› added 3 years ago

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TIL that without one of the first error handling scripts developed by NASA's Margaret Hamilton the onboard moon landing system would have experienced a critical error just 3 minutes before touchdown

ANNV4 TIL that Lobsang Rampa, Tibetan Monk and bestselling author of The Third Eye, was in fact Cyril Hoskin, the son of a plumber from Devonshire. When this became known, he stated he was possessed by a Tibetan monk after he fell out of a tree in his back yard whilst tying to photograph an owl.
dJ5j TIL (1940) Niels Bohr dissolved two 23-karat gold Nobel prize medals in three parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid and hid it from the invading Nazis. In 1952 the medals were restruck and returned to their owners.
RBv8 TIL Researchers working with Kanzi (a bonobo who communicates using a keypad with symbols) claim his favorite movies are ones that blur the boundaries between humans and apes such as Planet of the Apes and Quest for Fire.
QJDxk TIL of Lewis Fry Richardson. He derived many of the complex equations needed for weather prediction in the 1920's. However, the math was so difficult that to predict the weather six hours in advance, it took him six weeks to do the calculations.
nPyb TIL One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. When eBay creator, Pierre Omidyar, emailed the person who bought the broken laser pointer for $14.83 ($22.40 today) to make sure he knew it was broken, the man told him ā€œIā€™m a collector of broken laser pointers.ā€