Fun Fact: Recent Episodes
Arik Devens and Allen Pike
Once a month, Arik Devens and Allen Pike take turns sharing fun facts. Practical, historical, technical, and trivial facts all deserve their fair shake.
Arik shares buttloads, Allen has too many facts, oxygen is heavy, strangeness is strange, moons cause issues, and we hit max fact capacity.
This show has gone as all good things do. Thank you so much to all the Factors, we love you!
You can follow Allen’s work and Arik’s. ❤️
Arik uncovers what things are really named after, Allen goes subatomic, Arik marvels at astronomical coincidence, and Allen considers extraterrestrial flight.
- Titan
- Do subatomic particles have a colour?
Allen dives in to diodes, Arik explores the origin of taxis, and Allen reveals an unsavoury fact about zygotes.
- Steve Mould on LEDs and solar panels
- Why blue LEDs were almost impossible
- Thornton Blackburn
Arik throws peanuts, Allen tries to cook vegetables, photographers try to prompt a good pose, and the earth’s magnetic field threatens to cause trouble.
- High-altitude cooking
- Say cheese
- Geomagnetic reversal
Scientists discover where birds go, the trouble with coin flips, the limits of the human body, and what exactly you can find in the Perseus Molecular Cloud.
- The majestic Pfeilstorch
- XCKD’s What If: What if Nascar had no rules?
- The Perseus Molecular Cloud
Science discovers our galaxy’s flavor, machinists discover precision measurements, and Arik discovers why you shouldn’t rent a car in Germany.
- Galaxy’s centre tastes of raspberries and smells of rum, say astronomers
- What Does Space Taste Like and Why Does It Matter?
- Thousandth of an inch
We check in on platypi and Polaris, consider zero’s parity, and make a decision about booby traps.
- Polaris
- Parity of zero
- Legality of booby traps
Allen thinks about cans, Arik thinks about governance, and everybody thinks about the Roman Empire.
- Why are cranberry sauce cans upside down?
- Roman Dictator
- Why do bees make honey?
Allen considers ancient honey, Arik considers ancient surgeries, and some jobs may or may not get automated.
- Honey’s Eternal Life, Explained
- Caesarean section
- ATMs and tellers
Allen showcases a very surprising study, Arik recounts a very Canadian heist, and somebody loses a finger.
- Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial
- Inside Quebec’s Great, Multi-Million-Dollar Maple-Syrup Heist
- The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
- Sugar Shack
- Dr Sam Moghtaderi’s finger-loss quiz
Arik improves an idiom, Allen shares a good news fact, Arik shares a grammar fact, and Allen locates your bones.
- You can’t have your cake and eat it too in other languages
- Status update on pandas
- Pisiform bone
- Sesamoid bones
Arik and Allen attempt a live episode, Allen attempts to store dry ice, Arik attempts to use the word “relative”, and Allen attempts to explain what salt does.
- Carbon capture and storage
- Permanent storage of carbon dioxide in the marine environment: The solid CO2 penetrator
- Starboard and larboard - NOAA
- Do fish drink?
Allen explains why summer exists, Arik outlines a trademark scheme, and Allen betrays Arik with a fishy biology fact.
- Seasonal lag
- List of genericized trademarks
- Cladistics, the effort to recategorize living things into clades
Allen goes deep on whale ingestion, and Arik explains what’s really going on with dinosaurs.
- National Geographic on the plausibility of whales swallowing humans
- Dinosaur
- Evolution of birds
- Ornithischia
- Saurischia
- Scott_D._Sampson
- ‘Dinosaurs Among Us’ Retraces an Evolutionary Path
Our sun proves a nuisance, the former Soviet Union makes a trade, we consider pepper seeds, Isaac Newton considers an apple, mice consider some cheese, rats get exonerated, and we share a superior alternative to implausible.
- What would the sun sound like?
- List of common misconceptions
- It Shipped That Way #6, where Arik and Allen talk about engineering leadership, software architecture, and Netflix’s culture
Women handle backward buttons, Allen handles a lot of feedback about very improbable things, and Arik handles digested asparagus.
- Why Zippers Are On Different Sides For Men And Women’s Clothing
- Sumptuary law
- Understanding the Birthday Paradox
- Universally unique identifiers (UUID)
- Why Does Asparagus Make Your Pee Smell?
Allen saves us from asteroids, Jack Black’s mom saves some astronauts, Allen offends Arik’s sense of probability, and Arik sets the record straight on streetcar conspiracies.
