Hollywood, Web site, 190
stop-motion photography, 207
stretching, 130-133
stripes, zebra, 12
strokes, heat, 277
summer, year without, 277-280
sunflower seeds, 104-106
sunstroke, 277
sweating palms, 125-126
table tennis, 226-227
Tambora, Mount, 278
Taps, 184-187
tattoos, 185
Taylor, Zachary, 250-252
Tecumseh, 71-72
teleportation, 91-92
television:
channels, 176-177
guide, Web site, 191
invention of, 178-79
temperature, highest, 276
tennis, 224-227
Web site, 228
tenth planet, 198
Tesla, Nikola, Web site, 210
Thalberg, Irving G., 175-176
Thielbek, 63
third-degree murder, 29
tidal waves, Web site, 283
Tillamook fire, 74
Titan trucks, 230-231
tornado, killer, Web site, 79
Trader Vic, 164
trains, 231-234
end to end, 231-232
Lionel, 195
Web site, 245
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The, 182-183
trucks, 229-231
world’s largest, 230-231
typewriters, 80-83
United States presidents, Web site, 264
Velcro, 137
Verne, Jules, 197
volcanoes:
eruptions, 66-69
Mount Tambora, 278
Web site, 78
von Cosel, Karl, 31
walking the farthest, 242-243
Wall:
Great, of China, 285-287
Hadrian’s, 287-288
washing machines, 188-189
Washington, George, 54
watermelons, 200-203
weather, Web site, 283
Web sites:
all about gum, 152
ball lightning, 283
bicycle history, 245
Boy Scout songs, 189
brain fitness, 134
bubble gum, 152
burials, famous, 96
cable TV, 191
cheese, 114
Coral Castle, 264
countries that don’t exist, 302
crime, Library, 40; of the Century, 41; potential victim, 41
customs, world, 301
disasters, historic, 78; vessel casualties, 78; wrecks, 78
Discovery Channel, 209
distances between cities, 246
FBI, 40
FDA, 115
fiery foods, 115
flea circus, 97
forensics, 41
Frisbee, 228
golf, 227
greatest inventor, 153
gum, 152
hash house jargon, 171
Health Central, 133
heat index calculator, 283
Hollywood stars, 190
hot foods, 115
How Stuff Works, 209
human body, 133
Iditarod, 245
inside the human body, 134
inventor, greatest, 153
inventors, 152
junk food, 116
marbles, shooting, 209
movies, 190
Native American, 59
network TV, 191
NOVA, 209
obscure patents, 153
ocean mysteries, 302
Olympic games, 227
outhouse, 58
paranormal, 97
patents, obscure, 153
Patrick, Saint, 59
peanut butter, 114
pet vacation, 21
phone number, 97
Pony Express, 264
quotations, 172
rainbow, 283
road construction, 246
search engines, 304
shooting marbles, 209
slang, city, 171
songs, Boy Scout, 189
sports merchandise, 228
squirrels, 21
stars, Hollywood, 190
tennis, 228
Tesla, Nikola, 210
tidal waves, 283
tornado, killer, 79
tourist attractions, 264
trains, 245
U.S. presidents, 264
volcano, 78
weather, 283
wedding customs, 58
where are they now, 190
Winchester Mystery House, 40
word oddities, 171
world almanac, 301
world customs, 301
world facts, 302
wrecks, 78
wedding:
customs, 47
customs, Web site, 58
phrases, 45
rings, 45
showers, 46
werewolves, 121-122
WHAM-O toy company, 223
wheels, rotating backward, 206
where are they, Web site, 190
White, Jesse, 187
White Castle hamburgers, 156
Wild Boy of Aveyron, 295
Wilhelm Gustloff, 60-62
Williams, Hank, 108-109
Winchester Mystery House, 39
Web site, 40
windchill, 274, 284
Word Detective, Web site, 171
word oddities, Web site, 171
world almanac, Web site, 301
world customs, Web site, 301
world facts, Web site, 302
wrecks, Web site, 78
Yahtzee, 211-213
year without a summer, 277-280
YKK, 136
zebras, 12-15
zippers, 135-137
Acknowledgments
Although an author gets the credit for writing a book, there are always others who are instrumental in its creation. I would like to thank them.
First of all, I want to thank Jeff Simek and Karen Arena of Xerox who have encouraged and supported me from the beginning and have always been there when I needed them. I also want to thank Mark Resch of CommerceNet for his continuing support.
I want to thank Sonia Saruba, not only for her wonderful job in editing my original draft but also for her suggestions, comments, and support.
I also want to thank the people at HarperCollins, especially my editor, Greg Chaput, whose insight and recommendations greatly enhanced the book; Jay Dea for his creativity in designing the wonderful book jacket; Virginia McRae for her excellent job on editing the final draft, checking my facts, and keeping me honest. And a special thanks to all of the other people at HarperCollins who contributed their time and talents.
