› added 12 years ago

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TIL that in 1879 cats were used to deliver mail in Belgium. It was unsuccessful.

0wP0y TIL that the internals of NASA's Apollo computer were handwoven like a quilt by women at a Raytheon factory in Waltham, Massachusetts. They'd sit in special rooms and use long needles with wire attached to them, carefully weaving the wiring that was to be the computers' programming.
g0b8 TIL that “Greek fire” was an effective incendiary weapon used by the Romans, which could not be put out by water. It was often used in naval battles, where it was fired via pressurised nozzles. The secrets of its production were closely guarded, and its composition remains unknown today.
e0xkE TIL IKEA is serving food because they realized that customers don’t buy and don’t stay for long when being hungry. Their policy is to be the absolute lowest price on food within a 30-mile radius, even if it means selling at a loss. So, they take a hit on the food, but they make it up in furniture
R5P01 TIL that the social media service Blue Sky (founded by Jack Dorsey years ago) currently has Lantian "Jay" Gruber as its CEO, and that by coincidence, the name "Lantian" (given to her by her Chinese mother) means "blue sky" in Mandarin Chinese.
LkyDr TIL that one of the earliest instances of Phreaking, (hacking into telephone lines,) was discovered via blowing a Captain Crunch toy whistle into a phone line. This toy , coincidentally, rang at 2600 Hz, which is the exact tone that At&T used to determine that a caller had hung up.