› added 8 years ago

127

TIL There were ancient stone tablets in Japan’s recent tsunami struck areas with inscriptions “Do not build your homes below this point!”

Read more nytimes.com

via ift.tt

1AVV TIL that the term “bug” is derived from the Middle English “bugge”, meaning beetle. Today, the word “bug” is a technical term, and describes any insect from the order Hemiptera.
dVgd TIL 500,000 American SMS’s were intercepted on 9/11, indicating massive surveillance started well before the attacks
x6EWB TIL Sumomomomomomomomo, a Japanese racehorse that was dubbed “the horse that makes commentators cry” because of its tongue-twister name. Its name translated means “Plums are peaches, and peaches are peaches, and plums and peaches are both types of peaches.”
4kBjg TIL Microsoft Flight Simulator, a video game, is the longest running Microsoft product predating Microsoft Windows by 3 years.
KVo9 TIL during the Cold War, students at Stuyvesant High School built a particle accelerator in their school’s basement. However, when they powered it on, it “tanked the electrical system for the building and surrounding area.” > $10,000 were spent on the machine, but no one knows what happened to it.