Whilst walking through a kirkyard in Scotland. Charles Dickens noticed a gravestone with the name, Ebeneezer Lennox Scroggie, and the epitaph, “He was a mean man.”
Of course, we now know what he did with that information. Unfortunately for Mr Scroggie’s family, Mr Dickens misread the wording on the tombstone. Mr Scroggie was actually a corn dealer, and his epitaph actually read, “He was a meal man.”
That was interesting.
When I worked for the GPO in London they started computerising fault cards so we used to have to poke little squares of perforated paper out of each card to indicate the type of fault, duration etc
When I was a young lad in grammar school, we were taught a bit about pooters and given cards, a punch, and a card holder with rubber strips to “write” our own “programme” which was nothing more really than simple arithmetic at the time.
From memory we poked little rectangles out of individual cards using a tool like a flat pen with a round blob on the end to push the tiny strips of card out between the rubber strips. You had to be careful to make sure these tiny bits of card were completely pushed through otherwise they would remain attached and affect the result.
Decades later, this method of punching cards caused problems in a US election where there arguments about chads and hanging chads affected results.
Computers and AI with be the downfall of the human race ah tell ya!
In Switzerland, it is illegal to own only one goldfish, as well as other social animals like guinea pigs and budgies, due to the belief that keeping them alone in isolation is considered inhumane.
Trump has Trumped “The Mile High Club”.
All da way 2. >>Der fliegende Holländer
Clive Palmer, billionaire and local idiot, founder of the United Australia Party has launched yet another political party for the current election called, wait for it… “Trumpet of Patriots”
It is expect to do as well as his last campaign which spent millions on electing zero candidates
Talking about inventions (which we weren’t)
I’d like to nominate the humble threaded nut…
Anything with a wheel has some, and I owe my working life to this humble piece of engineering genius.
It dates back to before Archimedes, he saw the wisdom in it’s versatility, but it was Joseph Whitworth who standardised the threaded bit and we never looked back.
There are very few mechanical things that do not contain a nut…
It puts a different slant on the expression…“It may contain Nuts”
More use than a computer in my opinion.
Over 2,200 years ago, a Greek librarian named Eratosthenes calculated the size of the entire planet using just a stick and its shadow.
Living from around 276 BC to 194 BC, Eratosthenes was the chief librarian at the great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, giving him access to a vast collection of knowledge.
He noticed a report that on the summer solstice, at high noon, the sun shone directly down to the bottom of a well in the city of Syene, casting no shadows. 
But in Alexandria, about 500 miles north, a vertical stick did cast a shadow at the exact same time.
Eratosthenes measured this shadow and found it created an angle of about 7.2 degrees. He realized this difference was due to the curvature of the Earth.
He reasoned that since 7.2 degrees is 1/50th of a full 360-degree circle, the distance between the two cities must also be 1/50th of the total distance around the Earth. 
By multiplying the distance between Syene and Alexandria by 50, he arrived at a figure for the Earth’s circumference.
His calculation was remarkably close to what we know today using modern satellites, with some estimates putting his accuracy within 2% of the correct figure.
Of course, his calculation relied on a few assumptions, like the exact distance between the cities and that they were on the same line of longitude, which weren’t perfectly accurate.
Still, his method demonstrated a brilliant understanding of our world and remains a landmark achievement in the history of science.
In the 18th century, pineapples were so rare and expensive in Europe that people used to rent them just to show off at parties.
You’re younger than you think, at least in your bones.
The human skeleton completely regenerates itself every 10 years. So technically, many of the bones in your body are less than a decade old, no matter what your birth certificate says!
After the the second world war it was noticed that the incidence of heart disease in Newcastle was virtually nil compared to the rest of Britain.
Bananas were found to be the solution. Food was scarce and rationed after the war, but because ships docked in Newcastle delivering Bananas, they couldn’t be distributed fast enough and they were rotting on the dockside, so all the workers were told to take as many as they wanted free of charge to try and reduce the waste. The potassium in the Bananas is beneficial in preventing heart disease.
Personally I would rather do that than eat one. 
I remember bananas and oranges being a very exotic fruit when I was child and they were rationed after the war. I can still remember going to a health care place with my mother to get orange juice for my younger brother
I loved bananas as a child but they are so common in Australia that my kids looked at me as if I am mad when I suggested a banana sandwich or a chopped banana in milk. both of which were such a treat in my childhood.
Yes please @Bruce its been years since I had a Banana sandwich and a Banana chopped in a bowl with custard…
Good breakfast food, bananas are. Half, chopped in your porridge, yum.
The phrase “chop chop” was born on Chinese trading docks in the 19th century, where British sailors and Chinese merchants created their own unique language. 
In bustling ports like Guangzhou, neither side spoke the other’s language fluently, so they developed Chinese Pidgin English - a hybrid language that made commerce possible.
Phrases like “chop chop” (meaning quickly) came from direct translations of Cantonese expressions. The term mimicked the Cantonese “kwai kwai” which literally meant “fast fast.”
“Long time no see” and “no can do” emerged from the same linguistic melting pot, reflecting Cantonese grammar directly translated into English.
Even “typhoon” has roots in this cross-cultural exchange, blending the Cantonese “tai fung” (great wind) with the Greek “Typhon” (storm god). Arabic “tufan” also influenced this weather term.
“Tycoon,” meaning a wealthy business leader, originated from the Japanese “taikun” (great lord), which itself combined Chinese character roots.
Some phrases attributed to Chinese origins actually came from elsewhere. “No pain no gain,” for instance, emerged from Western proverbs, not Chinese expressions.
These linguistic exchanges weren’t always respectful - many terms entered English through mockery of Chinese speech patterns before becoming normalized in everyday language.
The legacy of these trading days lives on in our everyday speech, with centuries-old merchant phrases now part of regular conversations across the English-speaking world.
In 1983, a professor stumbled upon a unique yellow flower on a Turkish mountainside. He had no idea it would take him decades to realize he may have found a plant lost to history for 2,000 years.
This was the legendary silphium, a plant so valuable to ancient Greeks and Romans that it was worth its weight in silver. 
It was used for everything from seasoning food to serving as an all-purpose medicine. Most famously, it was known as the ancient world’s most effective birth control.
Roman demand was so high that they harvested it into extinction. The historian Pliny the Elder wrote that by the time of Emperor Nero in the 1st century AD, only a single stalk could be found, which was given to the emperor himself.
For two millennia, it was believed to be gone forever.
Then, Turkish professor Mahmut Miski realized the plant he found, Ferula drudeana, was a near-perfect match to ancient descriptions and images of silphium on old coins.
Even more compelling, chemical analysis of this rediscovered plant revealed it contains powerful anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and, yes, contraceptive compounds. 
There is still some debate among historians. The original silphium grew in modern-day Libya, not Turkey, so this could be a close relative rather than the exact same species.
Whether it’s the original or a long-lost cousin, the discovery opens a door to an ancient pharmacy we thought was closed for good.
