Your favorite statistics and bits of trivia

[Kelliezgirl]

Indifference. I don't care either. School shootings don't bother me any more than they bother you or most other people. It's not like I'm some activist or donating to a cause or anything. I mean I know we'd be sad when someone we care about suffers but as long as it's only other people's kids, not that big of a deal.

Well, it's unfortunate that some people feel that way.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Not their worst idea lol.

Apparently they didn't consider the difficulty in getting the cat to actually do what they wanted...

 

[RetroFan]

American author Mark Twain was born in 1835, a year in which Halley's Comet passed by Earth and he died in 1910, another Halley's Comet year.

J. Allen Hyneck, an American astronomer and UFO researcher somewhat fittingly was a Halley's Comet person too, born in 1910 and dying at age 75 in 1986 several days short of his birthday.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

Well, it's unfortunate that some people feel that way.

Yeah, especially since it's apparently such an easy problem to solve for countries who want to solve it. But hey, humans gonna human. Cruelty and indifference to people we don't know is a big part of who we are.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

A fun fact that we might remember when we see the comments on our stories. The composer Max Reger once wrote to a critic:

"I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."

 

[SkyBubble]

Really? Link?

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-08-26/defensive-gun-use-statistics-self-defense-cases-2025

Studies consistently average 1,820,000 defensive gun uses per year compared to 1,100,000 reported violent crimes.

Civilians are 4.8 times more likely to use a gun for self-defense than to be murdered by one.

https://ammo.com/research/defensive-gun-use-statistics#defensive-gun-use-sources-references

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Sharks (oldest fossils ~450 million years old) have been around longer than Saturn's rings (younger than 400 million years)

The heaviest land animal - African elephant - is 1/6th of 1% as massive as the heaviest plant - Pando.

 

[StillStunned]

Sharks (oldest fossils ~450 million years old) have been around longer than Saturn's rings (younger than 400 million years)

Sharks and crocodiles haven't really evolved in hundreds of millions of years. It's like nature looked at them and said, "Right, that's it. No improvement suggestions. That's the model we want." It puts homo sapiens into some perspective.

 

[lovecraft68]

Useless Comic trivia.

The first all horror themed comic was Eerie #1 published in 1947 by Avon and featured a notorious-for the time-bondage cover. I finally found a midgrade copy of it at a show 12 years ago and got it for $1500 in trade and another 1500 in cash. My wife is a very understanding woman.

DC Comics first horror Comic is House of Mystery #1 1952

Marvel-but under Atlas at the time jumped into horror genre with Menace in 1953

Marvel took horror from short stories and giant monster stuff in a different direction with the debut of Werewolf by Night in 1972. They would have their homage to the Universal Monsters with Frankenstein's Monster, Tomb of Dracula (The longest running title) and The Living Mummy had a run in Supernatural Thrillers. They also brought Godzilla into the comic world in 1977.

The Hulk was Gray in the first few issues, but changed to green because gray ink was too expensive back in the early sixties

EC comics was forced under by the Comics Code, however because it was a COMICS code, William Gaines began printing the same content, but in black and white magazines under the Warren label.

The code would last until the eighties when Alan Moore rebooted Swamp thing and portrayed the dead coming back to life and the sales on the series were so good, DC said F it and began publishing without the CCA box on the cover. This is also what led to the creation of the DC;s offshoot Vertigo line where they put their more adult content in case there did end up being a problem.

Stan Lee was going to quit comics because he hated how they were always the same and his uncle Marv Goodman wouldn't let him do what he wanted.

When DC came out with the Justice League, Goodman, who was a copycat for his entire publishing career told Lee "I want a group like that." Lee took the opportunity to do it his way, and the result was Fantastic Four number one.

Everyone talks about the X-men, Avengers, Spiderman, but none of those would have come along without FF number one, the founding family of comics.

Marvel was at the brink of going under, they were so broke DC was publishing some of their titles and they could only have 8 a month, which at the time was mostly goofy monster comics and stories. When Superheroes caught on, they couldn't publish more titles so tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish switched to having two super hero stories in each book instead of the monster stuff. TOS had Captain America and Iron Man TTA had Hulk and Sub Mariner.

The original Human Torch was an android in Marvel Mystery Comics and his own series in 139-early forties

The Guardians of the Galaxy movie featured no characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy created back in the sixties.

In the comics that inspired the movies, Thanos didn't want to wipe out millions to balance the universe, he wanted to do it because he was in love with Death and wanted to impress her.

