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You don't need to know this By Randy A. Salas
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) For those who think the Internet is filled with useless information, a new daily webcast seemingly seeks to prove the point by offering just that. Here's a look at it and other sites dedicated to presenting trivia that you'll have fun discovering but not remembering. www.ansathat.com"This is the place where you ask the questions and we find the answers," host James Black says at the beginning of his weekday webcast AnsaThat. The likable Black, a British journalist who wrote a trivia column for the Daily Mail, is on a yearlong quest to travel the globe in search of the answers to your e-mailed questions for his Internet TV show. Along with loads of useless facts, humor abounds in each smartly produced episode. "If you would like to pose your question through the medium of video or modern dance, you can send us a home movie of you asking the question," the site suggests. A key attraction of AnsaThat is that there are no ads or another annoyances to get in the way of the mindless facts and figures. Black, who is taking a break from the 9-to-5 world after a family illness prompted him to reassess his life, said by e-mail that he is "loving every minute" of his new venture — and it shows in each episode of AnsaThat. Useless trivia: If you were to spend one night in every hotel room in Las Vegas, which has 17 of the world's 20 largest hotels, it would take 371 years and cost $11.5 million at today's rates.home.nycap.rr.com/uselessNew York high-school science teacher Steve Silverman offers detailed background stories — including references — for his Useless Information site, dedicated to presenting "stuff you never needed to know but your life would be incomplete without." Useless trivia: WD-40 was named after its originally intended application and the long process it took to create it, "Water Displacer, 40th try."www.austinchronicle.com/mrpantsMr. Smarty Pants Knows — just ask R.U. Steinberg, who has been writing the trivia column for the Austin (Texas) Chronicle since 1988. Its related website has links to the current column and compiles entries from previous ones.Useless trivia: A half-gallon milk container will hold about $50 in pennies.members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.htmlWord oddities provide fodder for the useless — and densely presented — trivia compiled by Florida high-school teacher Jeff Miller.Useless trivia: No U.S. president has had a last name starting with S, even though it is the most common last-name initial in the country.www.gullible.infoFinally, for the ultimate example of useless trivia, there's Gullible.info. The name should be a tip-off that every one of its unsourced "facts" is made up. The regularly updated site was created in 2004 as an experiment to show that people will believe anything they read on the Web, no matter how outlandish, as long as the information is presented authoritatively. Gullible.info regularly fools people, such as an apparently serious August listing of the site by the London Times newspaper as its online pick of the day for posting unusual facts that "light up the day and stimulate the mind." Ouch.(Completely) useless trivia (because it's made up): "The coating of wax on an average apple in a grocery store is equal in volume to one-eighteenth of a Crayola crayon." Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Randy A. Salas is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Do you have a favorite Web site or a question about how to find something on the Internet? Send a note by clicking here.
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