“Alexa, tell me a fun fact…”
Alexa is a virtual assistant who can help you with “lots of things” (Alexa, 2020). So, I decided to put her skills to the test, and tasked her with telling me 20 fun facts.
This is what she had to say.
- 12+1 is an anagram of 11+2. Both add up to 13.
- To count as a Gargoyle, a carving on a building has to have a waterspout in it. They literally gargle. Other such carvings are called grotesques.
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the word for the fear of long words.
- The saying ‘I can neither confirm nor deny’ is called the Glomar response after the Glomar salvage vessel. Commissioned by the CIA to attempt the recovery of the soviet nuclear submarine. The agency neither confirmed nor denied the ship’s mission to reporters in 1975.
- More than 20 Universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, were founded before the Aztec Empire and are still in operation today.
- 40% of all the biomass in the world’s oceans is in the form of jellyfish.
- The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is so tall that you can see two sunsets in one day. Just watch the sunset from the ground floor, then take the elevator up to the top and you can watch it again.
- The word boredom was first coined by Charles Dickens in his 1852 novel Bleak House.
- Army ants are blind and rely on following the pheromone trails that they leave to follow each other around. Sometimes they get stuck in a circle and march around and around until they die of exhaustion.
- Barbra Cartland, who holds the world record for writing the most novels in one year – 23 – was buried in a cardboard coffin under a tree, planted by Queen Elizabeth the first, on the grounds of her home.
- Camels were imported to Australia starting in 1860. By the 2000’s so many had been born in the wild that it threatened native species.
- A group of larks is called an ascension; a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance.
- In 1999 Edward de Bono, who originated the term lateral thinking, proposed shipping marmite to the Middle East to reduce conflict, which he thought was caused in part by low zinc levels.
- Manhole covers are round so they don’t fall in the holes. A square cover would fit into a square hole diagonally.
- There’s a basketball court on the top floor of the supreme court building in Washington DC. It has the funny name ‘The Highest Court in the Land’.
- Did you know the national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn?
- Back in 1988, before he was a film director, Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator on the Golden Girls.
- Mount Everest is not the point furthest from the earth’s core. Because the Earth bulges out around the equator, the summit of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is further away.
- Once, during a hunt, Napoleon was swarmed by so many rabbits that he had to retreat in his coach.
- During WW1, the US Government renamed some German concepts. German measles became liberty measles, Sauerkraut became liberty cabbage, even hamburgers became liberty sandwiches.
Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “Just because Alexa said all this doesn’t mean it’s true!”, well I had the same thought so I did some fact checking… it’s all true. Alexa knows her stuff and now I guess I trust her?
So there you have it! I put Alexa to the test and she passed! This smart assistant is well… smart (although who doesn’t know the national animal of Scotland at this point?).