› added 9 years ago

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TIL Google wraps its undersea fiber optic cables in Kevlar to protect them from shark bites.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

8e8y4 TIL: Pac-Man grossed $1 billion in quarters in its first year of release. In the following year, 1982, it earned $6 billion in quarters, which was more than the combined amount of money spent in Vegas casinos and US movie theaters that year.
Z87Pp TIL during a coup attempt in 1972, four Moroccan pilots intercepted a Boeing 727 carrying the Moroccan King and fired on it. The King (himself a pilot), grabbed the radio and told the rebel pilots, “Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!” Fooled, the rebels broke off their attack and the coup failed.
V0Mk TIL Drew Carey tried to kill himself when he was 18 in Las Vegas. He was homeless, was selling his plasma for $40, and looked for spare change to buy boxed macaroni and cheese. “All I had was water, no butter. That is some bad macaroni and cheese.”
b91pZ TIL There is a 2 foot wide panel studded with 100 mirrors on the moon, which astronomers can use to measure the distance between earth and the moon extremely accurately.
WXmY TIL Edgar Allen Poe’s novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” (1838) had an eerily coincidence with an incident 46 years after it was published, a yacht sank in real life and 3 of the 4 survivors also decided to eat the cabin boy…named Richard Parker.