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TIL the instrument you see a person click at the beginning of a film take when they say “Action!” is called a clapperboard, and it is used for synchronizing sound and picture in post production

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via reddit.com

l7ZAV TIL the founder of North Face, Douglas Tompkins, was killed in 2015 in a kayaking accident while traveling with long time friend Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, in Patagonia, Chile.
eYyJ TIL Operation Mockingbird was a classified CIA program spanning from the 50’s through to late 70’s intended to influence the media and create ‘a propaganda network’ of leading American journalists.
XEGoR TIL the "piano" means "soft" in Italian. The instrument's name is actually short for "pianoforte" (soft-loud) which is short for “gravicembalo col piano e forte” (harpsichord with soft and loud). Calling it "piano" defeats the purpose of its original name that meant to depict its dynamic sound.
LQ0Er TIL that when Johannes Rebmann, the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro, published his discovery in 1849, it was dismissed as a malaria-induced hallucination because it was believed that snow at this latitude was impossible. It took 12 more years for scholars to accept the mountain's existence.
yWm8 TIL that 10-20% of Americans and a higher percent of Europeans are infected with a brain parasite from cats that makes them 2.5 times more likely to get in a car accident, changes personality traits, contributes to schizophrenia, and may cause sexual attraction to cat urine.