# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 219
**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 23, 2026, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4361 "2026-03-23T21:52:11Z")
> **[Macadam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam)** > > Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam c. 1820, in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust (crushed stone from the original material) may form; it may also, after rolling, be covered with a cement or bituminous binder to keep dust and stones together. The method simplified what had been considered state-of-the-art at that point. > Pierre-Marie-Jérôme Trésaguet is sometimes co... ---
**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:** [March 23, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4362 "2026-03-23T22:05:14Z")
Ah, thanks. I’m really no expert in road building, so I never heard the word. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4363 "2026-03-23T22:22:06Z")
If you had taken the macadamia nuts out of a recipe, but then added them to the final product, that product would also have been remacadamized. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4364 "2026-03-23T22:22:24Z")
So the Autobahn goes all the way back to Adam? Color me surprised. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4365 "2026-03-23T22:38:07Z")
I only know macadam because of Stephen King, who uses it regularly (as does his son Joe Hill, but he tends to include a lot of subtle tributes to his father. And unsubtle tributes to his father). ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4366 "2026-03-23T23:04:46Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > So the Autobahn goes all the way back to Adam? Color me surprised Yep, with a short stop at Adolf ---
**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:** [March 23, 2026, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4367 "2026-03-23T23:10:31Z")
You know that Konrad Adenauer, later first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and mayor of Cologne before the rise of the nazis, built the first Autobahn from Cologne to Bonn from 1928-32? And that the idea originally came from Italy, la autostrada? ---
**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 23, 2026, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4368 "2026-03-23T23:25:10Z")
I thought it was created by Kraftwerk. ---
**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:** [March 23, 2026, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4369 "2026-03-23T23:27:57Z")
That was only the _homage_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4370 "2026-03-23T23:28:46Z")
I thought that Kraft made fromage. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4371 "2026-03-23T23:33:08Z")
I think suggesting that Kraft is cheese is considered aggravated assault against the whole of France. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4372 "2026-03-24T00:08:28Z")
I once had a “milk shake” in France; they have it coming. ---
**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 24, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4373 "2026-03-24T00:43:55Z")
Why, what sort of concoction did you receive? ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4374 "2026-03-24T01:20:34Z")
I don’t know what a milk shake is in France, but where I grew up (northern New England), it was flavored, frothed milk. You know, shaken milk. A milk shake. If you wanted ice cream in it you ordered a frappe. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4375 "2026-03-24T01:24:00Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > I don’t know what a milk shake is in France, but where I grew up (northern New England), it was flavored, frothed milk. Oh my God! I didn’t know your proximity to Quebec brought such trauma. Your description is exactly what I got in France (and also Spain). It’s not a European thing; I’ve had decent shakes in Norway and (of all places) Russia. ---
**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 24, 2026, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4376 "2026-03-24T01:33:04Z")
Colder climates meaning ice cream was easier to make before mechanical refrigeration, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4377 "2026-03-24T09:05:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The process that MacAdam invented was paving roads using asphalt. I think it’s more often used in British English than in America That’s Tarmac. The word now sometimes used to describe the surface airplanes park on. Tar Mac. Macadam developed a process for making a road bed. A made road. The process involves compacting a mixture of sand, gravel, water, in the correct proportions, with a road roller. The idea of making a layered road bed goes back a long way: our word Street apparently comes from the same Latin source as Strata. Wikipedia says that the Macadam process dates from around 1820. I think tarmac is about a hundred years later. Putting oil on roads to lay the dust probably dates from whenever oil was cheap enough, but the identification of a kind of tar that was suitable for sealing roads (“a sealed road”) was slow and difficult. The first tars got sticky in hot weather, and broke up in cold weather – still problems even now but only in extreme conditions. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4378 "2026-03-24T09:12:05Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > it was flavored, frothed milk. You know, shaken milk. A milk shak In Aus, a milk shake included a small scoop of ice-cream, about 1"", before it was frothed. Without the ice-cream, it was “flavoured milk”, which was frothed on the same mixer that was used for a milkshake. And when I was a kid in the USA, those things McDonalds sold were “thick shakes”. When McD came to Aus, they were just “shakes”, because McD had found that with 50 different state-based legal definitions of “Milkshake”, it was easier just to avoid that term. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4379 "2026-03-24T10:28:32Z")
Tarmac is short for tar macadam. It’s also a trademark. Tarmacadam - Wikipedia [Tarmacadam - Wikipedia](https://share.google/xjEbUdNkbf16cXnd8) ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4380 "2026-03-24T15:00:15Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Macadam developed a process for making a road bed. A made road These are sometimes called metalled roads especially on OS maps. Metal from the Latin metallum meaning mine or quarry, as that’s where the stone and rocks came from. A chemist would have a different definition of a metal, based on the elements position on the periodic table. And an astrophysicist would call anything that isn’t hydrogen or helium a metal. None of those 3 definitions would fully match what a lay person would call a metal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=218) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=220)