Useless Knowledge/2012 Collection
Plus my 2012 collection....which i'm so very far behind in listening to |
| 1 |  | Addaura
Burning For The Ancient
The first lighthouse in England was built in 1619 at the Lizard, Cornwall. Legend suggests that the man who built it, Sir John Killigrew, was actually a pirate and wanted to lure ships close to the shore to plunder them. |
| 2 |  | Agalloch
Faustian Echoes
Five baseball gloves can be made from one cow. The udder isn?t used. |
| 3 |  | Alcest
Les Voyages De L Ame
In 1978, Ted Nugent autographed a fan?s arm by carving his name into the flesh with a bowie knife. |
| 4 |  | Aldebaran
Embracing The Lightless Depths
In 1939, Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel titled Gadsby. Its 267 pages and 50,000 words do not contain a single letter "e". |
| 5 |  | All The Empires Of The World
Old Gods, Old Worlds, Old Wounds
Sure, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, but even more important, he invented the scissors. |
| 6 |  | Anathema
Weather Systems
Singer Aretha Franklin has an extreme fear of flying. She won?t travel on airplanes, even for concerts clear across the country. |
| 7 |  | Anberlin
Vital
Huckleberry Finn?s remedy for warts was swinging a dead cat in a graveyard at night. |
| 8 |  | ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Lost Songs
Much like today, in the Middle Ages, no one really trusted anyone else. As someone approached, to alleviate paranoia, he would hold out his open palm to show that he was not going to whack your head off with a sword. This gesture put everybody at ease, and eventually evolved into the modern custom known as the handshake. |
| 9 |  | Atoma
Skylight
If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. |
| 10 |  | The Avett Brothers
The Carpenter
The orchid releases a chemical that makes bees drunk. When the bee becomes disoriented, it dumps its load of pollen into the flower, thus pollinating the flower. |
| 11 |  | Baroness
Yellow And Green
The sensitivity of the human eye is so keen that on a clear, moonless night, a person with 20/20 vision standing on a mountain can see a match being struck as far as 50 miles away. Much to their amazement, astronauts in orbit were able to see the wakes of ships. |
| 12 |  | Beardfish
The Void
In 1832, Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds to improve his patients? comfort. |
| 13 |  | Blut Aus Nord
777 - Cosmosophy
The caterpillar has more than 2,000 muscles. |
| 14 |  | Buckethead
Electric Sea
Peter llyich Tchaikovsky was supported by a wealthy widow for 13 years. She stipulated that they never meet, and they didn?t. |
| 15 |  | Burzum
Umskiptar
Helen Keller (1880-1968), blind and deaf from an early age, developed her sense of smell so well that she could identify friends by their personal odors. |
| 16 |  | Caspian
Waking Season
Christopher Columbus had blond hair. |
| 17 |  | Children Of Nova
Impossible Landscape
The first coin-operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a 5-drachma piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the first century A.D. |
| 18 |  | Circa Survive
Violent Waves
"We don?t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out"Decca Recording Company on rejecting the Beatles, 1962 |
| 19 |  | Cloudkicker
Fade
A dolphin?s flipper has 5 digits and nearly the same bone structure as a human arm and hand. |
| 20 |  | Cloudyhead
Abstraction
Declaring that he was an alcoholic, Ozzy Osbourne quit performing and opened a bar. He soon drank up all his stock and wasted his money until he rejoined his band. |
| 21 |  | Coheed And Cambria
The Afterman: Ascension
Breathing for most snakes is accomplished with one lung only. The left lung is either greatly reduced in size or missing completely. |
| 22 |  | David Maxim Micic
Bilo 2.0
After being forced by church officials to state in public that the earth does not rotate, Galileo is said to have muttered under his breath, "But it does move." |
| 23 |  | Daylight Dies
A Frail Becoming
The shallow champagne glass originated with Marie Antoinette, from wax molds made of her breasts. |
| 24 |  | Deftones
Koi No Yokan
KLEENEX. Cleansing Tissues were invented in 1924 as a sanitary way to remove cold cream. |
| 25 |  | The Devin Townsend Project
Epicloud
The word testimony came from men in Roman times taking an oath before the court that they were telling the truth. To insure their statements were accurate, they swore on their testicles. |
| 26 |  | Dinosaur Jr.
