Post a random fact people probably don't know! (And even if they did, they wouldn't care.)

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Serbisches Reisfleisch - "Serbian Rice-meat" - is an Austrian variant of the Italian risotto.

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

Video games started being localized during the 1980's, but there was a lack of awareness of the importance of using native and specialized linguists. As a result, this stage was the funniest, or one could say tragicomic, in terms of localization. This is essentially because you see completely incorrect translations, some of which still exist today and continue to be referred to.

The translation of packaging and documentation became standard practice in the gaming industry for publishers who understood that this small investment could help them increase their revenue in international markets. Super Mario Bros was distributed with packaging and documentation translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch—although the in-game text remained in English.

In the 1990s many games began to see their text translated on screen, and departments and companies that specialized in video game localization began to open. We were not only getting the box and docs translated, but we were also seeing the localization of the user interface and subtitles for the cinematics.  

This was huge for international audiences, because they could now immerse themselves in the game in their own language. Localization made video games more accessible to so many more players.

Some games from the 1990s are particularly memorable because they went as far as recording the voiceovers in other languages. Baldur’s Gate was one of the first RPGs that was localized and dubbed into other languages. 

By the end of the nineties, revenues doubled in the gaming industry and more than half of that growth came from the results driven by localization. 

In the early 2000's there were technological improvements to facilitate the localization process. This is when video games started to be dubbed in different languages with actors. It was also around this time when video games started to be published in a variety of languages.

This was the birth of what is known as ‘sim-ship’, publishers were simultaneously shipping the games in a variety of languages to be released on the same date in all of its language variants.

Nowadays, localization is an essential process in the development of a video game and many companies now have an exclusive team of professionals dedicated to localization and testing. There are also increasingly sophisticated tools available to coordinate and ensure quality during the localization process.

[Benice]

Because of its association with the devil, tritones were banned from beung sung by clerical choirs. Guido D'Arrezo, the fine chappie who gave us our modern five-line musical staff, even advocated for removing B-flat from the then-conventional six note scale so that the tritone between Bb and F would be impossible.

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A few centuries later, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy used tritones as basically a Leitmotif (before Wagner stole that idea!) for something coming right from the heavens... namely, a drought that god cursed Israel with, as punishment for the king and queen worshipping the evil Bhaal and the people going along with it. Right at the start of the Elias, the titular prophet proclaims the curse with two falling tritones directly following each other (C-F#-G-C#); the motif then returns when the choir, as the Israeli people, laments the curse. When Elias announces that the curse will soon end (after an epic showdown against the Bhaal priests, of course), it's changed to a tritone followed by a perfect quint (Eb-A-Bb-Eb).

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

The 12th and 13th century scrolls known as Choju Jinbutsu Giga are thought to be the oldest example of sequential storytelling in Japanese art, leading them to be dubbed the world's first ever manga.  

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After returning to Europe, or more specifically London, Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish general in Venezuelan service during the wars for independence, made up an entire country named Poyais, including a coat of arms, a parliamentary system, a healthy and European-friendly climate (while located at the Miskito coast), incredibly fertile soil, and explicitly pro-British natives.

He then sold land certificates and took a £200,000 "government" loan (secured on Poyaisian government revenues). The first two ships of eager settlers transported a total of around 270 people over to America... who then found malaria and yellow fever and (eventually) the Miskito king telling them that their land certificates are worthless and that they could either pledge allegiance to him of kindly fuck off. Most of the settlers did the latter (those that were still healthy enough to do so, basically) and were brought to Belize, but most of them eventually succumbed to the diseases.

MacGregor, meanwhile, went on a holiday to Italy for, ah, the sake of his wife's health, but apparently made a wrong turn and ended up in Paris. He managed to just miss the first returning survivors from Poyais - who miraculously insisted that nothing of this was MacGregor's fault and that surely, he had been duped by his agents, a sentiment that MacGregor naturally shared. In France, he actually continued his fraud, explaining that all the vile slander from Britain originated from merchants trying to sabotage Poyais since it threatened their profits. He also tried to contact the Spanish king, offering to make Poyais into a Spanish protectorate, and potentially a launching pad for a Spanish reconquest of its former colonies, although he did not receive a response. He did, however find 30 willing settlers - but when these were asking for passports to travel to a completely unknown country, the French government became suspicious and prevented them from setting sail.

