› added 6 years ago

191

TIL: About the Trojan Room coffee pot at the University of Cambridge which is said to be the inspiration for the first webcam. In 1991 it put a live picture of the office coffee pot on peoples desktops pc’s of the local office LAN so people wouldn’t make a wasted trip.

Read more bbc.com

via reddit.com

9YdmB TIL there's a badass species of mouse that hunts snakes, other mice, and venomous arthropods, uses scorpion venom as a painkiller, and defends its territory by howling like a wolf.
LklMv TIL Carl McCunn was flown to the Alaska wilderness to take photos of wildlife. The pilot never returned for him. His friends had a pilot fly out but Carl accidentally gave the signal for “all okay.” He survived for 8 months before killing himself instead of freeze or starve.
xVmgD TIL that in most artworks of George Washington has him using his Grey Horse named Blueskin. However, his Horse named Nelson was George Washington's most favoured Horse to use during the Revolutionary War, as he was not easily provoked by gunfire.
Z8ZjG TIL that a 2010 Pew survey found that atheists and agnostics are one of the highest scoring groups when it comes to general religious knowledge
vPKdK TIL to finish writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame within an impossible deadline of 6 months, Victor Hugo locked his clothes away, making him unable to go outside and procrastinate which forced him to do anything but finish writing his book.