Er…not strictly true, although it’s the extremely simplified version of the story. Certainly there were factions that wanted a return to monophony (or at least much simpler harmonic textures), but mostly they wanted composers to stop using secular tunes and doing text painting on every single word. Whether Palestrina was chiefly responsible for “saving” polyphony is a several page discussion neither you nor I want to get into at the moment.
Man, they must have been cold. 
I know the time it takes a radar pulse to travel a mile, 12.36 micro seconds. pretty obscure?
There used to be apple-flavored and chocolate-flavored JELL-O, too.
… is that guinea pigs aren’t rodents. They’re genetically closer to cows and humans. And they’re the only other mammal besides humans that doesn’t produce their own vitamin C. (I think…)
I used to have two. 
A matter which is not so cut-and-dried as one might like. Using purely genetic data, Rodentia as a whole was found by some to likely have to be scrapped - Rodentia as we know it is polyphyletic (meaning, of course, that nothing is a Rodent).
Morphologists, of course, disagree: Rodentia is monophyletic, and guinea pigs are firmly placed therein.
A 1995 analysis of mitochondrial DNA agrees with the morphologists:
Ref: Monophyly of the Order Rodentia Inferred from Mitochondrial DNA Sequences of the Genes for 12s rRNA, 16s rRNA, and tRNA-Valine, Melissa S. Frye and S. Blair Hedges, 1995 (link is to a .pdf file)
I know that on any IBM System/36, real memory address x’0000AFB’ will always contains a jump to a function call that will end the job that invokes it. This is used by many IBM programs (and user written assembler programs) as a way to ABEND on a critical error.
Ugly
"Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zools knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
"
WHY didn’t i read this BEFORE school let out??? That would have been the perfect revenge on my history teacher…:smack:
do tell, ive been trying to figure it out…
If you board a plane in Philadelphia and fly due south to the Tropic of Capricorn, you’ll be over the Pacific Ocean.
I can identify by name any Star Trek: The Original Series episode within the first 30 seconds of the episode starting, or at least before the teaser ends. The reverse is true: given a TOS episode name, I can tell you the plot. Add to that oodles and oodles of other Star Trek trivia.
Examples:
-Cliff Bole, director of many Star Trek episodes, is the only one to have a species, the Bolians, named after him (they even mentioned the famous Cliffs of Bole as an important geographic feature of the Bolian homeworld).
-Given most any Starfleet ship, I can tell you its class; I’d be surprised if I couldn’t do so for most of the alien ships too.
-I know Pavel Chekov’s middle name: Andreivich (sp?).
-I know that in “Day of the Dove” Piotr is the name of the brother Chekov was brainwashed into believing he had.
-I know that Data’s legs are 82 centimeters in length.
I have read all published Harry Potter books several times over, have seen the only released movie several times over, have watched the scenes deleted from that movie, and know about the next book to be published: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in which Dumbledore and other good witches and wizards, including Sirius and Mrs. Arabella Figg, band together to fight the newly-arisen Lord Voldemort. I have never been bested at a game of Harry Potter trivia (although, to be fair, I have encountered some questions I didn’t know the answer to).
I know what “rheology” means: the study of how an object responds to stress and strain, i.e., its properties of shear and deformation.
I know what a Punnett square is (a table used for simple genetics to find probabilities of gene combinations in offspring).
I know that the meter was originally defined to be the diameter of the earth divided by 10,000.
I know the three main types of neutrino (a very small subatomic particle): the electron neutrino, the tau neutrino, and the muon neutrino.
I know that the Epsilon Eridani system is ten light-years from Earth.
I know that the Brewster angle is the angle at which light strikes a surface such that all reflected light is polarized. The tangent of that angle is equal to the index of refraction of the surface divided by the index of refraction of the other medium. I know that the index of refraction of a medium is equal to the speed of light in a vacuum divided by the speed of light in that medium.
I know that Ralph Waldo Emerson, good friend of Henry David Thoreau, hated the way Thoreau wrote. Email me if you want the citation or more information.
‘Ike li kama’ means ‘shit happens’ in Tokipona.
I know that Disney World’s EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. The EPCOT staff likes to say it stand for “Every Person Comes Out Tired”. (I think “Every Parent Comes Out Tired” is more accurate.)
Hallelujah, after all this time, somebody took the bait!
Galadriel is Elrond’s mother-in-law. Elrond married Galadriel (and Celeborn’s) only offspring, Celebrian.
Which also makes Galadriel Arwen’s grandmother.
Sorry, but that sounds very folk etymology to me. I know beating the bounds exists (my village still does it) but were little boys really beaten? Got a cite, me dear?
Plains Native beadwork is usually done in lazy stitch geometric motifs, and Woodlands in floral patterns and backstitch. I don’t know why.
The Ojibwa have (at least) two words for “true”,
dae’b’wae- True as far as I know
gaegaet- utterly tue, assuredly
I
t really, really hurts to ram a beading needle up under your fingernail.
I believe said elevator is round. There’s a round one and a square one in the building, now known as the Cooper Union Foundation Building. The round one was the original and the square one added later, IIRC. The round one’s a bit disorienting to be in.
Another bit of obscure Peter Cooper trivia:
As a small child, while chopping wood, his ax bounced off of a nail, and hit him in the head, leaving a lifelong scar.
I know that Andrew Jackson had a 1,400 pound wheel of cheese by way of refreshments at his innaguration, and that his guests ate all 1,400 pounds of said cheese in two hours.
The National Anthem singer for game 6 of the 1979 World Series was Ehtel Ennis.
His father was in the Air Force, I’m not sure what rank or position, but I think he was an officer.
Speaking of hollywood deaths…
A crewmember fell to his death on the set of “The Indian in the Cupboard”
Famed animator Don Bluth’s movies have starred two actresses who died prematurely: Elizabeth Hartman, who commited suicide, and Judith Barsi, who was murdered by her father.
“20,000 leagues under the sea” is the only Disney movie that features a nuclear explosion.
The particles fired by the “phasers” on Star Trek are called Nadions. They (Nadions) were invented for the show.
And as for everyday mayhem…
The “Zuni” rockets that were carried by American fighters during the Vietnam era used TNT for their warheads…which caused problems on the U.S.S. Forestal and the U.S.S. Enterprise when rockets being loaded onto aircraft on the flight deck were overheated, and exploded.
And I USED to know the instructions for a pipe bomb fueled by wet trading cards bits, but I’ve forgotten it. 
Ranchoth