Saturday, November 7, 2009

Tooth brush was invented in prison.



When homo sapients evolved from chimpanzees, initially they did not need to brush their teeth. Cavities evolved concurrently with dietary changes. Wild animals never brushed teeth and had no problems with cavities.

( Pets of course are a different story. We invented Whiskas and Pedigree Pal, which created demand for for the Pet Dentistries).

In early ages, people used rag with soot and salt, to do their occasional teeth maintenance.

An English guy named William Addis, while serving term in prison, had nothing else to do but think about teeth. The result — tooth brush invention.

171 years later, an outfit named Frank bluntly stole this idea and patented it.

Colgate, Procter and Gamble and others monetized that invention later on.



Cool handle designs to compensate for less bristles.

The reason why every year we see less and less bristles on our brushes is the result of cost savings. Bristles are the most expensive part of the toothbrush.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Expensive American fast food - sushi.

Did you know?

... that McDonald brothers were not the original inventors of fast food? About 100 years, prior to hamburger, Hanaya Yohei came up with an idea on how to capitalize on food that could be prepared quickly - sushi.

He noticed that very popular Japanese sushi preparation was taking way too long, because of fermentation. The science behind the fermentation of fish packed in rice was that the vinegar produced from fermenting rice breaks the fish down into amino acids. Once the fish was fermented, rice was dumped ("what a waste" - Hanaya thought)

Sushi comes to America.

1970s "sushinization" of America started in the city of Los Angeles, where significant number of of Japanese settled down after the World War II. To add some Asian flavor, sushi eating experience was accompanied by chopsticks (which are/were rarely used to east sushi in Japan).

Next challenge, which had to be addressed - was it safe to eat raw fish? Major health related PR outlets were fed with reports, indicating that raw fish = very good.

All of a sudden, health industry PR outlets "forgot" about raw fish having lots of health risks- high levels of mercury, parasite infection, soy sauce (high levels of sodium) disappeared from health studies.


How to eat sushi properly.


While many dip the rice side into the soy sauce, traditional etiquette insists instead that the sushi is turned over so that the topping is dipped, as proper loosely packed rice might fall apart. The practice of mixing wasabi and soy sauce together is also an American invention, and not a proper etiquette in Japan.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

An Ingenious Plan to Pay All Debts.

“It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea . It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

”Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

”He enters the only hotel, lays a 100-euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

”The hotel proprietor takes the 100-euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

”The butcher takes the 100-euro note and runs to pay what he owes the pig farmer.

”The pig farmer takes the 100-euro note and runs to pay his debt to his supplier of feed and fuel.

”The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100-euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that, in these hard times, proffered her ’services’ on credit.

”The prostitute take the 100-euro note and runs to the hotel to pay for the rooms she rented when she brought her clients there.

”The hotel proprietor then lays the 100-euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

”At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, takes the 100-euro note off the desk, tucks it back into his wallet, and explains that he did not like any of the rooms. He then leaves town.

”No one earned a penny. However, the whole town is now without debt and looks to the future with great optimism.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Pop-corny facts.




— This movie snack was originally discovered by Indians thousands of years ago. Officially popcorn was introduced to white invaders during the first Thanksgiving celebration.

—If you do not have microwave available, you can still pop it using your cell phone.





—Medium sized box you buy at the theater has more popcorn than the the large one.




— Each kernel of popcorn contains a small drop of water stored inside a circle of soft starch. When a popcorn kernel heats up, the moisture inside the kernel expands until the hard shell cannot withstand the pressure and explodes. In a fraction of a second, the over-heated starch inside the kernel puffs up by the moisture pressure, forming a white fluffy thingy we put in our mouth when we watch movies.

—Popcorn business became a "pop corn bubble" (similar to dot com buble) during Great Depression. It was a cheap food, even a street bum could afford. One of the companies who promptly capitalized on pop corn bubble were folks at jollytime.com who are still popping.


—You can make some tasty dishes out of popcorn.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

God was right-brained, chameleons are the living proof.


Amazing creatures. Not only they are well known for the ability to promptly change their skin color, but they also come with quite the unique feature list:

  • Very long tongue, sometimes as long as their body.
  • No need for glasses to watch 3D movies, their eyes are already stereoscopic.
  • Ability to stay still (freeze) for an extended period of time.
  • Deaf.

