› added 8 months ago

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TIL in 2008 Chicago sold its 36,000 parking meter spots. Investors bought 75 years of right in $1.15b, and recouped the cost and $500m more in 15 years.

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GYDoQ TIL: Research has shown that when speaking, individuals who have been congenitally blind and have thus never seen anyone gesture nonetheless make hand motions just as frequently and in the same way as sighted people do. In fact, they will gesture even when conversing with another blind person.
OGo0a TIL Sinead O'Connor was a major inspiration for REM's Losing my Religion video. Not only was Michael Stipe so moved by Sinéad's lip syncing in Nothing Compares to U video that he finally acquiesced to lip-synching in REM music videos, but he also states that he stole his dance moves from her.
YpkOr TIL 'expresso' is considered an acceptable variant of 'espresso' by the Oxford English Dictionary.
GY051 TIL when John Carpenter was at University he was required to visit a mental institution and saw a boy with a blank, pale, emotionless face who eventually became the inspiration for Michael Myers in his Halloween movies.
xVrXw TIL that Ventriloquism was originally considered a form of Necromancy.