› added 4 years ago

131

TIL that computers at a soviet train station would randomly bug out and no one knew why. One guy eventually traced it to when livestock was being brought in from Ukraine, where Chernobyl left the cows with so much radiation they could flip bits.

wLoeJ "What if we could just cool the planet off by making it more reflective—more like a disco ball than a baseball? Actually, we could. It’s called solar geoengineering. Scientists could release materials into the stratosphere that reflect sunlight back into space, kind of like slapping giant sunglasses on Earth."
p8wpZ TIL "breaker boys" between age 8-12 were employed to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week to separate impurities from coal. Despite public disapproval, the practice of employing children in this line of work lasted for decades, only finally ending in the US in the 1920s.
Blmr TIL: During the Deepwater horizon crisis, two Dutch competitors, owned cleanup technologies that were superior to anything owned by the U.S. However, the Jones Act, required that all goods transported between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed, owned and crewed by U.S. citizens.
yV5ll TIL that Swiss chard is a variety of beet that’s been cultivated for leaf growth
Wk8Jo TIL automaker AMC and pants-maker Levi's collaborated on a 1974 Gremlin. The Gremlin's upholstery was made from synthetic materials that looked like real denim (cotton is too flammable for use in car interiors), complete with stitching, Levi's tags, and copper rivets.