- Asteroid impact avoidance
- The Truth About Jack Black’s Mother’s Historic Past
- Ep. 63, A Heaving Mass of People
- In Memory of Judith Love Cohen
- The math behind how unlikely it is that two well shuffled decks have the same order
- An attempt to convey how long it would take to shuffle 52! times
- Did a conspiracy really destroy Los Angeles’s huge streetcar system?
- Kennedy, 60 Minutes, and Roger Rabbit
- General Motors streetcar conspiracy
A Portuguese scheme attempts to make counterfeit money real, an American scheme attempts to make walking illegal, and we set the record straight on Australian toilets.
- Alves dos Reis on Wikipedia
- Rose Bailey’s Mastodon thread on the scheme
- The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of “jaywalking” - Vox
- The Modern Moloch - 99% Invisible
- Motor vehicle fatality rate in U.S. by year - Wikipedia
- Not Just Bikes on YouTube
- Pringles’ Sweet Potato Cinnamon Crisps
Ancient cultures name colours, algae goes wild, toilets inspire poetry, and we attempt to correct the internet.
- What Is Blue and How Do We See Color?
- Did Ancient People Really Not See The Color Blue?
- Himba people - Wikipedia
- Himba people color chart on Wikipedia
- Giant kelp
- Why is a Toilet Called a “John”?
- Why the Toilet is Sometimes Called a “John”
Arik makes an important call, Allen explains flavour, Arik invents football, Allen counts smiths, and we discover Ethiopian Time.
- Bon Appetite on blue raspberry
- Serious Eats on banana flavour
- History of American football
- William Webb Ellis
- Association football
- Blacksmith, whitesmith, greensmith, and brownsmith
- Fun Fact 36 – Joey Two-Lies
- Travel Tips for Ethiopia
- If you have a meeting in Ethiopia, you’d better double check the time
We talk about how rice is grown, how eyes are colored, how time is told, and, of course, a scheme.
- The System of Rice Intensification
- Eye color percentages around the world and what causes eye color
- Eye Color Percentage for Across the Globe
- The World’s Population By Eye Color - WorldAtlas
- World’s littlest skyscraper - Wikipedia
- The Thai six-hour clock
- The World’s littlest skyscraper
We consider too much rain, too many dinosaurs, too much bad stuff happening, and too many MIDI notes.
- Carnian pluvial episode - Wikipedia
- Ornithosuchus - Wikipedia
- The Worst Time in History to Be Alive, According to Science
- Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’
- Volcanic winter of 536 - Wikipedia
- The Nocturnal bottleneck
- Photolyase
- 2013 nocturnal bottleneck study
- Black MIDI examples
- Wrecking Ball
- Bad Apple going wrong
- Rush E
A new border appears, and an old new fish appears; we measure stars, and measure aging. Bonus: a special frog fact.
- Hans Island
- Holland vs the Netherlands
- Extinct Fish Species That Predates Dinosaurs Found in Indian Ocean
- Stellar parallax
- Huge Fish, Once Believed Extinct, Isn’t the ‘Living Fossil’ Scientists Thought
- Study “confirms” some people age more slowly
Vespasian pays for a colosseum, the bible describes angels, frogs jump into the air, and cities tell us how to compost.
- Was the Colosseum Paid for with Pee?
- Vespasian: The Emperor Who Gave His Name to a Public Toilet
- Emperor Vespasian and the Urine Tax - Lessons from History
- Ezekiel 1:15-21, which describes ophanim
- Biblically accurate cherubim
- Attempts to depict ophanim
- My girlfriend is a (biblically accurate) angel
- Why Is This Tiny Frog So Awful At Jumping? - Defector
- Belly-flopping frogs, and fattening marmots - Discover Magazine
- Toad vs. Frog: What’s the Differences and Similarities?
Allen reveals why pills are the way they are, Arik reveals why trucks are the way they are, and we catch up on followup.
- Episode now fixed: Episode 57, Butt-Water Air Adventure Tourism
- Discussion of cold meds on Ep. 29, This is Not Medical Advice
- The Capsule
- The Colorful History of Pills Can Fill Many a Tablet
- How CAFE Killed Compact Trucks And Station Wagons - The Truth About Cars
- How do they determine wheel base and wheel track of a vehicle? - Quora
- Allen’s article on How to Buy a Family EV
- Thowing stuff into a lava lake
- Wikihow: How to Clean a Razor Blade
Turtles breathe in a very peculiar way, nut butter makes a mess, bacteria get crushed, and Arik goes on a quest for carbonation.