Finally, I want to thank the thousands of people who have sent me questions. Without them, this book could never have been written.
About the Author
The Internet’s legendary “Answer Whiz,” Bill McLain was Xerox Corporation’s official Webmaster. Responsible for the e-mails sent to the company Website, McLain and his team responded to an astounding 750-1,000 questions daily. While most of the e-mails he received were Xerox-related, every day scores of curious fact-seekers wrote with questions ranging from the bizarre to the useful to the downright comical. McLain collected the most memorable of these questions, along with his equally memorable answers, in this volume and in its predecessor, Do Fish Drink Water?
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Other Books by Bill McLain
Do Fish Drink Water?
Exploring the Internet
Before discussing ways of finding information on the Internet, it’s important to remember that anyone can put up a Web site and say anything they want to. In other words, a great deal of information on the Internet is false.
When you find an answer to your que
stion, make sure you check its authenticity. For example, if it’s the official site of the Discovery Channel or the National Football League, then the information is likely to be valid. If, however, it’s someone’s personal page, then it would be a good idea to double check with another source.
It’s also important to know that even official sites sometimes disagree with one another. Even if you find what you need on an official site, it wouldn’t hurt to double check with another official site.
If you don’t want to use a general-purpose search engine, an excellent Web site that helps you find specific information quickly is at: http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/mbody.htm.
Click on “Web search how-tos” to see a number of helpful hints such as how to find a person’s e-mail address, public records, driving directions, multimedia, free translation services, and much more.
Hundreds of Web sites allow you to find information on the Internet by searching on key words. I know of over 50 such sites, but rather than list them all, I’ll give you just 7 that I’ve found to be most helpful.
ASK JEEVES
http://www.askjeeves.com/
FAST SEARCH
http://www.alltheweb.com/
ALTA VISTA
http://altavista.dlgital.com/
HOT BOT
http://www.hotbot.com/
YAHOO!
http://www.yahoo.com/
INFOSEEK
http://www.infoseek.com/
LYCOS
http://www.lycos.com/
To use a search tool effectively, you must try to be as precise as possible. For example, let’s say you want to find a recipe for chocolate fudge cake.
If you search on “cake” you’ll get a list of over half a million links (540,830 to be exact). If you are a little more specific and enter “chocolate cake” you’ll see a list of over 13,000 links. If you next try “chocolate cake recipe” you’ve narrowed the list down to 222 links but that’s still too many to look through. If you enter “chocolate fudge cake recipe” you’ll see only four links. Of these, two simply have references to the cake while the other two are recipes.
If you run into trouble when looking for an item, try synonyms or related words. For instance, if you are looking for the “origin” of something and having difficulty finding what you want, try using the words “history,” “beginning,” and “start.”
The search tools give explanations or tips on how to use them effectively. Be sure to read them carefully. For instance, when you use AltaVista you must put a + sign between the words.
If you search on “chocolate+fudge+cake+recipe” you will find only four links. If you search on “chocolate fudge cake recipe,” the search tool will find every site that has the word chocolate, every site that has the word fudge, and so on. You’ll end up with 656,740 links.
Finally, don’t be surprised when you see what the search tool finds. When I was answering a question relating to jelly and jam, I searched on the word jam. In addition to the food, I discovered that rock groups share that name. There were many links to “Space Jam” and “Pearl Jam.” There may be times when you search on a simple word and end up finding a rock group, a book, or a pornographic site. If that happens, refine your search and try again.
Comments Are Welcome
I’d love to hear from you if you have any comments, criticisms, or questions. You can e-mail me personally at:
Answerwhiz@aol.com
Copyright
Coca-Cola, Coke, and Fresca are registered trademarks of the Coca-Cola Company.
Excedrin is a registered trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
Frisbee is a registered trademark of WHAM-O, Inc.
Gatorade is a registered trademark of the Quaker Oats Company.
Gerber is a registered trademark of Novartis.
Gill-line is a registered trademark of the Gill-line Company.
Midol and Vanquish are registered trademarks of the Bayer Corporation.
Oscar is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Pepsi and Mountain Dew are registered trademarks of PepsiCo, Inc.
Ping-Pong is a registered trademark of Parker Brothers, Inc.
Sanka is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods Inc.
Selectric is a registered trademark of the IBM Corporation.
Silly Putty is a registered trademark of Binney & Smith, Inc.
“The day the music died” is a registered trademark of Don McLean.
Tylenol is a registered trademark of McNeil Consumer Healthcare.
Velcro is a registered trademark of Velcro Industries B.V.
Yahtzee is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc.
WHAT MAKES FLAMINGOS PINK? Copyright © 2001 by Bill McLain.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03206-5
First HarperResource Quill paperback edition published 2002
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 0-06-019826-5
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