› added 12 years ago

326

TIL The definition for ‘literally’ now includes 'in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually,’ which literally changes the definition of literally. The phrase 'He was literally drowning in his own tears’ is grammatically correct, even if the person isn’t, in reality, drowning in their own tears.

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OZ4L TIL that while the USA is only average for racial diversity, it is one of the highest in the world in willingness to have other races as neighbors
DaXp TIL a previously owned black slave was asked to calculate the number of seconds in 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours in order to prove equality in intelligence between blacks and whites. Not only did he accomplish the feat in 1.5 minutes, but he included the leap years in his calculations.
LwgP TIL that internet providers use megabits per second (Mbps) to measure download speed, which is 1/8th the size of a megabyte (MBps), despite files being measured in bytes
0w78v TIL that from 1950 until 1966, NBA teams could specifically draft a player if they attended a college withkn 50 miles of the team's arena; players like Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson were drafted this way
BgQRk TIL that veins only appear blue because if the way wavelengths of light hit the skin