› added 10 years ago

79

TIL that “Rubber duck debugging” is when a programmer explains his code to a rubber duck in hopes of finding a bug

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ORgR TIL the inventor of automatic telephone switching was an undertaker named Almon Strowger who created it because the wife of his competitor was the town operator who directed any calls for an undertaker to her husband rather than Strowger.
VMw0Z TIL that in 1923, Frank Hayes became the first ever jockey to win a horse race despite being dead. He died from a heart attack mid-race but somehow his body stayed strapped onto the horse and he crossed the finish line in first place, beating 20-1 odds.
KYL44 TIL about baby cages. The first commercial patent for a baby cage was filed in 1922 by Emma Read of Spokane, Washington.
b9rXQ TIL in 2018, a kitten named Pawfficer Donut was sworn in to the Troy, Michigan PD's "Feline Unit" to perform community outreach for the department as well as raise awareness for animal adoption. She replaced another police cat named Pawfficer Badges who got feline leukemia.
xWB5 TIL in 2003 an Ohio man was convicted for the murder of his family in California after an entomologist identified that some of the bugs caught in the radiator of his car were local to California, thus refuting the suspect’s alibi.