# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 177
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3528 "2022-01-27T20:21:03Z")
Kieran Moran plays for Keighley (in Yorkshire) a Rugby League club rather than a Rugby Union one, thus he’ll never pit his skills against the above mentioned players. Yan Lestrade plays RU with Aviron Bayonnais in SW France. If Lestrade shows enough form to win an international cap it’s quite possible he could meet Holmes and Moriarty in a game against Wales. Now I can’t help but think of the gripping tactical contest that was the Philosophers’ Football Game. ---
**Author:** ![merrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@merrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrick)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3529 "2022-01-27T20:28:11Z")
Change of authors, but [Jefferson Poirot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Poirot) has played international rugby for France, including at least once against Moriarty. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3530 "2022-01-27T22:08:05Z")
> [@Chez\_Guevara](#): > > Now I can’t help but think of the gripping tactical contest that was the Philosophers’ Football Game. I am pleased to note that the company Philosophy Football still exists. They make replica shirts which …er … they…ah… tell you what, I’ll explain in photos: [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV85tccR8hQhmD_pAHkXLMO8vuzSoXH_b0YXHlli1H0iK-Gbi8hPea6j7xvdjsa7_Ux5Brqh8hbs_l0ldjE382w33C261l_9gWbRi7C2g0iJhp1ZbKfU=w600-h315-p-k "New item by j") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/oq5NWYWeEw5hsXuA6) [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV85dvknun7hNrKoT8rLKKxFUCjpe1m3LjxK-UByUi8K6elz8Sg-tOT94qESvMW6oO6nGvV2nOfoVE54PZ706nWI8RYuRp64P6smPSHlEiI-kmDrK5qk=w600-h315-p-k "New item by j") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/pvC9XCkPVACC8SvK6) That’s **my** ancient shirt, from back in the day when goalkeepers wore number 1 and had to wear green. Calling themselves Philosophy Football, the company started off with an Albert Camus replica shirt (that’s Albert Camus the noted goalkeeper and Nobel prize winning author) and, to be brutally honest, they never really scaled those heights again. But they do appear to still exist - [here’s the current version of that shirt.](https://www.philosophyfootball.com/philosophers/-albert-camus.html) j ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3531 "2022-01-28T00:45:00Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I am pleased to note that the company Philosophy Football still exists. They make replica shirts which …er … they…ah… tell you what, I’ll explain in photos: > > That’s **my** ancient shirt, from back in the day when goalkeepers wore number 1 and had to wear green. > > Calling themselves Philosophy Football, the company started off with an Albert Camus replica shirt (that’s Albert Camus the noted goalkeeper and Nobel prize winning author) and, to be brutally honest, they never really scaled those heights again. But they do appear to still exist - [here’s the current version of that shirt.](https://www.philosophyfootball.com/philosophers/-albert-camus.html) > > j That’s great! I knew the Camus quote, but I never knew that he had been a keeper (there’s a saying in German that all keepers and left-forwards are nuts. Just like all drummers). I was a goalie myself in my youth, though my shirt was silver, but that was a bit later in the eighties when the norms got eradicated. But tell me, what color did the keepers of the Irish, Cameroon or German (if in their [away jerseys)](https://www.spox.com/de/presseschau/1106/Bilder/dfb-gruenes-trikot-gerd-mueller-uli-hoeness-514.jpg) national teams wear in the old times ? ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3532 "2022-01-28T01:09:48Z")
> Bloodhounds are rarely bought as pets, which is why they have dropped out of most shows. They are still around, however. The American Kennel Club lists ten kennels and says there are many other breeders who won’t be listed – afraid of poison. Friends or relatives of miscreants tracked by the animals have been known to poison whole packs. That happened to the excellent pack of twenty belonging to the late Dr. Louis G. Knox, of Danbury. All twenty were killed, including the one that took the prize one year as the best dog in the Westminster show, a rare achievement for a hound. Dr. Knox gave up breeding bloodhounds after that. Most of the bloodhounds in the country can be traced back to his stock. _The New Yorker_, Feb. 13, 1932 ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3533 "2022-01-28T09:36:29Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > But tell me, what color did the keepers of the Irish, Cameroon or German (if in their [away jerseys)](https://www.spox.com/de/presseschau/1106/Bilder/dfb-gruenes-trikot-gerd-mueller-uli-hoeness-514.jpg) national teams wear in the old times ? Wasn’t yellow the change color for goalies? j ---
