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Topic: The facts of life (?) (Read 885 times) |
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BNC
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The facts of life (?)
« on: Feb 6th, 2005, 12:36pm » |
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A hit song (at least here) Facts Of Life by Lazyboy lists several items claimed to be facts. Are they? Here is the facts themselvs:
1. Did you know, that 1 out of 4 Americans has appeared on tv?
2. Did you know, 61% of all hits on the internet are on sex-sites?
3. Every day 21 newborn babies will be given to the wrong parents
4. The average person swallows 8 spiders in a year
5. Cannabis is the most widely abused drug in the world
6. The average person laughs 13 times a day
7. Elvis was originally blonde
8. The average age of first intercourse is 15.3 years old
9. The average erect penis is 5.2" long - and 4.2" circumcised
10. Eskimoes use refrigerators to keep food from freezing
11. 41% of all people take people with curly hair less seriously
12. 20% of all females have had at least 1 homosexuall experience
13. Did you know, that there is no such thing as an anti-wrinkle-creme?
14. 22% of the time, a pizza will arrive faster then an ambulance in Great Britian
15. 96% of all women have at one time in their life faked an orgasm
16. 3 people die every year, testing if a 9 volt battery works on their tongue
17. The 'Guiness Book Of Records' holds the record for being the most stolen book in the public libraries
18. Butterflies taste with their feet
19. 5% of the population is gay
20. The worlds best known word is 'okay',
21. the second most well-known word is 'Coca-Cola'
22. The giraffe can clean its ears with its tongue
23. Charles Chaplin once won 3rd place in a 'Charles Chaplin look-a-like contest'
24. In 1995 a japanese trawler sank because a Russian cargo plane dropped a living cow from 30,000 feet
25. Only one book has been printed in more copies than the bible: the IKEA-catalogue
26. 1 cigarette takes away five minutes of a person's life
27. In 1950 we were 3 billion people on the earth. today we are 6 billion people.
28. 'Donald Duck' was banned in Finland, because he doesn't wear pants
29. 74% of all nudist-females are nudists, because their husbands are nudists
30. More people die from a champagne cork popping, than from poison spiders
31. 21% of all traffic accidents happen because the driver falls asleep
32. Did you know that originally a Danish guy invented the burglar alarm. unfortunately it got stolen.
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Icarus
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #1 on: Feb 6th, 2005, 1:49pm » |
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A few that I know:
5. Yes, cannabis (marijuana) is #1.
9. No. The foreskin does not extend the length of the penis.
13. Actually, there are plenty of them. That doesn't mean that they are effective, though!
18. true
19. Best estimates I have heard is 2-5%, with 5% being the absolute max, and a stretch at that. Part of the problem is deciding exactly who is gay and who isn't. Some homosexual advocacy groups have quoted 10%, but this number is based on an unreasonably loose definition of gay.
22. I've seen them do it.
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towr
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #2 on: Feb 6th, 2005, 2:44pm » |
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on Feb 6th, 2005, 12:36pm, BNC wrote:| 3. Every day 21 newborn babies will be given to the wrong parents |
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It's quite possible. Some mix-ups do happen occasionally. On the other hand, you don't know it has happened untill after you found out. So at best it's a guestimate. It's doubtfull most of the mix-ups would ever be found out.
Quote:| 4. The average person swallows 8 spiders in a year |
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Bullsh*t. this factoid was invented by a women out to give an example of what kind of dribble people will believe, if you only present it as fact and mail it over the internet.
Consequently people removed the part about it being a made-up example, and send it around the internet. And most people seem to buy it..
Quote:| 5. Cannabis is the most widely abused drug in the world |
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I'd say tabacco/nicotine, or coffee/caffeine, or maybe alcohol.
It depends on your definition of drug-abuse.
I'm pretty sure you're better of smoking cannabis than binging on alcohol, that's a much bigger poison. And tobacco is even worse (though not (directly) because of the nicotine)
Quote:| 6. The average person laughs 13 times a day |
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I doubt the number is correct. How would they find that out?
Quote:| 8. The average age of first intercourse is 15.3 years old |
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For which country? And how did they get this number? Ask a bunch of bragging teenagers? Or from the looks of the number, the parents?
Quote:| 9. The average erect penis is 5.2" long - and 4.2" circumcised |
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circumcision doesn't make a difference for erection-size, unless, perhaps, there is a medical problem (but let's not go into that)
And again the question arises, which country are we talking about? Who were measured?
Quote:| 10. Eskimoes use refrigerators to keep food from freezing |
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Quite doubtfull. Refridgerators remove heat from their inside and 'pump' it to the outside. It can only maintain a somewhat constant temperature if the outside is warmer, and the inside needs to be cooled. But it can't warm the inside when the outside cools it. (Well, perhaps with some reengineering, reversing the heat flow. Excep tthat you can't pump much heat from the arctic air to the inside, since it's too damn cold)
Quote:| 11. 41% of all people take people with curly hair less seriously |
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Were do people come up with this stuff.
Quote:| 12. 20% of all females have had at least 1 homosexual experience |
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America? College students? Or Iranian house wives?
Quote:| 13. Did you know, that there is no such thing as an anti-wrinkle-creme? |
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There's plenty of things called, or implied to be, just that. And for some there is a limited amount of statistic evidence it works.
Quote:| 14. 22% of the time, a pizza will arrive faster then an ambulance in Great Britain |
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I doubt anybody in an emergency ever dialed for pizza right after 911 or 999 or whatever it is in Britain..