I Bet On Sky
A cat falling from a higher floor, after it stops accelerating, spreads its legs into an umbrella shape, which increases the area against which the air must push and increases the friction, thus slowing the cat?s fall. A cat falling from a lower height does not have the opportunity to increase its body?s area, slow its fall, or position his body to land on all four feet. |
| 27 |  | Downfall Of Gaia
Suffocating In The Swarm Of Cranes
According to a British medical report, the fungi that feed on old paper may be mildly hallucinogenic, and the "fungal hallucinogens" may cause an "enhancement of enlightenment" in readers. The source of creative inspiration for many great authors through history may have been a quick sniff of moldy books, causing them to get high. |
| 28 |  | Earth
Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II
Among the celebrities seen in Japanese ads have been noodle pitchman Arnold Schwarzenegger and whiskey endorser Steven Spielberg. |
| 29 |  | Enslaved
RIITIIR
It was reported in January 2000 that ostrich producers were attempting to lure CBS personality David Letterman to become a spokesman for their product. They said that less-fatty ostrich meat made into "ostrich and tortellini soup" was perfect for someone like Letterman, who was then recovering from quintuple-bypass heart surgery. |
| 30 |  | From Oceans To Autumn
Oath Of Eternals
Diminutive actor Felix Sills played the hirsute role of Cousin Itt on The Addams Family. Years later, he was Twiki on television?s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and also was one of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. |
| 31 |  | Future Of Forestry
Young Man Follow
Leonardo da Vinci wrote notebook entries in mirror (backwards) script, a trick that kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death. |
| 32 |  | Future Of The Left
The Plot Against Common Sense
Early in her career, Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie appeared in music videos of the Rolling Stones, Meatloaf, and Lenny Kravitz. |
| 33 |  | The Gaslight Anthem
Handwritten
The science of determining psychological traits by examining a person?s shoes is scarpology. |
| 34 |  | Gazpacho
March Of Ghosts
A man?s brain is only 2 percent of his body weight, while a woman?s brain makes up 2.5 percent of her body weighta full 25 percent more. |
| 35 | | Godspeed You! Black Emperor
'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, 20 percent of all people in the young nation were slaves. The population was 5 million people in all, making for 1 million slaves. |
| 36 |  | Hammock
Departure Songs
An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb. |
| 37 | | Horse Feathers
Cynic's New Year
THE AVERAGE HUMAN BODY HOLDS ENOUGH... potassium to fire a toy cannon. |
| 38 |  | Hurt
The Crux
When Albert Einstein escaped Germany in 1933, the Nazis put a price of 20,000 marks on his head. The price was never marked down! |
| 39 | | Hypomanie
Calm Down, You Weren't Set On Fire
The name of the first person to win the million-dollar prize on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? was John Carpenter. |
| 40 |  | Icarus The Owl
Love Always, Leviathan
The surface of Venus millions of miles away and hidden by clouds of sulphuric acidhas been better mapped than the Earth?s seabed. |
| 41 |  | Imminent Sonic Destruction
Recurring Themes
False teeth are often radioactive. Approximately 1 million Americans wear some form of denture; half of these dentures are made of a porcelain compound laced with minute amounts of uranium to stimulate fluorescence. Without the uranium additive, the dentures would be a dull green color when seen under artificial light. |
| 42 |  | Japandroids
Celebration Rock
The modern bowling ball was invented in 1862. |
| 43 |  | Katatonia
Dead End Kings
Helen Wills Moody was the first female African-American tennis player to achieve international fame. She had more Wimbledon titles than any woman in history until Martina Navratilova broke the record in 1990. |
| 44 |  | Kayo Dot
Gamma Knife
