› added 9 years ago

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TIL of a homeless man in NYC who would regularly order an expensive dinner at a restaurant and refuse to pay for it in order to be sent to prison where he would receive 3 meals a day and a clean bed. He refused to commit more serious crimes to get longer sentences as he did not want to hurt anyone.

Read more nytimes.com

via reddit.com

Z9nR TIL that there is a snake venom that causes you to bleed from all holes of your body
Z8WJY TIL That J Ralph, first composer in the history of the Oscars to have received multiple nominations for Best Original song that originated from documentaries, can neither read nor write music (notation)
Jypk TIL Canada and US border doesn’t touch - there is a 20ft gap running all 5500 miles.
6v8J TIL: The sun and moon appear to be the same size because of an astonishing coincidence: the moon is 400 times smaller but 400 times closer.
QN7gL TIL that the U.S. developed “Operation Cherry Blossom,” a plan to spread plague-infected fleas in Japan during World War II. Although never executed, it highlighted the lengths nations would go for biological warfare and sparked discussions on bioethics.