After that sect had fallen from power, and Christmas was restored by the new monarchy, the former traditions had never fully recovered.

During the last months of 1843, new and better technology for farming, and manufacturing goods were coming of age, and a lot of people moved off the farms to go live in the cities and work in the factories which produced goods for even then, mass consumerism. The twelve days of Christmas were shortened to a weeks worth off for celebrating, and then back to work in the sweat shop factories, some workers didn't even get to enjoy all but one day, Christmas, if that. Soon, if this trend were to continue, Christmas itself would be a thing of the past again.

Enter Charles Dickens, Author, Backwoodsman, Entrepreneur, and all around good guy. He penned the book "A Christmas Carol" to get people to remember the times when family meant so much more, and work could wait a day or two. Creating a sense of peace about exchanging gifts, a big meal, a fireplace on a snowy night, the excitement of children, all those things that were once important, and held the world together. This book caught on the imagination, and heartstrings of the thousands of people who read his story, and began to celebrate Christmas again the way they used to. 

Store owners were quick to capitalize on this, and began marketing  "Got to Have" items that people would buy and give for gifts at Christmas, then came the plays, movies, and all sorts of related items that sold like hotcakes. Which boosted many economies all over the world, and still does to this day.

So, we have good ol' Charles Dickens to thank for our continued yearly celebration, Thank you Mr.Dickens from all of us.

Does anyone buy poinsettia plants for Christmas? Did you know that if you keep them watered, and mildly fertilized with organic poop, you can grow them into a tree in a few years? They are an ancient Aztec plant, and you can also train them to grow like a vine inside your house. I grew one in the past and trained it to grow around the kitchen where the wall meets the ceiling. It's fun, give it a try.

So, this brings us to the end of FFUI #17, I always add this disclaimer that none of the above vignettes make no claim to truth, lies, or fabrications that make a person do a facepalm. There are no monies, credits, gold, silver, bullion, or any kind of monetary exchange transpiring whatsoever. These supposed facts are displayed for pure entertainment, and nothing else, apologies to anyone who gets their feathers ruffled because of any one of the above stories having anything to do with them. 

Our cats ate the monkeys you sent over to pick this up Jazz,  ...Sorry about that. (Jazz's note: Dammit Kip, those were my most delicious monkeys!) We'll email it to you.

Here is wishing you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

-KIPPAGE