- There is a phobia of bridges, known as Gephyrophobia – and there’s a New York Times article about it, via Kottke.
- The platforms at St Pancras International Thameslink railway station are labelled ‘A’ and ‘B’, to avoid confusion with the main national and international platforms. This was also used at the recently-closed King’s Cross Thameslink station (which St. Pancras replaced) and at Waterloo East station.
- Though all Mac Pros now come with two quad-core Intel processors as standard, you can opt to have just the one processor, saving around £320 (to a total of £1442.99). You can also spend over £17 000 if you want every build option, unlimited server license and all the professional software packages bundled with it.
- In the past year, thieves have stolen at least two bridges in Russia for scrap metal.
- ‘Akbar’ is Arabic for ‘great’ or ‘greatest’. I’d be tempted to post a picture of Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars and say it is a trap, but I’ll refrain.
- Frederick Lorz, an American athlete, cheated in the marathon in the 1904 Summer Olympics by travelling by car for 11 miles. He was first across the finishing line but another athlete, Thomas J Hicks was declared the winner, despite him too cheating as he had run the race under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
- In China, ‘Dan’ is a girl’s name.
- VLC can use many Winamp skins – see this guide.
- ‘Blighty’, a slang word for ‘Great Britain’, derives from the Hindustani Urdu word ‘vilāyatī’, which variously means ‘foreign’ or ‘homeland’. It originates from the days of the British Empire when Britain controlled India.
- Inner Mongolia is a region in northern China, ‘Outer Mongolia’ roughly corresponds with the independent nation of Mongolia.
Technology and randomness, since 2002