I want to know when the first known use of the phrase *fun fact" was.  When, where, or who first used the phrase fun fact to mean a small tit-bit of information?
Where does the term "fun fact" originate?-- namely, not with the compositional meaning but rather with the idiomatic usage to introduce some sort of unusual, esoteric, absurd or otherwise "controversial" fact?
I've bent (again) my derailleur hanger. It's a replaceable hanger but for this summer I can't get an original one and I know that the non-original one I can get is made in a harder material and could possibly damage the frame.  So I'm left with the choice of straightening this light aluminium alloy thing. How do I do that without breaking/weakening it? Rendering of Favorite/Ignored Tags in Firefox Existence of a simple closed curve which is not null-homotopic Problem. Assume that $U$ is an open and connected subset of $\mathbb R^2$, and $\gamma :[0,1]\to U$ is a closed curve, which is not null-homotopic in $U$ and not necessarily simple closed. Show that there exists a simple closed curve, which is not null-homotopic in $U$.  I am sure that this is a standard problem, and I am looking for an elegant, if possible, solution or a reference. I have in mind the following sketch of proof:  a. Construct a polygonal closed curve $\tilde\gamma$ which is homotopic with $\gamma$ in $U$.  b. Construct $\tilde\gamma$ so that it intersects itself in finitely many points, and not whole segments.  c. Use induction on the number of self–intersections of $\tilde\gamma$, in order to show that $\tilde\gamma$ is written as a product (in the fundamental group's sense) of simple closed polygonal curves. How do I split a string, breaking at a particular character? Why do I not see evidence of discrete energy in the spectrum? The electromagnet spectrum looks to be continuous, yet energy is discrete. Shouldn't one see evidence of the electron's "quantum leap"? What's going on?     Moderator, please size my photo. Thank you. How to get keycodes for xmodmap? I'm trying to use xmodmap to remap Alt / Super keys on Dell L100 keyboard, and have trouble getting the keycodes.  For instance, using xev doesn't give me keycode for Alt   FocusOut event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,     mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor  FocusIn event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,     mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor  KeymapNotify event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x0,     keys:  122 0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0               0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0      For Right Super key, xev and showkey give different keycodes -- 134 and 126 respectively.  What's going on with these keycodes?  I tried getting keycodes from showkey -k, and using xmodmap file below, but that gave a weird map which remapped b key:  clear Mod1 clear Control keycode 125 = Meta_L keycode 126 = Meta_R keycode 58 = Control_L keycode 56 = Control_L keycode 100 = Control_R add Control = Control_L Control_R add Mod1 = Meta_L Meta_R "Cancellation", "Canceled", "Canceling" — US usage I'm trying to figure out if there is a specific rule behind the word "cancel" that would cause "cancellation" to have two L's, but "canceled" and "canceling" to have only one (in the US).    I understand the rules are very loose when it comes to double L's in English, and I have read several posts on here talking about "canceled" and "canceling" (vs "cancelled" and "cancelling"), but my specific question is more about the spelling of "cancellation".    - they do NOT mention cancelation with one "L"  - they do seem to have cancelation listed with one "L" Microsoft Word marks "cancelation" as an invalid word Same with the spell checker in Firefox   So my question is: is there a reason or rule why in US English, "cancellation" seems to have two L's (to most dictionaries), while "canceled" and "canceling" does not? I want to write all zeros to my hard drive, so I can re-install windows 7 What is the difference between const_iterator and non-const iterator in the C++ STL? What is the difference between a const_iterator and an iterator and where would you use one over the other? FileReader.js nothing happens in IE9 I think some good words would be conflicted, or confused. As an example of context, think of someone who believes in freedom of speech, but, at the same time, they would support banning comedians who make jokes about certain issues that person cares about. If $\lambda$ is an eigenvalue of $A^2$, then either $\sqrt{\lambda}$ or $-\sqrt{\lambda}$ is an eigenvalue of $A$ $A$ is an $n\times n$ matrix of complex numbers. Prove that if $\lambda$ is an eigenvalue of $A^2,$ then $\sqrt{\lambda}$ or $-\sqrt{\lambda}$ is an eigenvalue of $A.$    If $\lambda$ is an eigenvalue of $A^2,$ we have $\lambda\alpha=A^2\alpha$ for some $\alpha.$ Then how can we find a $\beta$ s.t. $\sqrt{\lambda}\beta=A\beta?$ I called my lender last week. I am close to owning 20% of my home and want to get rid of PMI. They said I can only do it by remortgaging my house. Is that true? With the mortgage rates increasing, I will definitely lose some money by remortgaging the house.  