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TIL the NASA cameras that tracked Apollo rockets were built off of M-45 quadmount anti-aircraft gun systems

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KYDVB TIL of „Joseph von Semlin“, one of the sons of Nader Shah of Persia, who was brought to Austria after his fathers assasination. He was given a noble title, converted to Catholicism and joined the Austrian military.
kO5Od TIL that the cartoon/comic strip staples of censoring swear words with *!?#& symbols (grawlixes), using starbursts or circles above a character's head to denote drunkenness (squeans), and wavy rising lines to indicate steam or heat (indotherms) were all invented by one cartoonist: Mort Walker
9YwQm TIL Weather.com is now an IBM business under the name of Watson Advertising. They sell "AI technology solutions" to "connect with customers, and drive ROI".
RWgj TIL that it currently costs 2000 lives a year to power Beijing, but only 200 lives a year to give twice the power to New York simply because of clean air laws. If China and America went full nuclear, those stats would drop to 0.6 and 1.2 lives a year respectively.
J1j9k TIL about Shade Balls. Shade balls are small plastic spheres floated on top of a reservoir for environmental reasons, including to slow evaporation and prevent sunlight from causing reactions among chemical compounds present in the water.