• sploder@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The dog that played specks girlfriend in Pee Wees big adventure is also the same dog that played precious in silence of the lambs.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      This feels like one of those fun facts that theatres would have on screen with cheesy background music if you showed up to a movie too early

  • Deestan@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    If presented with an old 1970-2000 era landline phone, I can call someone by rapidly hanging up in the pattern of their phone number.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksM
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      3 days ago

      Used to do this in payphones as a kid. The numpads were disabled when no coins were inserted, effectively disabling tone dialing. But pulse dialing still worked.

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      In case anyone is wondering, this is how old phones with rotary dials worked: you wound the dial to the digit you needed and the built-in mechanism would automatically wind it back; as it did it would momentarily disconnect the line as it passed each digit generating pulses that the exchange would count. If you still live somewhere where landline phones exist odds are this still works because the exchange maintains backwards compatibility with pulse dialling.

      Up until about twenty years ago virtually every supermarket had a phone by the checkouts with a single pre-programmed button for a local taxi company; we used this trick all the time to call home, our mates, etc.

    • Lucy :3@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      You’re welcome to dial into my Modem on which Doom is listening for a connection at 40c3 :3

    • Deestan@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I am pretty sure I could do it sans phone and only the handle, by rapidly pulling the plug out of the socket and putting it back in.

      Never thought to try it when I had the chance.

  • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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    2 days ago

    The definition of a second is the time it takes for a caesium-133 atom to fluctuate between its two hyperfine ground state 9,192,631,770 times (I did not look the number up).

    • 7uWqKj@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Congrats 😃👍 btw in that time light in vacuum will travel 299,792,458 metres (didn’t look that up either)

  • Espitemophiliac@piefed.ca
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    3 days ago

    Grostesques are mythical or fantastical creatures carved into the sides of building. If they have been designed to drain water away from the building, they are called gargoyles .

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    Fun fact 1: Polish people are honoraribly black after they fought alongside the Haitians against the French (they switched sides as the only reason they were there was because France sent them there)

    Fun fact 2: Alaska was almost purchased by Lichtenstein

    Fun fact 3: Singapore was given independence against their own wishes

    Fun fact 4: Abraham Lincoln read some of the works of Karl Marx as he wrote for his favorite newspaper

  • Ftumch@lemmy.today
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    3 days ago

    The “brat” in “bratwurst” doesn’t come from “braten”, which means to fry. It actually comes from the old German word “brät”, which means finely chopped meat.

  • Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    An electric eel is not an eel.
    A mountain goat is not a goat.
    A maned wolf is not a wolf.
    A mountain chicken is not a chicken.

    Also, there is an animal called the Headless Chicken Fish.