- Turtles breathing through their butts
- The potential future of butt-breathing
- Some specific examples of High Pressure Processing on YouTube
- Fun Fact ep. 1 on the dairy cartel
- Ripple brand pea milk
Allen attempts to throw things into a volcano, Arik attempts to clean his dishes, and hippos attempt to get around.
- The volcanoes Kīlauea and Nyiragongo
- A GoPro in a dishwasher
- A GoPro that falls from a plane and gets blanked by a blank
- Hippos walking – not swimming – under water
We have a bridge to sell you, as do renaissance philosophers, before we discuss some life forms that earth has an unreasonable number of. In the post show, Allen finally gets an EV.
- For You, Half Price – the NYT on George C. Parker’s schemes
- Kurzgesagt on the world war of ants
- Preformationism
- The messed up drawing of tiny grown adults in a sperm, as drawn in 1695 )
- A nice example of a Hyundai Ioniq 5 Review
Allen lays out a wine scheme, Christa Mrgan explains the wonders of temporal resolution, Allen checks in on creatures’ dangerousness, and we learn a couple things about George Orwell.
- How Wine Bricks Saved The U.S. Wine Industry
- Vine-Glo
- The Flicker fusion threshold
- Spider deaths in Australia
- George Orwell
- The Emperor’s New Groove
Allen shares some puzzling genetics, Arik shares some puzzling puzzles, we go back to the ’90s, and forward to the ’30s.
- There is no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
- The fascinating graph of plant evolution
- The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman
- The Potato paradox
- ATP 464, featuring a post-show on reducing our consumption of animal products
- Fun Fact 20: Lil Nas 10
- Y2K22 bug in Microsoft Exchange
- Exchange 2019 Anti-Malware - Bad Update?
Romans hunt for spies, retailers participate in a scheme, Arik and Allen get a bit off track. Okay, a lot off track.
- Two Spies on iOS
- The Byzantine Empire
- Minimum Advertised Price
- Industry Baby
Allen explains a special thread, Arik brings us to the French Revolution, Allen dishes on spamming tools, and we continue to not work at Facebook.
- Two examples of vented bottle threads
- A post explaining the threads
- The Surprising Origins of Left and Right in Politics
- Bill Murray’s Genius Champagne in Ice Hack (supposedly) Prevents Hangovers
- Some Bundestag drama on Instagram
- Facebook’s infamous “connecting more people is inherently good” memo
- John Carmack’s Oculus Connect 2021 keynote
Arik and Allen go back to some some choice facts, after having a vegan experience. Lil Nas is still on top, chickens are still spreading germs, and the ultimate nutrition label is still to be realized.
- Ep. 13: 40 Cans of Fake Pea Mayo, featuring the Impossible Burger’s ingredients
- All Consuming’s 100-point scale
- Ep. 20: Lil Nas 10, featuring newcomer Lil Nas X
- Ep. 48: Little Flame Throwers, featuring salmonella
- Why salmonella is a food poisoning killer that won’t go away in the US
- NUGGS — All Consuming
- Ep. 6: Nobody’s Getting Scurvy, featuring nutrition labelling changes
- The very serious Mexican front of package nutrition warnings
Allen drops the bass, Arik forecasts the weather, Allen is a bodybuilder, and Tesla concocts a scheme. After the Fact: trying not to pre-order a car.
- That bass
- Probability of precipitation - Wikipedia
- What Does Probability of Precipitation Mean?
- Weather 101: What does a 30% chance of rain really mean?
- What Does Probability of Precipitation Mean?
- The VW ID.4 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5
- Motor Trend: The 2022 Rivian R1T Is the Most Remarkable Pickup We’ve Ever Driven
- IIHS on the contribution of SUVs to increasing pedestrian deaths in the US
Arik and Allen wash cars, wash eggs, microwave lasagna, and anger math teachers.
- The jpoc guide to washing your car in Germany
- German laws: 6 surprising things that are forbidden in Germany
- Engineerguy’s explainer: How a Microwave Works
- Why Europeans Don’t Refrigerate Eggs
- New Scientist: US should vaccinate poultry to stop killer salmonella
- 101
- English Stack Exchange: How do you correctly say large numbers?
- A nonscientific survey on the topic of 101 from 2001
Arik gets paradoxical, Allen goes deeper on runways, Arik considers raccoons, and Allen struggles with Instagram.
