› added 4 years ago

880

TIL that it's very problematic to make an accurate and/or precise measurement of something as seemingly mundane as coastlines, due to the Coastline Paradox. Although the actual measurement cannot be theoretically infinite, coastlines are practically immeasurable in terms of standardized consistency.

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e0XNg TIL In 1980 a US sailor killed a Kenyan woman after a sexual escapade by repeatedly stabbing her with a broken beer bottle. He confessed to the murder, but the judge fined him KES 500 (4.57 USD) and made him sign a two-year bond of good behaviour (meaning he was free). He later killed 3 more women.
mxBLo TIL Robin Williams funded a scholarship at his alma mater, Juilliard, that saw a full-ride given to a student every two years. One of the people who won the award was future Oscar winner Jessica Chastain, who became the first person from her family to go to college
MGJ0 TIL that the man who discovered the age of the Earth, Clair Patterson, was also responsible for one of our greatest public health interventions, the ban of lead additives in gasoline.
R58MQ TIL that the last Prisoner of War of WW2 who has been repatriated was Hungarian András Toma in 2000, captured in 1945 by the Red Army. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital in 1947 and got removed from the POW lists because of that.
78oaX TIL Mitch Hedberg was found dead (overdose) in his hotel room March 30th 2005, but was announced on April 1st (monday), causing some fans to believe it was an april fools joke.