In 2005, Verizon was working on a web-based service that would integrate a number of different features that a client could access from any computer with internet access: e-mail, a calendar, a scheduler… it would even have its own phone# so you could receive and check voice mail. Sort of like Outlook on steroids, only not bound to a single machine or device. To further emphasize how unique this idea was, Verizon paid a PR firm a small fortune to come up with a unique sounding name. The name that won out was “iobe” (pronounced eye-OH-bee) - it was not capitalized on purpose. Again, to make it seem more unique. Furthermore, the contractor in charge of the early beta-testing was given the semi-official nickname of “iobe-Wan Kenobe”. Alas, with the emergence of blackberries and then smart phones, iobe never saw the light of day.
The really sad part is that all of this is 100% true.
Any person presenting themselves at the kitchen door of Buckingham Palace while the Queen is seated at dinner is entitled to a free meal on the premises on production of a silver shilling. The coin need only be shown - it is not payment but proof that the caller is not a vagrant. Although silver shillings were withdrawn from circulation prior to World War 2, the statute exists in perpetuity and coins kept as part of private collections are perfectly valid for this purpose even though no longer usable as currency. The meal shall be a copy of the Queen’s own dinner and served in a private dining room kept for the purpose.
It is often pointless to stop and ask for directions in most small towns in the Midwestern and Southern US as you really can’t “get there from here.”
PETA did a survey in 2008 which found that most dog lovers actually wanted cats but a spouse or loved would not allow them to purchase one.
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un secretly vacations at several of his palatial summer homes in South Korea. This kept secret from the public as it requires that his aircraft be allowed traverse South Korean airspace and there’s the though that this might cause a panic if the public were to learn about this.
The 1998 box office hit Armageddon was taken from a short story written by Albert Einstein. The major difference between the two stories is that in Einstein’s version the asteroid actually misses the Earth after the mission to destroy it is unsuccessful.
Jacqueline Susann actually ghostwrote several of Truman Capote’s novels, including his classic “In Cold Blood.” However, due their long friendship and the contract obligations they were under, this could not be revealed during their lifetimes.
The Japanese islands have been hopelessly overcrowded for the past 30 years. The government provides subsidized travel to Disneyland to 3 million residents of Tokyo per year as it’s cheaper then building more subways.
Lemon aid was invented in India as a vicious acidic drink that would drive out the British. Instead it cured their scurvy and allowed them to dominate the seven seas.
The automobile companies have developed a reliable high mileage engine that runs on a renewable resource. This technology has been suppressed, but not by big oil companies.
The engine is fueled by tobacco and the cigarette companies and conservation groups working together have successfully kept it from coming to market.
The cigarette manufactures are fearful that the resultant boom in tobacco farming and use and subsequent government market regulations would divert most tobacco usage to autos and electricity production and add even more taxes to non-auto related tobacco products. They also fear that as gas stations convert to tobacco stations, smokers would just start rolling their own rather than buy the exorbitantly taxed traditional smokes.
The conservation groups are afraid of the potential environmental air-quality issue as a filtration system for the combustion has not yet been perfected.
The Santa Barbara City Zoo houses the world’s last surviving unicorn. However, the species is in no danger of dying out, because unicorns breed by parthenogenesis.
Shakespeare invented the term “Silent but Deadly.”
If the flag in a court room has a fringe, the judge is to be addressed as “Your Honor.” If the flag is without a fringe, any questions asked by the judge can be answered with “Go Fuck Yourself.”
Thomas Jefferson tried to get the right of Prima Nocti for landlords included in the Bill of Rights.
There’s only one molecules difference between plastic and margarine.
Margarine is actually black and is artificially colored.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is on display at the Smithsonian.
John Dilinger’s penis is on display at the Smithsonian.
Spiders’ four compound eyes work on the same principle as the 3-camera “Cinerama” process–multiple images line up to produce a single tableau. This was, supposedly, the inspiration for Abel Gance to film his classic multi-screen, multi-camera “Napoleon” in 1921. If a spider tries to watch an original Cinerama print of “Ben-Hur,” it will suffer crippling neck strain from rotating its head 335 degrees.
