Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

Originally Posted by Fatso

The amount of money saved in 1987 by American Airlines by taking out 1 Olive served in First Class Salad . $40,000 .

I like olives

• On average, an olive tree can live to a ripe old age with some specimens over a thousand years old still bearing very good crops.
• Olives cannot be eaten directly from the tree since they are extremely bitter and astringent.
• Harvested olives need to be processed with brine before they become edible. Natural processing takes place with the help of beneficial yeasts and bacteria much like cheese making.
• Colour of the fruit depends on the maturity of the fruit. All olives start out green and then turn darker maroon or black as they ripen. A few rare varieties do not colour but go whitish.
• Oil extraction below 30 degrees Celsius keeps the aroma and beneficial anti-oxidant levels intact.
• One liter of olive oil is produced from the pressing of between 6 and 7 kg of olives.
• On average, the world consumes approximately 2.5 million tons of olive oil each year.
• Baked goods will last longer when you substitute butter with olive oil. It is the vitamin E and biophenolics that improve shelf life.
• Olives and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) provide a rich source of vitamins E, A, and K.
• Olive oil is naturally cholesterol, sodium, and carbohydrate-free.
• There is evidence of olive oil extraction in the Middle East from before 4500 BC.
• Unlike wine, olive oil doesn’t improve with age. A good quality olive oil should keep up to two years. Exposure to air, light, warm temperatures and moisture shorten the shelf life of olive oil.

Average number if days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7 .

Originally Posted by Fatso

Average number if days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7 .

TOO MUCH INFORMATION?

According to research, it is normal to lose 50-100 hairs every day.

Every hair has a life cycle of its own which ends with it falling out to make room for new one to grow. At any moment of time, only about 80 percent of your hairs are growing. The growing phase lasts from two to six years, varying from one individual to another. The other 20 percent of the hair has ceased to grow and gone into inactive period of about 3 months before finally falling out.

Note to above- I am a chrome dome with no hair on my head. I wonder if the stuff would be so kind to fall of all the other places it now inhabits like my ears or nose TOO MUCH INFORMATION again?

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

I like olives
[LIST]
[*]Olives cannot be eaten directly from the tree since they are extremely bitter and astringent.

A few years ago Israeli plant breeders announced they had developed an olive variety that could be eaten from the tree. The idea of the research was that if Israel was invaded and their army had to go into guerilla warfare mode the soldiers would have to live off the land. They planned to plant many thousands of this olive over the countryside. Must not have been a success as I have not heard any more of it.

I have read that most of the dust in our houses is actually our own skin and hair.

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

TOO MUCH INFORMATION?

According to research, it is normal to lose 50-100 hairs every day.

Every hair has a life cycle of its own which ends with it falling out to make room for new one to grow. At any moment of time, only about 80 percent of your hairs are growing. The growing phase lasts from two to six years, varying from one individual to another. The other 20 percent of the hair has ceased to grow and gone into inactive period of about 3 months before finally falling out.

Note to above- I am a chrome dome with no hair on my head. I wonder if the stuff would be so kind to fall of all the other places it now inhabits like my ears or nose TOO MUCH INFORMATION again?

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

In my GM days any of the individual divisions such as purchasing & supply, manufacturing, engineering, etc. could make changes to a vehicle specification costing up to $0.05 per vehicle without consulting other divisions. Changes over $0.05 had to go through a committee meeting to allow all divisions to have a say. This could amount to a tidy sum when you consider that Chev. division alone made something like 22000 V8 engined Impala per week one year. Tonawanda engine plant was making 3,500,000 small block V8's every year.

Yep, what seems like a trivial amount adds up to BIG savings.
A mate of mine is a process engineer. His team designs the assembly process for cars. He says that for a company like GM or VW the savings of a few dollars per car can amount to millions of dollars saved / day. He also says that's why modern cars can be so difficult to work on - from the ground up it is designed to be assembled and NOT maintained, serviced or repaired. The whole body off (for maintenance and repairs) thing came about because it's faster and easier, and therefore cheaper, to put the body ON as one of the very last steps of assembly.

So, next time you're cursing because your hands are too big or that your wrists, fingers and elbows don't have enough articulation blame the process engineers.

Designing for easy manufacture was one of Henry Ford's main contributions to building cars, rather than any specific design features or manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line. Assembly lines and mass production were not new - they date from, I think it was Venice's naval shipbuilding in the fifteenth century.

Mass production machinery and interchangeable parts was introduced to block making at the Royal Dockyards by the elder Brunel in about 1800, and by the middle of the century was being used by Colt for the production of firearms. What Henry did was to take these production methods and design for them. And this has been accelerating ever since.

It does not have to bee in conflict with maintainability though. A good example is the Martin-Baker MB3 (Sabre engined) and MB5 (Griffon) which offered superior performance and manufacturing ease and maintainability compared to that of the existing Hurricanes and Spitfires, or indeed their immediate evolved descendants (Typhoon and Spiteful). It was not put into production, probably because the existing aircraft types were already being mass produced.

The water temperature last Saturday at Seaforth, just North of Mackay, was 18°.
That is an extremely low temp, by any standard!