1 Why Does Hawaii Have Interstate Highways?
While we’d like to believe Hawaii’s Interstate system exists for the sole purpose of annoying George Carlin, the name is actually a misnomer. Not all Interstates physically go from one state to another; the name merely implies that the roads receive federal funding. The three Hawaii Interstates (H1, H2, and H3) became Interstates as part of The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and National Defense Highways to protect the United States from a Soviet invasion by making it easier to get supplies from one military base to another.
2 Can a Pregnant Woman Drive in the Carpool Lane?
Expectant mothers, start your engines! In 1987, a pregnant California woman was ticketed for driving “by herself” in the carpool lane. Sure, the citation was only for $52, but she sued anyway, contending that her 5-month-old fetus constituted a second person. Lo and behold, the jury agreed with her, despite the prosecution’s argument that women could then just stuff pillows up their dresses to drive “carpool” on California’s freeways. But as it turns out, the California Highway Patrol took care of that concern, brushing off the case as a bunch of hooey. Verdict or not, officers said they would continue to ticket solo drivers, even if they claimed to be pregnant.
The metal band that holds the eraser on a pencil is called a ferrule.
3 What Makes No. 2 Pencils So Darn Special?
Little. Yellow. Identical. The No. 2 is definitely No. 1 in the pencil market. It’s a staple in schools and workplaces everywhere, and the required writing utensil for Scantron® tests across the globe. But is it really that great of a pencil? You bet your bippy. No. 2’s use medium weight graphite, which makes them the ideal pencils for general writing. 18th-century French pencil maker Nicolas-Jacques Conté created the number system based on a pencil’s hardness (the higher the number, the harder the graphite), and we’ve been using it ever since. But let’s not forget the other numbers of pencils out there. No. 1’s are made with soft graphite and tend to smudge, and are often used to record bowling scores. No. 3’s and above indicate harder pencils that are most often used for drafting, when you need a sharp, strong point.
4 Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself?
Much to the dismay of wacky masochists everywhere, the human brain is wired against self-tickling. Because the brain controls movement, it knows what your hand is going to do before you do it. Thus it anticipates the exact force, location, and speed of the tickle and uses that information to desensitize you to your own roving hands. So why do we have a tickle response anyway? Turns out, it’s a defense reaction meant to alert our cave-dwelling ancestors to creepy crawlies that didn’t know their place, and the uncontrollable laughing fit that goes along with it is actually a panic response. Even if you know someone else is about to go for your rib cage, it’s hard to turn the response off because a) your brain can’t anticipate exactly how and where they’ll tickle you and b) knowing someone is about to tickle you is usually enough to keep those panic receptors open and ready to go.
5 Why Don’t School Buses Have Seat Belts?
Seat belts have been mandatory in cars for more than 40 years, so why aren’t school buses equipped the same way? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it’s because school buses don’t need seat belts to be safe. The bulkiness of a bus makes it about seven times safer than a passenger car. In the event of a collision, a bus can easily absorb the force of impact. Plus, kids riding in buses are doubly protected because the seats are designed to cushion children almost like eggs in a carton. The accommodations might not provide much legroom for unruly 8-year-olds, but the high seatbacks and heavy padding work to form a protective cocoon around them. If Junior is thrown forward in a crash, he won’t get far before the cushy seatback absorbs his momentum.
Most school buses have been painted National School Bus Chrome Yellow since a 1939 national conference recommended it as the shade of choice.
Of course, none of this will help if the bus flips over. But the chances of that are so slim that most state legislators don’t think seat belts are worth the added expense. Still, some states would rather be safe than sorry. New York and California, for example, now require all new school buses to come equipped with lap-and-shoulder belts.
6 Why Can’t I Use My Cell Phone on an Airplane?
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bars the use of all transmitting devices in the off chance that transmissions could interfere with a plane’s navigation and communications equipment and cause system malfunctions. It’s true that these concerns are overblown, but the FAA likes to err on the side of caution. (Can you blame them?)
The real reason authorities don’t want you flipping open your mobile phone has less to do with crashing your plane and more to do with crashing the cell phone network. The Federal Communications Commission has determined that mid-flight calls have a direct impact on cell phone service on the ground. That’s because cell phones are primarily designed for callers who are firmly planted on land, communicating with a single, nearby tower. If you’re speeding through the sky at 550 mph, your phone will connect with multiple towers and eat up valuable space on their circuits, wreaking havoc on service. A 2007 plan to lift the ban was strongly opposed by cell carriers for this reason. So, at least for a while, frequent flyers should recline their seatbacks and enjoy the last place on Earth that’s free of cell phone chatter.
7 Why Do Soap Operas Look Different from Other TV Shows?
Lighting, for one. Soaps and other lower-budget shows look “off” because they’re often evenly lit across the entire set to facilitate simultaneously shooting with more than one camera. This lighting/shooting method means the actors can move around and the lights don’t have to be reset for every shot. This allows for fewer takes and costs less, but it also means more diffuse, less natural-looking lighting in the final product.
The filming medium and technique make up the other half of the equation. Soaps have been shot on various types of videotape to keep costs down, and compared to prime time shows shot on film, they can look a little flat. Shooting with videotape also gives lower resolutions, so soaps have always made heavy use of close-ups to compensate.
8 Why Do Battery Letters Skip from A to C? Was There Ever a B-Cell Battery?
Battery letter designations are based on the size of the battery: For common sizes, A is the smallest, and D is the largest. By the same logic, AA batteries are larger than AAA. Unfortunately for B batteries, it’s not the size that counts. You never see B batteries around because they aren’t very useful. The size never caught on in products made for consumers, so stores didn’t carry them, and the cycle continued. They are sold, but only in Europe, where they’re used primarily to power bicycle lamps.
Dropping two aspirin tablets into a dead car battery can revive it!