- Polar drift
- Coastline paradox
- Planck length
- Lewis Fry Richardson
- Fractal GIFs
- How pilots land
- Why Raccoons Didn’t Cut It as Lab Rats
- Raccoon
- Rascal the Raccoon
- The Thanksgiving Raccoon That Became a Presidential Pet
Allen teaches Arik how to land a plane, Arik recaps the legal battle of the century, and we consider some alternative milk.
- Runway numbering
- SFO runway map
- Iceland is suing Iceland
- Iceland (supermarket) - Wikipedia
- The All Consuming show
- Pig milk
- Pule cheese
- Why don’t we drink other animals’ milk?
- The Impossible Burger episode of Fun Fact
Arik is whelmed, Allen highlights some classic cars, and centuries of engineers almost whelm a classic.
- The History of English ep 145
- Whelmed
- Classic car rules by state
- The 1997 Toyota Prius
- The 2007 CRV’s weird back window
- The Concept Car-like Ioniq 5
- The Leaning Tower of Pisa
- Italian government asks for suggestions for how to fix Leaning Tower of Pisa
Allen tells a story of accidental evolution, Arik reassures 1930s New York, Allen accidentally learns about pearling, and Arik explains how the sun heats things.
- The July 1930 issue of The New Yorker
- The Chrysler Building
- Bedrock and Midtown
- Vavilovian mimicry
- Why it’s colder on a mountain
- Prolate spheroids
- Pearling, not the wikipedia page about body modification, but rather a very nice page from Bob’s Red Mill
Arik reviews the Autobahn, Allen discusses drag, Arik informs us how to get into the NBA, and ye get some followup.
- Autobahn
- Sweden’s Vision Zero
- Drag coefficient
- F1 Drive to Survive
- What Percentage of 7 Footers are in the NBA?
Allen discusses handling whisky and plutonium, Arik discusses how to name islands and escape prison, and we touch on our electric wagon quest.
- Crystalware
- Dirty bomb
- Iceland
- The Sagas of Icelanders
- Naddodd
- Garðar Svavarsson
- Hrafna-Flóki_Vilgerðarson
- Erik the Red
- Prison Escape
- Prison Escape is Legal
- Prison Break in Germany
- Episode 18: Probably a Scheme
- 432 Park Avenue’s noise leaks and cracks
- The VW “Space VIZZION”
- Station wagon aerodynamics analysis
Arik takes a second look at “ye”, Allen investigates a Sonic-related coverup, and we review an accent that doesn’t exist. After the Fact: hypocrisy and synergy.
- Ye olde
- Old English Latin alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon runes
- Ultima Underground
- Thorn
- Old English writing
- Up Up Down Down
- Two Spies
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3
- Sonic 3’s Carnival Night Zone music
- Analogue
- Poorly drawn Sanic
- Is There a Place in America Where People Speak Without Accents?
- Pacific Northwest English
- General American English
- Canadian raising
- General American vs. Received Pronunciation
Allen discovers woods, Arik transports us back to the olde tymes, and we do not start a Patreon.
- Hardwoods vs. softwoods
- The Canada-US softwood lumber dispute
- The Canada-US border dispute video
- English orthography
- The Great Vowel Shift
- The podcast series on the Great Vowel Shift
Cough medicine is a surprisingly bad idea, medieval monks get surprisingly saucy, and mundane terms have surprising origins.
- Cough medicine
- Throat lozenge
- Why it’s a really good thing cough medicine doesn’t work
- Knights vs. Snails
- The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare
- A defecating monk is chastised by a naked cleric
- Knights & Snails app
- List of eponyms
- General Ambrose Burnside
- Guy Fawkes vs Che Guevara. Epic Rap Battles of History.
- Globe and Mail on why we have no small EVs
Allen surveys a straw hat snarl, Arik examines the electoral college’s errors, and we finish with some feline followup.
- The Straw Hat Riot
- The etiquette of straw cowboy hats
- City has Wild Night of Straw Hat Riots, New York Times
- The Electoral College
- The Appointment of 2020 Electors
- Why Was the Electoral College Created?
- The 12th Amendment
- Can the President and VP be from the same state?
- The Three Fifths Compromise
- The Connecticut Compromise
- Seventeenth Amendment
- CGP Grey’s The Trouble with the Electoral College, and The Sneaky Plan to Subvert the Electoral College
- The Florida panther, a distinctly not-black panther
Allen revisits big felines, Arik catalogues well-armed historical figures, and Allen cares way too much about electric trunks.
