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TIL of the 1958 book "The Rise of the Meritocracy," a sociological prediction of a 2033 future dystopia where social stratification develop on the claim that the top class is the most meritorious, and the bottom pacified in a belief that they're "dunces" not allowed to protest or engage in politics

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QJY0k TIL that oversimplifying a fictional character over the course of a show's run is called Flanderization, after Ned Flanders of The Simpsons.
6E4oJ TIL JFK’s PT-109 patrol boat came under attack near the Solomon Islands, and sunk. Swam 3.5 miles to the island. He then etched an SOS message into a coconut shell, asked two natives to deliver it to a nearby base in order to arrange for their rescue. He later turned the shell into a paper weight.
691oJ TIL about The Cube Rule of Food Identification through cuberule.com in which they explain what constitutes a sandwich (~3-5 minute read)
QgDM TIL In the movie Scott Pilgrim VS The World, Edgar Wright wanted to use music from Legend of Zelda. To get permission to use the music, Edgar Wright sent a clip of the film and wrote a letter to Nintendo that described the music as “like nursery rhymes to a generation.”
Oo1G7 TIL about Joe Kieyoomia, an American POW who survived the Bataan Death March, three years of brutal torture in a concentration camp, and the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki