From the podcast, Ologies by Alie Ward: Anthropodermic Bibliopegy and Anthropodermic Biocodicology. The first is the making of books out of human skin and the second is the study of books made with human skin. The Anthropodermic Book Project has identified 18 books as being covered with human skin, which is about half of the books they have tested.
From American history class, remember our tenth President John Tyler, who was born in 1790 and who took over from William Henry Harrison in 1841?
His grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler is living today.
Take any random 3 digit number. Say for example, 387. Repeat it to make a six digit number: 387387.
The result will always be evenly divisible by 143.
This is a fun one to give kids who are interested in math.
Neat - I see it’s because 143 happens to be a factor of 1,001.
John Fogerty was once sued for plagiarism. The artist that he copied was himself.
correction, we lost 2 basketball teams, spirit of stl and hawks. what’s interesting, when the ABA folded, the Spirit agreed to fold if they got a % of tv revenues forever (sports tv not big then)-they’re still collecting millions now
About the song “When I’m 64.”
And now he’s 78. In a couple years, the song will be 64.
A look back at Paul and Linda, who only made it to 56…with Spanish translations.
The Baron Joseph Henry Louis Charles de Palm was the first person cremated in a modern crematorium in America. The crematorium is located in Pennsylvania and it has a nice plaque, even if it only cremated 42 bodies. Well, it was sort of a prototype.
See Ask a Mortician on YouTube for more random facts related to America’s first cremation.
And Paul wrote it so perfectly that when The Beatles released it senior citizens insisted that they heard that exact song when they were growing up. Not a similar song - that exact song.
there are only 40 prisoners left at Gitmo down from over 700 when it opened. Most of the guys who left were released to be free, some were sent to other countries for trials
Sophia Loren placed second in a beauty contest, which got her noticed by filmmakers. I have to wonder who took first.
a lot of 2nd place people had good careers like some of the American idol singers. One example is Clay Aiken who lives local to me . Some Idols who were 3rd or 4th did well.
In 1950 the competition was broadcast live on radio. This was the year Miss Loren made her appearance under the name Sofia Scicolone. However, the teenage beauty was considered “too provocative” to win the contest and the judging panel awarded Miss Loren the specially devised title of “Miss Eleganza 1950.”
Maria Bugliari won the title of Miss Italy but her success was small potatoes when compared to the long and brilliant career Sophia Loren achieved as an actress from then on.
Amusing to read, and so are the photos.
This guy explains how some illusions (“magic tricks”) are done.
I’ll spoiler it for those who don’t want to know…I think one of the secrets will show on the preview.
I found this article. And the amazing thing, that I didn’t know, is the tight connection between HDI - Human Development Index, and birth rate. To stop overpopulation, we need to develop the poor parts of the world. That’s no brainer but the extremely strong correlation between economic growth, education, especially among women, and the birth rate was surprising.
The first thing that Julia Child ever prepared in a kitchen was a shark deterrent. With no cooking experience while growing up, she found herself in the OSS attached to the navy, who had a problem with curious sharks detonating underwater explosives. Julia started experimenting with groceries until she found a mix that sharks avoided.
I found this article. And the amazing thing, that I didn’t know, is the tight connection between HDI - Human Development Index, and birth rate. To stop overpopulation, we need to develop the poor parts of the world. That’s no brainer but the extremely strong correlation between economic growth, education, especially among women, and the birth rate was surprising.
It has long been known that the straight road to reducing the population is to empower women. Access to birth control, access to economic autonomy, access to education. Where women have power, everything is always better than where they don’t. For men too.
I just wanted to say that this is really good info. I asked my wife about it; she lived and worked in NYC for several years and knows her way around the city very well. She had no idea and related how she had many confusing times in the Park, trying to find her way home. So I posted it to some FB friends who live there, one of whom used to be the Metro editor for the NYT. They’ve lived there for a long time and had never heard of this. So thanks for allowing me to score “smart points”. 
Denmark is was the world’s largest producer of mink.