- Francis Crowley
- The Famed Crowley shootout photo
- The Short Life of Two-Gun Crowley
- Two-Gun Cohen
- Two Guns White Calf, Two Gun Pete, Two Gun Law, Two-Gun Caballero, The Two-Gun Man, Two-Gun Betty, Two-Gun Man from Harlem, Two-Gun Kid, James Vincenzo Capone
- CGP Grey’s Race to Win Staten Island
- A variety of cars that aren’t quite right
- The Golf Sportwagen and e-Golf
- The Telsa Model Y and Model X
- The highly anticipated VW ID.3
- The wee Honda E
- Rivian’s truck offering
- Polestar 2
- Mustang Mach e
Allen attempts to pitch a miniseries, Arik attempts to explain calendars, and a Spaniard attempts to become a spy.
- Historicity of Jesus
- Juan Pujol García
- The Ultra programme
- The Ethiopian calendar
- The current year in various calendars
- Chinese calendar numbering
- Why the Ethiopian calendar is behind
- Adoption of the Gregorian calendar
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Astronauts make stuff to breathe, Europeans plunder stuff to sell, Australians and New Zealanders have a cute animal showdown.
- The ISS Life Support Cycle
- Nubian pyramids
- The Treasure of Queen Amanishakheto
- A kiwi and a platypus
- The X from Outer Space
Whiteness is a construct, emoji are problematic, history is racist, and Black and indigenous lives matter.
- White people
- Scientific racism
- Definitions of whiteness in the United States
- Emoji skin tone modifiers
- White People Don’t Use White Emoji
- The Problem with Skin Tone Emoji
- Code Switch: White skin, black emoji
- Black Lives Matter
Video calls are a problem, the universe is mind-boggling, a preacher defies expectations, and we receive formal titles.
- Quasars
- A totally badass rendering of a quasar
- How New Westminster Lost the Capital
- Fun Fact 13, featuring the Victoria Day celebration in New Westminster
- The Public Universal Friend
- How Point Roberts is the safest place
- List of courtesy titles in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
Allen makes a hat, Arik visits medieval europe, Allen takes issue with Big Bread, and we offend the populace of Labrador.
- Bilirubin
- Hemolytic disease of the newborn
- The Quarantine
- The Republic of Ragusa
- Whole grain foods
- The Honeyguide
- History of New Mexico
- Most Serene Republic
- Dominion of Newfoundland
Arik unravels the truth about Arizona, Jessie Char unravels the truth about Disney World, and we all learn about Sentinel Chickens.
- Thanks to special guest this month, Jessie Char
- So many more details about The Baron of Arizona
- The Baron of Arizona starring Vincent Price
- No mosquitos at Walt Disney World
- The official story
- What are Sentinel Chickens?
- What are Epaulettes
Allen prepares for a newborn, brussels sprouts improve, your privacy is Borked, and narwhals surprise Arik.
- The Brussels Sprout Revolution
- The Video Privacy Protection Act
- Robert Bork
- Triple Divide Peak
- The hydrology map: Drainage baisins in North America
- Tweet at us with #ahashtag
- Deep Sea demo
A baby is foretold, Arik explains why we like umami, Allen goes super deep into cold meds (while on cold meds), and we gain some new emoji shortcuts.
- Umami
- Worcestershire sauce
- Allen’s Guide to the Cold Med Industrial Complex
- Casey Liss’ Levelled Up Emoji
Allen puts orca whales in their place, Arik sends farmers to the polls, Allen takes candy from a baby, and Saskatchewan violates the Constitution.
- The majestic orca whale
- Baleen, the hair-like structure many whales use to filter food from the ocean
- Blackfish (2013)
- The Pop vs. Soda map
- The Notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution
- The Coming Supremacy of AR
Allen races big rigs, Tron cheats, the Japanese navy gets cooking, and Arik goes on a word-origin journey through the looking glass.
- Monthly podcasts Top Four and Debug
- Allen’s autocorrect emoji
- Big Rigs Over the Road Racing on Youtube
- Tron was Snubbed
- Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy Soundtrack: End of Line
- Wendy Carlos
- The History of Japanese Curry
- Teetotalism
- Teetotum
- The Dreidel
- Come from Away
Arik closes the loop on questionable presidents, and Allen goes deep on questionable airplanes.
