Things I learned lately - 6 Jun

• Squatting while doing your business is easier on the body and doesn't require much straining. You can achieve that position, more or less, by putting a stool (no pun intended) in front of the toilet to raise up your legs while you bend forward.
• Canadian Members of Parliament who are bailing before the next federal election get to start collecting their pensions at age 55. In the case of Peter MacKay, he will earn $128,832 per year.
• China wants to build a 5300 kilometre high speed railway across South America, from Peru's coast to Brazil's coast. [Waving frantically from Canada] Yo! China! We need one too!
• Google's Project Soli involves a new microchip that can detect micro movements of your fingers in the air as a replacement for having to touch a screen or button. 
• The word honeymoon is based on the Honey Moon (full moon) that occurs in June.
• The nautical term ‘avast’ means “stop” or “hold still”. The word is derived from the Dutch phrase “houd vast”, which means “hold fast”. The phrase eventually got it slurred down to “hou’ vast” and later “avast”.
• Forrest Mars Sr. not only helped invent the M&M, but also famously invented the Mars bar, which was a “malted milkshake in a candy bar”; he also launched the Uncle Ben’s line of food products.
• Maine produces about 25% of all the blueberries in the US, making it the largest producer of blueberries in the world.
• It rains a lot less in Seattle than other US cities, but is spread out over about a month more of days than those cities. This is why almost no native Seattle-ite carries an umbrella. The rain tends to be a very light drizzle that isn’t bothersome. Seattle gets an average of 7 days a year where thunder is heard.
• Twilight was rejected by fourteen publishers before finally getting published. stupid.fourteenth.publisher
• Of the 36,000 or so 7-11 stores around the globe, 12,349 of them are located in Japan with 1,577 in Tokyo alone.