I have plenty of unfinished posts and important topics that deserve my attention, but instead I want to share a few items from “77 Facts That Sound Like Huge Lies But Are Actually Completely True,” by Dave Stopera at BuzzFeed. Most of the ones I picked deal with the passage of time, and our oft-skewed perception of it. The links are in the original, but I added a picture or two.
5. The name Jessica was created by Shakespeare in the play Merchant of Venice.
8. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid.
20. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
21. Not once in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme does it mention that he’s an egg.
24. Betty White is actually older than sliced bread.
31. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.
34. The last time the Chicago Cubs won the baseball World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed.
39. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of The Fresh Prince.
40. The show the The Wonder Years aired from 1988–1993 and covered the years 1968–1973. Today, in 2014, if one were to make a similar show, it would cover the years 1994–1999.
43. The difference in time between when Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the difference in time between Tyrannosaurus Rex and now.
46. Pluto never made a full orbit around the sun from the time it was discovered to when it was declassified as a planet.
60. You can’t hum while holding your nose. [Ed. note: This is true. I tried and felt very silly about it.]
65. The pyramids were as old to the Romans as the Romans are to us.
77. And, finally, “dog food lid” backwards is “dildo of God.”
!["Shylock e jessica" by Maurycy Gottlieb [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/450px-Shylock_e_jessica.jpeg "\"Shylock e jessica\" by Maurycy Gottlieb [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
!["Humpty Dumpty" by William Wallace Denslow, from the Project Gutenberg EBook of Denslow's Mother Goose, by Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Humpty_Dumpty_1_-_WW_Denslow_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_18546.jpg "\"Humpty Dumpty\" by William Wallace Denslow, from the Project Gutenberg EBook of Denslow's Mother Goose, by Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
!["Allosaurus & Stegosaurus" by Chobist [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)], via Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/8443225739_a6e3c04217.jpg "\"Allosaurus & Stegosaurus\" by Chobist [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)], via Flickr")
That last one probably has implications for the future that we have not yet begun to imagine.
![By David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/504px-Do_not_take_his_bone.jpg "By David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Photo credits: “Shylock e jessica” by Maurycy Gottlieb [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; “Humpty Dumpty” by William Wallace Denslow, from the Project Gutenberg EBook of Denslow’s Mother Goose, by Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; “Allosaurus & Stegosaurus” by Chobist [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr; “Do not take his bone” by David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons.
