› added 2 years ago

69

TIL that the "Fi" in "WiFi" doesn't mean anything (ie, Wireless Fidelity). The creators just called it that because it rhymed with "HiFi".

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8aKgb TIL Quarantine is from Italian 'quaranta giorni', meaning "forty days", used in 14th-15th-century Venetian dialect and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic
KOkvB TIL the brutal ruler Vlad the Impaler saved thousands of lives, on multiple occasions. He prevented huge battles by challenging the enemy general to a one-on-one duel to the death.
dDW0j TIL you’re allow to bring Artificial Skeleton Bones, carry on and check. I’m so confused as to why it has its own webpage.
4XnZg TIL pistol shrimp produce a snapping sound that is so loud, US submarines would hover above colonies of them because the sound kept them from being detected by Japanese sonar.
JVW4 TIL Alexander the Great once asked Diogenes, a homeless Greek philosopher who lived in a barrel, if there was something he could do for him. Diogenes replied “yes, get out of my sun”. Alexander left saying, “If I wasn’t Alexander, I’d like to be Diogenes.”