# 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:** 309
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6171 "2023-03-05T01:17:04Z")
Why??? ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6172 "2023-03-05T01:36:13Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > The Canadian national anthem is played before every Buffalo Sabres game, and not just the ones in which a Canadian team is visiting. We sang it in the fifth inning at FSU baseball games, too, back when I sat with the Animals of Section B. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6173 "2023-03-05T02:20:30Z")
Pretty much everyone (around here at least) knows that Arthur C. Clarke first came up with the idea that communications satellites should go in synchronous (Clarke) orbits. But in August 1956, in a letter, he basically proposed GPS. Actual satellite positioning started at the Johns Hopkins Advanced Physics Lab in 1958, inspired by work that let them calculate the orbit of Sputnik based on the Doppler effect measure from its beep. ---
**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:** [March 5, 2023, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6174 "2023-03-05T03:55:19Z")
Indeed, [Geodesy - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesy) was an early and remarked on application of the early satellites of the late 1950s and early 1960s. One rather darker purpose to this is not often expounded upon: accumulating “gravity maps” of minor departures of the Earth from a perfect spheroid, in order to increase the accuracy of ICBMs. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6175 "2023-03-05T06:08:48Z")
From what I read, a large amount of Canadians cross the border to attend Sabres games. Tickets are way more available and affordable than the Maple Leafs games. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6176 "2023-03-05T13:59:24Z")
Today is one year until Super Tuesday, 5 March 2024. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6177 "2023-03-05T21:33:32Z")
There must be Canadian players in every game too. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6178 "2023-03-05T22:49:25Z")
Yeah, but that is true of most (all?) NHL games. I haven’t looked it up, but I suspect it’s been a long long time, if ever, that there wasn’t at least 1 Canadian on every NHL team. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6179 "2023-03-06T04:35:17Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > From what I read, a large amount of Canadians cross the border to attend Sabres games. According to Wikipedia, Buffalo’s PBS station (WNED Buffalo Toronto) gets about 2/3 of its membership revenue from Canadians. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6180 "2023-03-06T06:28:13Z")
The Plattsburgh NY and Burlington VT PBS stations get about 60% of their membership revenue from the Montreal area. They are much smaller cities than Buffalo, and their markets overlap. I can get both clearly in Montreal over the air with a small anrenna. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6181 "2023-03-06T13:18:50Z")
It may be old news to most of you, but somehow I missed for all these years that Walt Disney himself provided the voice for Mickey Mouse, up until some time in the 1940s. And me an old-school animation fan! [Here’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LA97PI0l3o) a side-by-side video of Walt and another voice actor doing the recordings for a Mickey Mouse cartoon. They’re right at the very beginning of the video - the rest is various voice actors doing various characters in Disney cartoons. I also enjoy the story of Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck. I’m reciting from memory, so hopefully I get all the facts right. Clarence was a spokesman for a dairy company, and traveled around in a wagon to promote his company’s milk and ice cream. He gave away samples and ice cream bars, and entertained the crowd with barnyard animal voices. One day in the 1930s he had stopped in front of the young Disney studio and was doing his schtick, and some employees went in to Walt and said “You’ve got to hear this guy.” Disney did, and offered Nash a job doing voices in a cartoon. The first Donald Duck cartoon was _The Wise Little Hen_, with Clarence voicing a pig and a duck character called Donald. From that day until some time in the 1980s, Clarence’s only job was voicing Donald Duck. No other actor did the voice during all those decades. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6182 "2023-03-06T15:31:39Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > A warm transfer occurs when one employee answers a call and then transfers the call to a different employee but passes on any relevant information so that the caller doesn’t have to repeat themselves. Oh I wish every company would adopt this. There have been so many times that I have been transferred numerous times and have to tell my story again and again. It’s very annoying. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6183 "2023-03-06T16:41:11Z")
I looked at our local NHL team. It has, by place of birth, 3 Swedes, 2 Finns, a Dane, Austrian, German, Dutch, players from QC, ON, every province from SK west (why no MB I have no idea, and about 4 or 5 Americans, including one from, FFS, Florida. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6184 "2023-03-06T17:14:49Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > From what I read, a large amount of Canadians cross the border to attend Sabres games. Tickets are way more available and affordable than the Maple Leafs games. Sure, but do they give a rat’s ass if the Canadian National Anthem is placed before the game? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2023, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6185 "2023-03-06T20:23:36Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Indeed, [Geodesy - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesy) was an early and remarked on application of the early satellites of the late 1950s and early 1960s. One rather darker purpose to this is not often expounded upon: accumulating “gravity maps” of minor departures of the Earth from a perfect spheroid, in order to increase the accuracy of ICBMs. Interesting. I knew they did gravity maps of the moon from the early lunar orbiters but wasn’t aware they did them of the earth, though it makes sense. Another one I learned working on the book - though this is more a debunking. I always thought that Grace Hopper discovered the bug in ENIAC or EDVAC and named things like this bugs. It turns out someone else did, but she told the story so well that people thought she had found it. There are also instances of “bug” being used for a defect before this. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6186 "2023-03-07T05:34:10Z")
To quote myself from yesteryear: Eons ago some coworkers went to a (car) racetrack, and apparently one of the drivers was Canadian so they played O Canada, and some plastered idiot in the stands yelled: “that’s not the godammed Spar Spangled Spanner!” That became a catch phrase at work for a while. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6187 "2023-03-07T17:19:17Z")
I didn’t know either of those facts and I love the story of the man who voiced Donald Duck. What a fun job! @Son_of_a_Rich: Fabulous story. So many idiots walking around providing entertainment for us all. I can’t help but wonder if this was at my home track or at Watkins Glen. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2023, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6188 "2023-03-07T22:27:22Z")
The OED’s first citation for “bug” meaning a defect in a machine is from 1875. Hopper’s moth joke in 1947 was playing on an existing, well-known usage. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6189 "2023-03-08T05:12:02Z")
I have a fascinating little book that I inherited from my great-uncle titled _Handy Electrical Dictionary_, with a copyright date of 1902(!). Its definition of “bug” is “In quadruplex telegraphy, a term serving to designate any defect in the working of the apparatus. Usually applied to a defect in the working of any electric apparatus.” It’s interesting that it seems to suggest the term is specific to, or originated in, the field of “quadruplex telegraphy”. FWIW, the book defines that term, rather unhelpfully, as “A system of telegraphy providing for the transmission of messages over a quadruplex circuit.” ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/6190 "2023-03-08T16:11:32Z")
In Hopper’s famous note, she says “First actual case of a bug being found.” which makes no sense if that term and usage didn’t already exist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=308) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=310)