Spider-man switching to a black costume in the eighties (one he found while in another universe during Secret Wars) was not originally intended to be a symbiote who would become Venom but because their copyright was running out and they were afraid Ditko was going to come for it. The original plan from uber asshole Jim Shooter who ran Marvel at the time, was to...kill Spider-man off. Think on that. Instead they ended up with another great character in Venom.

Not sure this is trivia but when the Walking Dead comic came out, no one wanted to read it to where Diamond, the distributer, was giving dealers copies of 1-3 at cost. I knew it was going to hit and bought a bunch, but I also pushed the title at anyone who came in saying it was a cut above the genre and was going to be epic.

I'm mentioned by name in the letters page of WD #10 when someone write in to Kirkman to say how amazing the series was and he only knew about it because his local comic shop owner plugged it to him.

I'll settle my geekdom down now.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Sharks and crocodiles haven't really evolved in hundreds of millions of years. It's like nature looked at them and said, "Right, that's it. No improvement suggestions. That's the model we want." It puts homo sapiens into some perspective.

On the other side, there are five known events leading to what we'd recognize as crabs. At least five times that form was evolved into independently. Look up 'Carcinization' for the (many, many) details.

 

[lovecraft68]

Harrison Ford was in Star Wars and later on Bladerunner, two of sci fi's biggest hits

In between he was offered the role of Dallas in Alien, he refused with the infamous "typecasting" whine. But again, would go onto Bladerunner not that many years later.

Had he accepted he would have starred in the three biggest sci fi hits of the time period, consecutively.

But it gets even nerdier.

At one point Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca was considered to don the Xenomorph costume in Alien but Ridley wanted the alien to have a lean look and Mayhew was too big

So if things had gone a bit differently, Chewie could have killed Han Solo in Alien

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Useless Comic trivia.

The first all horror themed comic was Eerie #1 published in 1947 by Avon and featured a notorious-for the time-bondage cover. I finally found a midgrade copy of it at a show 12 years ago and got it for $1500 in trade and another 1500 in cash. My wife is a very understanding woman.

DC Comics first horror Comic is House of Mystery #1 1952

Marvel-but under Atlas at the time jumped into horror genre with Menace in 1953

Marvel took horror from short stories and giant monster stuff in a different direction with the debut of Werewolf by Night in 1972. They would have their homage to the Universal Monsters with Frankenstein's Monster, Tomb of Dracula (The longest running title) and The Living Mummy had a run in Supernatural Thrillers. They also brought Godzilla into the comic world in 1977.

The Hulk was Gray in the first few issues, but changed to green because gray ink was too expensive back in the early sixties

EC comics was forced under by the Comics Code, however because it was a COMICS code, William Gaines began printing the same content, but in black and white magazines under the Warren label.

The code would last until the eighties when Alan Moore rebooted Swamp thing and portrayed the dead coming back to life and the sales on the series were so good, DC said F it and began publishing without the CCA box on the cover. This is also what led to the creation of the DC;s offshoot Vertigo line where they put their more adult content in case there did end up being a problem.

Stan Lee was going to quit comics because he hated how they were always the same and his uncle Marv Goodman wouldn't let him do what he wanted.

When DC came out with the Justice League, Goodman, who was a copycat for his entire publishing career told Lee "I want a group like that." Lee took the opportunity to do it his way, and the result was Fantastic Four number one.

Everyone talks about the X-men, Avengers, Spiderman, but none of those would have come along without FF number one, the founding family of comics.

Marvel was at the brink of going under, they were so broke DC was publishing some of their titles and they could only have 8 a month, which at the time was mostly goofy monster comics and stories. When Superheroes caught on, they couldn't publish more titles so tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish switched to having two super hero stories in each book instead of the monster stuff. TOS had Captain America and Iron Man TTA had Hulk and Sub Mariner.

The original Human Torch was an android in Marvel Mystery Comics and his own series in 139-early forties

The Guardians of the Galaxy movie featured no characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy created back in the sixties.

In the comics that inspired the movies, Thanos didn't want to wipe out millions to balance the universe, he wanted to do it because he was in love with Death and wanted to impress her.

Spider-man switching to a black costume in the eighties (one he found while in another universe during Secret Wars) was not originally intended to be a symbiote who would become Venom but because their copyright was running out and they were afraid Ditko was going to come for it. The original plan from uber asshole Jim Shooter who ran Marvel at the time, was to...kill Spider-man off. Think on that. Instead they ended up with another great character in Venom.

