› added 10 years ago

68

TIL that the word “billion” (or its relevant translation) is by no means ubiquitous throughout the world; in many countries it means 1 million million, and even Great Britain used this system until 1974.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

mKO TIL : There was a dog who waited for a person at a bus stop everyday for 15 years, after the person had died.
P14Zg TIL that Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan that increased the price of EpiPens by 461 percent, from about $100 for a package of two pens to about $600. Also the daughter of Sen. Joe Manchin.
NXxOQ TIL that Chindōgu is the practice of inventing gadgets which serve a purpose but are impractical or silly. A term coined by Kenji Kawakami with some early Chindōgu including a toilet roll dispenser you wear on your head for hay fever sufferers and glasses with inbuilt funnels for eyedrop application
YbYA TIL in 1945, Grace Hopper traced a computer problem to a moth between the relays, then taped it up into her log book and wrote, “First actual case of a bug being found.” This popularized the terms “bug” and “debug” and her log book is now stored within the Smithsonian.
p8oQO TIL that if you add 250 ml of water with 250ml of ethanol you get less than 500ml of liquid.