In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Amazon, before eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal. The students used the network to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of marijuana.

Mike Power of The Guardian has more: Link

Proving once again that the rich get richer while the rest of us get jealous, this person will get two pots of gold at the end of the rainbow -one from her family, and one through her own talent and hard work. The answer is not Audrey Hepburn -this just seemed like an appropriate image for the subject.

* She was born in New York; her father was born in Paris.

* Her grandfather was a hero in the French Resistance during World War II.

* Her father's name is Gerard, but he uses "William" in the United States, where he runs a business, because he thought his real name sounded too French.

* He is worth and estimated $3.4 billion.

* She moved to Washington, DC, when she was two, after her parents divorced.

* She studied acting at Northwest University, class of 1982.

* She never graduated.

* She got her first break in 1982, getting a part on a late-night TV comedy.

* She stands to inherit in the neighborhood of $500 million from her father, who is 75.

* She doesn't really need it- she made (and, thanks to syndication, still makes) millions of dollars a year from a TV show in which she co-starred.

* Her role wasn't part of the show's original plan, but after the first episode the producers felt they needed a woman to offset the male characters.

* One of her cousins owned the Adidas Shoe Company.

* Another (distant) cousin starred in The Goodbye Girl.

* After two bombs, she landed a successful TV show all her own.

Who is she? Continue reading to see the answer.

Highlight below to see the answer.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Her father, Gerard (or "William") Louis-Dreyfus, runs the family business, the Louis-Dreyfus group, a "diversified commodities, shipping, real estate, manufacturing, and communications conglomerate." (Her Goodbye Girl cousin is Richard Dreyfuss.) Julia dropped out of Northwestern University in 1982 when she was invited to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, where she appeared for three years. She was then in two short-lived sitcoms before being cast as "Elaine Benes" in one of the most successful sitcoms in history, Seinfeld, in 1990. In 2006, she got her own successful show, The New Adventures of OId Christine, which ran for five seasons. Her latest series, VEEP, in which Louis-Dreyfus plays the Vice President of the United States, opens its second season tonight on HBO.  

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This article was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

The tracking number, that string of digits that tell you where your package is and when it's going to be delivered, is so ubiquitous today that you'd probably never believe that there was a time before its existence.

Yet, this obvious piece of information didn't exist before FedEx (then Federal Express) created it forty years ago:

One of FedEx’s great contributions was the tracking number, which has become a standard in shipping. By entering a numeric string into FedEx.com, you can find out exactly where your package is as it works it way toward you. It’s immensely convenient, but that is but a pleasant side-effect. The tracking number was initially an internal process for quality control.

The system, launched in the late 1970s, was created to improve efficiencies. It worked so well that, in 1979, the system was offered to customers as COSMOS (Customers, Operations and Services Master Online System). When the system went online it included early prototypes of handheld computers that scanned package barcodes with wands. FedEx was aware that of the importance of all this data. FedEx founder Fred Smith is famous for saying, “The information about the package is as important as the package itself.”

Roberto Baldwin of Wired has the post: Link

I am currently reading The Bear: History of a Fallen King by Michel Pastoureau. It is a history of the bear as a symbol and as a living creature in Europe, especially medieval Europe.

Pastoureau describes how medieval intellectuals classified and described the European brown bear. It was deeply controversial to even contemplate that any animal was related to man, as this conflicted with the belief that man and man alone was made in the image of God. Nonetheless, some people considered three possible animals to be close to humanity: the monkey, the pig and the bear. Pastoureau writes:

For Aristotle and Pliny, the monkey was the closest to humans. This idea found support in some zoological learning in the High Middle Ages, but it considerably troubled Christian values, not only because man had been created in the image of God and any animal of any species was an imperfect creature that could not resemble him, but also because, for medieval sensibilities, the monkey no doubt represented everything that was most ugly, vile, and diabolical; it was an obscene and repugnant creature that it was impossible to associate with the human species [...] Scholasticism finally found a solution in the mid-thirteenth century; the monkey did not resemble man per naturam (by nature) but per imitationem (by imitation); it seemed to resemble man when it really did not resemble him at all. It "simulated," as the word for monkey in Latin indicated: simius. It therefore seemed even more demonic, because it tricked and deceived. [...]

