Futility Closet

On average, the Empire State Building is struck by lightning 25 times each year.

During one storm it was struck 15 times in 15 minutes.

The top 10 most offensive British profanities, according to a 2000 study:

1. cunt
2. motherfucker
3. fuck
4. wanker
5. nigger
6. bastard
7. prick
8. bollocks
9. arsehole
10. Paki

Only 10 percent regarded crap as "very severe"; 32 percent said it was "not swearing."

Virgil's Aeneid contains arguably the first written reference to pizza:

Their homely fare dispatch'd, the hungry band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observ'd, and smiling said:
"See, we devour the plates on which we fed."

On New Year's Day, 1963, two bodies were found in a lovers' lane in Sydney, Australia. They belonged to Gilbert Bogle, a top research physicist, and his mistress. Both were partially undressed and covered with clothes and cardboard. Police could find no trace of poison; their hearts had simply stopped beating.

To this day, no one has determined whether they were murdered, and if so, how or why. It is a perfect mystery.

isangelous
equal to the angels

"The great affair, we always find, is to get money." So wrote Adam Smith, but he might have been surprised to visit the Micronesian island of Yap, where a coin's value is determined by its size. If a native pays you a large debt, you might find yourself with a limestone coin 12 feet in diameter and weighing several tons. You might display it outside your home, as a status symbol — or you might just leave it where it is (even underwater) and agree that ownership has been transferred. Easier on the back.

355/113 is sometimes referred to as "not pi, but an incredible simulation."

It yields 3.1415929.

A Zen koan:

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself.

"We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

An optical illusion. The gray bar is the same shade throughout.

"When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things: One part of me wants to take her home, be real nice and treat her right; the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick." — Serial killer Edmund Kemper