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Michael_Stuart
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16 Jul 2010, 4:44 am

Usually, I will look something up on Wikipedia. From there, I will learn about that subject and everything vaguely related, through Wikipedia articles and the source material.

Did you know that goober peas are the official snack food of South Carolina?



Exclavius
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16 Jul 2010, 6:16 pm

Long ago, people stopped being willing to play any trivia-games with me.

I seldom hold onto facts that others think would be important. But I hold onto other facts that make connections in my head, or ones that "make sense" in some esoteric way.

Though I don't remember as many useless facts as I used to. I think I kinda either grew out of it, or filled up my brain-space.



SoSayWeAll
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16 Jul 2010, 7:33 pm

Oh boy, I am horrible about this! Give me Wikipedia or Snopes or TV Tropes and I can't look away! My parents claim I'm in charge of the government's Department of Useless Information.

I find myself using random facts like this to try and strike up a conversation with people if I find something that seems related to something they like or that I see them doing. Sometimes it works--other times it just makes me look weird and geeky. Very hit-or-miss technique...but since I'm totally out of tune with most pop culture, it's one of my most common tactics.


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SteelMaiden
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23 Aug 2010, 2:19 pm

Arensic is cytotoxic because it inhibits sulphydryl-containing enzymes.


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katzefrau
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23 Aug 2010, 3:33 pm

Jeyradan wrote:
Yes. You're just as likely to hear from me that the plastic bits on the ends of shoelaces are called "aiglets"


i thought it was spelled "aglet" ?

a lot of my trivia is relegated to words that come up in crossword puzzles often.
aerie, adit, aril, eft, ibid, obi, stet, etc

there are three types of white genes in cats: dominant white, recessive white, and spotted white.
a lot of white cats with blue eyes are deaf, and odd-eyed white cats will sometimes be deaf in the blue eye side.

i don't store a lot of facts, but the ones i do are an interesting hodgepodge. (interesting to me at least)


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daniel3103
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23 Aug 2010, 3:49 pm

I have a lot of facts in my head about countries of the world. I did a lot of self-directed learning about this from my childhood to my mid-twenties, and I still often look up Wikipedia now. I used to make lists of these facts (e.g. capital cities, languages spoken) on paper. I now longer do that, it's all in my head, but I often recite a list to myself. I don't like doing that, because I like focusing on more meaningful things, but I can't help it.



Dox47
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23 Aug 2010, 3:55 pm

I'm sort of infamous among people who know me for being short term absent minded but having a photographic long term memory, especially for verbatim dialogue or unusual trivia. As I'm writing this I have several Wiki articles open, as well as several political blogs from both ends of the spectrum. Because I particularly tend to accumulate information that interests me while ignoring common knowledge that does not, I've always identified with the fictional Sherlock Holmes, who confounded Watson by being able to distinguish 25 different brands of cigar ash by site but not knowing anything about the solar system and the planets or current events. I often have though of Holmes as the original fictional Aspie even though he signifigantly predates the existence of the diagnosis, while reading A Study in Scarlet one can tick off nearly all of the DSM criteria in Watson's impressions upon meeting Holmes.


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daydreamer84
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23 Aug 2010, 7:05 pm

Yes...I am the queen of inane facts and useless knowledge. =)



DiveClimb
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24 Aug 2010, 10:44 am

Oh if ever there was an exam in useless information. I think i'd be up there with my boyfriend.
I'm learning the names of pasta types and the strongest glue in the world is excreted from bacteria.
I know lots about bacteria.



IdahoRose
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24 Aug 2010, 11:50 am

I know a lot of random things about psychology, medical problems and sexuality from my travels on the Internet. I also know a lot about my special interest, but that kind of goes without saying. :)



Rynessa
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24 Aug 2010, 12:35 pm

One of the diagnostic criteria for Asperger's is something about talking on and on about subjects no one cares about. What it SHOULD say is subjects NTs don't care about. Personally, I love hearing other peoples' random facts and info about their special interests. Unless, of course, it involves math that I don't understand. Even then, it's not that I'm not interested, I just can't grasp it.



lostD
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24 Aug 2010, 12:47 pm

I tend to learn a lot accidentally on the Internet. Accidentally because I was generally not supposed to end up searching informations about hats when I was learning about Al Capone or learning about Tawny Owls when I was working on my English translation. :lol:
No one want to play with me on trivia games anymore though I do not do so well and could know more, especially since I tend to learn useless limited facts (yes, because I tend to select my useless facts).

For example, I know more than I should know about Tawny Owls (Strix Aluco) but know nothing about Barred Owl (Strix Varia). :lol: And it's always like that...



katzefrau
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24 Aug 2010, 1:39 pm

Rynessa wrote:
Personally, I love hearing other peoples' random facts and info about their special interests.


yes, so do i


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DiveClimb
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24 Aug 2010, 2:57 pm

I love hearing random facts. My boyfriend also. We love learning new things. I'd prefer to hear about facts than someones life story.



VanessaGoldman
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25 Aug 2010, 2:12 pm

yep...i have a tendency to do this especially with my areas of interest...so a lot of random sports trivia, folk/blues/rock music trivia, left of center political and countercultural stuff...

such as...John Sinclair was a central figure in the late 60s/early 70s hippie counterculture in the Detroit/Ann Arbor/Flint, Michigan area...he was involved in the White Panthers (white hippy allies of the Black Panthers), the Rainbow People's Party, and an artist's collective called Trans-Love Energy. he managed a proto-punk band called the MC-5 (MC for Motor City AKA Detroit, 5 for the number of musicians)...Sinclair was busted for giving two joints to an undercover police officer and was sentenced to ten years in prison...but got out early as the hippie community rallied for his release, led by none other than ex-Beatle John Lennon, who wrote a song about Sinclair with the chorus "they gave him ten for two, what more could the bastards do???" Lennon and Yoko Ono played the song "John Sinclair" at a rally in Ann Arbor which also featured appearances by protest/folksinger Phil Ochs and "beatnik" poet Allen Ginsberg.



Rynessa
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25 Aug 2010, 2:22 pm

If artificial coloring were not added to Coca-Cola, it would be green....
Just thought I'd share that.