› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the main programmer responsible for writing and maintaining the GNU Privacy Guard (used by journalists and security professionals) almost went broke, but he received funding from Facebook, The Linux Foundation and Stripe after an internet article pointed out his dire financial situation.

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J1Am1 TIL that Red Pandas were named pandas before the bears were
v1Lgj TIL Assisted suicide means: one receives assistance but causes their own death. Euthanasia means: another person causes the death. Some US States allow physician-assisted suicide but not euthanasia. Switzerland allows assisted suicide even by non physicians if carried out for unselfish reasons
KYdEJ TIL - Since 2014, the Saudi company Fondomonte has been pumping unlimited amounts of groundwater in the desert west of Phoenix to harvest thousands of acres of alfalfa crops. The alfalfa is then shipped back to Saudi Arabia to feed their cattle.
BmxD TIL that MIT students discovered that by buying $600,000 worth of lottery tickets in the Massachusetts’ Cash WinAll lottery they could get a 10-15% return on investment. Over 5 years, they managed to game $8 million out of the lottery through this method.
lWWr TIL that NASA wanted to send Caroll Spinney, the actor who plays Big Bird to space via the ill-fated Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986 to interest children in space. However, the Big Bird suit was too big for the shuttle, so he was replaced by teacher Christa McAuliffe.