- Chester A. Arthur
- Julia Sand and Chester A. Arthur
- The Redemption of Chester A. Arthur
- The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
- The B-52s
- The Convair B-36 Peacemaker
- 1876 US presidential election
- The Compromise of 1877
- Losing the popular vote
- Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era
- The Nuclear B-36
- The McDonnell XF-85_Goblin
Arik is sleep deprived, Allen is targeted with a conference scheme, babies are cured of jaundice, and followup is BACK baby
- Bilirubin
- Science-Based Medicine on newborn jaundice
- Sister Jean Ward and phototherapy
- A Tale of Two Hospitals: The Evolution of Phototherapy Treatment for Neonatal Jaundice
- Some of Allen’s conference talks
- Caspar Badrutt
- Skeleton, Luge, and Bobsleigh
- Masala chai
- Ultra marathon runner wins both “Fastest Woman” and “Fastest Runner” trophies
- Mixed O Canada
Allen sells Italy on tomatoes, Tiff Arment sells Allen on antique glassware, Starbucks sells us a scheme, and we decide to order oatmeal from Walmart.
- The Generall Historie of Plantes
- New world crops
- Pad Thai
- Louis Comfort Tiffany
- Christies: 10 Things You Need To Know about Tiffany Lamps
- Top 4 #56: Top 4 Instant Coffees
- Starbucks: Monetary Superpower
- Purple windows in Boston
- Glass sidewalk prisms
- Purple sidewalk glass
- Dempster Bros. of Knoxville, Tennessee
- Depression glass
- Crystal Wedding oats
Allen takes on Microsoft, Casey Liss takes on West Virginia, the Red Cross takes five, and we all take a journey to a mid-90s Toys “R” Us.
- Thanks to special guest this week, Casey Liss
- Microsoft Software Asset Management, a set of proven IT practices that unite people, processes, and technology to control and optimize the use of software across an organization
- The United States National Radio Quiet Zone
- The US Town With No Cell Phones
- The wildly diverging price of stuff
- 96 Crayola crayons on Amazon.ca
- A 1993 Toys “R” Us catalog
- Fun Fact 17, The Marshmallow Blob Market, where we discuss the monarchy
- Take Five
Ô Canada is bananas, scientific progress used to be bananas, and the farming of bananas is itself bananas.
- O Canada in English and French
- Banana fungus arrives in Colombia
- Yes, We Have No Bananas
- McCormicks Marshmallow Bananas
- Patrick Collison on EconTalk, on the pace of science
- The accidental creation of YInMn Blue
- The One True Lens, the F1.8 normal prime
Historical figures make up names, Italians get assigned names, large social groups forget one another’s names, and the children are coming.
- The Top 10: People with invented middle initials
- Benoit B. Mandelbrot
- Why Do We Call Galileo Galilei by His First Name?
- Occupational surnames
- Fun Fact’s Guest host poll
- Dunbar’s Number
- The Monkeysphere
- The Ice T on SVU Bot
- Monopoly Socialism is bad and should feel bad
- Allen’s daughter’s mind being blown by My Little Pony
Allen warns of impending doom, Arik spreads socialist propaganda, and we ride ‘til we can’t no more.
- The Year 2038 Problem
- The NULL vanity plate
- The Landlord’s Game
- Economist Henry George
- Monopoly is Theft
- 1906 Monopoly Rules
- Power Grid on BoardGameGeek
- How TikTok Made “Old Town Road” Become Both A Meme And A Banger
- @emojimashupbot
- Cochin’s italic ampersand
- @Aleen’s version of Little Red Corvette
Arik redefines the alphabet, Allen redefines fire, and we both ruin popular music.
- The Ampersand
- History of the Ampersand
- The Phlogiston theory of combustion
- What is a mondegreen?
- Wikipedia’s mondegreens
- Mairzy Doats
- Is This the Dirtiest Song of the Sixties?
- Prisencolinensinainciusol
- The Trouble with Jimmies
- Seattle: by the ocean?
- Ucluelet
Arik celebrates a fictional rep, Allen reps an architectural ploy, and we follow a dead metaphor around the world.
- Jakob Maria Mierscheid
- @jakobmierscheid
- 432 Park Avenue
- 432’s land assembly method
- The closing of the loophole
- “Greek to me”
- @limi’s challenge on Twitter
- Dead metaphor
Allen reviews the monarchy, we gain fluency in Pittsburghese, and Arik discovers TikTok.
- Western Pennsylvania English
- Monophthongization
- Diphthong
- Yinz Wanna Learn Pittsburghese on YouTube
- ATP: A Rotation You Can’t Complete
- Big wheel
- Wheel (computing)
- The Word Detective - Big Wheel
- Why does “big cheese” mean someone important?
- Are You a “Big Wheel” or a “Fifth Wheel”?
- Sonoma Democrat, Volume XV, Number 16, 27 January 1872
- The Big Wheel (film)
- Where did the “wheel” group get its name?
