› added 7 years ago

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TIL that author Douglas Adams once got an offering of £50,000 to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy calendar. A few weeks later, having done no work towards it, another call came saying the deal had fallen through but that he would still be paid half the fee. He celebrated with champagne.

p8a1O TIL that BlackBerry hired actresses to flirt with men in bars in order to push Blackberries on the public. Referred to as stealth marketing, the women would flirt with men and get them to put their numbers in their Blackberries, trying to show off how cool they were.
d89W8 TIL that according to legend that many used to believe was fact, the founder and first King of Britain was Brutus of Troy, a descendant of a hero from the Trojan War, and he also founded Troia Nova or New Troy in what is today London. He was also supposedly the ancestor of King Arthur.
WvG9 TIL that washing your hands with good old soap and water is better than alcohol hand sanitiser at protecting you from catching Norovirus (winter vomiting bug)
loMaV TIL Chess has been solved for all positions with 7 or fewer pieces (including kings) on the board. The database for these endgame positions is 17 terabytes.
nW4Ed TIL that in addition to Red Cross organizations, there are also Red Crescent and Red Crystal organizations, with the symbols localized for acceptance by the community of each nation that has such an organization. In the past there was also a Red Lion and Sun (Iran).