Useless Information

My crowning achievement is that I have a well stocked repository of useless information.

If all of the studies of useless information were laid end to end it would be better.

A wealth of useless information has enabled me to excell at Scrabble and Crossword Puzzles, Trivial Pursuit, and answering millions of Questions for my eight children from about age three till they were Bar/Bat Mitzvah'd ....... And I still find things to be curious about .......
 
Anybody know what that little piece of Metal/Plastic on the end of a Shoe String is called ???

JALOPKIN, it is an aglet, according to that ultimate repository of useless -- and useful -- information: Google.

aglet...and I didn't have to look it up.

RIGHT  YOU  ARE !!!  Both of you !!!
 
Now ... How about the Metal Band bent into a Horse Shoe, with corners, that snaps onto an Aluminum Can and turns it into a de facto Mug ???

I have a large box on the floor of a walk-in closet, on the floor and covered up with other things so it won't constantly remind me of my inadequacies and inefficiencies. The box is chock full of old cell phones, wall chargers, car chargers, and virgin instruction manuals. Every two years, I become eligible for a "free" phone. I am never able to resist the temptation to accept the carrier's offer, which involves signing another two year contract. By the time I finally figure out how to quickly & accurately operate the "smart phone," the two year period has expired, and the cycle begins again. Recently I got so frustrated that I located a perfectly good older phone, with simple operate features. It receives calls. It has an actual keyboard, with real keys, to make calls. It receives & sends simple text messages. I tried to return to an earlier period of bliss, when technology was still subordinate to it's operators. "Sorry," I was told. "Nobody uses these things anymore, we can't even remember how to hook them into our own network." I sit here, trying to scroll down, past umpteen unused unwanted features, so that I can place a simple call to an "old" friend. Hopefully I can recharge my self-esteem over lunch.....

I have a large box on the floor of a walk-in closet, on the floor and covered up with other things so it won't constantly remind me of my inadequacies and inefficiencies. The box is chock full of old cell phones, wall chargers, car chargers, and virgin instruction manuals. Every two years, I become eligible for a "free" phone. I am never able to resist the temptation to accept the carrier's offer, which involves signing another two year contract. By the time I finally figure out how to quickly & accurately operate the "smart phone," the two year period has expired, and the cycle begins again. Recently I got so frustrated that I located a perfectly good older phone, with simple operate features. It receives calls. It has an actual keyboard, with real keys, to make calls. It receives & sends simple text messages. I tried to return to an earlier period of bliss, when technology was still subordinate to it's operators. "Sorry," I was told. "Nobody uses these things anymore, we can't even remember how to hook them into our own network." I sit here, trying to scroll down, past umpteen unused unwanted features, so that I can place a simple call to an "old" friend. Hopefully I can recharge my self-esteem over lunch.....

Bert, you need something like this: http://nosheep.net/story/nokia-rotary-cellphone/
 
I love useless information; they’re more entertaining than useful information. People with a lot of useful information tend to sound like know-it-alls, whilst people with useless information just sound quirky and fun. Once a senior colleague heard me telling the very-important-client (a sovereign fund) why there was little trading activity in Asia then. It was “The Ghost month” and I spent that sales call telling anecdotal stories about it. The colleague was quite shocked but as I explained, the poor fella gets calls from every broker in town telling him the same thing, including overnight news. I must have done right because he told me I was the most memorable broker …hehe!..... Delivery of useless information can be important. Though both these links talk about the Adelie Penguin, I’ll bet you will find, like me, the second link to be a whore lot more fun.
 
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/adelie-penguin/
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/60302.stm
 

Ivan at 4.13.....I hope you'll tell before my bedtime or I won't be able to get to sleep from not knowing!. I know I would have just called it a "can holder"  !

Incidentally, I just read that the number of FBI files that are now accessible to the public have jumped (Do you think they were pre empting Julian Assange??). The files include UFOs!! ...and of course Roswell ...sounds like a treasure trove of Useless Information in there!!!

http://vault.fbi.gov/

Ivan...bet you'll have lots to comment on the content!

