Meme Kidnapped from scarlettina

[gnomi]

In the comments below, share a factoid or a bit of info that other people can learn about from you (so no making stuff up that isn't true)... advice, educational stuff, whatever. However, do not repeat knowledge on a subject that has already been commented on, and if you see something you didn't know about before make sure to let the person know.

As scarlettina did, I'll start with a randomness:

Until 1698, when the Virginia governor specified that Capitol would be the name of the planned statehouse in a village then known as Middle Plantation, the word capitol had been used only as the name of the great Roman temple at Rome.

(quoted from Garner's Modern American Usage, p. 127. Garner cites Mitford M. Mathews, American Words, pp. 62-63 (1959; repr. 1976))

Comments

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

When exhibiting at a trade show, preparation is key. Beyond the design of your exhibit, beyond any giveaway items, beyond even your snazzy new prototype demonstrations, you need to focus on your people. The booth staff serve as ambassadors for your company. Everything they say and do reflects upon your firm. You want to make sure they are presenting the desired image.

**From one of a hundred articles I've written on the trade show industry**

(Did you know I was this big a nerd? Did you? Aren't you surprised? If you're really nice to me, I'll go on at length about determining your ROI on exhibiting. It's very sexy.)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's important information, there, CB. :-)

As for nerd quotient, I judge no one else's nerdiness, lest they judge mine.

Ooh, talk ROI to me, baby!

[tru2myart.livejournal.com]

According to the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, Judas Iscariot did not actually betray Jesus...a fact that I'm rapidly finding out everyone knew about except me which prompted me to dive heavily into the lost gospels, Dead Sea scrolls and secret texts.

Info from wikipedia.com on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_judas

Interesting factoids, I'm all for it. Can I join the nerd club? I'm a geek but I've always pined to be a nerd too. :)

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Sure, we nerds are a welcoming bunch :) I'd be a geek, but I keep crashing computers with a glance. I may, in fact, be the anti-geek.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the nerd club! We like geeks here (most of us are geeks here, as well as nerds)!

[celli]

The Enron 401(k) "lockout" is now famous, but slightly mis-represented in articles and books about the company's crash. The pension plan lockout (they were changing plan administrators and for administrative reasons didn't want to allow changes) was supposed to last longer than it did. The ban was lifted because the stock was tanking so badly, but a large number of Enron employees chose to stay with the stock or even buy more. They believed that strongly that the company would rebound.

(From Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

a large number of Enron employees chose to stay with the stock or even buy more

That happened at a company I used to work for, as well. People had a lot of 401(k) money in the company's stock, and despite the fact that it tanked and lost them lots of money, they not only stuck with it, some even purchased more, at the very, very low stock price.

I didn't understand the logic then, and I don't understand it now.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

frank lloyd wright's imperial hotel in tokyo had its grand opening in 1923, on the same day as one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history. buildings fell down everywhere. the hotel didn't. (because wright was a genius and built it to be earthquake-proof.) it was finally demolished in 1968 and replaced with a boring skyscraper hotel.

(from imperial hotel, an imperial history altho i already knew it survived the earthquake.)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

That's really cool.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

(Boy, my head's full of useless knowledge.)

If you want to say "thank you" in Cairo or in Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, you'd say, "Shukran." To say "No, thank you," you'd say, "La, shukran." This knowledge is also useful in Moroccan restaurants where, on occasion, I've received extra treats with my meal for "speaking the language."

Boeing Company (the aerospace giant) is so big that, annually, they hold their own crafts fair and, as a separate event, a coin show.

Seattle's Space Needle was erected as a defining symbol of the city for the 1962 World's Fair. At the time, its roof—now white—was bright orange. For its 40th birthday, it was painted orange again in celebration.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ooh, neat! Seattle-local trivia. Thanks!

(I knew about "shukran" from when I lived in Israel. The long-distance operator had a recorded message because there were usually significant wait times. And the message played in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. So I heard "shukran" over and over while waiting for a human.)

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

If you want local variables in a PostScript procedure, you can create a 1-entry dictionary (it'll automatically expand if necessary) and immediately add it to the dictionary stack:

/procedure {
  1 dict begin
    [code...]
  end
} def

But the memory in that dictionary may not get reclaimed, so if you are confident that you won't call that procedure recursively you can do this instead:
/proceduredict 1 dict def
/procedure {
  proceduredict begin
    [code...]
  end
} def

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Random code is always useful! Thanks! :-)

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

Though for many, many years the origins of the word "shark" have been generally deemed unknown, recent study of Mayan dialects indicate that shark may have come from /xoc/ (pronounced, loosely, "shohck"), meaning fish, more or less, and describing a number of stone carvings that are, inarguably depictions of sharks.

I loves me some etymology!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool.

I loves me some etymology, as well. :-) Thanks for sharing this bit!