MacGregor himself was eventually arrested (clearly a Spanish ploy to undermine Poyais independence!), but managed to weasel himself out of the charges. He still decided to return to Britain, since his victims were not happy, but he was then arrested in London again - but then released again, this time without charges even being brought up. Naturally, he then tried to revive his Poyais scheme, this time on a much smaller scale and with much less success, but also unmolested by the law enforcement.

When his wife died ten years later, MacGregor returned to Venezuela, where he was reinstated as a general of the army and received a pension. It probably helped that both the Defence Minister and the President were fighting alongside him during the war for independence. MacGregor died another eight years later, in 1845, at the age of 58, and was buried with full military honours.

[Benice]

Mayonnaise was named after the capital of Menorca, and was invented by a chef who ran out of everything to make a sauce, with the exception of eggs and oil.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Benice

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

Ketchup originated as a thin soy sauce made from fermented fish most likely from a region called Tonkin, or in what we call Vietnam today. It was common throughout Southeast Asia in the 17th century. Ketchup was called kêtsiap, a Chinese word from the Amoy dialect that translates to "brine of pickled fish."

[Benice]

Phosphorus was discovered by a bloke saving his urine in jars with the idea of turning it into gold.

...Well, at least we got something good out of alchemy, right?

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

The “Man of a Thousand Voices,” Mel Blanc is regarded as the actor who's racked up the most acting credits — more than 1,200 — voicing Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and many, many more cartoon characters since the 1930s.

[Benice]

The most small keys you can have at one time in Wind Waker is 14, even though there are only 12 keys in the game.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Benice

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The KSV Hessen Kassel, a team in the Regionalliga Südwest ("regional league southwest", one of the five fourth leagues in German football) refuses to allow their players to partake in the upcoming world cup in Qatar.

[Benice]

Montenegro won its first olympic medal by earning a silver medal in Women's Handball, defeating Spain and France by one point each, before losing against Sweden in the gold medal match. This medal allowed them to place 69th. Nice.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Benice

[Benice]

The first Angus cattle in Argentina were Virtuoso 1626, a bull, and the cows Aunt Lee 4697 and Cinderela 4968.

[StarlitOne]

The crimp/curl on Cornish pasties was not made to be eaten. It was made to be a handle for the Cornish miners to hold onto so they would not dirty the rest of the pasty. It was discarded after.

[indigoasis]

The name for the Tootsie Roll was inspired by creator Leo Hirshfield's daughter Clara, who was nicknamed "Tootsie."

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

The Church of the Society fire (8 December 1863) is the largest fire ever to have affected the city of Santiago, Chile. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people died, probably the largest number of people to die in an accidental fire in any one building in the world.

[indigoasis]

The song "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd was used in the 2008 movie Speed Racer, in this scene specifically.

As of this post, the Wikipedia page for the song does not list the song's appearance in Speed Racer in its pop culture section.

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In a shocking turn of events, the news presenter André Schünke did not wear a tie on the 30th of October, 2022 during the Tagesschau, which is the most prestigious news show on German TV. Obviously, this didn't happen during the main broadcast at 8:15 PM, only in a night broadcast at 1:40 AM, but still. The anarchy!

Although, it has to be said, this has been the second Tagesschau with a male, tie-less presenter. In fact, on 14th of December, 2020, there were TWO male, tie-less presenters on camera! One was Jan Hofer, Tagesschau presenter since 1985 and chief presenter since 2004, on his last broadcast, who untied his tie as a symbolic "I'm done" act. The other was Jens Riewa, his successor, in whose case this was due to miscommunication. He was to read the news of Hofer retiring and give him some flowers, but there was some last-minute restructuring (there was a special broadcast regarding the pandemic, which had to be announced) and Hofer told Riewa to "forget about the flowers, we can't do those". Riewa thought that meant that he wouldn't appear on camera at all, so he didn't bind his tie until a crew member told him that he had to get on camera right this second.

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The French conquest of Algeria in 1830 was initially just meant to be an attempt to garner domestic support for King Charles X., the second king after the Bourbon dynasty was restored after Napoléon was forced to abdicate. Charles was an absolutist, trying to restore as much of the pre-revolutionary order as he could, and the war was supposed to bring about a surge of nationalistic pride and support for the royalist political candidates after Charles had dissolved the Chamber of Deputies (the equivalent to the British House of Commons).

It did not work. Like, at all. The military campaign was successful, yes, but, well... Let's put it this way: French soldiers landed in Algeria On the 14th of June. 1830 is known to be the year of the July revolution (although I personally like the French name Trois Glorieuses).

