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TIL Verge magazine paid a technology writer to spend one year without going online in order to discover “what the internet has done to me over the years”. In that time he wrote half a novel, lost 15 pounds, and found the lack of constant stimulation drove him to do things he cared about

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780Wb TIL there are 'e-books' for the blind/visually impaired. The braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device that displays braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface
4vGN TIL that during the Kuwaiti Oil Fires of 1991, Hungarian troops made a fire extinguisher out of a pair of jet engines. Mounted on a tank.
jmLv TIL in 2010 research was done to find the most effective promotion strategy for employers. For the control group they used random selection. Random won.
WkwX4 TIL that the first buildings to surpass the pyramids in height were european cathedrals almost 4000 years later, but their towers eventually collapsed, making the pyramids again the highest structures ever built until 1874 AD.
6EEm TIL the oldest obsidian bracelet, found in Turkey, is dated to c. 7500 BCE. The symmetry of the central annular ridge is extremely precise, to the nearest degree and nearest hundred micrometers, forcing researchers to rethink the manufacturing skills of “hunter/gatherers”.