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

[Dragoncat]

Tobacco plants can send out a distress signal. If they're getting eaten, they make a scent that attracts a bug that eats whatever bug is eating them.

[Hawkwing]

Chording is a technique in minesweeper with the mouse cursor performed by pressing but not releasing the right mouse button to flag a square. Then drag the mouse with the right button still pressed down to a number that is fully flagged, then with the right mouse button still held down, press and release the left mouse button to clear the fully flagged number. It should be noted that this is most practical on a 1 since it only requires 1 flag to reveal up to 7 empty spaces, whereas a 7 would require seven flags when a single click would reveal just as much.

[Interdimensional Observer]

St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, as it presently stands, took 20 architects, more than 30 Popes, and over 200 years before it was finished.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[null]

The largest scrambled eggs ever made weighed nearly 3.5 tons.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Another Renaissance art tidbit- Florence commissioned a set of bronze doors for a baptistry, costing 22000 Florins, equal to one year's defense budget for the city.

[Dragoncat]

Owls sometimes employ blind snakes to eat bugs in their nests.

[ping]

Kempf's infamous line, "In America!", is referencing Yugioh: The Abridged Series, where Bandit Keith (who wears a US flag as a bandana) compulsively adds this to practically all of his lines. In America.

YGO:TAS was the first "abridged" series out there - a shortened and re-dubbed version of the original, usually written as a parody.

There's even older pure re-dubs around, though. I know of a couple German ones: Sinnlos im Weltraum ("Senseless in Space" / Star Trek TNG, with a violent Picard, a whiny Worf and a man-child Riker), Lord of the Weed (guess) and some of the earlier Harry Potter movies (Harry Potter und der geheime Pornokeller / "HP and the secret porn basement").

[ping]

In the original version of The Hobbit, Gollum willingly wagered the One Ring when meeting Bilbo. Tolkien, of course, had to retcon this after (or during) writing LotR, since the Ring influencing and controlling its holders is an important plot point - in particular, how the ring entices desire in everyone who holds or even just sees it: Bilbo, Boromir, Galadriel, Faramir, Frodo, Isildur... (although some of them manage to resist)

Tolkien then made the retcon into a plot point: The old version was Bilbo lying about it, trying to make his ownership over the ring more legitimate; just like Gollum (it was his birthday present!) and Isildur (weregild for his father's death!) before him. This lie was a clue for Gandalf, helping him realize what ring Bilbo had found.

[Dragoncat]

In Mexico you can order alcohol if you're tall enough to see over the bar table.

[Espurrhoodie]

I am one inch taller than Danny Devito. That means that I'm one inch closer to greatness than the rest of y'all

[FlyingKitsune]

Penguin poop is typically pink.

[ping]

I've played a lot of Paradox's Grand Strategy Games in the last couple years, but Crusader Kings 2 never really clicked with me. I always found the base mechanics rather clunky and thought that the game relies on murderincest memes for its appeal - allow (and, honestly, encourage) the player to make his character act so heinously evil that it loops around to hilarious, which wears off rather quickly for me. Now, you might think that I'm being unfair (and off-topic), but consider this Random Fact:

In earlier versions of the game, the majority of the CPU usage in the late game was spent on Byzantine characters pondering over who they wanted to castrate and or blind. Seriously.

[Emperor_Siegfried]

Bob.exe has a sequel.

[Sidereal Wraith]

In the U.K. (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) dentists and orthodontists are all but extinct. In fact, many of my British friends don’t know what I’m talking about when I mention them and these professions are spoke of in the same breath as the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Wraith

[DragonFlames]

The oldest written text in German language is from the 9th century and it is only a fragment of what is possibly a much longer story.

Edited July 18, 2020 by DragonFlames

[Dragoncat]

The ancient Romans had an herb they used for birth control and they used it so much it went extinct.

[Sidereal Wraith]

If you’re a foreigner and wish to intermingle with the British, if they mercilessly ridicule you in a joking manner it is usually a sign of endearment on their part.

[ping]

If you look into a lightsource through a very, very thin layer of gold, you see a teal colour, not a golden one.

[DragonFlames]

According to the Saxon World Chronicle, Emperor Nero (yes, that Nero) tried to get pregnant only to see what that is like and fired his doctor who told him it's impossible.

[Dragoncat]

7 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

According to the Saxon World Chronicle, Emperor Nero (yes, that Nero) tried to get pregnant only to see what that is like and fired his doctor who told him it's impossible.

