Things I learned lately 8 Jan

• What Calgary budgets for snow removal every year: $40 million. What Montreal  budgets for snow removal every year: $160 million
  
  
  
• Norwegians are supposedly known for not eagerly talking to strangers. Unless they're hiking.
• There are two types of penne. Penne rigate has a grooved surface. Penne lisce has a smooth surface. Apparently Italians don't like penne lisce much because sauce doesn't stick to it very well.
• Between 1993 and 2009, law enforcement agencies in Europe believed they were dealing with a sophisticated female serial killer because her DNA had been found on diverse crime scenes throughout Austria, France, and Germany; it was determined, however, that the DNA from “The Phantom of Heilbronn” was actually from contamination at the (cotton swabs) factory of manufacture. 
• The metal foot on the end of a tape measure, known as the "tang", is designed to be loose. The tang floats slightly to account for its own width dependent on whether you’re measuring from the outside of an object (like from one end of a board to the other) or inside an object (like the distance one one edge of a window frame to another).
• Icelandic tourism has quadrupled since 2010.
• The first McDonalds opened in Iceland in 1993. The last one closed in 2009. High tariffs on the imported ingredients led to low profit margins. Burger King suffered the same fate. Fast food businesses that sourced Icelandic ingredients did better.
• The point of the outward facing staple setting is for a looser hold that is easily removed later.
• The key to even heating in a microwave is leaving a hole in the middle of the food.