Not sure this is trivia but when the Walking Dead comic came out, no one wanted to read it to where Diamond, the distributer, was giving dealers copies of 1-3 at cost. I knew it was going to hit and bought a bunch, but I also pushed the title at anyone who came in saying it was a cut above the genre and was going to be epic.

I'm mentioned by name in the letters page of WD #10 when someone write in to Kirkman to say how amazing the series was and he only knew about it because his local comic shop owner plugged it to him.

I'll settle my geekdom down now.

My favorite Walking Dead trivia. (Spoilers) At the end of season 1 in the show they end up at the CDC in Atlanta.
That didn't happen in the comics because creator Robert Kirkman didn't know the CDC was headquartered there. He said in an interview had he known they totally would have gone there.

 

[mentalmaven]

The only word in English that has three consecutive sets of double letters is bookkeeper.

 

[MelissaBaby]

John Cazale appeared in only 5 films before his untimely death from lung cancer.

The Godfather
The Conversation
The Godfather Part Two
Dog Day Afternoon
The Deer Hunter

All 5 were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

 

[lovecraft68]

My favorite Walking Dead trivia. (Spoilers) At the end of season 1 in the show they end up at the CDC in Atlanta.
That didn't happen in the comics because creator Robert Kirkman didn't know the CDC was headquartered there. He said in an interview had he known they totally would have gone there.

Kirkman's an interesting sort.

He dd some mainstream SH stuff, he had a good Captain America run, but wanted to do some different things and they said no, but Image was happy to jump on Walking Dead.

Marvel got some redemption back when they let him run with Marvel Zombies which was one of the funniest, but at the same time disturbing, comic book series, at least the original, like anything else they didn't know when to quit.

Kirkman reminds me a little of a poor man's Alan Moore but more mainstream, and less nuts.

 

[lovecraft68]

The only word in English that has three consecutive sets of double letters is bookkeeper.

Good one.

In a similar vein 10:01 and 11:11 are the only times of day that have four digits and the same forward as backward.

I figured that out when I was really young and told my aunt who said I was a really weird kid and should try eating paste like the rest of the kids.

I mean, who didn't, but I could still think.

 

[iwatchus]

In a similar vein 10:01 and 11:11 are the only times of day that have four digits and the same forward as backward.

Sorry to spoil your childhood memories, but 12:21

 

[lovecraft68]

Sorry to spoil your childhood memories, but 12:21

Crap, its not my childhood memory, just my memory, I knew that one as well, but for some reason I've left it out more than once. Its like I have a glitch. I think I always think of 12:12 and say, no, that's not it.

 

[iwatchus]

Just remember the minutes always end in one.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Just remember the minutes always end in one.

In military time, 000 exists.

 

[Djmac1031]

60% of the time, it works every time.

 

[SimonDoom]

Harrison Ford was in Star Wars and later on Bladerunner, two of sci fi's biggest hits

In between he was offered the role of Dallas in Alien, he refused with the infamous "typecasting" whine. But again, would go onto Bladerunner not that many years later.

Had he accepted he would have starred in the three biggest sci fi hits of the time period, consecutively.

But it gets even nerdier.

At one point Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca was considered to don the Xenomorph costume in Alien but Ridley wanted the alien to have a lean look and Mayhew was too big

So if things had gone a bit differently, Chewie could have killed Han Solo in Alien

Blade Runner actually was not a big hit when it was first released. It did just OK. It came out in 1982, the same year as E.T. and The Wrath of Khan, which were much bigger hits. But as I recall it quickly began moving up in people's esteem after that, and it's been considered a classic for a long time. The sequel was good.

 

[StillStunned]

60% of the time, it works every time.

And million-to-one chances work nine times out of ten. As long as it's exactly a million to one.

 

[lovecraft68]

Blade Runner actually was not a big hit when it was first released. It did just OK. It came out in 1982, the same year as E.T. and The Wrath of Khan, which were much bigger hits. But as I recall it quickly began moving up in people's esteem after that, and it's been considered a classic for a long time. The sequel was good.

It grew over time and like you said, it had serious competition. My comment was based on the now and looking back at the timing. The recent remake was meh.

I saw Wrath of Khan with my first girlfriend. Her dad dropped us off and picked us up and I'd find out later on he remained in the parking lot making sure we weren't lying about the movie and planned to sneak out and do something else.

 

[TheLobster]

The only word in English that has three consecutive sets of double letters is bookkeeper.

The only English words to contain “meow” are meow, meows, meowed, meowing, and homeowner.