The human head weighs seven pounds, according to jonathan lipnickey.

I was once called "a wealth of useless information" by a fellow. I thought initially it was a insult, until today.

The first aerial photograph was taken from a tethered balloon in Paris in 1848, done by the French Army during the Paris Commune uprising.  "Useless" information can at times be quite useful or at least interesting.  And fun.  A classmate of mine at Columbia invented the whole trivia game thing.  Got quite wealthy from it.  And a high school classmate who inherited an ad agency from his father started the "What Would Jesus Do?" slogan.  He gets royalties from every wrist band, baseball cap, T-shirt, etc.  It is a small world.  Wouldn't it be nice to have one of those ideas?

North and South America do not begin and end with the same letter.

It is more likely that you share your birthday with 15 or 20 million people. Peterman, you need to check your facts.
My husband was a three time returning Jeopardy champion. Sine I have been loving him my cache of useless facts has quadrupled. You do not want to pay Trivial Pursuit with me. LOL.

I was just about to bypass this one and proceed to my generally productive
chores, but then an early morning Bertism caught my eye and I have to ask...

 
BERT ~ What is a virgin instruction manual and why are you
holding on to the thing?  It can only be useful one time.  After that it takes
practice, practice, practice. 
 
Respectfully submitted, though not really expecting a response, I remain

 
paolo

Useless information,         supposed to fire my imagination...        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VbImuG71M

Once you start looking you may find a treasure
trove defined by the Roman jurist
Paulus as "vetus quædam
depositio pecuniæ, cujus non extat memoria, ut jam dominum non habeat" (an
ancient deposit of money, of which no memory exists, so that it has no present
owner) of
 
http://www.uselessinformation.org/penguins/index.html

Carol you just said what I was going to say! You left out Jeopardy. One of the reasons I love my kindle so much (can't get to bookstores very often and there's a space issue)is the Scrabble game. Still, juggling a lifetime of useless information doesn't help remember passwords..... or even the wonderful website whose name I can't remember that was linked for us by (I think) Park4 yesterday.

Sorry, SPRING, same story different source.  It was an
accident...a coincidence...a phenomenon of willfull uselessness on my
part.

Look who is back...
 
http://www.petermanseye.com/photos/475391 ;

ChefDeb----to find that site just go up to the top of today's page...right above the articles that connect to our topic, above the spider web and click on "older"  that will take you back to previous topics day by day by day.

We Brits have the great blessing of BBC Raido 4, followed  at midnight by the World Service for insomniacs. A veritable treasure-trove of useless information, so you can start sentences with "Did you know....?"
Paols~ Your exhortation to your fellow men is excellent. I do speculate when I hear news of an earthquake, wether people who happened to making love at the time ask one another: "Did the earth move for you, too darling?"
 
 

Carol--thank you! You know me too well...

MISS SPRING:   I know you are asleep now, but you can find this when you wake ... and I insert it now, in case Business runs me right up to the time we shut Down ...
 
It is called a,   ZARF  .......  and I have no idea where that Name/Word came from ...
 
Like so many other really neat ideas ... in practical application the ZARF just doesn't work well ... especially since the advent of the Round Bottom Edges on Aluminum Cans .......

Spring Fragrance: Thanks so much for the link, I think the rotary-dialed cell phone is EXACTLY what I need....plus a supply of change.

Paolos: These manuals are first editions, some day they will become collectible, you just wait & see.....

I never leave the house without a few bits of otherwise useless information in my hip pocket just in case the need arises...... Such as slamming the brakes on a totally unwanted or just plain boring conversation. You simply reach into your pocket and randomly select some tidbit of information that has absolutely no bearing on what is being inflicted upon you, toss it out, and use the speechless moment that usually accompanies a very quizzical facial expression and make your getaway.

If your good at this, they never know what hit them as they stand frozen in stunned silence.

Come to think about it,.people do that to me quite often too.

'a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse'

The US Navy also has an item, usually made in the on-base metal shops
that is bolted to bulkheads and consoles to hold coffee cups. The Navy zarf is
very plain and utilitarian.
 