Greek medicine considered the pig the animal closest to man because of its internal organization, notably with regard to the anatomy of the major organs and functioning of the digestive system [...] And medieval Christian medicine, the heir of both, also taught that the pig was "internally" the animal that most resembled man. Moreover, since the Church prohibited the dissection of the human body, at least up to the fourteenth century, human anatomy was often learned through the dissection of a sow or a boar. But that was not done without some reluctance: the pig was in no way an admirable animal. It was an impure creature, an emblem of dirtiness (sorditas) and gluttony (gula), sometimes of laziness (pigritia) and debauchery (luxuria); like the monkey, it found a place in the Devil's bestiary. This is why, although doctors knew that the pig was anatomically a cousin to man, they did not declare the fact too openly and allow clerics to assert that the animal that most resembled humans was neither the pig nor the monkey, but the bear (60-61).

Bears can stand up, grasp and throw objects, climb and dance. When they walk, they plant their entire foot on the ground. Bears are omnivorous. At least one medieval intellectual (William of Auvergne) claimed that bear meat tastes like human flesh. There were also widespread (but inaccurate) beliefs that ursine sexual practices resemble human sexual practices and that humans and bears are interfertile.

Image via Got Medieval

Thomas Jefferson imagined that what is now the continental United States would consist of three independent nations: from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific.

Well, of course, he did. When Jefferson died, railroads and electrical telegraphy were in their infancy. Almost all of the United States was a wilderness. Traversing, let along communicating across the vast continent was a monumental task.

In his 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, the distinguished historian Charles O. Paullin showed how long it took to travel across the country from New York City. Look through his maps for 1800, 1830, 1857 and 1930.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

A year before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth (left) played Marc Antony in a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. His brother Junius (right) played Caesar and his other brother Edwin (center), played the traitor Brutus. This production on November 25, 1864 was the only time all three acting brothers starred together in a play.

Link

The people of Denmark were justifiably proud when one of their own, Niels Bohr, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The famous Carlsberg brewery marked the occasion by giving him a house and piping fresh beer into it continuously, straight from the brewery. Inevitably, this inebriation led to ever greater discoveries by Bohr.

Skip ahead in the video to 2:55. And remember: when studying physics, use a designated driver.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

It's a mere 0.05 mm (two thousandth of an inch) thick there. The thickest skin? That's found on the sole of your foot. It's 4 mm (about 5/32th of an inch) thick. That's an 80-fold difference in thickness between the thinnest and the thickest skin in different parts of your body.

Source: 50 Incredible Facts About Skin

Before there were elliptical trainers and stairclimbers, wealthy people in Britain exercised on chamber horses:

[...] the user sat on the seat and bounced up and down on the concertina springs as if trotting on a horse. Horse riding was considered a form of healthy exercise.

Link | Photo: Christie's

Eternal Flame Falls is not your typical waterfall. This geological oddity outside of Buffalo, New York has a channel of natural gas leading up to its base. When lit, you can see a plume of flame four to eight inches tall.

Link -via The Presurfer | Photo: Mpmajewski

Photo courtesy of TheTallestMan.com - used with permission. Visit their website for more on Adam Rainer

The man was Adam Rainer born in Graz, Austria sometime in 1899 (the exact date isn't known). Rainer's parents were neither tall nor short for the time, with his father measuring in at 5 feet 8 inches (1.72 m) and his mother at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m). He even had a brother who matched his father's height at 5 feet 8 inches. This wasn't the case for Adam.

Thanks to the fact that Adam attempted to join the army when he was 18 to participate in WWI, we know that at that age Rainer had reached a height of just 4 feet 6.3 inches (1.38 m), and then at 19 he measured in at 4 feet 8.3 inches (1.43 m) when he tried to join up again. Both times he was considered too short and also too weak to be able to join the military. For reference, the cutoff for someone being classified as a dwarf is usually considered to be an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m).

While he was short, according to the medical report, he actually had exceptionally large feet for his height, with his shoes measuring in at a European size of 43 at the age of 18, which is about a size 10 in U.S. sizes. According to Rainier by the time he hit 21, while still barely
classified as a dwarf in height, his shoe size had gone up to a European size 53, which would be about a size 20 in the U.S. (for reference, Shaquille O'Neal wears a size 22-23).

