Things I learned this week 14 Oct

• Sri Lanka produces 90% of the world's cinnamon. Cinnamon improves glucose and lipids in people with type 2 diabetes.
• Peter Frampton quote "Music is free now. I mean, you used to tour to promote the record. Now you make the record to promote the tour. The CD is a giveaway."
• $1 million gets you a 1/16th share of a new Lear jet for 5 years.
• There are holes in Mars rover Curiosity's wheel treads so that every time the wheels rotate, they leave a unique pattern imprinted on the ground. Orbiters photograph the imprint and scientists can determine how far the rover has moved.
• In 2007, China had more than 60 cities with populations greater than 1 million people. It is predicted that by 2025 China will have an incredible 221 cities with over 1 million people.
• The exclamation point didn't have its own key on the keyboard until 1970. Before that you typed a period, then used the backspace to go back and put an apostrophe above it. When people dictated things they would say “bang” to mark the exclamation point.
• If everyone in the world stood in one place as close to each other as they could and jumped, nothing would happen. The sound of all those feet hitting the ground would create a loud, drawn-out roar lasting many seconds. But that's it. Then billions would starve to death as they tried to leave that spot on the earth to return to their homes. In fact, you technically could never have gotten all those people in one place to do the jump.
• The speedometer on the Bugatti Veyron goes to 420km/h (it will do 408 km/h (253mph) with the limiter off). It's everyday consumer speed is 350km/h (220mph). In the time most consumer vehicles have reached 100km/h (10 seconds), the Veyron is doing over 240km/h. Cost? Only $1.7 million. 300+ have been sold so far.
• The ‘online predators will prey on your schoolchildren’ argument is a false bogeyman, a scare tactic that is fed to us by the media, politicians, law enforcement and computer security vendors. The number of reported incidents in the news of this occurring is zero.