› added 7 years ago

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TIL that whale meat was the single biggest source of meat in Japan from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Whaling only took off in the country as a result of a food shortage after World War II.

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ZpAGY TIL that over 23 people have survived stowing away in the wheel well of commercial airplanes, including a man who traveled from Tahiti to LA in a 747 at 38,000 feet and was discovered with a body temperature of 79˚F.
wB7 TIL Park rangers in the Galapagos release a “Judas” goat with a radio collar to find invasive herds of goats, kill all but the “Judas” goat and repeat.
VML5p TIL that a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process (like a mailer-daemon). The name is taken from Maxwell's demon, an imaginary being from a thought experiment that constantly works in the background, sorting molecules.
KYYQ6 TIL in the 1896 Olympics, British cyclist Frederick keeping got into a controversy because he worked as a servant rather than being a gentleman. Back then, Olympics wanted amateur athletes, and gentlemen were considered true amateurs, so being paid was viewed negatively.
nYWP TIL a man’s AI watched and recreated blade runner. The recreation was taken down. Essentially: Warner DMCA’d an artificial reconstruction of a film about artificial intelligence being indistinguishable from humans, because it couldn’t distinguish between the simulation and the real thing.