The original zarf is ornamental and
useless. 
Not to be confused with...
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o620WWho-o

SPRING's Penguin report was a bit more thorough
than the one I posted. 
 
For those of you who did not give it a read, 
I will tell you that the interview
with 
the good Doctor Fiona Hunter brought forth this
gem:
 
I think what they are doing is having
copulation for another reason and just taking the stones as well. We don't know
exactly why, but they are using the males.
 
She said the female penguins could also
be testing potential future mates,
in case their existing partner died
before the next mating period.
 
That, my friends, is an excuse no man has yet to
pick up on. 
 
She means nothing  to me, baby, I was
just seeing if she'd work out in case you died before we mate again.

 
Not even (to misuse a Stoneyism) The Most Blond
Woman In The World would buy into that, would she? 

The thrill of victory  at the community grill on Trivia Night makes that "useless" information seem very useful!! Just being able to name 4 of the 6 countries that border the Black Sea may actually cause your team to win!! Like some of you, I enjoy Jeopardy and Millionaire to see if I can answer the trivia being asked, and sometimes remember some of it.
 
About the article on the uselessness of taking vitamins [above in the sidebar], my medical doctor disagrees, and often recommends extra Vit. D or C or whatever vitamin one's blood tests show deficient. I have heard the thing about any taken that are too much, especially C, are excreted harmlessly. I agree with Carol's comment that there is no useless information, but rather information that is just being held in escrow until the right time for use. Spring - Thanks for the link to the penguins. Someday I may need to know that, like when I take my granddaughter to the Aquarium in Atlanta and we visit the penguin exhibit.

We just signed up for Roku and got the little device that allows one to dial up any movie anytime and watch on the TV the list from Netflix. What a neat bit of techno accessibility!
 
Speaking of those new phones, I agree with Bert that I don't need one that does everything except wash your car! I do not want to see movies on my phone, order a theater ticket, or read email....I just want to be able to receive and make phone calls. I have lived this long without texting or tweeting, so I am content. I have the phone I got 5 years ago and when the battery refused to recharge, I found there is a site on the internet that sells every kind or date battery you could want, so I outsmarted the teenagers who work at the phone company desk and just got a new battery. (Even Radio Shack said my phone was too old for any kind of battery they had.) Yes, they send those "Come in now and get your new "DOES IT ALL" Smartphone for only $49 and a 2 yr. contract.  (My 2 yr. contract ran out 3 yrs. ago!) I guess I will have it die one day and have to deal with the phone people, but I will wait til it is a necessity. I feel more secure having a cell phone, as well as a land line, too. However, it seems many  of the younger generation are happy with only the cell.

You know, being in IT, I really don't care to know what is on those funky keyboards I have to touch. It's bad enough that I have to share certain inut devices with co-workers butsometimes, I have to make a visit to the desk of some disease and pestillence riddled user to troubleshoot a problem that is causing such strife only to find out they hadn't turned on their monitor. Or something equally silly.
 Speaking of funky keyboards though. I had one user who had perpetual problems with his trackball. He hated using a mouse. His trackball would would periodically stop working. Why? Well, said user liked to eat fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. He had a very large, plastic cup that sat on his desk, next to his monitor, where he would put peels, rinds, cores and other fruit efluence. It was a lovely aroma to have to peer over when figuring out how he got his network cable plugged into the graphics port on the back of his monitor. Well, he rarely washed his hands, prefering instead to stock up on handi-wipes. (speaking of useless things). Needless to say, he had "sticky fingers". It was a dreaded visit that required use of his keyboard to troubleshoot his machine. Simply typing in my user name to log in to his system was an exercise in gag reflex management. I would press a key, release it and it would be stuck to my finger. I would literally have to rip my fingers away from the gunk that was all over his keyboard. It came to a head when one day, the 'Y' key remained affixed to my right index finger.
 Well, after that little incident and about a half dozen other visits during the summer months (prime fruit season in the Northeast mind you!), I wised up to what was going on with his track ball. I made a pre-emptive visit to his desk after hours with a can of "Clorox Wipe Ups". I disassembled his track ball and sure enough, there enough gunk to gag a maggot! I spent 5 wipe ups cleaning that single trackball device out. The next night, I took his funky keyboard and swapped it out with another one. Filled an adequately sized Rubbermaid tub with isopropyl alcohol. I popped every key out of his keyboard and threw them in the tub to soak and let his funky keyboard lay submerged in the alcohol for a weekend, upside down with the lid on the tub. Monday morrning I had an old used toothbrush and ruber gloves. I scrubbed the living hell out of the keyboard (literally!) and then hung it on a bent up clothes hanger to dry next to the vents in the server room. When it was dry, I took his now moderately funky keyboard from him and replaced it with this now clean keyboard. I cleaned out his trackball one again and took the now funky keyboard to the alcohol bath. Then I wrote his manager an email letting him know the extent to which I have to go through to maintain a single user's computer.  He wasn't allowed to eat fruit at his desk anymore.  Now, about that giraffe riding. Where can I get one and can i wear a silly hat while partaking in the activity?