One of the mistaken perceptions — chameleons change color only to camouflage. Yes and no! They also change their color to mingle and get laid. Color changing is based on very similar process we see at Home Depot. Yes, they do mix different paints (cells/RGB/PMS) to produce desired color.




Chameleons can be petted. There are places which breed them to be sold.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Toilets — cultural differences.





Toilet customs and facilities vary from country to country. The most advanced and cleanest facilities, can be found in Japan.


The worst can be experienced in India, Africa and other third world countries. World Toilet Organization makes sure that everyone gets decent toilets.




Some differences are noticed in the process of visiting "the facilities".While in some countries, like India, public urinating (as well as baking brownies) is an absolutely normal process, the others,are so embarrassed of their bodily natural processes, so that they even had to come up with devices to mute the sounds.


Most of Arabic countries oppose to using toilet paper. That of course, does not come from the desire to be environmentally friendly. How they do it? They just use their bare hand (always left one).


Lastly, how do space travelers do it without getting splashed in the face with digested waste? Answer →.


P.S sometimes space travelers quarrel about toilet usage.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Goats — tight rope walkers, rock and tree climbers.





Tight-rope walkers.



Tree climbers.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Jobs from Heaven and Hell.



© Boston.com

Would you like to live on a desert island, enjoy ocean and sun while getting paid $100,000 a year? Click here to apply.

Would you like to be a banker in NY city?

If these jobs do not appeal to you, there are others that you might like. You can work, for example, in a lab and study feces.

How about a trash collector with a $15,000 bonus?

If you still can not make up your mind, here is some visuals to help you decide what does appeal to you.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

No down for 12 years.


Most religions require followers suffer through self inflicted hardship in order to achieve spiritual purity.

Food and sex deprivations are among the most widely practiced.

Quite an interesting spiritual purification comes from India.

Introducing - Standing Baba




Sunday, February 15, 2009

Cannibalism and immortality.


As Nature suggests, males are needed only for one thing. A fairly large percentage of female insects devours their one night stand during or right after the fling. Cannibalism, is one of the many things* God invented to take care of overpopulation.
_________________________________________
*famine, incurable diseases, wars are among others



© Wikipedia

Imagine if we were all immortal, like Turritopsis Nutricula. Problems, such as prison life sentences, would need to be addressed immediately.


Sunday, February 8, 2009

Like husband, like wife.




© Double u double u double u


© Double u double u double u

Fact — a lot of couples, who managed to stay together for a while, look alike.There are several theories. Some guys, who wear thick glasses, claim that shared emotions is what is making long marriages look like incest. Others, are swearing that shared diet and lifestyle is to be blamed. Another interesting claim states that couples exchange lots of bodily fluids intercourse in the course of life , thus they take up each others physiological peculiarities. Next time you visit your grandparents, take a closer look!

Some interesting articles in: New York Times, MSNBC and FOX News.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

If you do not smoke, you are missing on life.


Increasing popularity of smoking in the last century, was largely
contributed to massive advertising. All means used to convince Joe Blow that a cigarette was nothing but panacea.

Smokes for men — a symbol of a strong, confident and successful man. Smokes for women — a symbol of an equal, tender and sexy woman.

Of course, those stupid kids needed to be educated on the preferred brands as well. Doctors were the last drop in the bucket...

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Beauty defined.

Short neck — not. White eyes — not. Hair — not. Definitely not to love handles.


© Some British newspaper.


Sunday, January 18, 2009

Is auto industry vital?

Subsidized industries are part of government strategic planning. In case of war, the country — which can feed itself, has its own energy supplies, and is able to produce weaponry has better chances of winning the war. Does auto industry fall under strategic planning as well?

Ford is the oldest automaker in the world. Yet they have been making cars of poor quality for a long time. ( Stock market proof ).
How come they get 1040 bucks?

To top it all, their ads remain to be in the the losing territory when compared to the competition.

Toyota ad:


Honda ad:


Ford ad:

Friday, January 9, 2009

Interhistory.

Internet was invented in 1946 by Murray — a science fiction writer. Someone (Mr.X) from the US Defense department, having read this book as a child, became obsessive with ideas described in the book.

The obsession turned into the reality, when Mr. X finally got his hands on taxpayers money.

Years later, Mark and Bill borrowed the idea from the inefficient government agency to turn it into a cash cow.








Finally, a Russian immigrant Sergey, took over. Who is next?