Although his feet were continuing to grow at a remarkable pace, Rainer himself was staying at more or less the same height. That's when something even more bizarre than his clown-feet happened. For a reason unknown at the time, Adam started growing again... rapidly.

What must have initially seemed a blessing to the short Rainer, soon turned into a curse. From his 21st birthday to his 32nd, Rainer grew from just under 4 feet 10 inches tall to 7 feet 2 inches tall (1.47 m to 2.18 m). It should also be noted that his height would have been greater than this, except by his 26th birthday he started developing a severe spinal curve, which continued to progress as he grew. This, and later difficulty in eating, had the negative side effect of leaving Rainer bed ridden for the majority of the latter half of his life.

If that wasn't bad enough, he also went blind in his right eye and his vision diminished in his left. His hearing also started to go and he became deaf in his left ear.

So what caused this extreme shift in height? After a medical exam done by Doctors F. Windholz and A. Mandl, they discovered a tumor on his pituitary gland, which not only explained his rapid growth but his partial blindness as well. As far as the growth is concerned, this tumor resulted in a condition known as acromegaly, where the pituitary gland produces excessive
amounts of growth hormone during adulthood. His vision loss was due to the compression of his optic chiasm, which is where the right and left eye nerves cross near the pituitary gland.

To try to fix the problem, in 1930 doctors removed the tumor, but he still continued to grow, albeit at a much slower rate that seemed even slower than it was because of his spinal curvature continuing to increase. For instance, from December 1930 to May of 1931, his standing height stayed the same, but his spinal curvature increased.

Over the next and final 19 years of his life, Rainer's spinal curve would continue to increase and he'd grow another 6 inches, dying at the age of 51 in 1950 at a height of about 7 feet 8 inches (2.34 m), making him the only known person to spend time officially classified as a dwarf and then as a giant.

Bonus Fact: The word "giant" ultimately derives from the name of a Greek mythological race of giants defeated by the gods, with the help of Heracles, when the giants tried to free the Titans. This race were called "gigas" and were the children of Gaia and Uranus. They were produced when Kronus castrated Uranus, with Uranus' blood fertilizing Gaia. Once the giants were defeated, they were buried deep underground to imprison them. According to Greek mythology, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are caused by the race of giants struggling to free themselves from the depths of the Earth. The Greek word "gigas" evolved into the English word "giant" via Latin and then the Old French "geant", which by 1350 had been adopted into English as "giant". It was first used to describe a person who is exceptionally tall in 1559 and before that simply as an adjective to describe some attribute that a person had that was exceptional.

Check out more neat facts over at Today I Found Out.

The world's smallest skyscraper is a four-story Newby-McMahon Building in downtown Wichita Falls, Texas. It's only 40 feet (12 m) tall.

So, why is it called a skyscraper? The whole thing began with a scam.

In 1919, oil man and engineer J.D. McMahon claimed that he would build a highrise and courted people to invest. With just a simple blueprint, McMahon raised $200,000 (over $2,500,000 in today's dollar).

After the structure was built as a 40 feet building instead of a 480 feet one that people were expecting, McMahon calmly explained that it was his plan all along. The 480 figure in the blueprint was in inches - not feet! When he was sued, the judge threw out the lawsuit because the blueprint was technically correct. McMahon promptly fled Wichita.

The Newby-McMahon Building was an instant embarrassment to the city - it didn't even have stairs, so people had to use ladders to reach the upper floors! It was featured in a Ripley's Believe It or Not! column as "The World's Littlest Skyscraper" and the name stuck ever since. Today, the building is a Texas Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Monte Carlo Method was thought up by mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, who was playing solitaire on his hospital bed while recovering from a surgery, and named it after his uncle, who had gone gambling to Monte Carlo.

J. Hester/Arizona state University, NASA/ESA

Boom! You're looking at the doomed binary star Eta Carinae which looks like it's exploding. The two lobes are actually hot gaseous matters and dust which are moving outwards at about 1,500,000 mph. Each of those lobes is about the size of our solar system (Eta Carinae itself is about 100 more massive than our own Sun).

