› added 7 years ago

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TIL that Texas Instruments invented the silicone transistor, the semiconductor, transistor radio, and TTL chips. They’re also 192nd on the Fortune 500 list, with a worth of $100 billion, and only 3% of their annual revenue comes from the calculators we always associate with them.

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0dAXR TIL: There is a Japanese legend about pirates rescuing a woman, who then slept with them then cut off their testicles. They threw her back into the ocean, where she turned into a Sazae-oni (demon) and traded their balls for their gold. This led to the term kin-tama or golden balls in Japanese.
QJgMM TIL F-117 Nighthawks are stored in Type 1000 storage which requires them to be flown every 4 years and maintained until recalled for active service again.
D1mdV TIL - Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs, they were just flying reptiles that hung out with dinos
6EErY TIL that a man Caligula recalled from exile told the emperor that he had been praying for the death of the previous emperor, Tiberius. After considering this, Caligula concluded that all the people he had exiled must therefore be praying for his own death, so he had them executed en masse.
NLp1 TIL that in 2003 the computer term “Master/slave” was banned for being racially offensive by the Los Angeles County purchasing department