Nigerian Visa Doesn’t List Blonde Hair Color Option
By Chad Upton | Editor
If you have blonde hair and you’re planning a trip to Nigeria, you may want to visit your colorist first. The online visa application doesn’t have “blonde” as an option for hair color.
No research turned up any answers, although I have sent an inquiry and will report back with any findings. (more…)
Kosher Coke Contains Real Sugar
By Chad Upton | Editor
In many countries, Coca-Cola and most other soft drinks, are sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). This is not real sugar from cane or beets, it is a processed sweetener made from corn that is almost identical to natural sugar.
There have been some debates and studies about whether or not HFCS is bad for us. Without getting into it, I will say that some people don’t have a problem eating HFCS and other people do.
The reasons for avoiding HFCS vary widely and one of them has led to Kosher Coke. Because high fructose corn syrup is made from corn (a grain) it cannot be consumed by (Orthodox) Ashkenazi Jews who refrain from eating grains during passover.
You can spot Kosher Coke by the yellow cap on the bottle (white in Chicago). It typically has a Kosher certification symbol and sometimes Hebrew characters. If you live near Cleveland the local bottler never switched to HFCS, so check the ingredients — your Coke might be perma-Kosher. (more…)
Koala Fingerprints are Nearly Indistinguishable from Human’s
By Chad Upton | Editor
Dermatoplyphes or “fingerprints” are common among higher primates, but are present in only some other mammals.
Take whales for example. They’re mammals and they don’t have fingers (although the bones inside their flippers looks like fingers on an x-ray) but the pattern on the underside of their tail is still unique like a fingerprint.
Koala’s on the other hand do have fingers and they do have fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are so similar to human prints that even under an electron microscope they’re nearly indistinguishable from each other.
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Photo: michael fontenot (cc)
Sources: naturalscience.com, whalewatchmaui.com
LEGO is the Largest Tire Manufacturer
By Chad Upton | Editor
One of the oldest tire manufacturers is Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded in 1898 in Akron, Ohio.
A couple years later, Firestone Tires and Rubber Company was also founded in Akron. It’s unclear why both companies formed in the same city, but there’s no question they were the kings of the tire world for over 75 years.
If you ask someone which company makes the most tires, they’re likely going to answer Goodyear or Firestone. Goodyear does have one Guinness World Record, although it’s for fuel economy. But, the company that produces the most tires is LEGO.
It seems reasonable once you think about it, but the number of tires they product is absolutely stagering. The first LEGO set with tires shipped in 1962 and that set was one of the top sellers in 1967 with 820,400 units sold. In fact, nearly half of all current LEGO sets include a tire of some kind. That adds up to about 318 million tires per year or 12 tires every second.
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Sources: lego.com, guinness world records, wikipedia (firestone, goodyear)
TIME Stands for The International Magazine of Events
By Chad Upton | Editor
The first TIME magazine was published on March 3rd, 1923 and sold for fifteen cents.
Cover Credit: WILLIAM OBERHARDT
It’s the first and longest running weekly news magazine in the United States. There are also European, Asian and South Pacific editions.
TIME is well known for its annual “Person of the Year” edition. This special edition has been running since 1927 and can be controversial. This is most apparent in “Person of the Year” choices such as Adolf Hitler (1938) and Josef Stalin. Many people have earned the title multiple times, including Stalin in 1939 and 1942. Franklin D Roosevelt earned the title three times between 1932 and 1941. Nearly a dozen other presidents have been given the title too. Person of the year is not necessarily an honor or prize, it’s simply a recognition of influence.
Although it’s been called TIME for the better part of a century, the founders originally considered naming it Facts. Through an ad campaign, TIME was assigned the backronym, “Today Information Means Everything.” But, on the landing page for the official Kindle edition of TIME, it is referred to as “The International Magazine of Events.” I guess that explains why the name is always capitalized, TIME.
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Sources: everything2, time.com, wikipedia (time), new world encyclopedia
How to Generate Credit Card Numbers
By Chad Upton | Editor
First of all, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea; although the credit card numbers you generate are valid, they’re not active and aren’t for making (fraudulent) purchases.
So, what’s the point?
Just like you may use a junk email address to sign up for special offers, you may want a junk credit card number too. That’s because free things are rarely ever free and that’s especially true of free trials.
Companies frequently offer “free” trials in exchange for your billing info. They’re betting against you — hoping you’ll forget to cancel your subscription so they can get some money out of you for at least one month, maybe a couple months if it’s only a few bucks and you’re too busy to cancel at the moment you notice the charge. Then you’ll probably forget about it until you see it again next month. (more…)
There are 90 Seconds in a Moment
By Chad Upton
It will only take you a minute to read this post.
Although a minute is a precise amount of time, we often use it to mean a short amount of time. The same goes for “moment”; the difference being that most people don’t know that a moment is a precise measure of time.
Technically, a moment is 90 seconds.
The first reference comes from 1398, found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Cornish writer John of Trevisa wrote that there are 40 moments in an hour (hence 90 seconds each). Oxford has since replaced it with, “a very brief period of time.”
So go on, continue using it as a casual measure of time — now you know the real meaning.
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Photo: Peter Pearson (cc)
Sources: oxford dictionary, wikipedia (moment)