First catalogued by astronomer Edmond Halley (of the Halley's Comet fame), Eta Carinae is a very odd star. In the mid 1800s, the star brightened significantly like it was going supernova, but actually, it didn't really explode. Eta Carinae survived though probably not for long.

Astronomers surmise that because of its mass and stage of life, Eta Carianae is expected to explode in a supernova or even hypernova sometime in the future. How soon? Nobody knows. It could be next year or a hundred thousand years from today. In the meantime, enjoy the photos!

Via Neatorama Facebook Page, where we've got tons more neat stuff!

It's an empty field in the middle of nowhere. Was Argleton a clever copyright trap used by mapmakers to see if their data are being copied by competitors or was it an honest mistake?

Google ain't telling, and since the town that didn't exist was discovered in 2008, it was erased from Google Maps.

It almost became law if not for a math professor who happened to be in the Statehouse lobbying for Purdue University's budget appropriation. Professor Clarence A. Waldo managed to convince Indiana Senators that passing the bill would bring ridicule to the Indiana State Legislature. They postponed the bill indefinitely.

Chemically, apples and oranges are actually quite similar.

Ever hear the terms "comparing apples to oranges"? Well, NASA scientists Scott Sandford compared the chemical compositions of apples and oranges using FTIR and found that the two fruits are actually quite similar to each other! (Source)

Try this: pronounce gh as in tough, o as it women, and ti as in nation. That's right, you get "fish." (Wink and nod: ghotl' is the Klingon word for, you guessed it, fish).

Ghoti has been used by advocates of English spelling reform as far back as 1855 (it was later popularized by George Bernard Shaw), though obviously their efforts to simplify the spellings of English words have largely failed.

Astronomers discovered that the universe has a color, a beigeish white called "cosmic latte."

In 2001, Johns Hopkins University astronomers Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry averaged all of the colors from 200,000 galaxies and came up with ... beigeish white.

When they asked for suggestions for a name of the color in a Washington Post article, a reader named Peter Drum came up with Cosmic Latte. Other name suggestions that didn't get picked include Cappuccino Cosmico, Big Bang Beige, Cosmic Cream, Skyvory, Univeige, and Primordial Clam Chowder.

Do you think you know how to brew a cup of tea? Here's how you should brew one, according to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

To maintain consistent results, the following are recommendations given by the standard:

• The pot should be white porcelain or glazed earthenware and have a partly serrated edge. It should have a lid that fits loosely inside the pot.
• If a large pot is used, it should hold a maximum of 310 ml (±8 ml) and must weigh 200 g (±10 g).
• If a small pot is used, it should hold a maximum of 150 ml (±4 ml) and must weigh 118 g (±10 g).
• 2 grams of tea (measured to ±2% accuracy) per 100 ml boiling water is placed into the pot.
• Freshly boiling water is poured into the pot to within 4-6 mm of the brim.
• The water should be similar to the drinking water where the tea will be consumed
• Brewing time is six minutes.
• The brewed tea is then poured into a white porcelain or glazed earthenware bowl.
• If a large bowl is used, it must have a capacity of 380 ml and weigh 200 g (±20 g)
• If a small bowl is used, it must have a capacity of 200 ml and weigh 105 g (±20 g)
• If the test involves milk, then it can be added before or after pouring the infused tea.
• Milk added after the pouring of tea is best tasted when the liquid is between 65 - 80 °C.
• 5 ml of milk for the large bowl, or 2.5 ml for the small bowl, is used.

In 1939, Columbia University professor Frank W. Cyr organized a conference to create school bus construction standards, including the color. Paint experts from DuPont and Pittsburgh Paints created a shade of yellow that provided the greatest visibility in the semi-darkness of early morning. They chose the obvious name of "school bus yellow."

In 1963, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam was doodling on a scrap paper during a "long and very boring paper" at a science meeting when he realized that he had created a method to graph prime numbers that revealed a pattern.

(Left) Ulam started by writing a grid of numbers, starting with 1 at the center and spiraling out
(Center) He selected only the prime numbers and noticed that many of them form diagonal lines (Right) An Ulam spiral of size 200 x 200, with black dots representing the prime numbers. Did you notice the high number of diagonal lines?