- Wheeler dealer
- Ding Dong
- Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats
- One of many WikiHow meme compliations from TikTok
A world tour of facts – from Virginia to the Bay Area, from Shakespearean England to Soap Followup City.
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- You
- Thou
- T-V Distinction
- Grammatical Person
- The Fastly Network Map
- The Dulles Technology Corridor
- The Veritasium video on making your hand not wettable
- Some images from rejected emoji proposals
- Lauren Florko’s proposal for a climate change emoji
Rejected emoji contest We want nominates for the best rejected emoji that the Emoji Consortium has deemed unfit for our keyboards.
Send your pitch, drawing, illustration, or MS Paint sketch to @funfactfm on Twitter or email us, hello@funfact.fm.
Water is wet, Teslas are trouble, and we delve into the wild world of rejected emoji.
- Wikipedia: Wetting
- Surfactance, one of the two mechanisms that makes soap work. (Spoiler: it turns out there is a second, which we’ll cover next episode.)
- Quora: Is water wet?
- The Slime 40051 Digital Tire Inflator (12-V)
- The Emoji Consortium Proposal Status list
- Australian Aboriginal Flag
- Fitzpatrick Scale
Rejected emoji contest We would love to see you or your friends attempt to represent any of the emoji that the Emoji Consortium deems unrepresentable!
If you want to see an emoji added for a critical human concept such as TICKLE, CLIMATE CHANGE, ALLERGY, OBJECT RELATED, WHAT EVEN IS THIS EMOJI, PROBABLY FACE, DUMPSTER FIRE, SAVING MONEY, DANGEROUS SUN, or HANGRY, then make your case! We’ll take the best submission and attempt to get that emoji reconsidered – likely learning some further fun facts along the way.
Send your drawing, illustration, or MS Paint sketch to @funfactfm on Twitter or email us, hello@funfact.fm.
Arik blows up Allen’s calendar, Allen blows up the Impossible Burger, and science goes too far.
- Cortex 85: Grey’s Non-Linear Life
- The surprisingly complex tale of the work week and weekend
- Bloomberg’s How Just Mayo Sold Silicon Valley
- The scourge of highly dangerous Dihydrogen Monoxide – it could attack at any time
- Impossible Foods’ pitch on how GMO soy is more sustainable
- Sidetone in telephony
Arik pitches an emperor, Allen pitches a Twitter feature, and we get some inside info on anvil-launching.
- The tweet to nowhere: private replies on Twitter
- Shadow banning
- Norton the 1st, Emperor of United States, Protector of Mexico
- The 1820 Settlers
- Vancouver housing sales tumble to 33-year low
- Metro Vancouver real estate prices are 65% overvalued: Economist
- Mortimer, troll of Vancouver Real Estate
- The Haskell Free Library and Opera House
- Goodbye, e-Golf
- VW I.D. Crozz
- The Honda E
- See the Victoria Day Anvil Salute on Monday, May 20
Arik punks pirates, Allen flogs flags, and we fail horribly at evolving infrared vision.
- Pirates and their eyepatches
- According to Quora, MythBusters, and The Fact Site
- The yearly 21 cannon salute
- The esteemed City Flag of New Westminster and its own description of its city symbols
- State Flag of Washington
- CBC’s Justin McElroy ranks every BC municipal flag from worst to best
- The infamous Liberia County Flags
- Lexical Ambiguity
- James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
- Garden Path Sentences
- Reasons we can’t see infrared
- Previous fun facts
- Fun Fact ep 1: Cheese Scheme, wherein we discuss how to wash a broom.
- Fun Fact ep 9: Evolutionarily Deprecated, wherein we discuss how to MC an event.
Arik sells snake oil, Allen extols the virtues of rags, and things get very serious in rural North Dakota.
- Telsa Model Y
- The BMW i3’s not-sealed frunk
- Rag paper
- A Scientific American article from 1869 on the rag paper process
- Genuine Snake oil
- The Canadian film rating system
- Example of a “Restricted Cougar” trailer: Bijou
- Rugby claims victory in center of North America trademark dispute
Allen ruins koalas, Arik ruins guys, Canada ruins its airport codes, and WikiHow was already ruined when we got there.
- Unfortunately, koalas sound like this
- australianwebsites.com.au
- Some dazzling photos of ships including the RMS Olympic
- All the airport codes – Thanks to Dr. Lauren Florko for the excellent fact suggestion on airport codes.
