› added 10 years ago

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TIL that George Lucas trademarked the word “Droid” and Motorola had to pay him for every phone sold under this moniker.

Read more forbes.com

via reddit.com

XEvl6 TIL Stanford University built a system that simulates a million neurons and runs on just 5W of power
4XB0g TIL of Yasuke, an African who was the first foreign born samurai in Japan. He arrived in the country in 1579 with some Jesuit missionaries. He arose to become a confidant to Oda Nobunga. When he first came, hundreds of Japanese people turned out to see him; they’d never seen a black person before.
yXMJ TIL of the “electrolaser”, a real world directed-energy weapon which fires laser-guided lightning bolts. When fired, a laser forms a channel of supercharged plasma out of the surrounding air, creating a path for the lightning and also causing a sonic boom.
D1VRD TIL it costs $2-3 million + to build a mile of road
x6OKB TIL that in 2011, a woman sued P. Diddy for 1 Trillion Dollars, claiming he was behind the 9/11 Attacks, and was the father of her child.