While I believe that someone’s intelligence should be measured by the amount of useful information they possess, insight to their character can be determined by the amount and type of useless information they can recall. I’m not sure where I rank on the first measure, though to be well-rounded, I do occasionally need to work on the useless part. Fortunately, one of my podcasts, The Podcast About Nothing by Jimmy Jett, highlighted a source of Unnecessary Knowledge. I’ll be all set for the next lull in a conversation.

Here are some examples from a few minutes of studying:

• More than 10 percent of all the salt produced annually in the world is used to de-ice American roads. (#2588)
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. (#114)
• The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they can be easily confused at a crime scene. (#557)
• The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate. (#51)