- Hey guys
- Guy Fawkes
- The origin of “guy”
- Guido
- The illuminati and the Titanic
- Robert Ballard, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher
- The Titanic’s route
- Party Monster, the app that refused to play Nickleback
- The most popular pages on WikiHow
Allen offends some marsupials, Arik disproves Jesus, and we discuss a scheme for getting rich.
- The toxic culture at Revolut
- The “In case you missed it” regex for Tweetbot:
(?i)(in.*case|if).*you.*missed.*it
- The “Mother of the bride dress”
- The day there was no news
- Jesus’ name:
- Jesus’ language
- Yeshua
- Yeshua to Jesus
- The Great Vowel Shift
- Index investing
- Buying One of Everything
- Why Warren Buffett recommends index investing
- Canadian Couch Potato
- Woolly Mammoths and the pyramids
Arik shows up the Titanic, Allen mutes everything, and we share some key bird facts.
- How not to lead a startup
- Lyle’s studfinding video
- How to use advanced muting on Twitter
- A recent tale of cougar defense from Colorado
- The Olympic
- The Titanic’s Ghostly Twin
- The RMS Olympic
- Why a turkey is a called a turkey
Arik defends himself from Facebook, Allen defends himself from cougars, and Arik doesn’t know what a hot hatch is.
- The original Facebook FTC settlement
- Victory for Lemonaid
- Cougar safety
- Cinco de Mayo and the Battle of Puebla
- The glass delusion and Charles VI
- Why it sounded like Grover dropped an f-bomb
- Click consonants
- The Chevy Celebrity wagon and the much more preferable 2019 Toyota Corolla wagon
Allen goes deep on Nutrition Facts, we recap multiple culinary schemes, and Arik drops a history bomb.
- A brief tour of chairs:
- World Market’s Eero Saarinen Chair
- Knoll Saarinen Chairs and Tables
- The infamous Aeron chair
- The more reasonable Mirra 2 chair
- No More Oppatoo
- Ariana Grande’s new tattoo
- Don’t draw the teeth
- The Rolls Royce of toilet levers
- You are now subscribed to Nutrition Facts:
- The Canada Food Guide
- The 1990s Canada Food Guide
- The American MyPlate
- The new nutrition facts labels
- Lemonaid is not bad enough for you (translated)
- Taco Bell’s Seasoned Beef lawsuit
- Pirate Joe’s
- Supreme’s minimal website
- Samsung’s collab with Supreme Italia
- Cultural Depictions of Napoleon, and his units of measure
Arik continues his tour of the Pacific Northwest, Allen tries not to get drafted, and we crack open more critical adulting tips.
- Say hello, new logo on the Slack Blog
- Brand New’s take on Slack
- How to pronounce Schlage
- Do By Friday 56: On Fleck
- Shuswap Lake
- 2018 BC Electoral Referendum
- Single Transferable Vote
- Point Roberts, Washington
- Enclaves and Exclaves
- The Hala’ib Triangle
- WikiHow: How to Find a Wood Stud in a Wall to Hang Pictures On
We do some mass follow-up, Allen has a reckoning about movies, Arik ‘splains Sesame Street, and Allen encounters Hamilton.
- Using Dual SIM with an eSIM - Apple Support
- WikiHow: How to clean a bathtub with a broom
- Accidental Tech Podcast ep. 300
- Planet Money 670: The Santa Suit
- Nicola Romeo’s moustache
- The sound of silent film
- The Musical Notation podcast
- Rechov Sumsum and Sesame Street around the world
- Zeliboba
Google News tortures Allen, Paris battles garbage barricades, and the Romans ruin our calendars.
- Google News
- The Salmon Arm Love Triangle Murder
- The Renovation of Paris
- BC’s Proportional Representation Referendum
- The Balls of Amazon
- The worst hoodie ad of all time
- The Months of the Year
Allen doesn’t get fired, Arik introduces the horror that is the Alfa Romeo logo, and we learn the facts about garburators.
- Keep the feedback coming! We’ve received some great ones that we’ll cover once we finish publishing our pre-recorded episodes.
- Alfa Romeo’s horrifying logo
- Nicola Romeo and his moustache
- Under Consideration’s Brand New
- Wikihow: How to Clean and Maintain a Dishwasher
- Goldeneye 64 Gets Down
Arik’s car melts, Allen details a cheese scheme, and we review some critical tips for home and travel.
- Tell us we’re wrong! (Or if you like the show you can also tell us that.)
- The e-Golf
- The Canadian Cheese Cartel
- Moshi Moshi
- WikiHow: 3 Ways to Clean Brooms