Tidbits #79-83 - June 14, 2011

The Spotlight on Mickey D

• The first McDonald's opened in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. By 1970 there was a McDonald's in every state.
• McDonald's is the single largest purchaser of beef, pork, potatoes, and apples in the US.
• There are 1,008 Mickey D's in France.
• McDonald's calls frequent buyers of their food "heavy users." (Not kidding)
• 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sale of Happy Meals.

Tidbits #74-78 - June 14, 2011

Om Nom Nom

• Fast food provider Hardee's Monster Thickburger contains 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
• Farmers in Japan have developed square watermelons because they stack easier.
• The world's biggest pumpkin weighed in at a staggering 1,502 pounds - that's nearly as heavy as a fully-grown cow.
• All fruits have 3 layers: exocarp (skin), mesocarp (pulp), and endocarp (pit).
• Experiment: If you place a T-Bone steak in a bowl of Coke, it will be gone in two days.

Tidbits #69-73 - June 14, 2011

Crawlers

• Crickets hear through their knees.
• An ant can detect movement through five centimeters of earth.
• The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
• Until the 1960s, the crosshairs on gun sights were made from spiderweb filaments.
• Crickets' chirps vary due to the temperature. For a rough estimate, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds, then add thirty seven and you'll have the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

Tidbits #64-68 - June 14, 2011

The Secret Life of Dogs

• The Basenji, an African dog, is the only dog that does not bark.
• The average American dog will cost its owner $20,000 in its lifetime.
• Even bloodhounds cannot smell the difference between identical twins.
• The smallest living dog as of June '07, according to Guinness World Records, is a 4.9 inch, 1.4 pound Chihuahua. The smallest dog ever recorded was a 2.8-inch tall Yorkie.
• Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure and even protect the child from injury, even if they're not trained to do so.

Tidbits #59-63 - June 14, 2011

Medical Oddities

• A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 68 years straight.
• The human eye blinks about 4.2 million times a year. A blink lasts roughly 300-400 milliseconds.
• When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate; they do the same when you're looking at someone you hate.
• The average life span of a taste bud is 10 days.
• During a kiss, as many as 278 bacteria colonies are exchanged.

Tidbit #58 - June 14, 2011

Continuing on the subject of data storage, I'd like to familiarize you all with the system of units we have to measure electronic information:

• Bit: The smallest of the electronic storage spectrum, a bit is basically the building block of data. Ever hear of binary code? (0010101001100110) Every 1 in binary code is a single bit being turned on by a computer. Bits are small, even in the most primitive computers.
• Byte (B): Still one of the smallest units, a byte is made up of eight bits.
• Kilobyte (KB): Back when computers were first invented, if you had a kilobyte of space, you were the life of the party. A kilobyte consists of 1,000 bytes, 8,000 bits. (8,000 ones in binary code)
• Megabyte (MB): Whoa, slow down, there, speed racer. In the early days of computing, megabytes didn't even exist unless you counted the most advanced mainframes of the day, which could only hold a few hundred megabytes. Nowadays, a single song's electronic size ranges from 3 to 20 megabytes. A megabyte consists of 1,000 kilobytes, or 1,000,000 bytes, or 8,000,000 bits.
• Gigabyte (GB): Let's skip forward a few decades, to 1980. That's when the first gigabyte hard drive was introduced. A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes, 1,000,000 kilobytes, 1,000,000,000 bytes, and 8,000,000,000 bits. Think about how much that would've shocked the people from 1953.
• Terabyte: This is still a lot of space for today's standards, although not shocking. A terabyte is 1,000 GB, 1,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Petabyte (PB): This is big boy stuff, even at today's standards. Only enormous companies like Microsoft and Apple use petabytes to measure their total storage. A PB consists of 1,000 TB, 1,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Exabyte: Don't mess around with the exabyte. An exabyte of information is a LOT of storage. An exabyte is 1,000 PB, 1,000,000 TB, 1,000,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Zettabyte: Here's where we start getting into the units that no one's ever heard of. Not many amounts of information can give themselves the prestigious name of zettabyte. A ZB is 1,000 EB, 1,000,000 PB, 1,000,000,000 TB, 1,000,000,000,000 GB, 1,000,000,000,000,000 MB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 KB, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 B, and 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits.
• Yottabyte: Starts to sound funny, doesn't it? A YB is 1,000 ZB. 'Nuff said.

Tidbit #57 - June 14, 2011

Some Information on Data Storage: Five Charts on Electronics that will Blow Your Mind


The world of electronics has increased HUGELY since first being introduced in 1956, with IBM's 350 systems, which only held 5 million bits. But just how much have humans increased their capability to store information since then? As of 2011, the results could be stunning. Take a look at these charts and find out what you've been missing:

Look at all of those, and search up many more with Google Images.

Tidbit #56 - June 13, 2011

More than 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That stresses me out!

Tidbits #50-55: June 11, 2011

I've decided to make a small tweak here: on occasion, I will be posting more than one tidbit at a time to post some in sections. For example:

1. About 200 babies are born worldwide every minute.
2. August is the most common month that babies are born.
3. 12 babies are given to the wrong parents every day.
4. The world record for most babies to one mother is 69.
5. You share a birthday with at least 9,000,000 other people in the world.
6. There are about 15,000 people in the US over the age of 100.

So, there you have it. We've got an entire section of tidbits now. Isn't it funny how much a blog evolves over the course of just a few months?

Tidbit #49 - June 11, 2011

82% of the world's population believes in an afterlife.

Tidbit #48 - June 11, 2011

The McDonald's at the Skydome in Toronto is the only one in the world that sells hot dogs.

Tidbit #47 - June 11, 2011

Fanta Orange is the third-largest selling soft drink in the world.
Wanta Fanta?

Questions? Comments? Tidbit Ideas?

Forward them to my email, tidbitsz.on.blogspot@gmail.com to request a post, ask a question on a post, or just to comment on what you think of the site!

Tidbit #46 - June 10, 2011

A short time before Abraham Lincoln's assassination, he dreamed he was going to die, and he related his dream to the Senate. He died in the same bed that had been occupied by his assassin, John Wilkes Booth. His ghost is said to haunt the White House.

Tidbit #45 - June 10, 2011

George Washington's false teeth were actually made of whale bone.

Tidbit #44 - June 10, 2011

A baby giraffe is about six feet tall at birth.

Tidbit #43 - June 10, 2011

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating a single olive from every first-class salad.

Tidbit #42 - June 10, 2011

The Kodak corporation is the largest user of silver in the world.

Tidbit #41 - June 10, 2011

A baseball has exactly 108 stitches.

Tidbit #40 - June 10, 2011

In the nineteenth century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday; she was named HMS Friday, commanded by a Captain Friday, and finally went to sea on a Friday. Neither the ship nor her crew was ever heard of again.