So as a result, my brain is filled beyond capacity with totally useless information. Which is good because I can impress people in bars, but I end up completely forgetting important information like, say, my birthday. One of my problems, however, is that I don’t usually verify my answer and take it at face value. Not a good idea, as I pointed out in an earlier blog.
As a result, I kinda have a tendency to mislead people sometimes about random facts. It’s all unintentional (unlike, for instance, Fox News), but it’s still wrong. So, in order to distance myself from misinformants who adamantly proclaim falsities, such as those that insist President Obama’s health plan is hell-bent on killing your grandparents (different topic that I won’t dignify with a blog entry, and Jon Stewart does a bang-up job anyway), I thought I’d clear the air on some of the "facts" you might’ve heard me say to you so matter-of-factly in the past.
Debunked: Tom Petty Sued RHCP
"Mary Jane’s Last Dance" is maybe Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ most widely known work. And did you ever notice how similar it is to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most recent best-selling single, "Dani California"? In particular, its opening phrase sounds just like the theme that drives the Tom Petty classic. In fact, you may have heard me mention that Petty filed a copyright lawsuit against RHCP, and they're still battling out in court.Totally false. In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Petty was asked about it, to which he responded: "I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock & roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took 'American Girl', and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, 'OK, good for you.' It doesn’t bother me."
Cool. I’m glad I’m wrong...makes me like Mr. Petty a lot more, for his laid-back-ness.
Debunked: The Toilet Bowl / Hemisphere Postulate
This didn’t just fool me, it fooled all the geniuses on the staff of The Simpsons, who based an entire episode on this theory. Because of a little physics principle called the Coriolis Effect, I had heard that when toilets flush (or showers drain, or whatever), the water will always always ALWAYS swirl in a counterclockwise motion as it goes down the drain in the Northern Hemisphere, and it would swirl in a clockwise motion in the Southern Hemisphere. I thought this was because of the rotation of the Earth: the same reason that hurricanes spin counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.Of course, I believed all of this without having been to South America or Australia or whatever. Plus, what if you had a drain that sat right on the equator? Would the water just fall straight through the drain?
In fact, the Coriolis effect’s influence over a circling drain is miniscule if any, since a the drain is only several inches wide (at most) and lasts for only a few seconds. The Earth's rotation just doesn't affect such an insignificant event. Source: http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp
Debunked: The Unproud Origin of the Word "Golf"
Etymology (how words came to be) has always deeply interested me, ever since my four years of high school Latin, so I never pass up an opportunity to learn where a word came from.
I heard from someone long ago that the word "golf" was actually an acronym for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden". It made sense: golf has been around for centuries, and it certainly predated women’s rights. And guys stereotypically hit the golf course to escape their female counterparts, right?
Incorrect. It’s unknown exactly where the word came from, but it is surely known that it’s not an acronym. Precursors to the word may include the German word "kolbe", the Dutch word "kolven", or simply the Scottish word "golf". In any case, I was wrong again. Source: http://www.scottishgolfhistory.net/golf_word.htm
Well, there you have it. Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it’s true. I guess the moral of the story is to just not listen to me.
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