› added 7 years ago

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TIL it's a myth that you should fully discharge your cell phone/laptop batteries before charging - it's a holdover from the Ni-Cad chemistry era and its "memory effect", but lithium-ion batteries are at their healthiest when you use very little and charge very often

rR090 TIL the German armed forces have the concept “inner guidance”, which obliges every citizen-soldier to think for themselves. Soldiers may disobey orders against their conscience and it officially traditionalizes the actions of the July-plot conspirators, like Claus von Stauffenberg.
R6d4 TIL China harvests organs from political prisoners and, consequentially, has the world’s shortest wait time for organ transplants
POnE TIL A man called Céphas Bansah is a king in Africa and rules over 200,000+ people. He lives a normal live in Germany where he runs a garage and after work he rules his subjects by phone and e-mail from Germany.
PY9gn TIL that a 3 mile journey on a steam train, which would have taken 1,000 gallons of water and a tonne of coal, can be replaced by a diesel engine burning 18 gallons of fuel; that's a 98% fall in energy use between the two technologies.
v1J7R TIL Telephone Party Lines Were Once High Entertainment - neighboring family's had to share 1 phone line in 20th century up in north country area due to telephone company's saying it was too expensive for individual installation. Each family had own 'ring tone' and could listen in on each other.