Post * ao1Z — Curious Curator

› added 9 years ago

186

TIL during the Nazi regime, not a single person who purchased a Volkswagen Beetle actually received it.

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KOO7Q Imagine yourself at a concert hall looking at a symphonic orchestra on stage. Have you ever noticed that high-pitched strings sit left of low-pitched strings? Going from left to right, one usually sees violins, violas, cellos and double basses. That is, one moves from high pitches on the left to low pitches on the right. Why? The orchestra’s arrangement is not a cultural oddity, like driving on the right side of the road. Rather, it is due to our own biological makeup. Higher pitches tend to be better processed by the left hemisphere of the brain, while lower pitches tend to be better processed by a similar region in the right hemisphere. This organisation is thought to have repercussions far beyond music, perhaps even helping to explain why language is mostly processed in the left hemisphere. So the part of my brain that better processes high sounds sits where the higher-pitched instruments sit: on the left. But that’s not the end of the story.

EkLV TIL one of the main reasons why industrial hemp is illegal was because Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition

4XRL5 TIL that the French duo Daft Punk got their name from a negative review they received from MelodyMaker magazine for a trio they were in before. A journalist wrote that the band Darlin's music was "a daft punky thrash". They found it funny, creating one of the most influential music acts of 90s & 00s

loVBA TIL Scott Joplin, who brought syncopation to modern music through ragtime, doesn't own any of his music. He received 10 free albums, and one cent per album sold.

Lko40 TIL that the height limit on Washington, DC buildings has been in place since 1910 and has nothing to do with the height of the Washington Monument or the Capital Dome. Instead, height limits are based on the width of each street.