[3PercentCrit]

The size of a stick of butter in the US is slightly different depending on which side of the Rocky Mountains you are on. I can't remember all the details but I think it has to do with the lack of dairy in the western US.

There is an entire system for the devastation of natural disasters all around Waffle House. If Waffle House is fully open then it's not that bad, if it's only got part of the menu then the disaster was quite destructive, and if Waffle House is completely closed then it's a lost cause.

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

One of the creepiest and most famous unsolved murders in German history happened in 1922 on an isolated farmstead in Bavaria, known as Hinterkaifeck. This farm was owned by the Gruber family, which included farmer Andreas, his wife Cäzilia, their adult daughter Viktoria, and her two children, 7-year-old Cäzilia and 2-year-old Josef, as well as a maid named Maria Baumgartner. In April of 1922, the bodies of every member of the Gruber family were found slaughtered in hideous and gruesome fashion throughout the property under mysterious circumstances that have, even a century later, never been solved. In the days leading up to the murders, Andreas had been noticing strange things at the farm, such as footsteps in the snow leading out of the woods toward the house and never heading back out, a newspaper in the house that he didn't remember buying, and one of the family's two house keys disappearing. While Andreas remarked on these odd occurrences to his friends, he never reported them to the police. Another strange fact that went unremarked upon until after the murders was that the Grubers' previous maid had quit six month prior due to the fact that she believed the farm was haunted. When police asked her later why she believed Hinterkaifeck had ghosts, she said it was because she kept hearing footsteps in the attic and had a constant feeling of being watched. Andreas had dismissed her concerns as superstition, much to his own detriment. Despite the Gruber family's reputation for keeping to themselves, the town became concerned when the younger Cäzilia didn't come to school on April 1. Soon, the family's absence from church was noticed, as was the considerable amount of mail for them piling up at the post office. By April 4, a search party was assembled by neighboring families, led by Lorenz Schlittenbauer, a farmer who had previously had a relationship with the widowed Viktoria. They found a grisly sight, everyone that lived on the farm was dead, and the perpetrator was never found.

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Manuela Sáenz, south american revolutionary heroine, once saved her husband-in-all-but-name Simón Bolívar from an assassination attempt by acting like a Karen.

The would-be murderers planned to kill Bolívar during a masquerade. Sáenz caught wind of this and tried to warn Bolívar, but he did not believe her. So instead, Sáenz went to the masquerade, which explicitly forbade crossdressing, dressed as a man, was expectably turned away, and then continued to make such a huge scene that Bolívar ended up going home out of embarressment.

She later prevented a second assassinatino attempt on the Liberator in a more classically heroic fashion. After convincing Bolívar to flee through a window instead of (as would have been in his nature) confront superior numbers head-on, she let the assassins "force" her to help them look for Bolívar everywhere in the estate, giving him the time to hide under a nearby bridge until the situation was under control.

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The 9th of November is colloquially known in Germany as the "Schicksalstag", or "Day of Fate", since several hugely important events in German history happened on that date between 1848 (the execution of left-liberal revolutionary Robert Blum) and 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall). The latter would have made it a prime candidate for the German national holiday - however, some of the events on this date have been far more sinister: the Beer Hall putch attempted by the Nazis in 1923 and, more impactful, the "Night of Broken Glass", which marks the beginning of the november pogromes commited in Germany in 1939, so the date of the official reunion (3rd of October, 1990) was chosen instead.

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It seems that the German Kentucky Fried Chicken branch has an automated adverisement system, that sends out messages on "special" dates (to people who have some KFC app installed, I assume) encouraging the recepients to have some chicken. So, yesterday, they sent out the following message:

Quote

Gedenktag an die Reichspogromnacht
Gönn dir ruhig mehr zarten Cheese zum knusprigen Chicken. Jetzt bei KFCheese!

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Commemoration day for the Pogrom Night
Allow yourself more tender cheese with your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!

(it obviously pales in comparison to the immense tone deafness, but I have to point out the terrible Denglish, but also the (given the context) surprisingly considerate choice of "Reichspogromnacht" over "Reichskristallnacht" - the latter tends to be seen as too much of a euphemism)

To their credit, however, it only took 40 minutes for the team to notice the mistake and send out an apology.

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South Korea is the only country in the world with a fertility rate (i.e. the average number of children a woman will have) lower than 1, at 0.81 in 2021.