› added 7 years ago

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TIL that Van Halen stipulated in their performance contracts that a bowl of M&M's, with all of the brown M&M's removed, was to be placed in their dressing room. They didn't do this to be jerks, but as a simple test to see if more important safety and quality specifications were attended to as well.

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JYL5k TIL The 18.4TB compressed database of all 7-piece or fewer chess endgames uses on average 0.35 bits per position, storing almost 23 chess positions per byte used.
Wkv74 TIL of the "Tumi" scalpel, believed to be the oldest surgical instrument to exist (8000 BC). It was used for trepanation, the art of drilling a hole into the skull. By opening the skull, tribes believed that it would allow the demons that caused headaches, melancholy or epilepsy to escape the body.
ne7yr TIL Eli Whitney did not make his fortune from the cotton gin, but a later invention, the milling machine. This machine allowed the North to automate many industries and stay adequately supplied during the American Civil War.
kOKVW TIL that the esteemed Swedish university, Lund University, had its Facebook admin put out a statement requesting Indians not to make fun of the university in the comment sections, because "Lund" translates to "penis" in Hindi.
J1dMv TIL A community close to the jungles in Uganda received $50,000, the area's 20 percent share of annual income from gorilla tourism and now villagers are motivated to protect gorillas. In the past residents didn't realize gorillas were rare or special as some people even ate them