INTERESTING FACT OF THE DAY

Originally Posted by Stingo

The sea cucumber startles its enemies by shooting their digestive organs out of their rear ends.





Fact!

Similar thing happened to me after a prawn dansak. Very startling!!!!!!

[Stingo]

The Peregrine Falcon has been logged by radar reaching speeds of 114mph, wonder if he'll contest that speed in court

Originally Posted by Law

The Peregrine Falcon has been logged by radar reaching speeds of 114mph, wonder if he'll contest that speed in court

What car was it driving!

Originally Posted by DanDare

What car was it driving!

It was on a Hayabusa chasing a Blackbird

On a reasonably topical note before the film opens in a couple of days:

The word cipher derives from Arabic meaning zero. It originally meant that until it meant any numeral then from French and Italian it became used to mean "coded message" - this being supported in literature back to 1528.

Humans have used ciphers for thousands of years. In fact the Hebrews were using Atbash up to 600 years BCE. It is even recommended in the Kama Sutra as a method for lovers to communicate secretly.

It was the discovery of a coded message authorising a plot against Elizabeth from Mary Queen of Scots which led to her execution after it was deciphered.

Cryptography differs from steganography in that in the first the message itself is not hidden but is encoded by whichever cipher is used. Steganography looks to hide the message itself so its only known to the receiver. Herodotus mentions this back in 440BC when referring to using wax tablets to hide messages.

The other method reported was a slave of Histaeus had his head shaved. A message was then tattooed onto his head, his hair would grow back and he would then set off to deliver the message.

A far cry from these days on nigh on instant communications.

Superglue was developed by the Americans during the Vietnam war as a way of temporarily closing wounds on the battlefield.

getting the short end of the stick -

In the "olden days" Candles were expensive to make, so often reeds were dipped in tallow and burned instead. When visitors came, it was the custom for guests to make their exit by the time the lights went out. Therefore, if your host didn't want you to stay very long, he would give you a "short stick."

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In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"

And now we're not allowed to beat them Ah the 1400's a far more enlightened age