› added 10 years ago

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TIL Computers can’t generate true random numbers (without measuring external physical phenomena like flipping a coin or cosmic background radiation)

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6EdBw TIL Starbucks' "Frappucino" is a registered trademark that act as a sub-license out of the Netherlands. When you purchase a beverage, your money goes to pay a trademark fee, which Starbucks books as losses, and the entity in the Netherlands pays little to no tax on the trademark revenues.
kO6Vd TIL that there is an ongoing dispute over ownership of the Budweiser trademark between two beer companies, one from the Czech Republic and one from the United States. The dispute has been ongoing since 1907 and has involved more than 100 court cases around the world.
5JZR TIL Pres Nixon invited Johnny Cash to perform 2 songs at the White House that deride hippy culture & welfare queens. Cash accepted the invite but instead played “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” (a mistreated Native American WWII vet), “What Is Truth” (pro-hippy), & “Man in Black” (anti-income inequality)
d89p9 TIL that one of the first synthetic dyes, Perkin's Mauve, was discovered by William Perkin after his professor challenged the then-18-year-old to synthesise the anti-malarial quinine.
697Jm TIL Boer Commandos / Kommandos of what is now South Africa were civilian units of guerilla militia that ran parallel to British troops & were re-formed, conscripted to, & disbanded several times (last was 2005). Entire families in district command, control of taxes & fighting in rough terrain.