Roman emperors were nuts. Caligua once declared war on Neptune, the god of the sea. Had his army march to the beach and stab the water.

[DragonFlames]

The Fire Emblem character Roland, as well as his sword Durandal, originate in the old French book Chanson de Roland, in which he was depicted as one of Charlemagne's (a.k.a. Charles the Great) generals.

10 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Roman emperors were nuts. Caligua once declared war on Neptune, the god of the sea. Had his army march to the beach and stab the water.

XD

[The Roger The Paladin]

10 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Roman emperors were nuts. Caligua once declared war on Neptune, the god of the sea. Had his army march to the beach and stab the water.

I mean, I'd probably declare war on Neptune too... considering that one variation of Medusa's origin involve her being a priestess at Athena's temple that caught the guy's eye... was literally raped by the bastard, and then the "Goddess of Wisdom" saw fit to punish the victim seeing as she couldn't punish the perpetrator (after all he was higher ranking in the pantheon) by turning her into a monster. Which leads me to question why anyone would consider her a wise Goddess, when that is peak victim blaming. I guess the only upside was that the curse would serve to protect Medusa from ever suffering the same again... but the fact Athena had such a focus on punishing her that by the end of things Medusa's severed head ends up on Athena's Aegis shield (which was literally loaned to Perseus so he could KILL HER)... I somehow doubt it was intended to help her.
 

22 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The Fire Emblem character Roland, as well as his sword Durandal, originate in the old French book Chanson de Roland, in which he was depicted as one of Charlemagne's (a.k.a. Charles the Great) generals.

Not to mention the Armads (though it was Almace, and a mace), Maltet, and thanks to FE1 using it first, the Hauteclare... which was a sword in the legend but an axe in the game. Funny thing being that Durandal was unbreakable in the legend... unlike the game. Eliwood and Hector's sparring matches and friendship bear a strong resemblance to Roland and Oliver as well. I should note, that Roland wasn't merely a legend... there was a historical Roland, though his tale was embellished. Of final coincidence.... you know what they called Charlemagne's generals? Paladins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland

Edited July 20, 2020 by The Roger The Paladin

[DragonFlames]

1 minute ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Not to mention the Armads (though it was Almace, and a mace), Maltet, and thanks to FE1 using it first, the Hauteclare... which was a sword in the legend but an axe in the game. Funny thing being that Durandal was unbreakable in the legend... unlike the game. Eliwood and Hector's sparring matches and friendship bear a strong resemblance to Roland and Oliver as well. I should note, that Roland wasn't merely a legend... there was a historical Roland, though his tale was embellished. Of final coincidence.... you know what they called Charlemagne's generals? Paladins.

Indeed.

Speaking of FE7, Hector is named after the Trojan prince and warrior from the Illiad, who had a little brother named Paris (the guy from Awakening). He fought and killed Achilles' cousin, Patroklos, and was later killed by Achilles himself (coincidentally, since you talked about her, it was Athene's machinations that led to his death).
He is also named among the Neuf Preux (the Nine Worthies), alongside Charles the Great, King Arthur, Godfrey of Bouillon, Alexander the Great, Gaius Iulius Caesar, David, Josua the Prophet, and Judas Makkabeus.

And while we are at it, there was an actual Lycian League.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia#Lycian_League

[Dragoncat]

7 hours ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

I mean, I'd probably declare war on Neptune too... considering that one variation of Medusa's origin involve her being a priestess at Athena's temple that caught the guy's eye... was literally raped by the bastard, and then the "Goddess of Wisdom" saw fit to punish the victim seeing as she couldn't punish the perpetrator (after all he was higher ranking in the pantheon) by turning her into a monster. Which leads me to question why anyone would consider her a wise Goddess, when that is peak victim blaming. I guess the only upside was that the curse would serve to protect Medusa from ever suffering the same again... but the fact Athena had such a focus on punishing her that by the end of things Medusa's severed head ends up on Athena's Aegis shield (which was literally loaned to Perseus so he could KILL HER)... I somehow doubt it was intended to help her.

Yeah this is pretty wrong. But I don't think Caligua would agree...just a hunch, he'd see no problem with rape.

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 minute ago, Dragoncat said:

Yeah this is pretty wrong. But I don't think Caligua would agree...just a hunch, he'd see no problem with rape.

I'm pretty sure Caligula had no concept of right and wrong. Though I've read the claim that both he and Nero were exaggerated a bit by their enemies after their deaths. That said, if even a 20th of what is written about either was true, then they still deserve the hate they get. Entirely.