› added 1 year ago

215

TIL that Smart in Smartphones, smart-homes, etc, stands for "Self Monitoring And Reporting Technologies"

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via reddit.com

nelZo TIL why coins have ridges on the sides... Criminals in the 1700s saw they could make a good profit by filing shavings from the sides of gold and silver coins. Today’s coins contain no precious metals but, you’ll still find those ridges to make them distinguishable for visually impaired people.
E1xQp TIL that North Korea has a VHS copy of Space Jam enshrined in a musuem
D1oag TIL that some Australian Aboriginal languages rely completely on cardinal directions to describe position— "the spider is on your northeast-facing leg" instead of "the spider is on your left leg". Speakers of these languages tend to be far better spatial navigators than speakers of other languages.
kJaW1 TIL about Ban Khun Samut Chin, a village in Thailand that has suffered 1.1- 2km shoreline retreat and has only 4 students left at the local school. It is unknown how long locals can keep living there.
epewD TIL that the multi-billion dollar radon mitigation industry is based on scientifically-debunked linear no-threshold curve, scare tactics, collusion between EPA and radon "professionals", and in fact, all scientific studies show that radon at household levels result in a DECREASE in cancer incidence.