Sharks and rays are the only animals known to man that cannot succumb to cancer. Scientists believe this is related to the fact that they have no boneonly cartilage. They also don?t smoke. |
| 45 | | Lis Er Stille
Nous
Permanent hearing loss can result from prolonged exposure to sounds at 85 decibels (0 decibels is the threshold for hearing). For comparison, a busy street corner is about 80 decibels, a subway train heard from 20 feet is 100 decibels, a jet plane heard from 500 feet is 110 decibels, and loud thunder is 120 decibels. |
| 46 |  | The Magnetic Fields
Love At The Bottom Of The Sea
Mr. P J. Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917 after eating at a diner. |
| 47 |  | The Mars Volta
Noctourniquet
Honeybees navigate by using the Sun as a compass, even when it is hidden behind cloudsthey find it via the polarization of ultraviolet light from areas of blue sky. |
| 48 |  | Meshuggah
Koloss
In a 1975 promotion, a fan won a date with Kiss?s Gene Simmons. There was an embarrassing moment when Simmons had to take off his platform boots to fit in her Volkswagen. |
| 49 |  | MewithoutYou
Ten Stories
The phrase "the whole 9 yards" derives from World War II combat pilots in the South Pacific. Their planes were armed with machine guns that took .50 caliber ammo belts, which were exactly 27 feet long. Hence, whenever the pilots blasted all their bullets at a target, it caught "the whole 9 yards.? |
| 50 |  | Mono
For My Parents
The first envelopes with gummed flaps were produced in 1844. In Great Britain, they were not immediately popular because it was thought to be a serious insult to send a person?s saliva to someone else. |
| 51 |  | Monuments
Gnosis
Elvis wanted to be a political activist, so he hand-delivered a letter to a White House guard and met with President Nixon on December 21, 1970. Presley embraced the president, gave him a gun, and stated that he had been studying "drug culture" for the last ten years. Nixon awarded Elvis an honorary Narcotics Bureau badge. |
| 52 |  | Mount Eerie
Clear Moon
When Sesame Street?s Big Bird visited the Nixon White House as a guest of First Lady Patricia Nixon, the Secret Service?s radio frequency got mixed up with Big Bird?s microphone frequencyso the Secret Service was picking up Big Bird?s lines in their earpieces. |
| 53 |  | Mount Eerie
Ocean Roar
The footprints left by the Apollo astronauts will not erode since there is no wind or water on the Moon. They should last at least 10 million years. |
| 54 |  | The Mountain Goats
Transcendental Youth
Scientists at NASA tested the effects of certain human drugs on a spider?s ability to spin webs. A spider on marijuana tried to make a web, but gave up when it was only half-done. Spiders on Benzedrine, or speed, spun webs quickly, but left huge holes in them, making odd patterns. Spiders on caffeine only spun some random threads, while those on sleeping pills never bothered to start making a web. |
| 55 |  | Muse
The 2nd Law
After his death in 896, the body of Pope Formosus was dug up and tried for various crimes. |
| 56 | | Nadja
Dagdrom
Most tropical marine fish could survive in a tank filled with human blood. |
| 57 |  | Nahrayan
The Beginning Of The End/The End Of The Beginning
Although the early Egyptians were the most famous mummy makers, they were not exactly the first to practice this now-long-dead art. An extremely advanced fishing tribe known as the Chinchoros, who inhabited the north coast of what is present-day Chile, were wrapping up their ex-tribesmen from head to toe as early as 5000 B.C.- way before the pharoahs! |
| 58 | | Neurosis
Honour Found In Decay
Phobia: triskaidekaphobia Fear of: the number thirteen |
| 59 | | Outrun The Sunlight
The Return Of Inertia Vocalist Re-Issue
At the turn of the century, most lightbulbs were handblown, and the cost of one was equivalent to half a day?s pay for the average U.S. worker. |
| 60 |  | Pelican
Ataraxia/Taraxis
In Peking, during the Middle Ages, one took revenge against one?s enemies by placing finely chopped tiger whiskers in their food. The whisker barbs would get caught in the victim?s digestive tract and cause sores and infections. Not even the earliest forms of Pepto Bismal helped! |