Also, I know that I can request the PMI charge to stop if I own 20% of the value of the home, or it will stop automatically once I own 22% of the value. Is it possible that the lender meant I can't do it with 20% but it will be done at 22% automatically without the need to remortgage the house? How to allocate aligned memory only using the standard library? Say I have two strings,  String s1 = "AbBaCca"; String s2 = "bac";   I want to perform a check returning that s2 is contained within s1. I can do this with:  return s1.contains(s2);   I am pretty sure that contains() is case sensitive, however I can't determine this for sure from reading the documentation. If it is then I suppose my best method would be something like:  return s1.toLowerCase().contains(s2.toLowerCase());   All this aside, is there another (possibly better) way to accomplish this without caring about case-sensitivity? What is the Unix command to create a hardlink to a directory in OS X? How do you create a hardlink (as opposed to a symlink or a Mac OS alias) in OS X that points to a directory? I already know the command "ln target destination" but that only works when the target is a file. I know that Mac OS, unlike other Unix environments, does allow hardlinking to folders (this is used for Time Machine, for example) but I don't know how to do it myself. According to the well ordering theorem "". Whenever we have a well ordering on a set, it is not difficult to construct a new well ordering with a largest element. My question is:     For a given infinite set, can we find a well ordering on it such that there is no largest element? Set "this" variable easily? S1300I scanner issues under Ubuntu 16.04 using Sane In theory this scanner does work under Linux and Ubuntu.  I've found this document that I tried to follow.    I install sane, copy firmware, confirm the location in the config etc.  Everything looks good.  Potential problem areas  sudo sane-find-scanner   output:  # sane-find-scanner will now attempt to detect your scanner. If the # result is different from what you expected, first make sure your # scanner is powered up and properly connected to your computer.  found SCSI processor "Marvell 91xx Config 1.01" at /dev/sg5 # Your SCSI scanner was detected. It may or may not be supported by SANE. Try # scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.  could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error found USB scanner (vendor=0x04c5 [FUJITSU], product=0x128d [ScanSnap S1300i]) at    libusb:005:007 could not fetch string descriptor: Pipe error # Your USB scanner was (probably) detected. It may or may not be supported by # SANE. Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.  # Not checking for parallel port scanners.  # Most Scanners connected to the parallel port or other proprietary ports # can't be detected by this program.   Okay.  So the scanner is detected and listed, it prints a bunch of extra noise that   # scanimage -L  No scanners were identified. If you were expecting something different, check that the scanner is plugged in, turned on and detected by the sane-find-scanner tool (if appropriate). Please read the documentation which came with this software (README, FAQ, manpages).   Okay, let's verify the firmware files:  ls -lh  /usr/share/sane/epjitsu  total 136K -rw-r----- 1 root root 65K Jan  1 17:49 1300_0C26.nal -rw-r----- 1 root root 65K Jan  1 17:49 300_0C00.nal   Looking at the configuration file: (snippets)  # Fujitsu S300 firmware /usr/share/sane/epjitsu/300_0C00.nal usb 0x04c5 0x1156  # Fujitsu S1300 firmware /usr/share/sane/epjitsu/1300_0C26.nal usb 0x04c5 0x11ed   Last thing I tried was to pull the line from sane-find-scanner and update the config  sane-find-scanner returns a different product ID.   I updated the config file above, restarted the sane service, I ran scanimage -L still, scanner not detected.  For reference I had this working on this same computer under a virtualbox VM.  If I can get it to work under windows that would be ideal.  Any suggestion would be much appreciated.    Update: I revisited the behavior after adding the 1300i firmware and it's still not working but.  Once in a while when I do run this is the output.  If I run it again it'll fail.  scanimage -L device `epjitsu:libusb:005:008' is a FUJITSU ScanSnap S1300i scanner   also sudo gscan2pdf and sudo simple-scan both fail to detect a scanner.  It fails with and without sudo permissions. Internet Accounts spontaneously forgets passwords and I can't reauthorize them I've had this problem before, but I was able to resolve it that time. macOS 10.13.4, everything up to date. Yesterday, Internet Accounts forgot my LinkedIn password and would not reauthenticate. Today, it forgot my Facebook password.   I've tried:   App specific password. Removing the account and re-adding it. Turning off 2-factor authentication. Deleting associated entries from Keychain. Logging out of iCloud, deleting Keychain entries, removing and re-adding the account, then logging back in.   First of all, what the hell—why does this keep happening?! Secondly, what else can I do to fix this short of reinstalling macOS?