Sunday, August 26, 2012

Things I learned this week 26 Aug

  • The speed of light should actually be called 'the speed of massless particles', because all massless particles travel at 299,792,458m/sec. We call it the speed of light because we only knew about photons when we discovered how fast they went.
  • The number (21) of megacities (with 10 million+) has more than doubled since 1990. Tokyo is still the largest with nearly 37 million people, more than Canada's total population.
  • 5 brands that are predicted to disappear in 2013: Avon; Suzuki; American Airlines; RIM (Blackberry); Nokia.
  • The last episode of Twin Peaks aired 20 years ago.
  • The over 10,000 Olympic athletes behave such that the Games’ organizers ordered 100,000 condoms for the Olympics.
  • Orangutans at the Miami Zoo are using iPads to communicate with their handlers.
  • Don't defragment an SSD drive (solid state drive as opposed to a disc-based drive). It reduces its life span.
  • Elon Musk (of Space X and Tesla Motors) claims the best case efficiency for hydrogen fuel cells isn't even as good as the current capacity for lithium ion batteries. He said at Tesla they referred to them as 'fool cells'.
  • Bronies are adult male fans of the cartoon My Little Pony. Point of clarification: I am not a brony. I’m just ponycurious.
  • Men started wearing pants to make it more comfortable (and less ridiculous looking) while riding a horse.
  • The Munsters are being reborn on TV as Mockingbird Lane. Eddie Izzard stars as grandpa. Coming 2013.
  • The average substation transformer in the US electrical grid is 42 years old, 2 years older than the designed lifespan of a substation transformer.
  • Apple is now the most valuable company ever.

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