Quote:| 16. 3 people die every year, testing if a 9 volt battery works on their tongue |
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But not from testing the battery. This may surprise you, but almost everybody who dies was breathing air, not 5 minutes earlier. Talk about a fatal correlation.
(Ok, actually, I don't know if anybody ever died from anything during testing a 9 volt battery on their tongue. I very much doubt anyone died from the battery though, there simply isn't enough strength in it to deliver 30 mA to the heart from the mouth.)
Quote:| 19. 5% of the population is gay |
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The figure has 'risen' dramatically over the years, because it's becoming more and more accepted. Once it's fully accepted I'm pretty sure it will level off somewher. I think current estimates is 10% or so.
It the question arises whether you count bisexuality as well.
Quote:| 20. The worlds best known word is 'okay' |
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Could be. Or f*ck, or sorry, or sh*t.
But it's most likely ma/mama
Quote:| 21. the second most well-known word is 'Coca-Cola' |
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haha, yeah right..
Quote:| 24. In 1995 a japanese trawler sank because a Russian cargo plane dropped a living cow from 30,000 feet |
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There may be enough kinetic energy, and accidents may happen. Maybe google knows, but it's a really random, might-be/might-not-be thing.. For all we know it might have been in 1994.
Quote:| 25. Only one book has been printed in more copies than the bible: the IKEA-catalogue |
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doubtfull. Besides, it's a new 'book' every year, so they don't all count towards the total. Otherwise you could just say reader's digest, or national geographic, or some such thing.
Quote:| 26. 1 cigarette takes away five minutes of a person's life |
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Depends on the person, and other factors. It's really hard to say.
There may be some statistical eveidence for it, but it's always hard discounting other factors. Poor or uneducated people might be more likely to smoke, and they also generally life shorter.
Quote:| 27. In 1950 we were 3 billion people on the earth. today we are 6 billion people. |
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Yeah, something like that.
Quote:| 28. 'Donald Duck' was banned in Finland, because he doesn't wear pants |
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I think that may have been a myth, snopes.com probably knows..
[edit]the answer is no:
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/finland.htm[/edit]
Quote:| 30. More people die from a champagne cork popping, than from poison spiders |
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Not directly, I assume..
There's certainly more accidents involving champagne corks, but I don't see how they would lead to a fatality. Choking on the cork shooting into you mouth? A heart attack from the sudden loud pop? Getting hit in the head, stumbling back, falling over a chair and breaking your neck?
Quote:| 31. 21% of all traffic accidents happen because the driver falls asleep |
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It's really hard to check after an accident whether someone was asleep just before it happened. It's a workable hypothesis, but how can you be sure.
Quote:| 32. Did you know that originally a Danish guy invented the burglar alarm. unfortunately it got stolen. |
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probably a myth, but I can't be sure without checking it first..
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| « Last Edit: Feb 6th, 2005, 2:56pm by towr » |
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towr
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #3 on: Feb 6th, 2005, 3:00pm » |
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For a rough estimate of how well known words are google is nice. And to compare any two words http://www.googlebattle.com/ is nice.
'Ma' beats 'okay' by one order of magnitude 
Even sorry beats it by a factor 2.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 6th, 2005, 3:02pm by towr » |
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Grimbal
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #4 on: Feb 8th, 2005, 2:55am » |
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But 'a' exactly equals 'the' with 8'000'000'000 pages.
Isn't that something of a coincidence?
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Icarus
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #5 on: Feb 8th, 2005, 4:17pm » |
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Quote:| 11. 41% of all people take people with curly hair less seriously |
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on Feb 6th, 2005, 2:44pm, towr wrote:| Were do people come up with this stuff. |
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It was probably some brillo-head!
Quote:| 19. 5% of the population is gay |
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on Feb 6th, 2005, 2:44pm, towr wrote:| The figure has 'risen' dramatically over the years, because it's becoming more and more accepted. Once it's fully accepted I'm pretty sure it will level off somewher. I think current estimates is 10% or so. |
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10% is the number quoted by some homosexuality advocacy groups, who for obvious reasons want as large a number as they can get. They obtain it by defining anyone who has ever had a homosexual experience as "gay", even if they never did so again.
The 2% to 5% result is based on a far more realistic definition of 'gay', and came from an unbiased study (of US citizens only, I think - it has been a few years). The uncertainty is caused both by problems of deciding who is gay and who isn't, and from estimates of how many lied for fear of "coming out of the closet". 5% is a fairly liberal guess at how much of the population is gay. Since it has been years, I expect that there are better studies out there, now, but I doubt they would greatly increase the overall result. Again, the key matter is how you define "gay". Based on the definition, you can end up with any value up to about 10% (or higher, if you get really ridiculous in your definition).
Quote:| It the question arises whether you count bisexuality as well. |
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I think the 2-5% study included those with a consistent pattern of homosexual activity, regardless of whether there was heterosexual activity as well. But again, it was some time ago, and I didn't pay that much attention to it, so I might be wrong.
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towr
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Re: The facts of life (?)
« Reply #6 on: Feb 9th, 2005, 12:37am » |
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The problem is, the only way to find out is by asking people about their sexuality.
If you ask men in Iran, I doubt you'll get over 0.1%, even though they're probably just as gay as anyone else. Those 2-5% figures are decades old if I'm not mistaken, and acceptence has gotten much better in recent years.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 9th, 2005, 12:40am by towr » |
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