› added 11 years ago

1063

TIL that the distorted words in CAPTCHAs (the anti-spam feature) are all taken from old books and newspapers. By identifying the words, users are actually helping to transcribe these printed sources to the internet. As a result, the entire New York Times archive is now searchable back to 1850.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

PYB5E TIL of "Satchel" Paige, who was the oldest major league baseball debutant (at 42) as well as the oldest player to play a major league game (two weeks shy of 60)
rV8e TIL that in Australia you can be charged with supplying drugs based purely on text messages. No need for the police to see drugs / money change hands or find drugs on either person.
6E7Kl TIL The US shipped about $40 billion in cash to Iraq on planes between 2003 and 2008 and most of it went missing and is still unaccounted for today.
gMjr7 TIL Jim Crow was not a real person, but a character played by a white actor performing minstrel routines.
lo1v5 TIL the human eye can only move smoothly when it is tracking a target