Trivia & Miscellaneous

[Daniel E.]

Americans are changing how they commute to work - Business Insider

Between 2007 and 2018, the US population has grown by about 25 million, to 327 million. And “nonfarm employment,” as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has grown by 11 million workers to 149 million. This is why congestion during commute times hasn’t gotten any better, despite the switch away from cars.

 

[Daniel E.]

How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime - BBC News

Japanese police officers rarely use guns and put much greater emphasis on martial arts -- all are expected to become a black belt in judo. They spend more time practising kendo (fighting with bamboo swords) than learning how to use firearms.

"What most Japanese police will do is get huge futons and essentially roll up a person who is being violent or drunk into a little burrito and carry them back to the station to calm them down."

 

[Daniel E.]

The Queen of Code on Vimeo


The Queen Of Code | FiveThirtyEight

You probably don’t know the name Grace Hopper, but you should.

As a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, Hopper worked on the first computer, the Harvard Mark 1. And she headed the team that created the first compiler, which led to the creation of COBOL, a programming language that by the year 2000 accounted for 70 percent of all actively used code. Passing away in 1992, she left behind an inimitable legacy as a brilliant programmer and pioneering woman in male-dominated fields.

Hopper’s story is told in “The Queen of Code,” directed by Gillian Jacobs (of “Community” fame). It’s the latest film in FiveThirtyEight’s “Signals” series.

 

[Daniel E.]

The tricky economics of all-you-can-eat buffets



By 2030, the National Restaurant Association projects that 80% of all restaurant items will be eaten at home -- a trend that buffets can't effectively capitalize on.

Today's health-conscious consumers have also shifted away from quantity in favor of experience-driven dining options.

Golden Corral, one of the last-standing American buffet chains, has found success by redesigning its dining spaces to be more "bright, shiny, [and] friendly," and investing in higher-quality food that makes for better Instagram photos.

 

[Daniel E.]

Jackass penguin call shares traits of human speech, scientists say | Science | The Guardian

“Linguistic laws, like Zipf’s law of brevity and the Menzerath-Altmann law, were originally discovered in text,” he said, noting that meant it was initially thought that they arose from the symbolic nature of human language.

“This new study provides more evidence that the laws are physical and not symbolic, because even penguins show them. Instead, the laws seem to reflect something deeper and more general about communication and information.”

 

[Daniel E.]

List of birds by flight speed - Wikipedia

 

[David Baxter PhD]

They don't even mention chickens.

 

[Daniel E.]

Chickens Prefer Attractive People

The results may suggest the mutual admiration for symmetry is rooted in the nervous system, and not necessarily due to cultural influences.

 

[Daniel E.]

How greedy McDonalds became the most effective poverty-fighter in the country | Financial Post

The popular economics blog Freakonomics has suggested McDonald’s McDouble burger could be “the cheapest, most nutritious, and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history.” With two beef patties, pickles, and onions, McDoubles offer — for just a couple of bucks — half the daily recommended serving of protein, seven per cent of daily recommended fibre, and 20 per cent of your daily calcium and iron.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

That's true. It is almost as big/filling as the quarter pounder with cheese for less than half the price.

 

[Daniel E.]

I think a wave of instant depression hits the U.S. when McDonalds stops the "2 for 5" deal

 

[David Baxter PhD]

My son and I both get coupons in our mailboxes for all the fast food outlets around us so we don't even have to wait for advertised special.

We're surrounded by fast food in this area: McDonalds, Wendys, A&W, Popeyes, Tim Hortons for Donuts, Caesar's Pizza. The only thing we were missing was a taco place but I noticed in the fall they had started building one.

This is a health food fanatic's dream home.

 

[Daniel E.]

Sounds like being on a cruise ship except more walking to the different serving stations

 

[David Baxter PhD]

LOL pretty much!

 

[gooblax]

The only coupons I get now are for Dominos. We used to get Subway, McDonalds and Chicken Magic (a local shop that shut down ) "docket deals" on the back of receipts but they stopped doing those entirely. When I used to go to the shopping centre more regularly I used to practice (ie. face my anxiety about) ordering McDonalds with a (embarrassing) voucher once every couple of weekends, and a couple of times at Subway.

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]

Hawaiian Pizza

Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos claimed that he created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962. Inspired in part by his experience preparing Chinese dishes which commonly mix sweet and savoury flavours, Panopoulos experimented with adding pineapple, ham, bacon and other toppings which were not initially very popular. The addition of pineapple to the traditional mix of tomato sauce and cheese, sometimes with ham or sometimes with bacon, soon became popular locally and eventually became a staple offering of pizzerias around the world. Panopoulos chose the name Hawaiian after the brand of canned pineapple they used...

Hawaiian was the most popular pizza in Australia in 1999, accounting for 15% of pizza sales

 

[Daniel E.]

Pea soup - Wikipedia

Pea soup has been eaten since antiquity; it is mentioned in Aristophanes' The Birds, and according to one source "the Greeks and Romans were cultivating this legume about 500 to 400 BC. During that era, vendors in the streets of Athens were selling hot pea soup."

 

[Daniel E.]

Ramparts of Quebec City - Wikipedia



The ramparts of Quebec City (Vieux-Quebec) is the only walled-in city in North America, and one of the oldest in the world.

Located in Canada, the Ramparts of Quebec City are the only remaining fortified city walls in North America north of Mexico. The British began refortifying the existing walls, after they took Quebec City from the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759.

 

[Daniel E.]

House Sparrow "Passer domesticus" | Boreal Songbird Initiative

The entire North American population of the House Sparrow is descended from a few birds released in New York City's Central Park in 1850.

Native to Eurasia and North Africa, and introduced on all continents, excepting Antarctica, and many islands.