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Technology Trivia

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A new permanent display is available for viewing at National Air and Science Museum at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.: the gondola from the Breitling Orbiter 3, the first balloon to fly around the world nonstop. After 19 days, 21 hours, and 47 minutes in the air, the Breitling Orbiter 3 and crew – Switzerland's Bertrand Piccard and Britain's Brian Jones – landed on March 21, 1999, marking the first successful nonstop circumnavigation of the globe in a balloon. The gondola is 20 feet long and 8 feet high, while the balloon itself is the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

A NUKE InterNETWORK poll found that 52 percent of Internet users have cut back on watching TV in order to spend more time online; 12 percent have cut back on seeing friends.

A nylon fiber is stronger than a steel wire of identical weight.

A standard 747 Jumbo Jet has 420 seats.

A telegram was sent to Eleanor Roosevelt from the 1939 World's Fair in New York using only the current electric eels.

According to Dennis Changon, spokesman for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada – if all of the commercial planes in the world were grounded at the same time, there wouldn't be space to park them all at the gates.

According to the Federal Aviation Authority, United States airlines are four times safer than the airlines of any other country.

According to the New York Telephone Company, of the 398 million telephones in the world, more than one-third are in the United States.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the first Hummer manufactured for civilian use in 1992. The vehicle weighed in at 6,300 pounds and was 7 feet wide.

Actress Sandra Bullock remarked in an interview, "Fame means when your computer modem is broken, the repair guy comes out to your house a little faster."

After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let the airwaves fall silent for two minutes in his memory.

Air conditioning was invented by Willis Carrier to help a Brooklyn, New York, printer get decent color during hot, humid weather. Air conditioning wasn't used for cooling people until 1924 when it made it's debut at the J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit, Michigan.

Although home access to the Internet has grown, the percentage of those users who are “active” has been flat at 60 percent. Web companies are concerned that they are missing the mark in providing compelling content.

Although most Americans were not concerned about the impact Y2K would have on them personally at midnight on January 1, 2000, they showed greater concern about the effect it could have on others. According to a Gallup poll, 48 percent thought this computer problem would cause major problems around the world.

An airplane's black box(recorder)isn't really black but actually orange.

An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.

Andrew Ellicott Douglass pioneered dendrochronology, the study of the rings in a tree's stump to determine the age of the tree and past weather data. Douglass also was the first astronomer to photograph the zodiacal light.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak earned money in college by selling "blue boxes" to other students. A blue box attached to a pay telephone and created the proper signals to allow a user to make free phone calls.

Artificial rain was first used near Concord, New Hampshire, in 1947 to fight a forest fire.

As of 2000, about 94 million people in the United States owned a cell phone.

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