› added 5 years ago

182

TIL many household appliances have a “Sabbath mode” that, when activated, allows the user to operate the appliance within the constraints of Jewish religious holidays by disabling certain functions of the appliance.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JYjX4 TIL a pig named Lulu saved her owner’s life while the owner was having a heart attack. The pig heard the cries for help, forced her way out of the yard and ran into the road and ‘played dead’ to stop the traffic. A driver stopped and the pig led him to the trailer, he heard the woman and called 911.
GeRj TIL a guy implied he was going to build a 480 ft skyscraper but labeled all the plans as 480". Then he had it built 40’ tall as per the plans, pocketed the investment money and won in court because he didn’t technically defraud anyone.
Y7DVG TIL in 1975, Stevie Wonder, frustrated with the U.S. government, considered quitting music and emigrating to Ghana. He reconsidered and wrote and recorded Songs In The Key Of Life, an album widely considered a masterpiece.
OoQ8Y In a new study in Science, a team of linguists at the University of Zurich uses biomechanics and linguistic evidence to make the case that the rise of agriculture thousands of years ago increased the odds that populations would start to use sounds such as f and v. The idea is that agriculture introduced a range of softer foods into human diets, which altered how humans' teeth and jaws wore down with age in ways that made these sounds slightly easier to produce.
yEGV TIL a Go tornament was in progress when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The game was about to enter its 3rd and final day of play when the bomb dropped. The explosion damaged the building and injured attendees, but play was resumed after a break and the game was played to a conclusion that day