› added 12 years ago

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TIL 171 people have vanished off Cruise liners in the last decade.

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via reddit.com

vgB4 TIL the location of the oldest trees in the world are intentionally kept secret; the oldest known tree, Old Hara, was only known to the two dendrochronologists that cored and dated it, both of whom are now dead
vdO8 TIL that Rembrandt’s students pranked him by painting fake coins on the floor to watch him try to pick them up.
b6epN TIL the song ‘I’ll Be missing You’ by Puff Daddy was a huge success spending 11 weeks at number one. Puff Daddy did not secure rights to the song so Sting sued and owns 100% of the royalties until 2053.
9wDop TIL about ELIZA, a 1960s chatbot created by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum that simulated a psychotherapist. It was so convincing that some users, including Weizenbaum's secretary, became emotionally attached to it. In 2023, ELIZA even outperformed GPT-3.5 in a Turing test study.
E1kOW TIL Teddy Roosevelt traveled over 300 miles to arrest three boat thieves in the Dakota territory, forcing them to march back for trial instead of hanging them. He even recreated the capture for a photo before turning them in