BERT:
My son takes my old phones to a deposit for servicemen at the mall. If you don't have one call a USO or other organization. Those guys need all the support we can give them.
komando.com also might have more info on this type of donation.

One day when I almost broke my neck trying to answer the landline only for it to be another message for my children who had moved out several years prior, and then have call waiting beep with yet another telemarketer, I thought of a friend of mine from Italy who said "no one wants to speak to your house, they want to speak to you." I cancelled my landline and saving a nice amount of money every month I have lived happily ever after with my cell phone. Not a smart phone. Just one that has phone calls, text messages and pictures of my granddaughter.

Mooseloop: I'm glad I'm not the only one who recognizes the value of simplification, it may not guarantee happiness, but at least it will minimize frustration, limiting it to be focused exclusively on bad things we can't change. Eschew obfuscation!!!

Korthal: We have a supply of plastic bags in my office, they contain the address of an organization that accepts donated cell phones. The bags are bubble-wrap insulated, you insert the phone & pull a tab off, underneath is the sticky portion of a sealing flap. The postage is prepaid.

Why can't we get a bright red "911" emergency services dialing button standard on our cell phones? It should automatically turn on a phone that is turned off first, eliminating another step. To avoid miscues that can take place by sitting on a phone in your pocket, a series of three frequent successive taps on the button could be required. If someone tries to get in my daughter's car, seconds count, and simplicity is critical when you're a nervous wreck.....

Ynsats ~  I really shouldn't be the one answering your question,
but...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SdzCMd87D0
 
and yes you can keep your hat on.

PAOLOS:  You should have been in the Navy !!!  I know Lifers that don't know any of this .......

IVAN ~ When one hangs with the teacher, one is expected to learn something!

                                                       It is one of life's little blessings.

LADIES & GENTLEMEN .......
 
I Wish You All a Great Weekend !!!  Good Food, Good Wine, Good Company, and Good Times like a Rocket Ride !!!   Be Safe, Be Well, and don't allow any thing or anybody to dampen your enjoyment !!!  Be With Those You Love, and Tell Them So ... May All Your Dreams Be Fulfilled, and I join you in giving Thanks ... 
 
To Those Who Do:  GOOD  SHABBOS !!!!!!!
 
May This Be For You Too, a Sabbath of Peace, a Sabbath of Joy, and a Sabbath of Rest .......
and May Our Rest Be Pleasing Unto The Lord .......
 
Blessings Upon All of This Village .......
 
 
IVAN

I think we have a bit of reverse snobbery going on when we complain about all the seemingly "not required" enhancements that are available through today's technology; where new advancements are being made exponentially faster that they were just a few decades ago.

It took about 100 years to perfect analogue - voice transmission telephony and now voice transmission is used less and less every day. What we are stuck with is an enormous legacy of wired line transmission home offices and millions of miles of copper wire and telephone poles littering the skyline.

