› added 11 years ago

142

TIL The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy. It was cheaper for the publishers to break it up into three books than printing one large book.

Read more tolkiensociety.org

via reddit.com

8aBAZ TIL that when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft passed by Pluto, the trip took about 1 minute less than predicted or in a decade-long journey, NASA's forecast was 99.99998% accurate or the equivalent of forecasting a trip from New York to Boston & being accurate to within four-millionths of a second.
epQM6 TIL for most engineering, scientific, and everyday computer calculations, only about 15 to 17 decimal places of Pi are used, because this matches the precision of double-precision floating-point numbers, the standard format for numerical calculations in modern processors
RYZ9 TIL the phrase ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ originated from the tendency of dead animals to be washed away following periods of heavy rain in the filthy streets of 17th century England.
e0pmL TIL of the Blue Ocean strategy, wherein companies cease attempting to compete with other companies. The name refers to an ocean that is clear (no competition) as compared to a red ocean: stained with the blood of other companies. The Nintendo Wii is an example of a successful Blue Ocean strategy.
wowp1 TIL a Canadian transit fare box repair man stole 37 tons of coins worth $2.4 million from fare boxes using a magnet attached to a car radio antenna and telling bank employees that the coins came from a vending machine business.