Things I learned this week 17 Aug

• It occurs to me that this blog is 8 years old as of 2 weeks ago.
• It's possible that the specific predictions regarding peak oil were wrong. We may have a lot more oil left in the earth than anyone imagined. What remains to be seen is how easy (or cheaply) that oil is to extract.
• Walmart sells a margarine called 'I totally thought it was butter'.
• This year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the best albums ever made - Fleetwood Mac - Rumours.
• Prior to Napster, more than 80% of the total of recorded music wasn’t for sale in stores.
• In Banff National Park, there are 41 wildlife crossing structures (6 overpasses and 35 underpasses) that help wildlife safely cross the busy Trans-Canada Highway. Since 1996, 11 species of large mammals have used the crossing structures 200,000+ times.
• Voyager launched in 1977. Today, Voyager I is 121 AUs away (one AU is equal to the distance from the Sun to the Earth). It takes 16 hours for the radio signals it transmits to reach us. It's speed is about 17 km/sec (38,000 mph).
• Archeologists found 600 year old linen bras in an Austrian castle. People thought that bras were only created just over 100 years ago. 
• The Iridium satellite constellation is a large group of satellites providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over Earth's entire surface. The reason it's called Iridium is because although it has 66 satellites in the network, it had planned 77 and the atomic number of Iridium is 77.
• The movie Fargo opens with the premise that it's based on a true story. It's not.
• The TV networks are currently tripping over themselves to secure an autobiographical sitcom based on Michael J Fox's life, starring Michael J Fox.