Do Fish Drink Water?: Puzzling and Improbable Questions and Answers

by Bill McLain

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Is it true that elephants are afraid of mice? How much gold does the United States store in Fort Knox? Why do I get a headache when I eat ice cream too fast? How did the "seventh inning stretch" originate? As the official webmaster for Xerox, Bill McLain was surprised by the kinds of questions he was receiving, like whether people born blind can see in their dreams and why rabbits are associated with Easter. McLain began to answer each and every question--attracting national attention from show more MSNBC, CNN, and People--and the result, collected in Do Fish Drink Water?, is a surprising, funny, and informative collection of facts. McLain's answers can often be as wild as the questions and prompt entertaining anecdotes about where he found them. McLain explains how magnets are made, what caused the Great Depression of 1922, and even explains why cats purr. Also included is an extensive list of websites where he conducts research, offering an informative guide to making the most of the Internet. show less

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3 reviews
from the convention; questions that were posed to the Xerox webmaster. Personally, I wouldn't think of using the Xerox webmaster as an "ask Jeeves" type of resource, but apparently a lot of people did. He answers the primary question, then adds in tidbits and factoids that relate overall to the subject matter. Some of it is dated, so don't expect the URLs included to be really the best way anymore. Overall, enjoyable and a fair amount of cross subject matter with the Imponderables book. Now off to the Things bookbox.
Awesome book if you like trivia! Bill McLain answers and elaborates on all kinds of random questions (for whatever reason people decided to ask him), and ends up with a lot of interesting information on various subjects.

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2 Works 736 Members
Bill McLain is the webmaster for Xerox. He works at Xerox's Palo Alto facility and lives in Santa Clara, California.

Classifications

Genres
Reference, Nonfiction
DDC/MDS
031Computer science, information & general worksEncyclopedias & books of factsGuiness Records, Ripley's Believe It or Not
LCC
AG195 .M38General WorksDictionaries and other general reference worksDictionaries and other general reference works
BISAC

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Members
584
Popularity
50,102
Reviews
2
Rating
(3.21)
Languages
English
Media
Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
ISBNs
7
ASINs
3