› added 11 years ago

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TIL that when one of our fingers touches another, we perceive the sensation as weaker than when an external finger touches ours with the same force. Our brain filters the expected result of our own fingers touching in the evolutionary attempt to add importance and sensitivity to external events.

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yoAV TIL that SNES cartridges sometimes contained a coprocessor to help perform complex calculations that the built-in CPU couldn’t handle, the earliest being the SuperFX inside Star Fox
DV6J TIL: The first person to command a fleet of Roman ships in the Mediterranean messed up so badly they added “the ass” to his name.
R7Q4j TIL about the "Pilgrim Army", a group of 15000 crusaders who were blown off course to the holy land and made to stop in Portugal where the King convinced them to help defeat the Moors in return for anything they could plunder, the majority elected to retire in Lisbon afterward.
7QdO TIL the word “Ewok” was never said in Star Wars.
dLwr TIL that during WWII, the British secret services created a special edition of Monopoly for prisoners of war held by the Nazis. The games were distributed by fake charity groups created by the secret services and contained maps, compasses, real money, and other objects useful for escaping.