› added 8 years ago

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TIL in a 2009 TED talk about Malaria, Bill Gates brought a jar of mosquitos onto the stage and released them into the crowd to frighten the audience into considering the dangers of Malaria closer to home.

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via ift.tt

6d1W TIL when Hiroshi Yamauchi released the Gamecube he believed that people “do not play with the game machine itself. They play with the software, and they are forced to purchase a game machine in order to use the software.” Nintendo then priced the Gamecube significantly cheaper than the PS2 and Xbox.
k0wE TIL the family dog has a bigger carbon footprint than an SUV
D1y1V TIL from 1917 to 1918 British Intelligence paid an Italian journalist the modern equivalent of £6,000 (US$ 8,290) per week to keep up the pro-war campaigning. The cash got him a start in politics, and was also allegedly lavished on his many mistresses. The journalist was 34-year-old Benito Mussolini
pY8QZ TIL people in Germany and France used to eat cockchafer beetles. They were made into a soup and could also be candied. This practice stopped when the beetles' population steeply declined from the use of pesticides.
9wYg7 TIL there are measure for diversity of exports a country produces and their ubiquity, or the number of the countries able to produce them (and those countries’ complexity) called Economic Complexity Index. Japan currently holds first place.