**Author:** ![the\_art\_of\_rolling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@the\_art\_of\_rolling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_art_of_rolling)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3534 "2022-01-28T11:15:08Z")
And to drag this thread into circles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also a goalkeeper. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3536 "2022-01-28T13:11:01Z")
You’re going to need a quote for the front of the replica shirt. I don’t see anything appropriate - closest I got was: > The football match does not come within my horizon at all. (The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter) - and strictly speaking, that’s Holmes, not Conan Doyle. j 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3537 "2022-01-29T04:30:57Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > The talk was very interesting, heartfelt, and very sad when he got to describing the disaster where so many people, including his good friend, died. I was reading something earlier that said that mountaineers can be downright grief-stricken when describing fallen comrades…but for others, they’re pretty dismissive. If they felt the climber was trained, seasoned, prepared, and so on, great; if not, the mountaineers looked at them with disdain. They had no business being there—and understand, if these unprepared folks fell, there was the question of “Do we go in and save them? It could be dangerous, and we spent thousands of dollars for this once-in-a-lifetime chance… ?” I’m about 80% into the novel. It’s a very good read. > **[Into Thin Air](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Thin_Air)** > > Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. Krakauer's expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall's agency Kr... ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3538 "2022-01-29T04:41:24Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > but for others, they’re pretty dismissive. If they felt the climber was trained, seasoned, prepared, and so on, great; if not, the mountaineers looked at them with disdain. They had no business being there This sounds strangely familiar…like the attitude of test pilots, as described in Tom Wolfe’s _The Right Stuff_. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3539 "2022-01-29T15:10:30Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > The book Into Thin Air that led to the movie is worth reading. > [@Limmin](#): > > This is also covered in Krakauer’s _Into Thin Air._ > [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > They had no business being there It was also fascinating to me that socialite Sandy Pittman brought her 9 year old and the child’s nanny to basecamp. And Beck Weathers, OMG. He’d had eye surgery years before and the air pressure as he ascended messed with his vision to the point he could only follow the boot prints in front of him. Wikipedia says: > Stuart Hutchison, and two Sherpas arrived to check on the status of Weathers and fellow client [Yasuko Namba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuko_Namba). Believing Weathers and Namba were both near death and would not make it off the mountain alive, Hutchison and the others left them and returned to Camp IV. > > Weathers spent the night in an open [bivouac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivouac_shelter), in a blizzard, with his face and hands exposed. When he awoke, he managed to walk down to Camp IV under his own power. His fellow climbers said that his frozen hand and nose looked and felt as if they were made of [porcelain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcelain), and they did not expect him to survive. With that assumption, they only tried to make him comfortable until he died, but he survived another freezing night alone in a tent, unable to eat, drink, or keep himself covered with the sleeping bags with which he was provided. His cries for help could not be heard above the blizzard, and his companions were surprised to find him alive and coherent the following day. ETA: Meant to say, he survives to this day, minus some appendages etc. [https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+weathers+everest&rlz=1C1CHBF\_enUS798US798&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwg6HloNf1AhVzkWoFHQIoAvoQ\_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1366&bih=657&dpr=1](https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+weathers+everest&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS798US798&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwg6HloNf1AhVzkWoFHQIoAvoQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1366&bih=657&dpr=1) ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3540 "2022-01-29T17:37:51Z")