Should we have stopped when the early internal combustion engines were made practical? Should we still be polluting the earth and the sky producing all those things that software has rendered obsolete? Should we have stopped at stairs instead of inventing elevators and escalators? Go back to manuals wheelchairs? Open windows instead of air conditioning? Heat with coal? Surgery without anesthesia? No commercial air travel? Who needs GPS when outdated roadmaps where seemingly ubiquitous.

I guess it is only natural to pick and choose those things we don't appreciate nor want when it comes to technology. Just as it is easy to sit back and say "why haven't "they'" figured out how to do this yet'..... Without even checking about to see if someone has or taking initiative to determine if "they" may be working on it or at least..... who to contact to prompt them to start.

Don't get me wrong. I often long for the simplicity and happiness of a past that is probably at least 50% euphoric recall. But I also know how limited my opportunities would have been and I probably would have died several times over if it wasn't for the growing breed of innovators who have come along and rolled their sleeves up to change the world we live in.

I think I'll pack up my orange crate podium and let the pigeons that stopped thinking they were going to be fed and not lectured to by a cranky old man have some peace and quiet.

Peace out and blessing to all of you.

Speaking of useless information: yesterday, the first motorcycle of the year was heard on our street, the Beauty's rose bush stumps finally peeked above a persistent snow drift and there is a hen mallard in what remains of the pool.
In the margins of an awful novel written by what ought to have been an embarrassed author, were hundreds of notes, dates, computations and telephone numbers written in blue fountain pen.
The book had been in a box of things purchased on the cheap at an auction.
Decidedly not marginalia, they were completely unrelated to the content, there was but one repeatable comment among the hundreds of jottings.
It came into play during an unwelcome phone conversation with a financial advisor who had implausibly touted his Jewishness as a qualification for managing our money as if it were the equivalent of a Wharton degree and it was post Madoff.
"Wh-where did you come by that expression?" he asked breathlessly.
I told him and about the rest of the incomprehensible information and that the book had gone into the Goodwill box.
Luckily, for him, it was still here. I found it, read him some excerpts and, if he been able to shut up for about ten seconds, he would have heard me offer to send it to him.
He couldn't, I didn't but when they sent a goon around with a check, I handed it over.
Six weeks later, I got a grateful call from his father/boss who explained that the information in that book lead them to sources that made clear how and why the eldest, richest member of their clan had made the big decisions that he, Mr. (sounded like Commoner... probably wasn't), had made and that rather than being a spiteful, cheap old bastard, he was understood to have been quite wise.
My useless information was their Rosetta stone and they sure as hell must have been intended to have it.
That was not the first time I had been involved in an eerie odds-stretcher like that... it wasn't the second either.

And now, for something even more useless: there is a devoted EYE lurker who calculates the actual number of posts subtracting Bert's duplicates and the numerous and generally unnecessary oopsies. No telling why.

Bert ~
A gun has only the one button but then, you probably have to replace a window.
 

Peter Lake ~
Speaking of voice recognition software: Guest is traveling in Canada in a rock star bus with his assistant (paid for by his publisher) and her driver dad.
They are doing a series of dog training videos.
The driver/dad uses that software to communicate with his daughter way in the back.
Guest read her typed answer to his unheard question on the screen: "No, Dad, I do not have a bare ass burn. Would a Seattle mini fan do?"

Is this day ever going to end? I just want to be on the plane!! I want my bags to pack themselves too. Ugh. I am not a fan of packing. I cannot escape that annoying nagging that I forgot something, no matter how many lists I make!
Have a great evening Villagers!

PL - I am not trying to say land lines are better because they are the old way.....I feel safer when the power goes off, or the battery on the cell phone has run down....At my daughter's, if the babysitter's cell phone runs out of battery, there is NO way she can call 911 or get help for the granddaughter who may be there with her but hurt.....If the mom's phone runs down and she forgets to recharge it, there is no contact.....In case of emergency, I feel safer to have a land line....Maybe it is just me, but the cell phone is a fickle servant when it may have one bar and not have good reception, or one bar of power and then cut out/die when you need to use it. The old land line is always there......It is purely a matter of safety.

Ynsats - Your post cracked me up!! I know that guy!!! I have worked with people like that!
You were overthetop patient to fix his wagon and get him to stop the sticky keyboard!!
 
In the school lab we had to use alcohol and Qtips to clean the mouse rollers ( we dare not call them "mouse balls" or the high school kids would fall out of their chairs laughing), as the kids put all sorts of gooey things on the tables and mouse pads.....yuck! So glad I am not responsible for a high school computer lab anymore....and for that matter, not responsible for any high schoolers at all!! Yea, retirement!!!

Fairly good wordstuff, Mr. P and all from a barkeep with questionable teeth after seeing my liking to Ouzo- "Careful there bucko. better pace yourself." Universal applicational info I reckon. T

Paolos...so glad you share my post via another route ....endorses what I said!
Ivan...the next time I do a drive in at Mac's I'm going to ask for another zarf and expand their vocabulary I'm sure....have a great Sabbath and may you be richly blessed
Moose @5.32...I have been in a similar situation when I was living down at the farm. Its no fun whenever there is a big storm and power gets cut off and I am out of battery. For the same reason, I've been resisted switching to VOIP (using your internet line to make calls, even "land line" type). So I take the cheapest possible package for my fixed line.
 
Ynsats: I had the same problem with the trackball on my blackberry 9100. I found all sorts of "help" online. In the end, I pried open the cover and used the hand dryer in the office loo....it was marvellous! Incidentally....now I wonder...it  might not have been a fat finger that wiped out $1trillion from the stock market in May 2010...it might have just been a glugged up keyboard!!
 http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fat-finger-points-to-us-stocks-dive-20100507-uh91.html
 

thbkeeper.....enjoy your holiday! May you have travel mercies, keep safe and bring back heaps of wonderful memories!

Mooseloop - I agree. land lines are much more reliable that cell phones and that because the FCC really rides herd on the Telcos.... With heavy duty fines if they are ever out of service. They are required to have all sorts of redundant systems and their central offices are backed up with an array of batteries the size of small cars.

Cell phones don't have to meet such stringent criteria because of their portability, accessibility and I think in the government's mind, they are still considered a luxury.

This is a good examplee of innovation and technology outpacing the speed of the regulatory bodies.

I don't think anyone, including me, saw this big of a change in useage of cell phones, which are really powerful tiny computers with a phone attached to them, happening so quickly.

I still have my land line at home but am at the mercy of my cell phone when on the road..... An a couple back up chargers and batteries.

Be well

Oops.... Sorry about all the typos.... I had to have my eyes dilated again.

PL  hope those eyes turn out to be A-OK--we need them onour Eye!

Belated thanks to Ivan for his Friday Nite blessing on the village. It'd duvet ime in Wales. Nos da.

OK, sad person who counts the posts, I will try that sentence again. It's duvet time in Wales. Nos da. And I will cut my fingernails before my next keyboard effort. And I need Ynsats to de-gunge my sticky keys. Or tell me how to do it. I know how exasperated IT clever people get with us oldies who get into a horrible muddle with gadgets, be it PC's, laptops or mobile 'phones. I can see the steam coming out of my son's ears as, on his infrequent visits, he unravels the chaos on my laptop and makes it run sweetly again. May all your gadgets and your lives go sweetly this weekend.

Carol - thank you for the good wishes. I'm working on it.

Stoney - thank you for the guest story. I think of him as somewhat ofva traveling minstrel with a new story experienced everyday.

Be well friend Stoney

Bon voyage, ThBkeeper! Hope you have a marvelous time in the islands! Celebrate your health with a few Rum Runner specials! Safe journey to you....

PL ~
You're welcome. The guy is the best traveler I ever saw... at home everywhere and unflappable.
When I saw on the interweb that there had been a fire in the town I thought he was in, I asked him about it weeks later.
"Oh, that was the place I was staying a B&B. When I looked around and nobody was upstairs, I got out a window onto a roof and down a drain pipe."
Call me crazy but I think a lot of regular people might have thought to mention that.

Yay! Blue but it ain't the same without old #10.