› added 9 years ago

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TIL The Fastest Way to Send Big Chunks of Data Is Through the Mail, Not the Internet.“That means FedEx is capable of transferring 150 exabytes of data per day, or 14 petabits per second—almost a hundred times the current throughput of the internet.”

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oRw08 TIL that Eratosthenes paid a guy to walk 800 kilometers to a tower to measure the length of it’s shadow & that’s how we found out the earth was round.
DQE5g TIL in 1963 Marco Ruiz became the only baseball pitcher to both win AND lose the same game. This happened when he started pitching a game that ended up being postponed. He was traded to the opposing team and was the last pitcher when the game resumed at a later date.
OGBD6 TIL since 2013 the Dutch have held the annual Dutch Headwind Cycling Championships. The Championships take place on a raised storm barrier facing the sea, and during storms of wind force 7 or higher. Competitors use upright single-speed bikes for the 8.5km course, all into a head/side wind.
e0ZQk TIL about Götz von Berlichingen, also known as Götz of the Iron Hand, who lost his right hand to cannon fire in 1504 and had it replaced with a mechanical iron prosthetic. Götz is remembered for his response to an enemy's order to surrender: “Tell him he can kiss my ass."
nWmN7 TIL National Geographic editor Bill Garrett was fired from the magazine in 1990 because he wanted to publish more controversial features that raised production costs and stories about AIDS, Exxon Valdez oil spill were published under his direction