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Category: Y

Y2K
  • The term Y2K was invented by David Eddie in June 1995 through the email
  • It was so feared that Clinton signed the Y2K Act in 1999 to limit the government’s liability
  • 1 in 10 people in the US believed that there will be another depression, that financial markets will collapse, that the national infrastructure will be crippled, and that martial law will be declared in some local areas. from Newsweek May4, 1998 p62
  • In making coding “Y2K complaint”, new errors are introduced at an average rate of one new error in every 14 lines of re-written code

yak
  • The yak is an amazing animal. It is so efficient in converting food to energy, that it survives on 50% of what other bovines eat daily
  • The yak breathes less and less per minute the higher up it goes
  • Dried yak faeces is used as fuel in Tibet
  • Yak’s milk has a very high fat content and is often made into butter

yawn
  • Interestingly, there is a theory that contagious yawning can be used to measure someone’s ability to appreciate other people’s mental states (empathy). So autistic people do not yawn in response to videos of people yawning
  • Yawning is also thought to be a mechanism to wake the brain up when it requires it. Read the facts here

yoyo
  • In the Philippines around 1500, the Yo-Yo was a weapon. A 4 pnd stone used like a wrecking ball
  • In Tagalog, it means ‘come-come’ or ‘come back’
  • Pedro Flores, a Phillipine migrant, was the father of the yo-yo in the United States
  • California is home to the first mass produced yo-yo