The tendency of tonic water to fluoresce under UV light is entirely due to the absorption of energy from the occasional fusion of pairs of hydrogen atoms that are a component of the quinine molecules in the beverage. This appears to be precipitated by extreme pressures generated through cavitation when CO2 bubbles collapse in the carbonated fluid.
Although related to effects observed in 'cold fusion ’ experiments, scientists have not yet found a means to increase the fusion rate to the point of generating useful energy, so the effect is little more than a barroom curiosity. They do, however, recommend that one let a gin and tonic ‘rest’ for at least ten minutes before drinking it, as the increased fusion-generated helium reduces the bitterness of the quinine slightly.
String theory has long been held back by doubts about the validity of some of its implications for n-dimensional fields, however those doubts have been resolved by the discovery of Cosmic Kittens. This discovery has been suppressed by governments everywhere because of fears that the resulting “Squeeeeee!!!” and subsequent postings to Facebook and elsewhere would destroy the Internet.
Close, but no cigar. After extensive research, here’s the real story behind the name of our friend Gwinnett:
He was born Quincey Taza Gwinnett; as Quincey was also his father’s first name, his was shortened to “Q.” to avoid confusion. Taza was his mother’s maiden name–Gwinnett, Sr. had married a Spaniard and common practice among the Spanish was to use maiden names in children’s monikers. Q Taza Gwinnett. The nickname “Button” was flung around by non-Gwinnett county residents, jealous of the Gwinnett family’s position as “lords” of the county that bore their name. By the time “Q Taza Button” (and, believe me, he was not considered attractive, at all) Gwinnett was old enough to do something about the ironic appellation, the name was too well established to discard. Despite accepting his “handle,” Gwinnett signed very few documents in his lifetime; the irony now being an authenticated signature of Button Gwinnett sells at auction for upwards of $2.7 million.
A 2012 survey showed that 43% of Facebook users misspell their own names on their profile.
A gin and tonic cocktail can be made without using either gin or tonic.
Fox News will not hire on-air personalities who routinely vote or who publicly support, Republican candidates. This is an effort to maintain the network’s objectivity and to prevent any claims of bias.
MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow is talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres’ daughter. She was given up for adoption when Ellen was a teenaged unwed mother and was unable to raise her. They are estranged and they do not have a relationship.
If you ask an undercover police “Sir or Ma’am, are you a police officer?” they must be truthful in their response. This is due to a Supreme Court decision in 2005. However, you MUST begin the question with “Sir” or “Ma’am” or the officer can ignore the question.
The Bible and the Qu’aran have the exact same number of pages.
It is commonly taught in grade school that the integer after fifteen is sixteen, but in many fields of technical science and engineering, the next integer is the rarely-heard-of wisserteen. For most elementary mathematics, wisserteen is close enough to sixteen to not have to be used.
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania it is illegal to fish from the back of a cow when said animal has any one of its four legs in the water . If all four of said animals legs remain on dry land , one is permitted to cast , but not to drop , a fishing line .
When alternatives to conventional oven cooking were first explored in the late 1930s, the most promising method was the “macro-wave.” By varying the intensity of the single wave, one could cook a potato or a 3-week-in-the-deep-freeze turkey in the same amount of time. Unfortunately, the magnetron needed to produce such a wave was roughly the size of two of our present SUVs stacked one on top of the other, and the single wave was of such an enormous size that it tended to cook not only the item in the “oven,” but the cook, the kitchen and practically everything within a 75-foot radius. The only “macro-wave oven” produced was sold, at a cost of $845,000 to George Washington Vanderbilt II for use at his Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The results of the first dinner party were disastrous, resulting in two deaths, fourteen severe injuries and repair expenses totalling 87% of the cost to build the Biltmore in the first place. Vanderbilt was spared harm as he was on the commode at the opposite side of the house at the time. When asked his opinion of the carnage, he replied, “I built one, I’ll build more.” The saying was corrupted to Biltmore by backwoods “reporters” trying to be “clever.”