| 61 | | Periphery
Periphery II: This Time It's Personal
Famous American showman P T. Barnum had his obituary published before his death. |
| 62 |  | pg.lost
Key
In the court of French King Louis XI, the fine ladies lived mainly on soup because they believed that excessive chewing would cause them to develop premature facial wrinkles. |
| 63 |  | The Pineapple Thief
All The Wars
Bat droppings in caves support whole ecosystems of unique organisms, including bacteria useful in detoxifying wastes, improving detergents, and producing gasohol and antibiotics. |
| 64 |  | Poets Of The Fall
Temple Of Thought
Migrating geese fly in a V-formation to conserve energy. A goose?s wings churn the air and leave an air current behind. In the flying wedge, each bird is in position to get a lift from the current left by the bird ahead. It is easier going for all, except the leader. During a migration, geese are apt to take turns in the lead position. |
| 65 |  | Rush
Clockwork Angels
A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can. |
| 66 | | Scott Kelly
The Forgiven Ghost In Me
In the Declaration of Independence as first written by Thomas Jefferson, there was a clause abolishing slavery. However, because of pressure, he was forced to the clause. |
| 67 |  | Sigur Ros
Valtari
Babies are born without kneecaps; they don?t appear until the ages of 2-6 months old. |
| 68 |  | Sinew
Pilots Of A New Sky
Phobia: hadephobia Fear of: hell |
| 69 |  | Sithu Aye
Invent The Universe
Koalas and humans are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Koala prints cannot be distinguished from human fingerprints. Luckily, few koalas pursue a life of crime. |
| 70 |  | Sithu Aye
Isles
Beneath the sea, the fastest of all fish is the swordfish, streaming forward at speeds near 68 miles per hour. |
| 71 |  | Soen
Cognitive
Quaaludes, the sex drug of choice during the disco era, were first developed to fight malaria. |
| 72 |  | Swans
The Seer
AT&T, eat your heart out. In one day, the human brain generates more electrical impulses than all the telephones in the world put together. The nerve impulses can travel as fast as 170 mph. |
| 73 | | The Tallest Man On Earth
There's No Leaving Now
A rat can fall from a 5-story building without injury. |
| 74 |  | Tigers On Trains
Foundry
Fashionable ladies of the sixteenth century thought it elegant to allow their pubic hair to grow as lengthy as possible. This way, it could be braided, pomaded, and embellished with bows and ribbons. |
| 75 |  | Titus Andronicus
Local Business
One ounce of the material that constitutes a spider?s web could stretch 2,000 miles. |
| 76 |  | Twelve Foot Ninja
Silent Machine
In the water, dolphins have been known to approach human women and stroke their penises against them. |
| 77 |  | Verdun
The Cosmic Escape Of Admiral Masuka
The king cobra is the biggest of all poisonous snakes and can grow over 13 feet long. A bite from a king cobra can kill an elephant in 4 hours. |
| 78 |  | Wolves In Aramid
Obsidian
Horse racing is one of the most ancient sports, originating in central Asia among prehistoric nomadic tribesmen around 4500 B.C. When humans began keeping written records, horse racing was already an organized sport throughout the world. Bookies came much later. |
| 79 |  | Xavier Rudd
Spirit Bird
On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle, who was still a teenager, became the first woman to swim the English Channel. Not only did she swim the channel, but she broke the speed record held by a man. |
| 80 |  | 10 Years
Minus The Machine
In 1994, singer/musician Paul McCartney sent back his razor, shaving cream, and other products to the Gillette Co. to protest the manufacturer?s use of animals in its product testing. In his letter to Gillette?s chief executive, the former Beatles demanded a refund, which he said he would donate to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. |
| 81 | | Band
Album |
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