› added 11 years ago

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TIL that civilian GPS in the 90’s was purposely designed to be inaccurate, due to a feature called selective availability (SA). This changed in 2000 when President Bill Clinton decided to turn SA off and GPSs around the world instantly became 10 times more accurate.

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via reddit.com

7NQ7 TIL Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating.
1a0gP TIL that in 1937, a funnel was filled with hot pitch, a highly viscous material. In April 2014, the ninth drop from the funnel fell, almost thirteen and a half years after the eighth.
LRA9 TIL That for the past 60000 years a group of indigenous people has been living in an island, the size of Manhattan, completely isolated from the modern world. They are extremely violent and will kill anyone that dares to come ashore.
X0Adj TIL that writer Tommy Blacha (Metalocalypse, Late Night With Conan O'Brien) worked as creative director of WWE in 1999.
eKGL TIL the phrase “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle” originally comes from people expressing anti-darwinian sentiments.