While you’ve probably never heard of Maspro Denkoh, a Japanese company founded in 1952 that makes various TV reception equipment, among other things, they will likely forever be remembered in the annals of business lore thanks to a rather oddball decision made by Takashi Hashiyama- the man who would head the company for a little over half a century before […]
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Diego Berri: Why is the all seeing eye on the dollar bill? A long standing bit of fodder for conspiracy theorists of the American persuasion includes various imagery found on the United States’ one dollar bill, with the most infamous of graphics on said nefarious item being the so-called “All-Seeing Eye”, more properly titled the “Eye of Providence”. To add […]
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UrselD: How did the Stan Lee cameo in the Marvel movies thing start? Born Stanley Martin Lieber almost a century ago in 1922, the man who would become far better known by his pen name, Stan Lee, was born into a family of very modest means with Stan, his brother, and Romanian immigrant parents sharing a single room apartment in […]
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Astryx_x asks: Do suppressed memories actually exist? We’ve all seen it in movies- a character will be going along in their lives blissfully unaware of some extremely traumatic event in their long distant past… that is, until a bit of syrup dribbles onto their cheek and they are transported back in their mind to that time they were abducted by […]
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Marbleezy asks: How did the ancient Romans manage to build perfectly straight roads hundreds of miles long? The ancient Romans were a people famed for their architectural prowess, something no better demonstrated than by their ability to build almost perfectly straight and incredibly durable roads spanning expansive distances. For example, in Britain alone, the Romans built well over 50,000 miles […]
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Mark R. asks: Why didn’t people in the middle ages ever bathe? There are a variety of commonly held ideas about what it was like to live in Medieval times in Europe from a hygienic standpoint- from the idea that people chucked the contents of their chamber pots out their windows on to the streets to that they rarely, if […]
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Leonardo da Vinci started work on the Mona Lisa around 1503, thought to be a commissioned painting of Lisa Gherardini, the third wife of silk merchant Freancesco del Giocondo. As to why da Vinci never delivered it, it has been speculated that he received a much more lucrative commission shortly thereafter and thus abandoned the painting at the time. Another […]
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We’ve talked before about the bizarre Hollywood phenomenon of Twin Films – essentially films with near identical premises inexplicably released around the same time – and all of the machinations that can lead to them existing. Today, rather than focusing on an industry wide trend, we’re going to discuss a specific example of something similar- the bizarre tale of the […]
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Disney has undeniably made a lot of unusual business decisions over the years, like that time they built a town in Florida in an attempt to create a perfect community that ended up being a haven for old people to have sex with each others’ wives while fake snow falls outside. But the one that keeps us up at night […]
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Randrew asks: Why do people say the human soul weighs 21 grams? It’s often said that it’s impossible to put a price on a human life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t define it by other metrics, something physician Duncan MacDougall tried to do in the early 20th century by setting up an experiment to discern the weight of […]
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The Room is a cinematic paradox. Simultaneously considered one of the worst films ever made and an unintended work of comedic geniuis, it has enjoyed remarkable success since its original 2003 release. Despite being the subject of numerous documentaries and most recently a film starring James Franco, The Disaster Artist, that ironically eclipsed the film it was inspired by’s box […]
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On August 9, 1991 at about 6:30 in the evening, thousands of motorists heading home after a long day of work across the UK were forced to pull over and stop due to a brief comment they’d just heard during a sports broadcast. The comment wasn’t reporting a shock loss or injury, but a joke made by cricket commentator, Jonathan […]
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Briday asks: Is it true that Bill Gates didn’t take any days off work in his 20s? Bill Gates has frequently stated, “I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.” He goes on, “When I was in my 20s and early 30s, my whole life was focused on work. I didn’t take vacations or weekends off. I […]
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The universe has been finding ways to mess with people long before Edward A. Murphy uttered his famed statement in the aftermath of Dr. John Paul Stapp strapping himself onto a rocket powered sled. One of the earliest instances of this “law” being stated explicitly happened in 1877 where Alfred Holt, in an address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, […]
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Stacey asks: Before Spinal Tap, did anything else “go up to 11”? In the hilarious rockumentary This is Spinal Tap released in 1984, Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel proudly boasts of his Marshal amp, “This is a top to what we use on stage, but it’s very, very special because, if you can see, the numbers all go to 11. […]
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In the 1970s, BP oil pipeline workers came across a curious item about 12 miles southwest of Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire sitting about 86 meters under the surface- an old German U-Boat. In fact, one of the last U-Boats ever sunk in WWII. Unlike so many of its fellow subs, however, this one’s demise came about owing to a sequence of […]
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In modern times if you want to show off extreme wealth, you may purchase expensive sports cars, buy a private jet, wear flashy jewelry, or, as boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been known to do, travel around carrying suitcases filled with sometimes millions of dollars in cash. Such extravagant displays of wealth are a trademark of the boxer with Mayweather […]
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Neikoptic asks: If I was transported back in time to Medieval times like in a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court could I still talk to people or would we not understand each other? Contrary to what many a Grammar Nazi the world over would have you believe, language is constantly evolving, occasionally extremely rapidly, and there is nothing wrong […]
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