› added 11 years ago

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TIL that every year around a dozen Japanese tourists have psychiatric breakdowns caused by French rudeness

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via reddit.com

ADo8x TIL of the Giant Pyrosome; a “free-floating, colonial tunicate that is made of thousands of identical clones, together forming a hollow cylindrical structure that can be 60 feet (18 m) long and wide enough for a person to enter”
nYjo TIL game designer Will Wright was inspired to create a “virtual doll house” after losing his home during the Oakland firestorm of 1991. Replacing his home and his other possessions made him think about adapting that life experience into a game, The Sims.
rR95w TIL In 1966 Ronald Reagan wrote to JellyBelly, saying "We owe you a special measure of thanks for helping keep our state government running smoothly." "It's gotten to the point...where we can hardly start a meeting or make a decision without passing around a jar of jelly beans."
m1NYx TIL that Franklin D. Roosevelt likely had Guillain-Barré Syndrome, not Polio.
9wwbB TIL that the New Zealand govt maintains an online tool predicting when you have a 50% probability of dying by. Based on your current age and sex, and using historical data on age of death and implied trends, it spits out the age at which you are predicted to have a 50% chance of dying by.