By the early 1900s, the subject of crystal structures was considered “mature” by material scientists. And as the decades went on, there was not much new to report on the subject. Not surprisingly, we thought we knew everything about crystal structures by the 1980s. But in 1982, material scientist [Dan Shechtman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shechtman) found something interesting while looking at aluminum-iron and aluminum-manganese alloys using a scanning electron microscope: the alloys had an _aperiodic_ structure and displayed a five-fold symmetry. He was ridiculed and scoffed at by crystallographers, as it was considered impossible since it could not provide the basis of a repeating, regular structure and could not generate a space-filling model. Linus Pauling mocked him, saying, “There are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.” Shechtman was even asked to leave his research group. Shechtman stuck to his guns, even though all his peers thought he was crazy. Finally, in 1987, two groups in Japan and France made quasicrystals large enough to be examined via X-rays. And guess what they found? A five-fold symmetry. The definition of a crystal had to be altered, and gave birth to the field of quasicrystals. (Well, not _quite_. They had been mathematically predicted before this.) None-the-less, Pauling continued to hammer Shechtman on the subject, insisting these structures didn’t exist, until he died in 1994. Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3541 "2022-01-29T21:24:03Z")
As posted previously, pyrite which has a cubic symmetry can nonetheless form pseudo-dodecahedral crystals, which is why it took x-ray diffraction to prove an internal pentagonal structure; and even then some holdouts insisted it was only random clumps of pentagons, not a true space-filling structure. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3542 "2022-01-29T22:15:31Z")
“The Second Kind of Impossible” is a good book on the subject [https://secondkindofimpossible.org/](https://secondkindofimpossible.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3543 "2022-01-29T23:11:11Z")
They used to say most dust in your house is dead human skin cells. (I still find that hard to believe.) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3544 "2022-01-30T01:10:09Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > They used to say most dust in your house is dead human skin cells. (I still find that hard to believe.) Whoever said that never lived with a cat. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3545 "2022-01-30T15:06:31Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > They used to say most dust in your house is dead human skin cells. (I still find that hard to believe.) Mike Rowe did a Dirty Jobs episode where he collected mattresses. I forget how much extra they weighed when being discarded vs. when they were new. But I found this: > **[Does Your Mattress Really Gain Weight Over Time?](https://www.livescience.com/33097-does-your-mattress-really-gain-weight-over-time-.html)** > > Your mattress is full of dead skin, sweat and bugs. How much weight do they add? Luckily it has a statistic. I mean, more things than skin cells end up in your mattress. Like the dust mites: > One of their favorite foods is dead skin, and people shed about one fifth of an ounce of the stuff every week, some of which surely ends up flaking into your mattress. (Also gross: About 80 percent of the material seen floating in a sunbeam is, in fact, flakes of dead skin.) So we can do that math. One fifth of an ounce times a family of four times 52 weeks in a year, and 16 oz in a lb: they shed 2.6 lbs per year. I like that stat about the sunbeam—the cells can be almost weightless, so your vacuum may not get them. I guess you need hepa filtration or something. My contribution: Stop! the Love You Save/Jackson 5 > Isaac said he kissed you > Beneath the apple tree > When Benji held your hand he felt > Electricity > When Alexander called you > He said he rang your chimes. > Christopher discovered > You’re way ahead of your times! > > … Stop, the love you save may be your own! I’m probably the last person to realize it, but: Isaac…Newton. Benji…Franklin. Alexander…Graham Bell. Christopher…Columbus. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/OkuULWqF3AY/maxresdefault.jpg "The Jackson 5 "The Love You Save" on The Ed Sullivan Show") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkuULWqF3AY) Great tune! ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3546 "2022-01-30T17:01:05Z")
According to my allergist, it’s not dust mites that I’m allergic to, but their poop. They live in my mattress and feed off my dead skin, then their poop floats up into the air. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3547 "2022-01-30T17:47:02Z")
Raises the question of how one might collect dust mite ‘poop’. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3548 "2022-01-30T18:15:27Z")
…inhales deeply…“Hmm, I have no idea.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=176) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=178)